Wednesday, March 31, 2010

Immigration and Emigration



From the time of the nation's founding, immigration has been crucial to the United States' growth and also a periodic source of conflict. At the turn of the 21st century, the country has experienced another great wave of immigration, the largest since the 1920s. However, for the first time, illegal immigrants outnumbered legal immigrants. An estimated 11.9 million illegal immigrants were living here by 2008. Once again, immigration had become one of the most contentious issues on the political agenda.

In his second term of office, President George W. Bush championed comprehensive immigration reform, but a bipartisan bill was defeated in 2007 after an upswell from voters opposed to legal status for illegal immigrants.

President Obama said that immigration reform, including a plan to make legal status possible, would be a priority in his first year in office, but the economic downturn and the drawn out legislative fight over healthcare may have prevented action in 2009. Aides have described Mr. Obama's approach as seeking a way to allow illegal aliens to become legal, while imposing restrictions that would make immigration more orderly.

In March 2010 senators Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York, and Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, unveiled the outlines of a reform proposal, which would require illegal immigrants to admit they broke the law before they could gain legal status and require all workers in the United States to carry a biometric identity card to prove that they are eligible to work. President Obama immediately responded with a statement saying it "should be the basis for moving forward," and he pledged "to do everything in my power to forge a bipartisan consensus this year" around the bill.

The Obama administration in August 2009 announced an ambitious plan to overhaul the much-criticized way the nation detains immigration violators, trying to transform it from a patchwork of jail and prison cells to what its new chief called a "truly civil detention system." The plan aimed to establish more centralized authority over the system, which holds about 400,000 immigration detainees over the course of a year, and more direct oversight of detention centers that have come under fire for mistreatment of detainees and substandard -- sometimes fatal -- medical care.

One move started immediately: the government stopped sending families to the T. Don Hutto Residential Center, a former state prison near Austin, Tex., that drew an American Civil Liberties Union lawsuit and scathing news coverage for putting young children behind razor wire.

OVERHAULING IMMIGRATION LAWS

In January 2004, President Bush called for an overhaul of the immigration laws, proposing the broadest changes since legislation in 1986 that gave amnesty to more than three million illegal immigrants. Mr. Bush asked Congress to create a guest worker program that would "match willing foreign workers with willing American employers, when no Americans can be found to fill the jobs." Immigrants would be authorized as guest workers for three years, then required to return home. The plan offered illegal immigrants in this country the possibility of becoming legal by registering as temporary workers. After opening the debate, Mr. Bush did not press the issue during his re-election campaign that year.

By 2005, frustration was growing over illegal immigration, particularly among voters in states like Arizona and Georgia that had seen a surge in newcomers. In December 2005, the House passed a bill, championed by conservative Republicans, which focused on law enforcement and border security, making it a federal felony to live illegally in the United States and mandating hundreds of miles of fence along the Mexican border. Church groups and organizations representing immigrants and Hispanics protested the measure and organized large demonstrations through the spring of 2006.

In May 2006, the Senate easily passed legislation - crafted primarily by Senator Edward M. Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts, and Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona -- that offered a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants and created a guest worker program. But the differences with the House bill proved too great to bridge, and the legislation died. By October of that year Congress, reflecting the changing mood in the country, passed a bill ordering the construction by the end of 2008 of about 700 miles of border fences.

President Bush seized the initiative again in early 2007, convening negotiations among a small bipartisan group of lawmakers, this time including Senator John Kyl, Republican of Arizona, instead of Senator McCain. They wrote an ambitious bill, which was referred to as comprehensive reform, that proposed to open a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants after fees and other penalties, to create a guest worker program and also to re-orient the immigration system to put more emphasis on importing workers and less on family reunification.

That measure encountered intense opposition from well-organized voters who decried it as amnesty for immigrant lawbreakers. It died in June 2007 when it failed to attract enough votes to reach the Senate floor.

In the absence of federal legislation, state legislatures stepped in, adopting 206 laws related to immigration in 2008. The majority of new laws were designed to curb illegal immigration, by restricting access of illegal immigrants to driver's licenses and public benefits, and by cracking down on human smuggling. However, some states sought to aid immigrants with programs to help them learn English and to speed their assimilation in other ways.

