Thread by @Shrikantha5

@MHackman The Pandemic is a pretext for USCIS. Let me give you blow by blow account on the lies.

1) USCIS requested expansion of premium processing under HR 8337. The Federal Register had a proposed rulemaking for expansion. This was in Oct 2020.

If you can dig through files you can see that USCIS story at that time was their revenues were drastically down by 40%. Since it is a fee based organization the fee = work. So their work too was down by 40%. But they were fully staffed. They simply goofed around.

When they realized that they were running a deficit on IEFA account unlike the surpluses they used to carry, alarm bells went. USCIS being self funded agency they did not want Congressional oversight. Because if Congress filled the hole, then Congress can fix USCIS.

So USCIS came out with a magnificent plan of unbundling all the things they did for Non Immigrants and expanded premium processing. If you unbundle H1, H4, and H4 EAD (they are all derivative of H1) you can collect more fees in IEFA account.

Hole in IEFA account if filled Congress can not haul USCIS to the Congress. So USCIS is aggressively unbundling all the derivative applications for non immigrants.

This explains sudden increase of work, USCIS is finding itself in. This increase happened not because of Pandemic. The application for 485 are down.

But to shore up the premium processing fees, there may be a deliberate "go slow". Every unbundling results in non immigrant families from India bearing the brunt. A H1 renewal which cost a total of $2000 in earlier years will now cost more than $7500 for a family of 3.

I am not even adding premium processing or attorney costs. This unbundling is deliberate because USCIS is going down. Its budget is a mess. This implosion was happening way before Pandemic. Here is some insight. migrationpolicy.org/news/uscis-sev…

Now have you wondered why only "non immigrants"? It is because "non immigrants" are a category not tracked by anyone. Ombudsman has repeatedly asked USCIS to include non-immigrant backlogs. But USCIS included this once when they realized the backlog was 83 years!

Immediately they stopped including I-140 approvals in backlog. Technically I-140 is non immigrant. I-485 is "immigrant". So we became "excluded".

We are excluded from Drivers License. We need to pay additional fee because it is considered "immigration" benefit. We are excluded from getting a promotion and starting own companies. Because Silicon Valley does not want us to be free.

Our spouses are excluded from employment because they are "non immigrant" . Our kids are excluded from scholarship, and in state tuition. Again they are non-immigrants.

But we end up paying all the taxes often at highest tax brackets. Indian community has highest median income for all the communities. We pay social security, Medicare and we can not avail many tax exemptions.

We also can not get our retirement returned. US has steadfastly refused to return the retirement benefits to Indians. US says anyone who is in US for than 8 years is a long term resident and almost about to get permanent residency.

We get counted as "residents" for tax purposes but non immigrants for everything else. This is #TaxationWithoutRepresentation

And then nativists always come with pitch fork and say why you cant wait like rest of the world. Rest of the world never waited this long. I am now in 16th year! Two times in the census I got counted as "Indian American". My daughter lived all her life except for an year here.

So we are now a stolen generation. Inadvertently, Congressional Research Service calculated the back log for non-immigrants. They said it is 195 to 436 years. That much it will take for us to become "immigrant". crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/R/…

Since we are non-immigrant nobody seems to care. This is the biggest stealing of labor and it is happening in the USA which lectures other nation's on freedom. Where is my freedom? Why am I excluded?

My theory is we are held hostage by USCIS. They need our money to run their budget. Since they are self funded they do not have congressional oversight. And since their budget is under the water, they aggressively unbundle work and then create delays.

They do not want to let go of us. Multiple times we have made representation. USCIS always says weight is a decade. Everyone believes that to be true. As you can see from CRS report that is not true.

We are now requesting every American to understand USCIS has become new East India Company holding the Indians in perpetual backlog and taxing them to death. I am maintaining a register of those who died in the backlog last two years. martinmahatma.com/redmondster/f/…

Please do not share pictures from the above RIP. They tried hard. They are peaceful. Sharing pictures of the dead is not Hindu tradition.

Time has come for the all the Americans to unite and help us. India is the biggest friend for America. We built the Silicon Valley. My home town announced last week they have their 15th Billion dollar company!. We work hard. We are the brightest and most compassionate humans.

We have waited decades. We will not wait anymore. Please educate America about the harm that is done to us and how we have made "Shiv Sankalp" to move away from slavery. God bless you.

शिव सन्कल्पमस्तु ( It means I made a good resolve) We forgive America for stealing our labor.

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*wait

@MHackman Here is the initial request for expanding premium processing. govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR…