So after two weeks of excitement, looks like once again the US govt. will be taking thousands of legal, skilled immigrants for granted. Rumors are adrift that coming Monday USCIS will revise the July visa bulletin and will mark most of the visa categories as U or retrogressed. If that happens, it would be a sick sadistic joke coming from the govt. agencies. I think immigration-law.com lawyers are planning on filing a lawsuit against the govt agencies. Past 2 weeks people have been just working on this.. Getting vaccinated, bribing babus in India, aged parents running here and there and now this. They are just taking us and the lawyers for granted. Much time, money and other resources have been spent trying to get to a stage where skilled, talented immigrants do not have to spend resources worrying about their immigrant status. Just think, if the Einsteins of this world were constantly pestered by the then equivalent of USCIS, what would have happened. Probably we would have been living in a totally different world. NRIs, who are not permanent residents, remain exposed to the whimsical and sometimes sadistic attitude of the US government. It’s a shame that such NRIs (including yours truly) remain in this pitiful state, not truly belonging to any one place on this earth (like that proverbial Dhobi kaa Gadha..).

I think we are to be blamed for being in this state, for we lack the guts and the will to do something drastic to redress the broken immigration system of the US. On the other hand, the US government will continue playing ping pong with us, trying to please/hurt us at will. It surprises me that the intellectual lot that we are, we keep allowing the USCIS to continue playing games with us. This is understandable when this happens to the illegal and not-so-prosperous immigrants, but it completely beats me when I see us completely succumbing to the ways of the USCIS. With the CIR dead, the USCIS is now trying to save their own jobs at our expense. A lot of us and observers will say, “serves them right”. Meanwhile our “Beta” from the previous blog calls up his father to disclose this sad news to him, his voice morbid and sad:

Ring, ring..

Papa: Hello

Beta: Haan Papa, it’s me. There’s been a sad development. Now the dates will be again retrogressed coming Monday

Papa: do what does that mean?

Beta: it’ll take years and years for me to get a green card now

Papa: oh, so sad. Why don’t you come to Bangalore beta. We have everything here.

Beta: No papa, my H1 is still valid. I can keep getting is extended till eternity.

Papa: But what if the US comes up with a law, which will stop that as well

Beta: then probably I will come back to India

Papa: ok beta, whatever you think is right

Beta: ok papa, good night.. I am going to sleep.