Wednesday, September 19, 2012
Thursday, September 13, 2012
Wednesday, September 12, 2012
USCIS: Notice Regarding USCIS Centralized Filing for Waivers of Inadmissibility
USCIS: Notice Regarding USCIS Centralized Filing for Waivers of Inadmissibility
Notice that this is for people OUTSIDE the US and who have previously been denied an immigration benefit!
Notice that this is for people OUTSIDE the US and who have previously been denied an immigration benefit!
Who qualifies for the "DREAM" Executive Order?
To be eligible for deferred action, you must:
- Have come to the United States before your sixteenth birthday.
- Have continuously lived in the U.S. since June 15, 2007, and up to the present time.
- Be present in the U.S. on June 15, 2012, and at the time of making your request for deferred action.
- Not have lawful immigration status on June 15, 2012. This means you must have entered the U.S. without papers before June 15, 2012, or, if you entered lawfully, your lawful immigration status must have expired as of June 15, 2012.
- Be at least 15 years old, if you have never been in deportation proceedings or your proceedings were terminated. If you are currently in deportation proceedings, have a voluntary departure order, or have a deportation order, and are not in immigration detention, you may request deferred action even if you are not yet 15 years old.
- Be 30 years old or younger as of June 15, 2012 (a person who had not yet turned 31 on that date is also eligible).
- Be in school, have graduated or obtained a certificate of completion from high school, have obtained a general education development (GED) certificate, or be an honorably discharged veteran of the Coast Guard or U.S. armed forces. If you are enrolled in school on the date that you submit your deferred action application, that will be considered to "be in school." See below for more information about meeting the "be in school" requirement.
- Have not been convicted of a felony offense. A felony is a federal, state, or local criminal offense punishable by imprisonment for a term exceeding one year.
- Have not been convicted of a significant misdemeanor offense or three or more misdemeanor offenses. See below for more information about offenses that may disqualify you.
- Not pose a threat to national security or public safety (DHS is still defining what these terms mean but has indicated that they include gang membership, participation in criminal activities, or participation in activities that threaten the U.S.).
- Pass a background check.
Need help? Send me a message!
September: National Preparedness Month
September is National Preparedness Month. Have you taken steps to prepare for an emergency?
According to the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), three elements of good preparation are:
Taking these steps could help you and your family in the event of an emergency. |
Median income falls, but so does poverty
Median income falls, but so does poverty
@CNNMoney September 12, 2012: 3:05 PM ET
NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- Middle-class families continued to suffer in the aftermath of the Great Recession, and the poverty rate fell slightly, according to U.S. Census Bureau data released Wednesday.
Median household income fell to $50,054 in 2011, down 1.5% from a year earlier. Income inequality widened, as the highest income echelon experienced a jump, while those in the middle saw incomes shrink.
Meanwhile, the national poverty rate eased to 15.0% in 2011, down slightly from 15.1% the year before. Some 46.2 million people fell below the poverty line last year, and one in five children were poor.
The poverty threshold for a family of four was $23,021.
Most experts were expecting an increase in poverty, but Census officials said a rise in the number of people working full time helped keep the rate in check.
Income inequality widens
Over the past year, the rich got richer, though the poor didn't get poorer. And those in the middle were pinched hard.
The top 1% saw their income grow by 6% in 2011, while the highest quintile of earners gained 1.6%, according to Census. But the middle 60% of Americans lost ground, falling between 1.6% and 1.9%. The poorest Americans did not see a significant change.
"A lot of the increase in inequality from 2010 to 2011 is driven by changes at the very top of the distribution," said David Johnson, chief of Census' social, economic, and housing statistics division.
The second and third quintile of Americans now take home only 23.8% of the nation's income, the lowest since the Johnson administration, said Tim Smeeding, the director for the Institute for Research on Poverty at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
"The big story is the squeeze in the middle- and lower-middle classes," he said. "They got whacked."
Some groups were hit harder than others. Those ages 35 to 44 and 55 to 64 had a drop in income, as did white and black Americans. Households in the West experienced a 4.1% decline in income.
Overall, median income has fallen 8.9% from its peak in 1999. And it's fallen 8.1% since 2007, just before the Great Recession began.
Since the recession, incomes continued to fall, declining 4.1%. Though incomes dipped after the two preceding downturns, this drop is far worse, said Rakesh Kochhar, associate director for research, Pew Hispanic Center.
The number of men working full time, year-round increased by 1.7 million between 2010 and 2011, while the number of women rose by half a million.
This jump in people holding down full-time jobs may be the reason why poverty remained essentially the same. The number of workers in the lowest income group holding down full-time jobs soared 17.3% in 2011.
In the south, for instance, there were 1.23 million more people working last year, while the number of people in poverty fell by around 740,000.
Hispanics were the only race to experience a decline in poverty, which fell to 25.3%, down from 26.5% a year earlier. Non-citizens saw a 2.5% decline in poverty.
Suburban poverty also fell, the Census Bureau said. Thanks to an additional 1.5 million suburbanites finding full-time jobs, some 740,000 folks there were lifted out of poverty.
But the poverty rate does not truly reflect the condition of poor Americans because it does not take into account roughly $900 billion in government assistance, said Robert Rector, a senior research fellow at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative group.
"The entire welfare state is off the books," he said, noting that the nation hasn't made any progress in enabling Americans to become self-sufficient since the War on Poverty began under Johnson.
Poverty and income inequality have been in the spotlight during the 2012 election. Democrats are positioning themselves as the defenders of the middle class, while casting Republicans as caring only about the rich.
Republicans are looking to overhaul several safety net programs, including turning Medicaid and food stamps into block grants in hopes of relieving the federal government's fiscal burden. Mitt Romney, meanwhile, is trying to paint President Obama as the entitlement president. The Republican presidential candidate is accusing Obama of trying to dismantle thewelfare-to-work system by allowing recipients to avoid the employment requirement. 
The heat is on...
As the election approaches, we see the campaign turning up the heat. No holding back, not consideration. Nothing is off limits. Want to know what the candidates are about???? Go to http://one.org/us/actnow/onevote2012/index.html?gclid=COCNh57PsLICFQeCQgodpn4AmQ
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)