Category: Travel

45 nations accord visa free entry to Indian Passport holders

Henley & Partners, a London-based consulting firm specializing in citizenship services, has reported that the German passport is the most powerful in the world. The annual index, created with the International Air Transport Association (which has the world’s largest database of travel information), judges the top passports in the world by how much visa-free travel they allow.

Germany, which has held the top spot for five years in a row, has visa-free access to 177 countries out of a total of 218. Singapore, in second, has a ranking of 176, and a larger group of countries sharing third place (Denmark, Finland, France, Italy, Japan, Norway, Sweden, the U.K.) allow visa-free access to 175 countries. The U.S., along with Ireland, Portugal, and South Korea, tied for fifth place on the list, with visa-free access to 173 countries. Generally, visa requirements are indicative of a country’s relationship with another—reciprocity, as illustrated by the contentious battle over U.S. travelers’ visa-free access to Europe, is often expected.

In a statement, Dr. Christian H. Kälin, Group Chairman of Henley & Partners, said the need for visa-free access is greater than ever. “Across the economic spectrum, individuals want to transcend the constraints imposed on them by their country of origin and access business, financial, career, and lifestyle opportunities on a global scale.”

Georgia, which climbed 15 places in 2018’s rankings. On the lower end of the spectrum were Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan, which each have visa-free access to fewer than 30 countries. India, on the other hand, is on the bottom, with only 45 nations according visa free travel to those with Indian passport, while about a dozen nations other offer visa upon arrival.

Here, a look at the top 26.

1. Germany, 177 countries can be visited without a visa
   2. Singapore, 176
   3. Denmark, Finland, France, Italy, Japan, Norway, Sweden, the U.K., 175
   4. Austria, Belgium, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Spain, Switzerland, 174
   5. Ireland, Portugal, South Korea, United States, 173
   6. Canada, 172
   7. Australia, Greece, New Zealand, 171
   8. Czech Republic, Iceland, 170

The most stressful thing for most Indians planning to travel abroad is not the price of the ticket, but securing a visa. Majority of countries around the world require Indians to obtain visa prior to travelling. But there are 45 nations that do not want Indians to worry about Visa. Just for info UAE has opened up Visa On Arrival to Indians having a Green Card or valid US Visa in their passports.

Country Wise List for those with Indian Passport

Passports may no longer serve as a valid proof of address as the External Affairs Ministry has decided not to print the last page of the travel document with the address of the holder.
The last page of the passport includes the father or legal guardian’s name, the names of the holder’s mother, spouse and their address.

“As the last page of the passport would not be printed now, the passport holders with ECR (Emigration Check Required) status would be issued a passport with orange passport jacket and those with non-ECR status would continue to get a blue passport,” an MEA statement read.

The recommendations of a three-member panel, comprising officials from the ministry of external affairs and the ministry of women and child development, were accepted and it was decided that the last page of the passport and other travel documents issued under the Passports Act, 1967 and Passport Rules, 1980 “would no longer be printed”, it said.

The panel examined various issues “pertaining to passport applications including examination of where mother/child had insisted that the name of the father should not be mentioned in the passport and also relating to passport issues to children with single parent and to adopted children”, it added.

The Indian Security Press (ISP), Nasik, would be designing the new passport booklets in due course. “Till such time the new passport booklets are designed, manufactured and made available to the ministry by ISP, Nashik, the passports and other travel documents would continue to be printed with the last page,” the MEA said. The existing passports would continue to remain valid till the date of expiry printed in the passport booklet, it added.

Immigration minister Brandon Lewis said there is “no limit on the number of international students who can come to the UK, and nor is there any plan to impose one”. A pilot scheme launched in January 2016 offering easier, longer and cheaper British visas to Chinese citizens is likely to be made permanent, but immigration minister Brandon Lewis has confirmed there is no plan to extend it to Indian citizens in the near future.

Questioned on the issue in the House of Commons by senior Labour MP Virendra Sharma on Monday, Lewis said the situation with India is different from that with China, reflecting Prime Minister Theresa May’s statement in New Delhi in November 2016 that linked improving the UK visa offer to the number and speed of return of illegal Indian citizens in the UK.

To Sharma’s demand that the same visa scheme be extended to India, “our best allies in trade post-Brexit”, Lewis said: “I was in India just a couple of weeks ago and I had some conversations about the pilots we are running in China.

“The honorable gentleman is a little premature, because the pilot with China is still running. It is based on a different situation from the situation with us and India, but we will look at that pilot, and I will feed back after it has ended and we have a chance to review it.”

 Answering questions by MPs on removing international students from overall migration statistics – a demand by several stakeholders in higher education and supported by some cabinet ministers – Lewis refused to commit, but said the situation has improved in recent years.

He said: “I can be very clear: there is absolutely no limit on the number of international students who can come to the UK, and nor is there any plan to impose one. What we have seen this summer is that students are now compliant, and that means their effect on the net migration figures is marginal.

“The key thing with students is that, thanks to the work that this government have done since 2010 in shutting down about 920 bogus colleges, students are now complying, so the effect on migration is marginal, at best.”

Indian student numbers coming to UK higher education institutions have dwindled by more than half since 2010, when immigration reforms were introduced by the David Cameron government. In 2012, the post-study work visa popular with Indians was abolished.

There are suggestions that the drop of Indian students is partly due to the closure of bogus colleges, which were recruiting Indian and other international students allegedly for purposes other than education.

The State Department has released changes to its foreign policy manual that tighten rules for people entering the U.S. on non-immigrant – specifically tourist – visas.

“This was a process of taking a closer look at visa ineligibilities and making sure that people follow the rules we have in place and that we apply our rules consistently and correctly,” a spokesman for the State Department told India-West.

“It is not a new ineligibility. It is tightening existing rules to make sure people don’t misuse their visas,” he said, adding: “This is about people entering the United States saying they’ll do one thing and then doing another, such as making misrepresentations to get visas, without proper authorization.”

Those found in violation of what is known as the “90-Day Rule” could be ineligible for a new visa, a renewal or a change of status. Those who continue to remain in the U.S. would be eligible for deportation.

Examples of such misrepresentations include people coming in on visitors’ visas – B1 and B2 – and then immediately beginning to work within the first 90 days. Others who enter on tourist visas and then enroll in a university would also be exhibiting “a clear intent to misrepresent,” according to the State Department.

People entering the country as visitors and getting married within three months would also be considered as intending to fraud the system, said the spokesman, noting that a K1 visa allows U.S. permanent residents or citizens to sponsor one’s fiancé.

“If someone comes to the U.S. as a tourist, falls in love and gets married within 90 days and then applies for a green card, this means the application would be denied,” Diane Rish, associate director of government relations at the American Immigration Lawyers Association, told The New York Times. “This is a significant policy change.”

Those who take up a U.S. residence within 90 days are also in violation of the proviso of their tourist visa, clarified the State Department.

“If an alien violates or engages in conduct inconsistent with his or her nonimmigrant status within 90 days of entry, you may presume that the applicant’s representations about engaging in only status-compliant activity were willful misrepresentations of his or her intention in seeking a visa or entry,” noted the State Department in a cable dispatched to all U.S. embassies abroad.

“If an alien violates or engages in conduct inconsistent with his or her nonimmigrant status more than 90 days after entry into the United States, no presumption of willful misrepresentation arises,” noted the State Department in its memo, clarifying, however, that consular officials who believe the applicant did lie on his application could call for a review.

In related news, India has a particularly high rate of people overstaying a B1/B2 tourist visa, according to data released by the Department of Homeland Security in May. For the fiscal year 2016, more than 1 million tourist visas were granted to people from India. An estimated 17,763 people initially overstayed their visas, with about 15,000 continuing to remain in the country.

In FY 2015, almost 900,000 visas were allotted to visitors from India; more than 14,000 initially overstayed their visas, with an estimated 13,000 continuing to remain in the country.

Germany had the highest number of overstays in FY 2016 – more than 20,000, with more than 14,000 continuing to remain in the country. Italy also ranked high on the number of overstays: almost 15,000 continued to remain in the country after their tourist visa had expired, according to DHS data.

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced that those who are on work visas and applying for permanent residence are now required to go through an in-person interview, a step that could slow down the application process and make it more difficult for the applicant. The new policy will go into effect on October 1 this year.

Thousands of immigrant aliens every year transited to US Green Card through their work visa in the US.. H1 B route was found to be quite convenient to obtain a green card. But it appears it is not going to be the same “easy and convenient” route anymore. In technical parlance, it refers to an I-485 adjustment of status interview. This announcement was made on August 28 and was reported immediately by The Indian Panorama

On another front, US immigration attorneys are seeing an uptick in number of ‘Requests For Evidence’ (RFEs) being issued by the USCIS. These RFEs relate to petitions (applications) filed on or about April 2017 for H-1B visas that will be valid from October 1, 2017.