On a federal level, officials at Immigration and Customs Enforcement, a branch of the Department of Homeland Security, stepped up raids at factories and in communities, in a campaign that had started in 2006. The federal agency deported nearly 350,000 immigrants in fiscal 2008. Expanded federal prosecutions of illegal border crossers sharply reduced unauthorized entries in some southwestern border sectors, but also brought a flood of immigration cases in federal courts.


IMMIGRATION UNDER THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION

Hispanic voters, including many newly naturalized immigrants, helped win several swing states for Barack Obama in 2008. Hispanic groups pressed President Obama to halt workplace raids and to move forward with legislation opening legal pathways for illegal immigrants. But despite early pledges that it would moderate the Bush administration's tough policies, the Obama administration is pursuing an aggressive strategy for an illegal-immigration crackdown that relies significantly on programs started by his predecessor.

The decision to stop sending families to Hutto, the 512-bed center in Texas, and to set aside plans for three new family detention centers, was the Obama administration's clearest departure from its predecessor's polices. Even so, the Obama administration has embraced many Bush administration policies, including expanding a program to verify worker immigration status that has been widely criticized, bolstering partnerships between federal immigration agents and local police departments, and rejecting a petition for legally binding rules on conditions in immigration detention.

After taking office, Mr. Obama had repeated a campaign pledge to offer a comprehensive bill before the end of 2009, and he chose proponents of that approach for senior positions in the administration, notably Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and Labor Secretary Hilda Solis. But the deep recession, with millions of Americans losing jobs, dimmed the political prospects for efforts to increase immigration, and groups opposing legalization remained confident they could block any such proposal.

In broad outlines, officials said, the Obama administration favors legislation that would bring illegal immigrants into the legal system by recognizing that they violated the law, and imposing fines and other penalties to fit the offense. The legislation would seek to prevent future illegal immigration by strengthening border enforcement and cracking down on employers who hire illegal immigrants, while creating a national system for verifying the legal immigration status of new workers.

In May, census data from the Mexican government indicated an extraordinary decline in the number of Mexican immigrants going to the United States. Mexican and American researchers say that the current decline, which has also been manifested in a decrease in arrests along the border, is largely a result of Mexicans' deciding to delay illegal crossings because of the lack of jobs in the ailing American economy.

Mr. Obama told a bipartisan group of lawmakers on June 25 that Congress should begin debating a comprehensive immigration plan by year's end or early the next year. He named a group to work with Congress that will be led by Ms. Napolitano.

Republicans said they would support a measure only if it included an expansion of guest worker programs. Mr. McCain, who led the call for that provision, said an immigration overhaul had a fresh urgency because of the surge in violence along the border with Mexico.

A recent blitz of measures, including audits of employee paperwork at hundreds of businesses, has antagonized immigrant groups and many of Mr. Obama's Hispanic supporters.

Ms. Napolitano and other administration officials argue that no-nonsense immigration enforcement is necessary to persuade American voters to accept legislation that would give legal status to millions of illegal immigrants, a measure they say Mr. Obama still hopes to advance late this year or early next.

That approach brings Mr. Obama around to the position that his Republican rival, Senator McCain, espoused during the 2008 presidential campaign, a stance Mr. Obama rejected then as too hard on Latino and immigrant communities.

OUTLINES OF A SENATE PLAN

In carefully choreographed moves, Senators Schumerand Graham described their proposal in an editorial posted on March 18 on the Web site of The Washington Post.

The plan calls for a big increase in immigration agents patrolling workplaces, and would require all workers, including legal immigrants and American citizens, to present a tamper-proof Social Security card when they apply for jobs. Biometric identity information would be stored on the card and not in any government database, according to an explanatory document from the senators.

The plan's emphasis is on making it easier for highly skilled and educated immigrants to come to the United States, including awarding residence documents known as green cards to those who receive advanced degrees in science and technology from American universities. It proposes a limited program for temporary lower-skilled guest workers, tightly keyed to changes in the American labor market.

To gain legal status, illegal immigrants would have to admit their legal violation, pay fines and back taxes and perform community service.

To advance the legislation, Mr. Schumer and Mr. Graham have said they need help from Mr. Obama to round up at least one more Republican sponsor, a prospect that seems unlikely while bitterness over the health care battle prevails on Capitol Hill.

