http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/06/us/06speller.html?hp

Interesting excerpts:

Mr. Sah, who was born in India, came to the United States in 1990 and shortly before his entry visa expired the next year he applied for political asylum, saying that if he was forced to return to his home province in southeastern India he would be targeted by Muslims because of his involvement in a group called Vishwa Hindu Parishad, which he described as committed to Hindu nationalism. Mr. Sah acknowledged in his application that he had been active in organizing a campaign against Babri Mosque, in northern India, because it was “built on our sacred land” and that he “actively participated” in riots intended to demolish it. In 1992, after Mr. Sah had immigrated to the United States, Hindu extremists destroyed the mosque. In denying him haven, immigration officials noted that Mr. Sah “had participated in the persecution of non-Hindus and thus was ineligible for asylum.”

If this is the case, I have to say that this seems much more than an asylum case gone awry, and I don’t have much sympathy for the parents, although the kid is in a bad situation now.

On what basis???

Family based and Employment mostly.

Second, if a person wishes to immigrate to the U.S., and has a valid, approved immigrant petition to do so

On what basis???

A EU citizen does not even need a visitor’s visa to visit the US. EU student needs a student visa to study in the US, but EU student is not the same in the eyes of the US Immigration as a Indian/Pakistani student.

First, student visas, commonly known as F-1 visas (or F-4 for accompanying family members) are non-immigrant visas, meaning that you cannot immigrate to the U.S. using this visa. Getting an F-1 does not allow you to apply for permanent residence. (You may find a job and change your F to an H-1 and then have your employer apply with you for permanent residence, but that’s another story).

Second, if a person wishes to immigrate to the U.S., and has a valid, approved immigrant petition to do so, there is no need to prove that you will return to India. That is the point, and the main difference, from non-immigrant visas. Also, while there is a legal right to immigrant in these petition-based cases, it’s important to remember that this is based in immigration law that can be changed by an act of Congress. It is not a right under the U.S. Constitution, nor a God-given right.

Third, the rules regarding students applies to Europeans as well. A student from Portugal, for instance has to meet the same legal requirements as a student from India.

There are so many myths about immigration and the immigration process out there, many of which are fostered by touts willing to abuse the unsuspecting applicants and to sell them bad information. Please don’t add to that mix.

I am not arguing. I am just stating facts. If a person is of Indian ancestory wishes to immigrate to the US, he/she has to be either born with the right to immigrate to this nation (as in familial sponsorship) or has to prove as a student visa applicant that he/she will NOT seek immigration. There is NO argument about these facts. They are just facts of US Immigration policy.

That every first genner here is either “illegal” or, at the very least, abused the system?

Not quite!!! In the 60s and 70s student visa seekers did not have to convince a consulate member that he/she will not seek immigration, but that was not the case in the 90′s and at present. In the 60s my Dad had an option to immigrate to the US and he seriously considered it, as US govt. did allow Indian citizens with Engineering degrees to immigrate.

None of the above applies to Europeans.

I just want to point the race based system that US Immigration is, to point out that people dont really want to break the law.

I think there’s clearly a difference between someone who goes through the established process of being educated and trained in the USA and someone who whines about a bullshit asylum claim being overruled (granted, letting it hang for 10 years is awful on the US gov’t part). I feel bad for this kid, but I have to say that his parents are just as blameworth as our government. Wouldn’t the kid remain a US citizen, even living in India? Wouldn’t he still be eligible for all the same educational opportunities as other American citizens? In fact, assuming he had the right grades and SAT score, wouldn’t an application essay regarding his experience of being forcibly taken back to a “homeland” he’d never seen raise a lot more Harvard admissions committee eyebrows than “guys, I won the spelling bee”? I just think that the incredible emotional pain he must be going through is really not worth whatever he gains by staying. His parents had a role in choosing to split up the family, and they easily could have taken him home.

I don’t want to beat this into the ground or anything, but the whole “root for the Desi spelling bee champ” trend annoys me too. I know that some people think that the spelling bee represents some huge leap in Desi English-language skills, but I don’t see it. It’s just rote memorization, and displays none of the creative spark necessary to succeed in language-based disciplines (this doesn’t mean that spelling bee winners wouldn’t do well in these disciplines, it’s just that these are two separate skill sets). Spelling bees are just exercises in cramming as much unrelated, undefined, useless information into your brain as possible. And they test a skill that is increasingly useless in our society thanks to Microsoft Word and online dictionaries. This kind of learning might help you succeed in certain kinds of academic fields, but it’s AWFUL training for the complex problem solving required in the real world. From that perspective, a science-based club probably would be far more useful, since it at least teaches creative thinking and planning skills. But show me a Desi who won a literary contest or got a short story published and I would be even more impressed, since that would take true language skills, as well as a huge degree of self-confidence.

Ofcourse its true. I have no way of knowing how common or rare it is. My roommate did have assistanship but not to study Comp. Sceince, which he studied after he completed BioMed. I think a lot of student visa seeker’s dont realize that a University does not gain from funding a Grad student’s education in most cases (unless student signs up as a PhD candidate). What justification will the University give to local US Citizen undergrads who have to cough up 23 grand in tuition, while it funds foreign nationals Graduate studies??? But this almost obvious fact is lost on lot of people.

PhD is a different situation. With PhD (and some Master’s programs), students do engage in serious research, resulting in direct benefit to the University.

And yeah, watching 60 minutes today I realized, that there is another way brown people will be able to LEGALLY immigrate to the US. If only the brownland is fortunate to be INVADED by the US and there are massive fuck-ups of all sorts. Then the brown people will be welcome (as long as they are not muslim, which is what is happening to Iraqis).

I think he is caught up in his own web of lies, since Babri Masjid was not destroyed till 1992, he had left India in 1990.

Legal merits( it looks more like de-merits) of the Sah case is a seperate issue, which must have been ruled based on evidence and precedence.

Sah’s original asylum application provided evidence of his role in the persecution of Muslims by stating that Sah had a leadership role in a group favoring the demolition of the Babri Mosque. Sah bore the burden of refuting this evidence and demonstrating that he was not disqualified from seeking asylum. See Hernandez v. Reno, 258 F.3d 806, 812 (8th Cir. 2001); see also Elzour v. Ashcroft, 378 F.3d 1143, 1151 n.10 (10th Cir. 2004) (applying a similar allocation of burdens under a different provision of § 1158(b)(2)(A)).

LOL!