A vast majority of those to whom green cards are allotted comprise those who are already working in the US on temporary visas. During the four-year period up to 2014, over 2 lakh green cards were allotted to H-1B visa holders, according to a report by the Bipartisan Policy Centre.

Latest available data released by the USCIS shows that during 2015, as many as 34,843 Indians adjusted their temporary visa status and obtained green cards. Of this, 25,179 were holding jobs in the US (primarily under the H1-B category).

Immigration.com managing attorney Rajiv S Khanna says, “A new wrinkle in the inquiries is that, as USCIS had warned, they will not accept level-1 wages to be given in H-1B cases easily. They are questioning level-1 wages almost uniformly.” He explains the various levels and illustrates the wages. Level-1 category relates to entry-level jobs and, at the other end, is the level-4 category which calls for a more technical and leadership role.

The prescribed wage at level 1 for a software developer in San Jose is $88,733 a year, which rises to $155,147 annually at level 4. Khanna adds, “It is the USCIS position that level-1 salary indicates a non-professional position that does not require a specific college degree and is a job that would be inappropriate for an H-1B visa.

Indians working in the US may find it more challenging to transition from a work visa (such as H-1B) to a green card. From October 1, the United States Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS) has made an in-person interview mandatory in such cases. In technical parlance, it refers to an I-485 adjustment of status interview. This announcement was made on August 28.

On another front, US immigration attorneys are seeing an uptick in the number of ‘Requests For Evidence’ (RFEs) being issued by the USCIS. These RFEs relate to petitions (applications) filed on or about April 2017 for H-1B visas that will be valid from October 1, 2017.

As regards the amendment made for adjustment of status to that of a green card, NPZ Law Group managing attorney David H Nachman explains, “USCIS currently requires interviews for family-based green card and naturalisation (obtaining citizenship) processes. But most of the time, it waives the interview requirement for the above category of applicants. While interviews for those transitioning from employment-based visa status to green cards were standard a decade ago, waivers have been regularly granted since then.

Under the new policy, there will be no further waivers. Thus, the new process will lengthen the waiting time for green card applicants.”

A vast majority of those to whom green cards are allotted comprise those who are already working in the US on temporary visas. During the four-year period up to 2014, over 2 lakh green cards were allotted to H-1B visa holders, according to a report by the Bipartisan Policy Centre.

Latest available data released by the USCIS — which was analysed by TOI — shows that during 2015, as many as 34,843 Indians adjusted their temporary visa status and obtained green cards. Of this, 25,179 were holding jobs in the US (primarily under the H1-B category).

H-1B inquiries spike Immigration.com managing attorney Rajiv S Khanna says, “A new wrinkle in the inquiries is that, as USCIS had warned, they will not accept level-1 wages to be given in H-1B cases easily. They are questioning level-1 wages almost uniformly.”

He explains the various levels and illustrates the wages. Level-1 category relates to entry-level jobs and, at the other end, is the level-4 category which calls for a more technical and leadership role.

The prescribed wage at level 1 for a software developer in San Jose is $88,733 a year, which rises to $155,147 annually at level 4. Khanna adds, “It is the USCIS position that level-1 salary indicates a non-professional position that does not require a specific college degree and is a job that would be inappropriate for an H-1B visa.

There are often situations where level 1 is indeed the appropriate level — even the largest consulting firms in the US do send out entry-level professionals for assignments.”

Nachman explains, “The question that continues to arise in the RFEs is to prove that the position that the H-IB applicant will be taking is in a speciality occupation. The new set of questions that we are seeing has to do with why the level-1 wage has been chosen if the position is a ‘speciality position’ calling for a complex set of duties. As you can see, the US government is requiring us to argue that the position is ‘complex’ and then, on the other side, asking that if it is so complex why is a lower salary being assigned?”

The increase in inquiries is an administrative cost for all, and is especially challenging for those employers (mid-tier companies) that had designated level 1 even for more experienced visa applicants.

An influential American lawmaker has called for removal of country-specific quotas for legal permanent residency, also known as green cards, in the U.S. Congressman Kevin Yoder, R-Kan., who July 11 became the lead sponsor of the previous Fairness for High-Skilled Immigrants Act, argued that the existing country-specific quota for green cards is unjust for people from countries like India and China.

A Pew Research report released this week said that the average wait time for an Indian technology professional or those seeking green cards under the employment category is more than 12 years.

The Fairness for High-Skilled Immigrants Act was previously introduced by former-Rep. Jason Chaffetz, with Yoder as an original cosponsor. Currently, 230 Members of Congress have signed on as cosponsors of the bill, with more than 100 members from each party in support.

The Act reforms the legal immigration system by eliminating the existing, arbitrary per-country percentage caps that have caused backlogs in the employment-based green card system, he said. “Under the existing per-country percentage caps, large nations like India and China, which account for more than 40 percent of the world’s population, receive the same amount of visas as Greenland, a country that accounts for one-one thousandth of a percent of the world’s population,” he said.

“With about 95 percent of the employment-based green card applicants already living and working in America on temporary visas, the vast majority of applicants are simply waiting in line to get approved for permanent residence. But high-skilled immigrants from large countries are forced to wait two to three times longer under existing law,” Yoder said.

The Fairness for High-Skilled Immigrants Act would correct this problem and leave in place a system where all equally-qualified, highly-skilled employees will receive green cards in the order they apply and based solely on the skills they are bringing to America, he explained.

Asserting that the United States is a nation of immigrants, as well as a nation of laws, Yoder said this legislation strikes the perfect balance by achieving significant reforms of the employment-based green card system, helping American companies hire high-skilled immigrants to help grow the American economy. “Importantly, our bill helps them do it through the proper legal channels – the right way – which are all too often forgotten in debates over border security and illegal immigration,” he said.

“And it helps the many immigrants who are already living and working here on temporary visas obtain permanent residence they’ve earned through hard work and dedication to our country and its values, raising their families and children as Americans right here in our communities,” Yoder added.

The Pew Research report noted that India is among the top countries whose residents get green cards every year. In 2015, about 36,318 Indians adjusted their status to permanent residency while 27,798 Indians are new arrivals who received lawful permanent residency in the form of a green card, Pew Research said.

“In one employment-related category, people from India applying for permanent residence as skilled employees currently have a 12-year waiting list. In other words, the government currently is processing applications filed in May of 2005,” the report said.

Pew said from fiscal years 2010 to 2014, about 36 percent of employment-related green cards, more than 222,000, were granted to H-1B visa holders. A green card holder can apply for U.S. citizenship after five years of residency. This period is shortened to three years if married to a U.S. citizen

Green card holders who adjusted their status are more likely than new arrivals to be in their prime working years of 25 to 64. Among those who adjusted their status, 72 percent were of ages 25 to 64, compared with 55 percent of new arrivals, the research report said.

According to the study, in every fiscal year since 2004, the U.S. has issued more green cards to immigrants living in the country on another visa who adjust their legal status (7.4 million) than to new arrivals (5.5 million).

Ground Zero recovery workers would get green cards allowing them to live legally in the United States under new legislation announced Sunday by Rep. Joseph Crowley. The bill would give legal status to workers who worked on the cleanup after the Sept. 11 terror attacks but faced deportation over a three-decade-old drug conviction.

The bill introduced in the US Congress by Rep. Joseph Crowley would help provide green cards to immigrant workers who helped clean up Ground Zero in New York in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks. The bill would allow for those immigrants to live legally in the U.S., according to a New York Daily News report.

“They went to work at a long, hazardous and sad job of cleaning up the destruction of a terrorist attack on that day. There is no doubt in my mind that what they did was beyond patriotic; it was heroic,” Crowley (D-Queens) said at a press conference outside City Hall. “They served our country when we needed a hand, and now we’re only showing them, unfortunately, the back of ours. Instead of gratitude, they’re being shown the door,” the congressman added.

The new legislation would allow an estimated 1,000 to 2,000 undocumented immigrants who toiled at the wreckage of the World Trade Center to become permanent residents, and eventually qualify for citizenship, it said. It would apply to people who worked on recovery and cleanup in lower Manhattan between Sept. 11, 2001, and July 2002, using the same definition applied in the Zadroga Act for medical benefits, the report noted.

The bill is scheduled to be formally introduced this month and the Daily News reports that backers are looking for a sponsor to introduce it in the Senate. “These men and women acted selflessly and bravely, often risking their lives and their health,” said Rep. Jerrold Nadler in the report. “I can tell you one thing we never did when they came to work on The Pile: We never asked their immigration status. We were just grateful for their presence and their help.”