Source: topics.nytimes.com



Related Articles:

2 Senators Offer Immigration Overhaul
The Immigration Equation


Saturday, March 27, 2010

US churches press Obama and Lawmakers for Immigration Justice


Building on the momentum of a massive ‘comprehensive immigration reform’ rally in Washington DC last weekend, the head of the US-based humanitarian agency Church World Service, CWS advocacy staff, and a diverse group of American faith leaders have met with representatives at the White House, with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and staff of other lawmakers on Capitol Hill, to press for major reform legislation this year.

It is an issue that is now gaining major public and media interest— despite the final fiery health care debate that was still going on in the House at the time.

President Obama made his support for immigration reform visible on the big screen in a video message to the thousands of activists on the National Mall last Sunday. He restated his “unwavering” commitment to achieving comprehensive immigration reform and pledged “to do everything in my power to forge a bipartisan consensus this year on this important issue.”

In a bid to reinforce the administration’s commitment and discuss best approaches, Church World Service executive director and CEO, the Rev John L. McCullough and fellow faith leaders met the White House director of intergovernmental affairs in charge of comprehensive immigration reform for President Obama; and from the White House office of faith-based and neighbourhood partnerships, Josh DuBois, executive director, Mara L. Vanderslice, special assistant to the President’s advisory council, Paul Montero, deputy director of religious affairs for the White House office of public liaison, Stephanie Valencia, associate director, White House office of public engagement addressing immigration issues, and Felicia Escobar, senior advisor for immigration policy to the domestic policy council.

“Following Sunday’s rally and being with hundreds of thousands of Americans who are behind fair and humane immigration policies, we were doubly heartened by the clear support from the White House and Majority Leader, Harry Reid,” said CWS’s McCullough.

“Many of the president’s staff attended the March for America immigration reform rally,” CWS associate for immigration and refugee policy Jen Smyers said. “They really heard the stories of the people there. They asked that we encourage immigration reform advocacy groups to use the video of President Obama’s message to let people know the President is on board and behind reform legislation,” she added.
“The momentum is in favour of immigration reform now and not the other way around,” said McCullough after Sunday’s rally.

The Senate Majority Leader, Harry Reid (Democrat, Nevada) said the immigration reform policy issue was not “fun and games, not just politics, but real lives impacted by our broken immigration system.” Reid believes Congress can “get something done this session,” now that there was increased energy.

CWS and its coalition partners are calling for fair, balanced and more humane policies that support family unity, reduce undocumented immigration, stop worker exploitation and allow undocumented migrants to rectify and earn their legal status.

A recent Center for American Progress report indicated that legislation which reforms the visa system and provides a pathway to legal status for undocumented immigrants, would dramatically increase the Gross Domestic Product by $1.5 trillion over 10 years. That projection includes increases in tax revenue, wage growth, job creation and investments.

Earlier this month, Church World Service asked Congress to move on immigration reform before the summer recess.

Source: www.ekklesia.co.uk

Wednesday, March 24, 2010

Greece Admitted Into U.S. Visa Waiver Program


Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Janet Napolitano announced the designation of Greece as a member of the Visa Waiver Program (VWP), strengthening passenger information sharing and ensuring strict security standards while streamlining travel for Greek citizens visiting the United States. Greece's VWP designation represents a major step forward in the continued and long-standing economic and security partnership between the United States and Greece, reflecting more than two years of coordination between the two countries on Greece's entry into VWP.


The National Business Travel Association (NBTA) applauded the announcement. NBTA Executive Director and COO Michael W. McCormick said, "Corporations in both Greece and the United States can rejoice in Greece's acceptance into the U.S. Visa Waiver Program. Visa-free travel is imperative to facilitate effective international travel, enabling the free flow of commerce and economic growth."


In accordance with the VWP designation process, DHS determined that Greece complies with key security and information-sharing requirements such as enhanced law enforcement and security-related data sharing with the United States; timely reporting of lost and stolen passports; and the maintenance of high counterterrorism, law enforcement, border control, aviation and document security standards. In turn, Greek citizens will be permitted to travel to the United States for up to 90 days without obtaining a visa.


With this announcement, Greece joins the 35 nations already participating in VWP, established as a pilot program in 1986 to help eliminate unnecessary barriers to travel and made permanent on Oct. 30, 2000. Like VWP travelers from other countries, Greek citizens will be required to apply for an Electronic System Travel Authorization (ESTA) through the web-based system. Greek citizens will be able to visit the United States without visas in approximately 30 days.


