Ranjani Srinivasan, a citizen and national of India, entered the United States on a F-1 student visa as a doctoral student in Urban Planning at Columbia University, the Department of Homeland Security said in a statement on Friday. It added that Srinivasan was "involved in activities supporting" Hamas, a terrorist organisation.
Badar Khan Suri, an Indian postdoctoral fellow at Georgetown University, is facing deportation after US authorities accused him of "spreading Hamas propaganda" and having "close connections to a suspected terrorist." The Department of Homeland Security claims Suri has been actively promoting antisemitism on social media and is connected to a senior Hamas advisor. Suri's lawyer, Hassan Ahmad, argues that his client is being targeted due to his wife's Palestinian heritage and their opposition to US foreign policy towards Israel. The incident follows the self-deportation of another Indian student from Columbia University who was also accused of supporting Hamas.
In his petition, Suri's lawyer said that he is being punished as his wife, who is a US citizen, is of Palestinian heritage and because the government suspects that he and his wife are against the US foreign policy towards Israel.
An estimated 46 million foreign-born persons resided in the United States in 2022, approximately 14 per cent of the total US population of 333 million, according to American Community Survey data from the US Census Bureau.
Reopening the country to people seeking green cards, or legal permanent residence, Biden in his proclamation on Wednesday said that the policy of former US President Donald Trump does not advance the interests of the United States.
The number of Indians receiving the coveted green card or the Legal Permanent Residency status in the United States has experienced a considerable decline in the past three years.
Miller insisted that any legal immigration system should not displace American workers and there should be no abuse of 'fraud'.
An influential immigration advocacy group representing Indian-Americans on Thursday urged the Biden administration not to issue the most sought-after H-1B work visa to any individual born in India, till the time the discriminatory country-cap on green cards or permanent legal residency is removed. The current per-country cap on issuing of green cards in the US has resulted in Indian professionals, mostly from the IT sector, having to wait for decades for their legal permanent residency. Issuing new H-1B visas to more Indians would add to this agonising painful wait for green cards, Immigration Voice said in a statement.
The Reforming American Immigration for Strong Employment, or RAISE, Act, introduced by Republican senator Tom Cotton and David Perdue from the Democratic party, would alter the US immigration system to significantly reduce the number of foreigners admitted to the country without a skills-based visa.
'No one in this administration, not the President nor anyone on the national security team, would suggest that the Taliban are respected and valued members of the global community'
The Biden administration has indicated that it is still undecided on ending the Trump-era ban on issuing new H-1B visas, with the Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas asserting that the US government's top priority is the acute needs of individuals fleeing persecution. The H-1B visa, the most sought after among Indian IT professionals, is a non-immigrant visa that allows US companies to employ foreign workers in speciality occupations that require theoretical or technical expertise. Technology companies depend on it to hire tens of thousands of employees each year from countries like India and China.
A million applicants are in queue for 1,20,000 visas.
Trump tweeted that the Saudi Crown Prince "told me that he has already started, and will rapidly expand, a full and complete investigation into this matter. Answers will be forthcoming shortly."
The Biden administration expects the Modi government to continue to remain as its loyal camp follower even as Washington continues to act in self-interests, observes Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
President Trump has been calling for a merit-based immigration system, a move that would benefit the Indian professionals.
In a major move that will benefit hundreds and thousands of Indian IT professionals in America, the Biden administration has introduced an ambitious immigration bill in Congress which among other things proposes to eliminate the per-country cap for employment-based green cards.
She and her husband Jared Kushner were dressed to the nines, where she was pictured wearing a $5,000 Carolina Herrera-designed metallic silver gown alongside before the pair attended a swanky dinner in Washington.
Called the US Citizenship Act of 2021, the legislation modernises the immigration system, and also proposes to eliminate the per country cap for employment-based green cards, a move that would benefit thousands of Indian IT professionals whose current wait period for legal permanent residency runs into several decades.
Fifty-nine-year-old Khashoggi, a dissident Saudi journalist who lived in the US as a legal permanent resident and wrote for the Washington Post, was critical of the prince's policies and was killed in the Saudi Arabian Consulate in the Turkish city on October 2, 2018.
As of now, about 66 per cent of the green cards are given to those with family ties and only 12 per cent are based on skills.
Describing it as 'a very powerful order' Trump told reporters during his daily news briefing at the White House on Wednesday that he signed the order to protect American workers' jobs in an economy pummelled by the COVID-19 pandemic.
The 18-year-old attacker, identified as Abdul Razak Ali Artan injured 11 people before police fatally shot him.
Trump, however, said that the move will not have any impact on those entering the country on a temporary basis.
Economic experts fear massive layoffs in various sectors of the American economy due to the current economic distress that is only going to deteriorate in the coming months. A record 3.3 million Americans have filed initial jobless claims for the week ending March 21. Even as the peak of coronavirus in the US is two weeks away, millions of people in the country have lost their jobs.
In a policy paper submitted to US Senators, the Foundation for India and Indian Diaspora Studies (FIIDS) said the excessive delays in the processing of permanent residency applications due to country-wise quota contributed to America's loss of revenue, market leadership and competitive edge.
The president said the European Union has "failed to take the same precautions" as his administration had implemented to contain the coronavirus outbreak.
Obama had bypassed Congress to announce most sweeping immigration reform
By passing this bill, Congress is showing that the US will not turn a blind eye to the suffering of the oppressed, House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy said.
The United States said was "saddened" to hear the confirmation of Khashoggi's death, but made no mention of action against its major ally.
"Make no mistake: this ban does not keep us safe. It puts American lives at risk while isolating the Muslim community at a time when we need to address the threat of homegrown extremism. No matter the changes, this executive action remains immoral and fundamentally un-American," California Senator Kamala Harris said.
Turkish investigators have told local media and also to the US media that Khashoggi was brutally killed inside the consulate on October 2.
President Donald Trump talked to the Saudi King, during which the latter flatly denied having any knowledge of the missing journalist.
United States President Donald Trump's new executive order banning immigration from seven Muslim-majority countries -- Iran, Iraq, Libya, Sudan, Yemen, Syria and Somalia - has upended the lives of many families across the world.
Trump told reporters at the White House that he had asked for the audio that gives a clue of the alleged brutal killing of Khashoggi.
Gurmukh Singh, a 46-year-old taxi driver from Punjab who sneaked into the US without a visa through the border with Mexico in 1998, was taken into custody on Monday after failing to get a stay in his deportation case, amid a clampdown by the Trump administration against undocumented immigrants.
From May 26 onwards, the US Citizenship and Immigration Services will begin accepting applications for work visas from H-IB spouses, reports Aziz Haniffa/Rediff.com.
US President Barack Obama said there is natural convergence between India and the United States.
US President Barack Obama's plan to shield up to 4.7 million undocumented immigrants from deportation may be immensely significant, but only a comprehensive legislation from the Congress with a larger goal could do justice to immigrant expectations.
'Just how strong were the ties between the world's largest and oldest democracies that an incident involving a diplomat and a maid led to anger threatening the relationship itself? Or had the relationship been weakening in the past few years, masked by the empty symbolism of State dinners, asks Devesh Kapur.
'We are going to see relatively soon an executive order that deals with H-1B and other temporary visas.' 'We are also going to see an executive order on undocumented people.' 'Undocumented Indians comprise the largest population growth of all undocumented people in this country.' 'Just because India is not named in this executive order doesn't mean it won't be in the future.'
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