My Second Home tour (hosted by leading Jewish-India scholar Professor Nathan Katz) features all the “must see” sights, while offering insights into the fascinating, little-known Jewish experience in India. Discover the dazzling cultural, historic and spiritual mosaic in a land where Jews have lived happily and made their mark for millennia. The itinerary is superb, the hotels are world-class, and the people you’ll meet spectacular.

His tour to South India with Nathan [Katz] was spectacular – “truly one of my favorite trips ever. We saw sights we never would have imagined. But the amazing thing was to have Nathan’s insights and historic perspective to gain a better understanding of the people and places we encountered. It gave such meaning to everything we saw and experienced. He imparted a love of India that is still with me today,” he said. Nina Piken, Boston, MA, who toured with Prof. Nathan Katz twice, to North India and South India

Air India announced that it is increasing its services to India from the U.S. to 33 flights per week with the launch of the only nonstop service out of Washington Dulles International Airport (IAD) to Delhi (DEL), starting July 7, 2017.

The Boeing 777-200LR flights will depart Washington three times a week, on Wednesday, Friday and Sunday, with a flying time of just 14 hours – more than two hours faster than its nearest competitor. Flight No. AI-104 will depart Washington at 11:00 AM and arrive in Delhi at 10:30 AM the next morning. The westbound flight AI-103 will depart Delhi at 1:15 AM on Wednesday, Friday and Sunday and arrive in Washington at 7:15 AM the same day.

Washington Dulles is Air India’s fifth U.S. destination, which also includes Chicago O’Hare, New York JFK, Newark Liberty, and San Francisco International Airports. For passengers traveling beyond Delhi, Air India also offers convenient connections to major cities across India, including Bengaluru, Mumbai, Amritsar, Hyderabad, Chennai, Kochi and more. Like Air India’s other nonstop flights, the Washington-Delhi flights will feature First, Business, and Economy Class service, all offering a choice of Continental or Indian cuisine.

“Air India is committed to making service faster and more convenient for our customers, whether traveling for business or leisure,” said Ms. Vandana Sharma, Air India’s Regional Manager-Americas. “Our expanding service also addresses the growing demand of customers living and working in Indo-American communities throughout the U.S. that are looking for fast, direct service with seamless connections to cities across India, and the added convenience of customs and immigration formalities at the final destination. We are proud and privileged to fill that need.”

Air India, India’s national airline, has been in operation since 1932. Today, the airline serves 35 international destinations on four continents, and 66 cities across India. The airline’s fleet of 118 aircraft, including B787 Dreamliners and B777LR’s and ER’s, is one of the world’s youngest. Air India is also a member of the Star Alliance. For more information about the airline, visit www.airindia.in or call1-800-223-7776.

A U.S. visa program that faces elimination under several bills being considered by Congress has attracted more than 156 million applicants from around the world over the past decade, even though only a small fraction of those applicants end up receiving visas through it.

During the application period for fiscal year 2017, about 19 million people applied for the U.S. diversity visa program, otherwise known as the visa lottery. That’s more than twice as many as the 9 million who applied a decade ago, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of U.S. State Department data. During the same period, the number of visas issued to the principal applicants, spouses and children via the lottery has remained stable at about 50,000 per year (due to an annual ceiling set by Congress), or a little more than 500,000 since 2007.

In operation since 1995, the visa lottery seeks to diversify the U.S. immigrant population by granting visas to underrepresented nations. Citizens of countries with the most legal immigrant arrivals in recent years – such as Mexico, Canada, China and India – are not eligible to apply. Legal immigrants entering the U.S. on a diversity visa account for about 5% of the roughly 1 million people who are awarded green cards each year.

Those eligible for the lottery face few barriers when applying. There is no fee to apply; applications are available in many languages and only limited biographical information must be submitted. If selected for a diversity visa, however, individuals must provide detailed background information and submit to visa interviews, security checks and health screenings and pay $330. Upon entry into the U.S., diversity visa recipients are given lawful permanent residence status, which gives them permission to work and live permanently in the U.S.

The U.S. visa lottery program is unique in the world. (New Zealand has a similar program, but it is smaller in scale and only open to neighboring countries in Oceania.) Immigration programs in many other countries prioritize skills, family relationships or humanitarian need.

Open to eligible people from around the globe, the U.S. visa lottery provides a window of opportunity to countries where the idea of “the American dream” holds the most appeal. In fiscal 2015 (the most recent year for detailed data on application countries), about 12% of the 14.4 million people who applied for the visa lottery were citizens of Ghana (1.7 million). An additional 10%, or nearly 1.4 million applicants, were from Uzbekistan. Other top application countries included Ukraine (nearly 1.3 million applicants), Iran (more than 900,000) and Nepal (nearly 900,000). Numbers include principal applicants, their spouses and their children.

In some countries, a marked share of the population has applied for the program. In the Republic of Congo, for example, 10% of the country’s citizens applied for the program in fiscal 2015. Other African countries with high shares of applicants included Liberia (8%), Sierra Leone (8%) and Ghana (7%). European countries such as Albania (7%), Moldova (5%) and Ukraine (3%) also saw substantial shares of their populations submitting applications. In Asia, Uzbekistan (5%) and Nepal (3%) also had vast shares of their populations apply.

Since the program’s start in 1995, the U.S. has awarded about 20,000 visas annually to African citizens and another 20,000 to European citizens. Roughly 8,000 citizens of Asian countries, including islands in Oceania, have received diversity visas each year. Nearly 2,000 are given annually to those from the Americas. (Since 1999, the U.S. has awarded up to an additional 5,000 visas each year to citizens of Nicaragua, Cuba, El Salvador and Guatemala under the Nicaraguan Adjustment and Central America Relief Act.)

The origins of those eligible to apply for the lottery have changed over time. When at least 50,000 citizens of a country have immigrated to the U.S. over the previous five years, the citizens of that country becomes ineligible for the visa lottery. For example, due to an increase in immigration to the U.S., citizens of Bangladesh became ineligible to apply to the program beginning in 2013 (which could explain the drop in total applicants in 2013), while Nigerians became ineligible in 2015. Russians became eligible to enter the lottery in 2010 and Poles could begin applying in 2014 because immigration to the U.S. from these countries had declined.

Correction: A previous version of the map graphic gave an incorrect number for Russia. About 265,000 Russians applied for diversity visas in the application period for fiscal 2015 (map rounds to nearest 10,000).

Taxis For All Campaign & the New York Taxi Workers Alliance held a press conference to highlight how deregulating taxi services will destroy NYC jobs and preempt wheelchair accessibility programs by flooding NYC streets with unregulated for-hire vehicles

The New York Taxi Workers Alliance, which has a significant number of Indian and South Asian-origin cabbies, has issued a statement supporting taxi drivers on strike against Uber’s poverty pay in Qatar and India. The NYTWA is led by Indian-American activist Bhairavi Desai.

In a message issued here, Desai said, “Rights groups are concerned that the proposed Uber legislation discriminates against people with disabilities by not mandating wheelchair-accessibility standards, hurts consumers, erodes labor rights, and will destroy full-time work for professional drivers. Although the bill does not include NYC, it includes all of its surrounding cities and counties, meaning that NYC streets will be flooded with unregulated for-hire vehicles with no wheelchair accessibility mandates, hurting both passengers and professional drivers.”

In New Delhi, thousands of Uber drivers are on strike over issues of rate cuts and what they consider Uber’s global monopoly tactic of flooding streets with vehicles making it harder for each driver to make a living.

“Our brothers in India mobilized after a fellow Uber driver committed suicide from the persistent poverty and pressure to make lease payment,” the statement from NYTWA said, adding that Uber’s only response has been to file an injunction against the drivers’ organizations for striking.

“While multi-nationals often explain away deplorable treatment by pointing out lack of labor law in countries like Qatar, the reality is, Uber does not respect labor law anywhere, whether in Doha, New Delhi or New York,” the statement said.

The NYTWA said its 19,000-members stand in solidarity with the 700 Uber drivers in Qatar who are on their fifth day of strike. “We salute your courage, your determination, your loyalty to each other, and your passion for a world that is just to workers. We understand your strike is over Uber’s low wages and that this poverty for you brings the dire risks of deportation, as you risk losing your work visas when you cannot keep up with your car leases due to low pay.”

According to the NYTWA, the Uber drivers on strike in Doha, Qatar reached out to to them for solidarity after they saw the strength of their strike against the Muslim Ban and the #DeleteUber campaign.

Founded in 1998, NYTWA is the 19,000-member strong union of NYC taxicab drivers, representing yellow cab drivers, green car, and black car drivers, including drivers for Uber and Lyft.  We fight for justice, rights, respect and dignity for the over 50,000 licensed men and women who often labor 12 hour shifts with little pay and few protections in the city’s mobile sweatshop.  Our members come from every community, garage, and neighborhood. To find out more visit NYTWA.org, follow us on Twitter.com/NYTWA, or like us on facebook.com/nytwa.

Indian American Nirmal Narvekar, the new head of Harvard University’s endowment, is elading efforts to make changes to the fund by outsourcing most of its assets and lay off about half the staff, media reports say. Narvekar, who started his new role of endowment head in December, intends to slash half of the Harvard Management Co.’s 230-person staff and shift most of its money to outside managers.

The new chief executive of Harvard Management Co, which manages the university’s endowment, announced the plans in a letter, said the investment arm will shut down its internal hedge funds and let traders go by the middle of 2017, essentially abandoning a so-called hybrid model that was unique among big endowments.

The internal team that oversees real-estate investments will spin out into an independent group that is expected to keep managing money for Harvard. HMC will lay off roughly half of its 230-person staff, by the end of the year.

“The investment landscape has evolved significantly, requiring us to adapt two aspects of HMC’s organizational and investment models in order to maximize performance over the long term,” Narvekar wrote in the letter.

For decades, Harvard’s investment performance was the envy of the financial world, but it has lagged rivals for some years now and posted its worst performance since the financial crisis in fiscal 2016 when the portfolio lost 2 percent.

Harvard has long operated differently from most other schools, including fellow Ivy Leaguer Yale, managing some of its money internally and farming out only a portion to external managers.

Harvard first hinted at upcoming changes in June as performance continued to lag. While Narvekar is preparing to lay off dozens of employees, he is also hiring a team of four investors who he said will be instrumental in moving Harvard away from its specialized asset class investing approach to a more generalist model.

The four are Rick Slocum, who will join in March as chief investment officer, and Vir Dholabhai, Adam Goldstein and Charlie Saravia, who will be managing directors. Goldstein and Saravia worked with Narvekar previously when he ran Columbia University’s $9.6 billion endowment.

Narvekar, tasked to turn around the $35.7 billion fund, has proven that outsourcing could work, as he did with a 20-person staff at Columbia recently, outperforming Harvard in the process, a Bloomberg report said. “We can no longer justify the organizational complexity and resources necessary to support the investing activities of these portfolios,” Narvekar, 54, wrote Jan. 25 in a letter to Harvard. “Therefore, we have made some important but very difficult decisions.”

Harvard’s recent returns have trailed rivals in recent years. The endowment’s annualized gains of 5.7 percent over the 10 years ended June 30, 2016, are second-lowest among Ivy League schools and below the 8.1 percent returns of Yale University and Narvekar’s former employer Columbia, the WSJ reported. The endowment’s budget provides more than a third of the university’s operating budget and contributes to the costs of student financial aid, research and professor salaries.

The Indian consulate’s website is the latest Indian diplomatic websites to be hacked by a person claiming to be a 17-year-old student in Tokyo who asserts that it was a well-intentioned attempt to show the vulnerabilities that “even kids could exploit,” media reports here say.

The person, using the identity Kapustkiy, who had earlier hacked the web sites of seven Indian diplomatic missions in Europe and Asia, posted on a public web site the partial personal information of 418 people registered with the consulate said to be taken by penetrating its website.

Last week web sites of Indian diplomatic missions in South Africa, Libya, Malawi, Mali, Italy, Switzerland and Romania were hacked and non-public information were posted publicly. In an interview over Twitter on Monday, Kapustkiy said: “It took me only three seconds to gain access to their database.”

“Even the kids could exploit it,” he said of the vulnerabilities in the way the programing language, SQL or Structured Query Language, was used on the web sites. SQL is used by web sites to manage databases. His method was different from the hacking of Indian defence, business and media sites exposed last year by a Silicon Valley cybersecurity firm, FireEye, which said it was likely by China.

Those penetrations required more elaborate efforts like planting spying software in emails sent to people using those sites. But Kapustkiy’s methods appeared to be simpler and more direct, exposing more dangerous vulnerabilities.
The list said to be from the New York consulate was posted on a website, pastebin.com, which is open for public posting of information. The list was still on the site Monday night, even though the earlier postings from other Indian missions have been removed.

The consulate did not respond as of Monday night, New York time, to a request emailed to the press section for comments. The web site says that it is powered by Ardhas Technology India Private Limited, which has its registered office in Erode, Tamil Nadu.

Kapustkiy said: “I don’t describe myself as a hacker or something, but as a security pentester.” Pentester is short for penetration testers who examine the weaknesses of internet sites to intrusions.

On his Twitter account he also describes himself as a “cyber detective”. The hack did not affect functioning of the consulate’s website while the non-public data was being extracted from it. “I didn’t want to do any damage, but [only] to let administrators to pay attention [to the vulnerabilities],” Kapustkiy said.

“I could’ve leaked around 7,500 entries of people,” he said. “But I decided to leak only 400 entries which belong to the employees and not to the people. I could also leak there real address and zip code. But I didn’t do that.” However, the partial list seen by IANS appeared to be information about people who had registered with the consulate rather than employees.

Kapustkiy said that he first reported the problems to the web site administrators but didn’t get a response. “After all the media attention I gain they started to fix it,” he added. He said that Indian officials have not contacted him.

Around 20 domains connected to the Indian missions were hacked in the past and although they have been patched, he said, “there were still some domains that were vulnerable to exploit. You could find the vulnerability in three secs”.

About his future plans, he said, “I think that I will continue look at vulnerables in important websites in Asia.” Asked about his nationality, he said, “I don’t want to tell where I’m from, but most media are claiming that I’m from the Netherlands,

IANS

The number of Indian students studying in the US has gone up to over 165,000 during academic year 2015-16, a growth of 25 per cent over the previous year, says a report released on Monday.

According to the 2016 Open Doors Report on International Educational Exchange, there are 165,918 students from India, making it the second leading country of origin among international students in the US.

“This was the highest absolute increase of students ever and followed the previous year’s record growth,” said a statement released by the US consulate here.

India accounts for one out of every six international students in the US.

Approximately three-fifths of Indian students are at the graduate level and three-fourths are in the STEM fields (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics).

“Higher education continues to be the bedrock of our people-to-people ties.

“More students from India studied in the US than ever before — at all levels — and I am especially pleased to see the record back-to-back, year-on-year growth in student numbers,” said US Ambassador Richard R. Verma.

“With efforts such as our Passport to India initiative, we are also seeing the number of American students in India beginning to grow,” he added.

The Open Doors report is published annually by the Institute of International Education in partnership with the US Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs.

According to the report, the number of international students in US colleges and universities surpassed one million for the first time during the 2015-16 academic year.

The number of international students increased by seven per cent over the previous year to a new high of nearly 1,044,000, representing five per cent of the total student population at US institutions.

This strong growth confirms that the US remains the destination of choice in higher education.

In 2015-16, there were nearly 69,000 more international students in US higher education compared to the previous year.

Michele Bond, Assistant Secretary of State for Consular Affairs, had said in Hyderabad recently that last year, the US mission in India issued 60,000 student visas.

The US consulate general in Hyderabad issued the largest number of student visas in India, more than any of the consulates and the embassy.

“This consulate general in Hyderabad issues fifth largest number of student visas in the world. It is at fifth position among more than 200 embassies and consulates around the world,” she had said.

Open Doors also reports that more than 313,000 US students received credit last year for study abroad during 2014-15, an increase of nearly three per cent over the previous year.

India is ranked 13th among the top 25 destinations of US study abroad.

The number of US students going to India to study for academic credit at their home university in the US decreased by 3.2 per cent to 4,438, although this number has remained relatively flat across the last five years at 4,500.

The release of the new Open Doors data marks the celebration of International Education Week, a joint initiative of the US Department of State and the US Department of Education to prepare Americans for a global environment and attract future leaders from other countries to study, learn, and exchange experiences in the US.

US President Barack Obama has nominated Kamala Shirin Lakhdhir, an Indian-origin diplomat as the next American ambassador to Malaysia. If confirmed by the Senate, Kamala Shirin Lakhdhir would replace Joseph Y Yun as the next US ambassador to Malaysia.

Nomination of Lakhdhir, a career member of the Foreign Service Class of Counselor who was Executive Assistant to the Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs from 2011 to 2015, was announced by the White House along with several other key administration appointments.

“I am confident that these experienced and hardworking individuals will help us tackle the important challenges facing America, and I am grateful for their service. I look forward to working with them,” Obama said. Lakhdhir served as the US Consul General in Belfast, Northern Ireland, United Kingdom from 2009 to 2011.