Napolitano will travel to Tokyo later this week to meet with her counterparts from the Asia/Pacific region and officials from the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), the third in a series of major international meetings attended by the Secretary to build consensus on strengthening global aviation security and identify specific steps which nations can take individually and collectively to protect all passengers. For more information, visit www.dhs.gov or www.esta.cbp.dhs.gov.



Source: www.travelpulse.com

Monday, March 22, 2010

Lawsuits Renew Questions on Immigrant Detention


When the Obama administration vowed to overhaul immigration detention last year, its promise of more humane treatment and accountability was spurred in part by the harrowing treatment of two detainees who died in the Bush years.

In one case, captured by security cameras in 2008, a Chinese computer engineer was dragged from a Rhode Island immigration jail and mocked by guards as he screamed in pain from undiagnosed cancer and a broken spine. In the other, a Salvadoran detainee held for two years in a California detention center was denied a biopsy for a painful penile lesion, though government doctors suspected the cancer that eventually required amputation of his penis.

But on Wednesday, the administration argued in federal court that the government had no liability for neglect or abuse by private contractors running the Donald W. Wyatt Detention Facility in Central Falls, R.I., where the computer engineer was held. And in oral arguments before the United States Supreme Court on Tuesday, federal lawyers maintained that government doctors responsible for the Salvadoran’s care in detention were immune from being personally sued for medical negligence.

In both cases, the arguments were made against lawsuits brought by the families of the men who died, Hiu Lui Ng, 34, and Francisco Castaneda, 36. In the Ng case, the government sought to be dropped as a defendant, and in the other, it tried to sharply limit potential monetary damages.

But critics of the sprawling immigration detention system, which relies mainly on privately run jails to hold non citizens facing deportation, said those arguments had broader and more disturbing implications.

“The government’s positions both in Castaneda and in the Ng case fly in the face of the stated commitment to overhauling the immigration detention system and bringing to it more transparency and accountability,” said Vanita Gupta, a lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union, which filed an amicus brief in the Castaneda case and through its Rhode Island affiliate supported the lawsuit brought by Mr. Ng’s widow, Lin Li Qu, and two children, all United States citizens who live in New York.

“Real reform wouldn’t be about pointing the finger elsewhere,” Ms. Gupta said. “It would be about promulgating legally binding standards and making individualized determinations about whether someone like Ng needs to be detained in the first place.”

Brian P. Hale, a spokesman for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, reiterated the agency’s commitment to an overhaul. “This administration takes any allegation of inadequate medical care or ill treatment seriously and will not accept or tolerate any willful misconduct,” he wrote. “We have taken important initial steps to change this system and are committed to finishing the job.”

Oral arguments in the Ng case, in Federal District Court in Providence, centered on the federal agency’s role in ordering that the gravely ill man be taken in shackles to a federal office in Hartford and returned the same day to the Wyatt detention center. For that trip, Mr. Ng was dragged from his cell.

The government’s lawyer, Helene Kazanjian, argued that it was “completely unfair” to expect an agency “that has no contact with the detainee on a regular basis,” to know that Mr. Ng was in dire condition.

But Fidelma L. Fitzpatrick, arguing the other side, pointed out that the agency had been repeatedly notified that Mr. Ng was in terrible pain and unable to walk, and that he had been denied a wheelchair and outside medical care by the detention center, run for profit by a municipal corporation in Central Falls.

“The U.S. government cannot just hire someone and then close the file,” Ms. Fitzpatrick said. “The government must take responsibility for the actions of ICE.”

Judge William E. Smith said he would rule later, but his questions took up the plaintiffs’ theme. “If you know about the severity of the detainee’s condition, isn’t there an obligation to give him special treatment, to put him on an ambulance?” he asked.

Ms. Kazanjian contended that when the agency learned how sick Mr. Ng was, it sent him to the hospital where he died six days later. But the judge corrected her.

“I ordered him hospitalized,” he said, referring to his unusual intervention at a habeas corpus hearing the day after the Hartford trip. “I don’t think ICE can take credit for that.”

In the Castaneda case, the government has admitted to medical negligence, and a federal judge has said “the word ‘cruel’ is an understatement” for the treatment described in the lawsuit.

But on Tuesday, the Supreme Court seemed receptive to the government’s argument that Public Health Service doctors were immune from suit under a 1970 federal law.

A government lawyer argued that that immunity reflected “a balance of evils,” adding, “Congress has decided that it would rather protect the P.H.S., make sure that causes of action and liability aren’t hanging over the heads of P.H,S. officers, even if that means some individuals don’t get recovery against certain specific P.H.S. personnel.”

Lawyers representing Mr. Castaneda’s teenage daughter have said a ruling for the government would preclude a jury trial in the case and cap any damages at $250,000, which they called insufficient deterrence to the negligence that has been widely documented.

SOURCE: www.nytimes.com

Wednesday, March 17, 2010

Immigration Detention System Lapses Detailed

Growing numbers of noncitizens, including legal immigrants, are held unnecessarily and transferred heedlessly in an expensive immigration detention system that denies many of them basic fairness, a bipartisan study group and a human rights organization concluded in reports released jointly on Wednesday.

Confirmation of some of their critical conclusions came separately from the Homeland Security Department’s inspector general, in an investigation that found detainee transfers by Immigration and Customs Enforcement were so haphazard that some detainees arrived at a new detention center without having been served a notice of why they were being held, or despite a high probability of being granted bond, or with pending criminal prosecutions or arrest warrants in the previous jurisdiction.

The bipartisan group, the Constitution Project, whose members include Asa Hutchinson, a former under secretary of homeland security, called for sweeping changes in agency policies and amendments to immigration law, including new access to government-appointed counsel for many of those facing deportation.

In its report, the human rights organization, Human Rights Watch, revealed government data showing 1.4 million detainee transfers from 1999 to 2008, most of them since 2006. The transfers are accelerating, the report found, with tens of thousands of longtime residents of cities like Philadelphia and Los Angeles being sent to remote immigration jails in Texas and Louisiana, far from legal counsel and the evidence that might help them win release.

“ICE is increasingly subjecting detainees to a chaotic game of musical chairs, and it’s a game with dire consequences,” said Alison Parker, deputy director in the United States for the human rights group, and author of its report. The data underlying the report was obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, and analyzed by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC) of Syracuse University, which issued its own report.

The inspector general’s investigation found that the consequences of haphazard transfers include a loss of access to legal counsel and relevant evidence; additional time in detention; and “errors, delays and confusion for detainees, their families, legal representatives” and the immigration courts.

Some detainees were transferred with files lacking a photo and a security classification, field inspectors found in work conducted from October 2008 to February.

Officials at Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which is part of Homeland Security, said the agency would issue advisories reminding field offices of 10-year-old national detention standards that require a review of a detainee’s “alien file” before any transfer, and reinforcing the need to coordinate with immigration courts.

In August, the Obama administration announced ambitious plans to overhaul immigration detention, a disjointed network that relies heavily on private prisons and county jails. But taken together, the three reports underscore the gap between the plans and the problems on the ground in a system that, according to the inspector general, is estimated to be detaining more than 442,000 people a year — more than double the number in 2003, ICE’s first year of operation.

John T. Morton, director of the immigration agency, envisions a “truly civil detention system” shaped by more centralized agency control. In contrast, the Constitution Project recommends shrinking the use of detention, in part by adding more constitutional safeguards required in the criminal justice system.

“None of the recommendations being made should in any way compromise national security,” Mr. Hutchinson said Wednesday in an interview before he presented the report at the National Press Club in Washington. “It simply allows for a more humane and more efficient system.”

Immigration law is complex, and the deprivation of liberty is quite similar to the situation in other settings that require court-appointed counsel for the indigent. But 60 percent of noncitizens face deportation without a lawyer, and transfers compound the problem, the reports said.

The immigration agency has said it uses transfers to deal with an imbalance in the number of detention beds at various locations. But the TRAC analysis shows that the number of transfers has grown much more rapidly than the detention population. It found that in the first six months of the 2008 fiscal year, 53 percent of detainees were transferred at least once, and that one in four were transferred multiple times, a fivefold increase since 1999.

Though transfers occur in almost every state, the data show that the jurisdiction receiving the most transferred detainees is the Federal Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, covering Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas — which is widely known for decisions hostile to the rights of noncitizens and has the worst ratio of immigration lawyers to detainees, the human rights report said.

A strong case against deportation sometimes simply evaporates in such a transfer, the report said. It cited a Jamaican New Yorker transferred to Texas after three months in detention in New York and New Jersey.

Immigration authorities contended that he should be deported based on two prior convictions for drug possession.

