Inspired by 'Gandhigiri', distraught Indian green card applicants are flooding the US immigration department headquarters in Washington, DC with flowers to protest its abrupt withdrawal of a measure that promised expedited processing of their request for permanent residency.

Taking a cue from Bollywood movie Lage Rago Munnabhai [Images], which extolls the Gandhian way of peaceful protest or
'Gandhigiri', a coinage, immigrants' organisations say the gesture is aimed at drawing the attention of the US government
to the problem of green card backlogs that result from numerical caps.

While the protagonist in the flick was able to get his way with his adversaries with flowers, the chief of the Citizenship and Immigration Services, Emilio Gonzales has said that the flowers sent to his department will be re-directed to soldiers recuperating in Army hospitals.

"I understand that individuals are planning to send flowers to US Citizenship and Immigration Services beginning on Tuesday, July 10. USCIS has made arrangements to forward those flowers to our injured service members recuperating at Walter Reed Army Medical Centre and at Bethesda Naval Hospital," Gonzales said in a formal statement.

The protest has been sparked by last week's abrupt reversal of a June announcement offering expedited processing
of green card petitions for thousands of skilled foreign professionals working under H1-B visa. 

Immigrants, who wasted time and money to meet the July 1 deadline to file the applications, but were left in a limbo by
the move and organisations like Immigration Voice decided to encourage participation in the initiative to send flowers to USCIS headquarters in Washington DC from Tuesday.

The government move has affected over half a million legal skilled immigrants, Immigration Voice said, adding they
have incurred financial losses and have gone through a lot of stress due to reversal of July visa bulletin.

"This gesture is unlikely to cause a reversal of bulletin revision but it is surely going to draw attention of USCIS,
Congress and the media to the unresolved problem of green card backlogs that result from numerical caps", it said.