She previously worked in the Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs as the Director of the Office of Maritime Southeast Asia from 2007 to 2009 and as the Special Assistant to the Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs from 2005 to 2006.

From 2001 to 2005, she was a Political Officer at the US embassy in Beijing. From 2000 to 2001, she served as a Pearson Fellow in the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Asia and the Pacific Subcommittee and the House Financial Services Committee, Monetary Policy and Trade Subcommittee.

Since joining the Foreign Service in 1991, Lakhdhir has also served as a Political Officer in Indonesia and as a Consular Officer in Saudi Arabia. She received a BA from Harvard College and an MS from the National War College. Kamla’s father Noor Lakhdhir was born in Mumbai in mid 1920s. He received a scholarship to study at the University of California, Berkeley from where he graduated in 1952. He later moved to New York City.

NEW YORK CITY: The Consulate General of India, New York has begun accepting Indian passport applications through the new India Passport Application Centre (IPAC) in New York, which will be operated by M/s Cox and Kings Global Services with effect from May 9th 2016 (Monday). A service fee of US$ 19.95 (inclusive of all taxes) per application will be charged at the IPAC in addition to applicable passport fee.

The IPAC in New York is located at M/s Cox and Kings Global Services (CKGS)
5th floor, 336 West, 37th Street, New York 10018; Website: www.passport.in.ckgs.us

The hours of operation include: Monday to Friday: Submission of passport applications: 0900 hrs. – 1530 hrs; Collection of processed passports:1530 hrs. – 1800 hrs; and Call Centre and Information Desk: 0900 hrs. – 1900 hrs.

The India Passport Application Centre in New York, which wass operated by M/s BLS International Services Limited has closed its operations on May 6^th 2016 (Friday).

Return of processed passports: Renewed passports for all passport applications accepted by BLS will be returned to applicants by BLS through walk-in collection or through postal dispatch, where the applicant has chosen for postal delivery. For passport applications under processing at the Consulate during the transition period, renewed passports will be returned to the applicants by the Consulate General of India, New York. Applicants are advised to check tracking status of their applications on BLS website. BLS will also inform all those applicants by email whose renewed passports will be returned directly by the Consulate. In such cases, renewed passports will be available for walk-in collection at the Consulate [3 East, 64 Street, New York 10065] or will be dispatched by post, where the applicant has chosen for postal delivery.

All applicants who have submitted their passport applications to BLS IPAC are advised to check status of their application on the BLS website and make immediate arrangements to pick up their renewed passports from BLS, if they are now available at the BLS IPAC.

In order to avoid any inconvenience, applicants who are not in immediate need for renewal of their passports are advised to submit their passport applications to the new IPAC on or after 9 May 2016 (Monday). For further information / clarification, applicants may send an email to the Consulate at < helpline@indiacgny.org >

An Indian American couple has been convicted on charges of H-1B visa fraud and will face up to 30 years imprisonment, the Department of Justice has said. Raju Kosuri, 44, and his wife Smriti Jharia, 45, of Ashburn, Virginia, along with four co-conspirators fraudulently applied for more than 800 illegal immigration benefits under the H-1B visa program.

The indictment alleges that Kosuri has set up a network of shell companies that he presents to immigration authorities as independent businesses in need of Indian workers, but which he in fact owns and controls.

It alleged that Kosuri and his co-conspirators use these entities to file petitions for non-existent job vacancies at Kosuri’s data center in Danville, Virginia. The visa fraud scheme involves the forgery of numerous individuals’ signatures on visa petitions and exhibits without their knowledge.

The indictment alleges that Kosuri has generated gross proceeds of at least $20 million over the life of the scheme, the Justice Department said. The indictment also alleged that Kosuri and Jharia conspired with a consultant named Raimondo Piluso to defraud the Small Business Administration, by submitting fraudulent HUBZone applications.

Kosuri, Jharia, and Piluso are alleged to have concealed the true location, ownership, and employees of a business called EcomNets Federal Solutions in order to obtain federal loan and contract preferences, from which they have generated $150,000 in loan proceeds and five contract awards.

WASHINGTON – On April 1, 2016, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) will begin accepting H-1B petitions subject to the fiscal year (FY) 2017 cap. U.S. businesses use the H-1B program to employ foreign workers in occupations that require highly specialized knowledge in fields such as science, engineering and computer programming.

The congressionally mandated cap on H-1B visas for FY 2017 is 65,000. The first 20,000 H-1B petitions filed for individuals with a U.S. master’s degree or higher are exempt from the 65,000 cap.

USCIS expects to receive more than 65,000 petitions during the first five business days of this year’s program. The agency will monitor the number of petitions received and notify the public when the H-1B cap has been met. If USCIS receives an excess of petitions during the first five business days, the agency will use a computer-generated lottery system to randomly select the number of petitions required to meet the cap. USCIS will reject all unselected petitions that are subject to the cap as well as any petitions received after the cap has closed.

H-1B petitioners may still continue to request premium processing together with their H-1B petition. However, please note that USCIS has temporarily adjusted its current premium processing practice based on historic premium processing receipt levels and the possibility that the H-1B cap will be met in the first five business days of the filing season. In order to prioritize data entry for cap-subject H-1B petitions, USCIS will begin premium processing for H-1B cap-subject petitions requesting premium processing no later than May 16, 2016.

H-1B petitioners are reminded that when the temporary employment or training will be in different locations, the state where your company or organization’s primary office is located will determine where you should send your Form I-129 package, regardless of where in the United States the various worksites are located. Please ensure that when temporary employment or training will be in different locations, the address on page 1, part 1 of Form I-129 is for your organization’s primary office. Please note that when listing a “home office” as a work site location on Part 5, question 3, USCIS will consider this a separate and distinct work site location.

H-1B petitioners must follow all statutory and regulatory requirements as they prepare petitions in order to avoid delays in processing and possible requests for evidence. USCIS has developed detailed information, including an optional checklist, Form M-735, Optional Checklist for Form I-129 H-1B Filings, on how to complete and submit an FY 2017 H-1B petition. The optional checklist for FY 2017 will be available within the next week.

Cases will be considered accepted on the date USCIS receives a properly filed petition with the appropriate fees. For more information on the H-1B nonimmigrant visa program and current Form I-129 processing times, visit the H-1B FY 2017 Cap Season Web page or call the National Customer Service Center at 800-375-5283 or 800-767-1833 (TDD for the hearing impaired). We encourage H-1B applicants to subscribe to the H-1B Cap Season email updates located on the H-1B FY 2017 Cap Season Web page.

India’s Foreign Secretary Dr. S. Jaishankar visited Washington D.C. on 6-9 March 2016. The visit was aimed at reviewing the India-U.S. bilateral relations and preparing for India’s participation at the forthcoming Nuclear Security Summit later this month.

During his visit, Foreign Secretary had meetings with NSA Ambassador Susan Rice, Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzker, U.S. Trade Representative Mike Froman, Deputy Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Under Secretary of State Thomas Shannon, Under Secretary of State Rose Gotteemoeller as well as other senior officials. The meetings focused on further consolidating bilateral relations in the year ahead and enhancing convergence on regional and global issues. In this context, both sides agreed to work for achieving concrete results in key areas of bilateral cooperation including defense, trade& investment and civil nuclear energy. Foreign Secretary also previewed with the U.S. interlocutors the 4th Nuclear Security Summit and India’s participation therein.

In the U. S. Congress, Foreign Secretary had meetings with Chairman of Senate Foreign Relations Committee Senator Bob Corker, Chairman of Senate Armed Services Committee Senator John McCain and Chairman of Senate Intelligence Committee Senator Richard Burr to exchange views on bilateral, regional and international issues.

“When the UN Charter was adopted in 1945 – “we the peoples”-  in whose name the Charter was agreed to  numbered about 2.35 billion worldwide. Today “ we the people” are estimated to be  more than 7.3  billion . “We the peoples” have more than trebled since 1945,” Syed Akbaruddin, India’s Envoy to the United Nations, told the world body members, while urging equitable representation at the United Nations and the Security Council.

Ambassador Syed Akbaruddin, Permanent Representative of India to the United Nations was addressing the Informal Plenary Meeting of the Intergovernmental Negotiations on ‘Question of equitable representation on an increase in the membership of the Security Council and other matters related to the Council’: ‘ Size of an Enlarged Council and Working Methods of the Council’ on 22nd February, 2016.

Ambassador Syed Akbaruddin pointed out that at the time of the signing of the UN Charter in 1945, the Security Council had 11 members including five permanent members and 6 non-permanent members and the UN comprised of 51 members. In other words, there was one Council member for every five Member-States and 1 permanent member for every 10 members of the General Assembly. Today the membership of the UN has increased more than 3 times.