In New York, his drug misdemeanors were not considered an “aggravated felony,” and based on the man’s 22 years of legal residency and strong family relationships in the United States, he would have been eligible for “cancellation of removal,” a form of relief from deportation. In Texas, he was barred from relief based on Fifth Circuit rulings, and deported.

The bipartisan group said the agency makes it too hard for people to avoid detention while challenging deportation. It recommended a significant easing in the burden of proof, and a hardship waiver from mandatory detention for lawful permanent residents.

In what it called “an aspirational goal,” it recommended that where free counsel is not available, all indigent noncitizens in standard deportation proceedings have access to a government-paid lawyer. It also urged Congress to give immigration judges discretion to appoint counsel, and to require a lawyer in certain cases, including those involving unaccompanied children and the mentally ill.

Mr. Hutchinson said that the immigration agency could make many other changes immediately, including some that would “correct some potential unfairness in the system” unintentionally left by his own efforts when he was in office.

According to the Human Rights Watch report, a memorandum Mr. Hutchinson issued in 2004 is now used as a loophole to hold detainees for weeks without giving them notice of why the government is seeking to deport them. “This can certainly be tightened up and narrowed,” Mr. Hutchinson said.

Source: www.nytimes.com

Monday, March 15, 2010

USCIS to Reissue Advance Parole Documents


WASHINGTON - U.S. Citizenship and Immigrations Services (USCIS) announced today that it will reissue Advance Parole documents (Form I-512) in response to documents that were mailed to applicants with an incorrect issue date of January 5, 1990. All affected documents have been identified and USCIS will automatically reissue documents to individuals who have received a document with the incorrect issue date.

All documents continue to be valid as the expiration dates remain accurate, therefore it is not necessary for applicants to contact USCIS regarding their pending application unless their application is outside the normal processing time of 90 days.

If you need to travel urgently and you have received a document with an invalid issue date, then you may travel using the incorrect document. U.S. Customs & Border Protection (CBP) has been alerted however, you may be questioned about the issuance date. Therefore, please print this explanation to share with CBP if necessary.

Source: www.uscis.gov

Wednesday, March 10, 2010

The Latest Immigration Ideas

It is transparent which at any rate connected on the immigration that other promising sentiments each of us had with the present Obama's Administration haven't happened yet. We anticipate the government to observe those promises to the American people. On the other hand, why should any petitioner or candidate will fall in line and wait their turns to be called. Citizenship is not for sale or bargain for the price of taxes and fines. As we see it now immigration has become more detached and inaccessible by the country in which the entire concentration is to study on how to move forward with this modern innovation. As we observe it now our leaders do not wish to be troubled by the public and they oftentimes, want someone to do the job for them.

Monday, March 8, 2010

Getting a Student Visa


Who can apply for a student Visa? Every Citizens of all countries are eligible to apply for a student Visa. You can apply for a student visa in your country or change the status to student visa after you legally entered in the US using another type of visa.

When applying for a Student Visa, you have to consider many things. If you are not yet in the United State - You have to appear to the consular officer who will interview you in-person. If you pass you may be legally authorized to study in the United States. However, if you are already in the United States the first thing you should do is to contact the school administrators, or the person you think can guide you in the right direction and start the admission process. Once you are admitted by the school, the school will issue you the Form I-20. Acquiring the I-20 form is your first step in obtaining the student visa application. Your school is accountable to record your information for the I-20 student Visa form into the SEVIS (Student and Exchange Visitor Information System). It is a must for every student to have a generated SEVIS form I-20 issued by educational institution and it must be approved by DHS (Department of Homeland Security), In which they are required to present when they are applying for their student visa.

The completed I-20 form will include all the information in the U.S. It is necessary for you to show that you or your parents are financially stable and that you have an adequate financial resources to pay for your schooling and other lifestyle expenses during the period of your stay or your plan of study.

Once you comply all the requirements which should be met by every applicants to qualify the student Visa, the Immigration and National Act will study it first because they are very specific with the requirements. Therefore, you have to keep in mind that providing the requested documents won't guarantee that your student visa will be granted. Thus, if you meet all the criteria you are allowed to enter with F-1 Visa or M-1 visa.

Nevertheless, USA is very committed to assist the international students with all their US immigration needs. When you enter the United States, you will receive a white I-94 card attached to your passport. This visa allows you legally to enter the United States. This second page is your legitimate form of identification and you ought to bring it with you at all times whenever you go are in the United States.