In essence, it was difficult to understand that if since 1945 the total population of the UN’s membership has increased more than 3 times, the number of  countries members of the UN has increased more than 3 times, Ambassador Syed Akbaruddin asked, there are “voices saying that increase of the size to less than 3 times what it was in 1945 is too much. Can someone explain to me the rationale of this numbers game?:

Ambassador Syed Akbaruddin criticized the argument by some at the United Nations that the low 20’s is compact and efficient while the mid 20’s or 27 seats results in undermining the efficiency and effectiveness of the Council.  “Efficiency is not merely an issue of numbers but stems from a broader set of factors such as credibility, equitability, legitimacy and representativeness,” he argued.  “We therefore must recognize that the case for optimal size of the expanded Council needs to be built on contemporary realities, as well as the need to ensure that the under-represented & unrepresented regions including the developing countries of Africa, Latin America and Caribbean and the vast majority of Asia and Pacific find their due place in this long overdue expansion of the size of the Council.”

Ambassador Syed Akbaruddin said, “Enlarged Council should enhance cooperation and coordination with regional and sub-regional organizations, particularly with the African Union as put forward by 5 countries (Australia, Poland, Romania, Viet Nam, Malaysia) and 42 members of L.69 Group. This proposal also has support of 54 African Countries.” Her also urged the UN to “formalize the provisional Rules of Procedure of the Security Council in order to improve its transparency and accountability as proposed by 14 countries (Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Grenada, Guyana, Haiti, Jamaica, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines and Trinidad and Tobago, Singapore, Malaysia, Cuba) and  54 Member States  from Africa.”

New York, NY: Cases of Indian children being smuggled to the United States are a reality, a U.S. diplomat said last week, reacting to a media report that police had busted an international child trafficking racket operating in the southern city of Bengaluru.

Police  said they had arrested 16 members of a gang suspected of sending at least 25 children from the states of Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and Gujarat illegally to the United States using fake documents in order to acquire visas.

Craig L. Hall, U.S. Consul General in Kolkata, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation he was not aware of this case as the visas had reportedly been acquired from the U.S. consulate in Chennai but said there had been similar cases in the past.

“We have seen examples of this,” Hall said on the sidelines of an international conference on human trafficking in eastern town of Siliguri.

“Last year, the United States issued more a million visas to Indians who were travelling to the United States and among those million, there were very likely cases of children being smuggled and trafficked into the U.S.”

According to a report by the New Delhi Television (NDTV), the children were matched with adult couples and made to pose as a family, presenting false documents at the U.S. consulate to get the required visas for their journey. The adult couples then flew to the United States with the children, left them there and returned to India.

The suspected traffickers told police they were reuniting the children with their parents in the United States, all illegal immigrants, NDTV reported. But it quoted police officials as saying they believed the children were being sold.

Hall said the U.S. consulate in Kolkata was thorough in the way it granted visas and that dozens of applications were rejected annually based on suspicions that human trafficking was involved.

“I know in our consulate in Kolkata, we have good relations with the law enforcement agencies and we have a team in the embassy dedicated and watching out for cases like this and when we suspect them, we investigate together with the Indian authorities,” said Hall.

“Dozens of applications have been blocked as we have thought them to be very suspicious. We feel confident that we have good systems in place and this is something we are vigilant about.”

According to the National Crime Records Bureau, there were 5,466 cases of human trafficking registered in 2014, an increase of 90 percent over the past five years. Activists say this is a gross under-estimation of the scale of the problem.

Thousands of Indians – largely poor, rural women and children – are lured to big cities each year by traffickers who promise good jobs but sell them into domestic or sex work or to industries such as textile workshops.

In many cases, they are not paid or are held in debt bondage. Some go missing, and their families cannot trace them.

Hall said New Delhi and Washington were working together to combat human trafficking and welcomed plans by India to draft a new anti-trafficking law and the creation a central agency to better coordinate between various states and institutions.

Under pressure from Congress to improve tracking of foreign visitors, the Department of Homeland Security has produced its first partial estimate of those who overstay their permits to be in the U.S.Out of 45 million U.S. arrivals by air and sea whose tourist or business visas expired in fiscal 2015, the agency estimates that about 416,500 people were still in the country this year. Nearly 13,000 of those who have overstayed their visa granted to Visit India, the report stated.  The government’s report was limited in scope and includes no reliable trend data that could shed light on whether overstays are growing or declining.

Homeland Security’s methodology and reported results have at least two potential drawbacks. First, the number of overstays counts each person who overstays once, but the 45 million admissions covered by the report include some people who came to the U.S. more than once with visas or other permits that expired in fiscal 2015.

The nation with the most visitors who failed to leave at the end of their authorized stay was Canada, followed by Mexico and Brazil, according to the report. Among total foreign arrivals counted in the report, those three nations accounted for more than a third of those who overstayed.

Congress has required the government to improve tracking of foreign visitors who overstayed their deadline to leave since the late 1990s, but interest ramped up after five of the Sept. 11, 2001, plane hijackers turned out to be foreigners on expired visas. Data on those who overstay also could add detail to the portrait of the nation’s 11.3 million unauthorized immigrants, because it is not known how many arrived legally versus illegally.

The country profile of foreign visitors who overstay and became unauthorized is somewhat different from that of unauthorized immigrants overall. Mexicans made up 49% of unauthorized immigrantsin 2014 (including some who arrived decades ago), but according to the report, they account for only about 9% of foreigners (or 42,000 people) who arrived by air and sea, overstayed and had not left by the end of fiscal 2015. Canadians, meanwhile, account for about 1% of unauthorized immigrants in Pew Research Center’s latest estimate for 2012, but 19% of overstayers who had not departed by the end of fiscal 2015, or 93,000 people.

The Homeland Security report on overstays was limited to foreigners whose permission to be in the U.S. expired during the 2015 fiscal year, which ended Sept. 30. It examined admissions for business or pleasure by air or sea, which were 85% of arrivals with visitor permits that expired in fiscal 2015, but not other smaller categories such as visas for students or for temporary workers and their families. It covered only those who arrived by sea or air, not land arrivals from Canada or Mexico, which account for most temporary visitors.

The report indicates that the number of foreign visitors who overstay dwindles over time. In all, the report said that out of the 45 million arrivals who were supposed to depart in fiscal 2015, about 527,000 remained in the country after their permission to stay expired, a rate of 1.17%. Some of these overstays later departed, but 483,000 were still in the U.S. at the end of the fiscal year on Sept. 30, a rate of 1.07%. More left the U.S. after that, so by Jan. 4, 2016, an estimated 416,500 were still in the country, a rate of 0.9%. The DHS report said some have likely left since then, or obtained or renewed a legal visa.

If each visitor were counted only once, the 45 million admissions figure would be smaller, and the share of people who overstay would be larger than the reported overstay rate. DHS did not report the number of temporary visitors for business or pleasure who enter the U.S. more than once during the year.

New York, NY; January 24, 2016: Of the nearly nine lakh Indians who visited the US on visitor or business visa in 2015, more than 14,000 overstayed, a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) report has said.

According to the ‘Entry/Exit Overstay Report for Fiscal 2015’, of the nearly 45 million non-immigrant visitor admissions through air or sea, a total of 527,127 overstayed their welcome.

In other words, 98.83 percent left the US on time between October 2014 and September 2015, the DHS report said.

Overstaying means a non-immigrant who was admitted into the US for specific, temporary purpose stayed on after his or her lawful admission period ended.

While the report focuses on non-immigrant visitors on B1 and WB business or pleasure (B2 and WT) visas, it does not include figures pertaining to work visas like H-1B or on F-1 student visas. Due to further departures by individuals by January 4, 2016, the DHS was able to confirm the departures of over 99 percent of non-immigrant visitors scheduled to depart in FY 2015 by air and sea. The number continues to grow.

The DHS report said countries with ties to terrorism had significant numbers still in the US: 1,435 from Pakistan, 681 (Iraq), 564 (Iran), 440 (Syria), 219 (Yemen), 219 (Afghanistan) and 56 from Libya.

New York City’s Commissioner for Immigrant Affairs, Nisha Agarwal, visited India Home’s Desi Senior Center on December 2, 2015, on the occasion of First Year Anniversary of the center. Councilman Rory Lancman and the Consul General for Bangladesh, Shammem Ashan, as well as Dr. Wahedur Rahman, the President of Jamaica Muslim Center, were also invited guests.

Commissioner Agarwal spoke about new initiatives from the Mayor’s Office of Immigrant Affairs that would help immigrant seniors.  She said many immigrant seniors don’t apply for citizenship because of cost, or difficulty with the qualifying exam. She said that many don’t understand that under certain circumstances, especially for older Individuals, the strict requirements are often waived.  She offered to send representatives to Desi Senior Center to help our seniors better understand not only the citizenship process, but also their legal rights.

India Home as “second home”

Councilman Rory Lancman and the Consul General for Bangladesh, Shameem Ashan spoke very highly of the services offered by India Home.  Councilman Lancman, said that he was “enormously proud” of this program,” and the fact that our members come to the center “even in the rain,” and that they consider it their “second home.”

Today there are some 232 million migrants around the world living outside their home country. Many risk their lives to flee poverty and conflict in search of greater economic and social opportunities in more developed regions. But often, they’re greeted with even greater hardship, or worse, become trapped in cycles of abuse and exploitation.

A new film called I Am Not Here by Academy Award-nominated Indian filmmaker Ashvin Kumar, made in association with the United Nations Human Rights Office of the High Commissioner (OHCHR), explores these issues through the lives of three women. From Trinidad, Bolivia, and Bangladesh, they migrated abroad to become domestic workers in New York City, Switzerland, and Malaysia, respectively. Through their stories, the film depicts the isolation, constant fears of deportation, and physical abuse that remain common among this vulnerable group.

On December 18 in Mumbai and December 19 in New Delhi, Asia Society in India hosted screenings of the film followed by a panel discussion with the crew and other migrant advocates. Ahead of the event, director Ashvin Kumar, Christina MacGillivray, the film’s co-producer and lead researcher, and Pia Oberoi, a migration advisor at OHCHR, spoke with Asia Society Blog about the film and exploitation of migrants.

What drew you to making this film?

Ashvin Kumar: From the start, I think I put it out there to the UN that doing a facts-and-stats sort of Nat-Geo type documentary may miss a trick or two. I wanted to go behind the figures and the nameless statistics and tell the human, emotional story about these women. Too often those who make policies forget — or rather, it’s easy to forget — that these are real people with real families and ties. The idea — in my films always — is to link the personal life experience of my audience with those who are appearing on screen. So themes like a mother separated by economic necessity from her child for over two decades. I want to put the audience in those shoes and take them for a short stroll, just to see how it must feel.

How did you choose the subjects of your film?

Christina MacGillivray: It was genuinely a grassroots door-to-door research effort. In most cases, people in an undocumented situation in any country fear sharing their stories because the risk of deportation and arrest are too great. Why come forward on film if you are risking your safety, and the safety and education of your children? It is difficult. To gain trust, I first went through dozens of nonprofits across the three continents. But you also need to speak with a person on the ground in a city in order for them to understand you are here to help. In New York City, it started in one woman’s living room. She gave me another number. I trekked across the city, spoke with another woman and it went on and on like this. In Malaysia I interviewed around 40 women, many of whom had stories nearly as difficult as the young woman in the film. We are grateful to the women — both those who appeared in the film and to the many who shared their stories that led to the film — for the courage it took to come forward and speak out.

How did you get these women to open up on camera?

Ashvin Kumar: Be it talking to ex-militants in Kashmir or undocumented women in various parts of the world, there is a cathartic, healing quality in the act of speaking to someone. I try to discover what it is about the person I am talking to that will win their trust. People who have survived ordeals don’t trust easily. The idea is to get behind that bluster they’ve put up as a defense for themselves. In the case of Jennifer [the migrant from Trinidad living in New York City], for instance, it was really hard to get her story properly. We went over it many times, and each time it was facts and figures: “In year so-and-so I came here and did that.” It wasn’t until we got her really comfortable in her bedroom and let the camera roll without interrupting her, gently nudging the conversation along, that we got the interview in the beginning of the film.

We were also dealing with Malay and Spanish for three-quarters of the interviews in the film. Though I was asking the questions, I didn’t understand a word of what they were saying. We had translators with us, but in an interview you don’t want the subject to lose the moment. I had to just look into their eyes, and feel what they were saying and then throw out another question. That was a huge challenge.

The film depicts a 17-year-old domestic worker that had been under the complete control of her employer and suffered extreme torture and sexual abuse — which the employer managed to avoid being prosecuted for. Are there any countries that are doing better than others at protecting vulnerable migrants like this?

Pia Oberoi: Sadly, the abuse of migrant domestic workers (particularly those who are in an irregular situation) is widespread in every region of the world; especially because, in many countries, domestic work is not considered a form of work and is therefore not protected by domestic labor laws. I would refer people to the OHCHR publication Behind Closed Doors, which was drafted to accompany this film and provides a sense of where there is good practice (South Africa has robust laws in place in this regard, as does Uruguay). The countries that are signatories to the recent International Labor Organization (ILO) Convention 189 on domestic work have taken at least a first step towards protecting the rights of these vulnerable people.

There have been frequent reports of cruelty and inhuman treatment directed towards domestic workers in Malaysia, as well as in the Gulf countries (see a recent Amnesty International report on Qatar).

Looking at the big global picture, do you have a sense of whether exploitation of domestic workers is getting any better or worse?

Pia Oberoi: That’s a slightly difficult question to answer, as with most human rights questions! On the one hand, the international legal framework has certainly been buttressed by the ILO Convention 189, as well as other initiatives such as the General Comment No. 1 of the Committee on Migrant Workers, and initiatives such as the joint program of work between OHCHR and ILO. On the other hand, the abuses against domestic workers, given that they take place in private homes with little scrutiny, continue, and even one story like [the 17-year-old girl in Malaysia] is one too many.

The other aspect highlighted by the film is that when someone is in an irregular situation, they are generally vulnerable to exploitation because they are in constant fear of detection and deportation and so cannot challenge an employer who pays them less than the going rate, or a policeman who demands a bribe. Yet in most countries in Europe, for example, there is an almost total lack of legal channels for migrants to enter as domestic workers, meaning that most workers are irregular. We need to value domestic workers as human beings with human rights, and ensure that domestic work is decent work.

What was the most shocking thing you learned in the course of making the film?

Ashvin Kumar: The horrific torture that the girl in Malaysia had to suffer was not dissimilar to horror stories of torture and human rights abuses I’ve chronicled in Kashmir. To hear of such heinous crimes in the domestic space against child of 14 or 15 — with no legal consequences for the perpetrators — in one of the top Asian economies made my skin crawl. Things like that are very, very hard to stomach.

In what could affect hundreds of Indian IT companies, the U.S. Congress has doubled a special fee on the popular H-1B and L-1 visas raising it up to $4,500 to fund a 9/11 healthcare act and biometric tracking system that will. Congressional leaders, while agreeing on the $1.1 trillion spending bill, yesterday decided to impose a special fee of $4,000 on certain categories of H-1B visas and $4,500 on L-1 visas.

According to the agreed bill, the new $4,000 fee would apply to companies having at least 50 employees with 50 per cent of their employees on H-1B or L-1 visa. Such companies would have to pay a new fee of $4,000 for H-1B visas and $4,500 for L-1 visas.

While the specific provisions of the spending bill has no mention of Indian IT companies, the language of the bill has been written in such a way that it would have a big impact on Indian IT companies.

Though the lawmakers behind the bill described it as a temporary provision, the new H-1B and L-1 visa fee increase is for a period of 10 years as against a previous provision of five years. The previous such provision from 2010 to 2015 of $2,000 for H-1B visas lapsed on September 30.

With about 30 million people of Indian origin living outside India, a new global community of Indian origin has been developed. Most people of Indian origin living in developed countries have become highly successful in business and professions. If their professional expertise and financial resources are to be pooled together, it will benefit not only people of Indian origin but also their countries and India. In addition, people of Indian origin could assume a new role in providing help in case of crisis to their communities around the world. That has been the perspectives of the community leadership in the last in the last three decades.

Of the 30 million, about 50% constitute the first generation immigrants from India and their immediate families, generally termed as non-resident Indians (NRIs). This is the group one should reach out for investments and for business and technology collaborations in India. This group also has taken great interest in India’s developments. Where are these communities? They are spread across the Middle East, USA, Canada, U.K. and other European countries, Australia and Southeast and Far Eastern countries.

Some of the issues of the community are as follows: It is in India’s interest to engage those citizens of India to take an active role in its development. With increasing trend in migration, the NRI/PIO population outside India is likely to increase in future. In this borderless society, India must show its Indian citizens living outside India that they are full participants in Indian democracy.

NRI Voting Process in Indian Elections and Representation in Indian Parliament – Need to develop online voting process for NRIs living outside India so that they can vote in Indian elections.

If we take a step further, for 15 million Indian citizens living outside India, there should be representation in the Indian Parliament, either through direct election for a couple seats in Lok Sabha (which may need a constitutional amendment) or appointment of a couple of MPs in Rajya Sabha. Pro-active Role for Indian Missions to Reach Out and Help Indian Citizens Needing Emergency Assistance

Although MOIA has set up such programs, the Indian Missions abroad must be pro-active by reaching out to the Indian cultural and social service community groups to reach out such people and provide services to them in terms of an emergency assistance.

Many NRIs and NRI organizations have taken major initiatives in supporting their former schools and colleges, some have set up schools and colleges in their villages and towns, while others have been supporting social and environmental causes. However, many face major hurdles in such efforts. Even if we set up a charitable organization in India, we can not send money to that charity until and unless it has been cleared by the Home Ministry which takes a long time. This clearance process time must be reduced. NRIs/PIOs are interested in these initiatives. However, we still need the modalities of involving in such initiatives. These include how we can help in various Indian states in such initiatives.

About 110 detainees, largely from South Asia, at three immigration detention centres in Alabama and California are on hunger strike demanding an end to their indefinite confinement and improved conditions.

The hunger strikes started Wednesday at detention centres in Etowah County, Alabama, Theo Lacey facility in Orange County, California, and Otay detention facility in San Diego, California, according to Vice News.

Most of the hunger strikers are Bangladeshi. They also include detainees from India, Pakistan, Nigeria, Cameroon, Ethiopia and Togo.

The detainees are calling for an end to all detention and deportation, according to Fahd Ahmed, executive director of Desis Rising Up and Moving (DRUM), a New York-based organization that advocates on behalf of South Asian immigrants.

They are also demanding the abolition of the so-called “bed quota,” which requires immigration authorities to hold an average of 34,000 people in detention on any given day, he said. All of the hunger strikers are said to be asylum seekers that have passed the “credible fear” stage of the asylum review process, although some have since had their claims denied, Vice News said.

According to a 2010 Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) policy, asylum seekers with credible fear findings are supposed to be automatically considered for parole from detention. Some of the hunger strikers have been held for two years.

Many of the hunger strikers are said to support the Bangladesh National Party (BNP), the country’s second largest political group that according to a recent Department of Homeland Security (DHS) decision qualifies as an undesignated “Tier III” terrorist organization.

The latest hunger strike was preceded by a similar action in October, when dozens of immigrant detainees in El Paso and Louisiana’s La Salle facility refused meals for about 10 days.

Former El Paso hunger striker Kamran Ahmed said on Thursday that ICE has mischaracterized his political views in relation to the BNP. “We don’t know why they call us terrorists,” he said. In addition to ending indefinite detention and the ICE bed quota, the latest hunger strikers are also calling for better conditions, including access to better health care, clean clothes and unspoiled food, and a less repressive disciplinary regime.

According to a 2013 report by Detention Watch Network, the conditions at Etowah County Detention Centre, where about 48 people are on hunger strike, “are among the worst in country.” “Many of us even attempted to commit suicide for fearing of the government retribution if deported,” an asylum-seeker named Mahbubur who is being held at Etowah was quoted as saying in a press release about the hunger strike.

The U.S. Congress is considering a new bill that will majorly affect people who are significantly behind on their taxes. The law would give the State Department the right to withhold passports from individuals who are at least $50,000 behind on their tax bill, which is considered “seriously delinquent.”

According to estimates, this affects a fairly small number of people, and there will be exceptions for people who have worked out a payment plan with the IRS and for people who are challenging their bill in court. One group that might be affected by the potential law is expatriates: American citizens who live abroad but still pay U.S. taxes rely much more on their passports on a day-to-day basis than most citizens do.

The Washington Post explains that the we-pull-your-passport-if-you-owe-the-taxman ruling is actually tucked within a bigger bill about highway appropriations. The bill will be voted on next month and is likely to pass, which would put the passport rule into effect as of January 1, 2016.

Although this law is new, there are other things that can affect your passport status. Passports can be taken away from people who have been arrested and are considered flight risks. You should also bear in mind that many countries will not let you enter, even if your passport is valid, if it does not have three to six months remaining on it, or a certain number of empty pages. In other words: check your documents early and often.

The U.S. has expressed concerns over India’s reluctance to recognize a U.S. congressionally mandated visa for people the U.S. government considers victims of human trafficking. “We are deeply concerned by reports that some Indian nationals holding U.S. T-visas have experienced travel restrictions,” the State Department said in a response to questions from Reuters. “The current status of the policy is unclear, and we continue to ask the government of India at high levels in Washington and in New Delhi to fully repeal the policy.”

India has been confiscating the passports of human trafficking victims from the U.S., and is mandating that people carrying such passports name their exploiters, a cause of concern by U.S. officials. In 2013, the U.S. State Department gave T-visas to former Indian employees of Signal International. T-visas are given – rarely – to victims of human trafficking and allow the carrier to return to the home country to collect family and return to the U.S.

The Indian Embassy in Washington said in a statement in response to questions from Reuters: “Many individuals seek to misuse the trafficking visa route to emigrate to the U.S. Appropriate measures are taken in such cases.” India, however, is mindful of hardships “faced by genuinely affected persons” who receive T-visas and provides them with consular services, said the Embassy. “It is not a blanket ban,” said a source at India’s Ministry of External Affairs in New Delhi. “We are not throwing the baby out with the bath water. The issue is: how can the U.S. be the sole arbiter of what constitutes human trafficking?”

According to reports, Signal workers from India had been recruited with false promises of a green card that would allow them to permanently remain in the U.S. Many workers – mostly welders and pipefitters from Kerala – paid more than $20,000 to recruiters in India to be able to work in the U.S., repairing the ravaged Gulf Coast which was decimated by Hurricane Katrina.

Once here, the workers were forced to live in cramped, squalid conditions that they were forced to pay for from their salaries. The workers also complained of substandard food and of being treated differently than Signal’s non-Indian employees.

The workers also received only 10-month guest-worker visas, instead of the promised green cards. The guest-worker visas meant that workers could not switch to a different employer, for fear of losing their immigration status. After the workers escaped from Signal’s facilities in Mississippi in 2008, several lawsuits were filed against Signal. The giant shipping magnate settled all suits earlier this year for $20 million, the largest amount ever awarded in a human trafficking case (http://bit.ly/1e0WyQl). Signal then declared bankruptcy, but also issued an apology to the workers, noting it had never meant to exploit them.

As per a Reuters report, between July 2014 and March 2015, at least 20 passports of Indians stamped with T-visas were confiscated by authorities at Indian airports. The news agency cited Jean Stockdale, a church worker who helps trafficking victims apply for the visas from her base in New Jersey.

The confiscating of passports has stopped. But Indian government documents reviewed by Reuters show that New Delhi has imposed restrictions over the past 16 months on Indian passports stamped with T-visas. T-visa holders face long delays in renewing passports at Indian consulates. They also must provide confidential information to the Indian government that they had previously submitted to the U.S. authorities, including details about who had trafficked them, according to the documents, legal advocates and interviews with T-visa holders.

Legal advocates have claimed that India’s failure to recognize all T-visas and its attempt to seek confidential information on alleged traffickers raises the risk that victims or their families will face reprisals. The topic was raised at a hearing on Capitol Hill by Rep. Chris Smith, a Republican from New Jersey who authored the Trafficking Victims Protection Act in 2000, which led to creation of the T-visas.

The Indian Government has declared that Indian passports that are handwritten or issued before 2001 with a validity of 20 years are no longer valid for travel, as of Nov. 24, 2015. As per reports here, the International Civil Administration Organization has deemed that all passports issued anywhere in the world must now be machine-readable to comply with airport regulations worldwide. Foreign governments may deny a visa or entry to a person travelling on a non-machine readable passport from Nov. 25.

Venkata Ramana, a spokesman for the San Francisco Indian Consulate, was quoted to have told the media that “Hand-written Indian passports and passports issued before 2001 must be converted to electronic, scannable passports to conform with international standards.” He noted that many people have already converted their passports, and guided readers to cgisf.org for instructions on how and where to apply for a new passport.

The Indian Embassy noted in a bulletin that 286,000 handwritten passports were still in circulation as of November 2014. The Embassy noted that the Government of India has been issuing machine-readable passports since 2001.

“Indian citizens residing in India and abroad and holding such passports with validity beyond Nov. 24, 2015 are advised to apply for re-issue of their passports well before the deadline in order to avoid any inconvenience in obtaining valid visa or international travel,” stated the Embassy.

The Embassy also noted: “Many international travelers may not realize that having an unexpired passport is sometimes not enough to obtain visas or to enter certain foreign countries. Indian citizens traveling on passports which may expire in less than six months should renew their passports before any upcoming international travel. The universal practice in vogue now is: ‘Once your passport crosses the nine-year mark, it is time to get new passport,’” said the Embassy, adding that it was especially important to check the validity of passports for minors, whose travel documents are only valid for five years. Adults receive 10-year passports.