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The Immigration and Nationality Act provides two nonimmigrant visa categories for persons wishing to study in the United States. The “F” visa is reserved for nonimmigrants wishing to pursue academic studies and/or language training programs, and the “M” visa is reserved for nonimmigrants wishing to pursue nonacademic or vocational studies.

 
F-Academic Students and M-Vocational Students Requirements

 
Foreign students seeking to study in the U.S. may enter in the F-1 or M-1 category provided they meet the following criteria:

 
The student must be enrolled in an “academic” educational program, a language-training program, or a vocational program;
The school must be approved by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS);
The student must be enrolled as a full-time student at the institution;
The student must be proficient in English or be enrolled in courses leading to English proficiency;
The student must have sufficient funds available for self-support during the entire proposed course of study; and
The student must maintain a residence abroad which he/she has no intention of giving up. (more…)

For Mr George Owino, going to America was not his priority, and the thought had not crossed his mind.   “I never applied for the green card by myself. It’s actually my aunt who enrolled my name for the lottery, and I happened to be a lucky winner,” says the University of Nairobi alumnus.

 
Excited, amazed, and even enthusiastic, Mr Owino knew that the green card was a godsend since he had no stable job. Like other Kenyans he thought the US Embassy would automatically offer an air ticket, accommodation and a job once he arrived in the US.

 
“Before I went to the US, I thought it was a country where there is too much money. Next, I thought that if you land in the US you automatically get a job,” he says. “That’s a dream in America. If you work hard, you’ll get what you want and I believe that America is a land of opportunities if you are smart.” (more…)

The glittering skyscrapers of New York, the Technicolor action of Hollywood and vibrant casino life of Las Vegas are the wild visions that Mr Job Kariu Ngugi nursed about the United States of America. For many people like Mr Ngugi, America is the place where dreams are born and opportunities seized.

 
Arriving in America in 1995 when he had just turned 21 , Mr Ngugi determined to study, earn a degree and come back to Kenya. He was later to learn that everything in America was not perfect.

 
“I was shocked that there are beggars, and there are wooden houses like in Kenya,” he says.

 
Nevertheless, his life took an unexpected turn, and a year later he won the green card lottery. Mr Ngugi was elated and returned to Kenya to process an immigrant visa.

 
“An applicant is given a deadline after which you cannot be issued with a visa,” he says.

 
Armed with the precious green card, Mr Ngugi was assured that he could legally work and live in the United States without fear of deportation. Like the thousands of fellow immigrants escaping from broken dreams in various countries, Mr Ngugi knew that he was an inch away from poverty – or riches.
 

He would see the sleek cars snaking through the streets of Boston, the jobs and the smoothness of life as compared to Nairobi. Though Mr Ngugi contends that the green card is just a piece of paper that grants you immigrant status in the US, he says it is a lifeline that has changed his life. (more…)

The U.S. health care system can be bewildering to foreign students. When graduate and international student Avigya Karki was injured during a soccer game, he had to be transported to the University Medical Center. “The ambulance ride was really expensive,” he said. “If I had known that, I would have asked a friend to give me a ride.”

Karki said his insurance, which is provided by the University, covered some costs, but he had to cover some out-of-pocket.
 

Dr. Kay Thomas, the director of the University’s International Student and Scholar Services, said some students have a hard time understanding health care in the United States.
 

“It’s almost unimaginable for students from some countries to understand the cost of health care,” she said.
 

The University requires that all international students and scholars have health insurance for themselves and their dependents during their time in the United States.
  (more…)

BRUSSELS, Belgium: A plan to set up a European “Blue Card” workers visa program to lure skilled labor to Europe was met with skepticism by EU nations Thursday, many of which questioned the need for the bloc to take a bigger role in national immigration policies. Many EU justice and interior ministers raised reservations at talks here over whether the EU should be launching a global job advertising blitz when such plans to set up a U.S.-style “Green Card” workers permit were already under way in most EU capitals.

“The whole question of legal migration should remain the purview of national member states because they are responsible for their own employment markets,” German Interior Minister Wolfgang Schaueble told EU officials who drafted the highly touted plan, which has been under way for more than three years. (more…)

A counsellor at the United States Embassy, Mr. Michael Evans has warned Ghanaians to desist from fraudulent marriages arranged to benefit from the Diversity Visa (DV) lottery programme. Fraud marriages, he said, make it harder for legitimate people to get their visas.

Speaking at a press conference in Accra, he said the US Embassy takes the issue of fraud very seriously and has made several arrests involving fraudulent marriages arranged to benefit from the DV programme.

“We work with the CID to identify and arrest those involved in perpetrating the fraud”, he said.

All marriages, he said, now undergo careful scrutiny because of the huge number of fraud marriages submitted during the application period. (more…)

On Sept. 27, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced that it is revamping the naturalization exam given to applicants for citizenship. According to Professor of Political Science Deborah Schildkraut, the Civics portion of the citizenship test had been under scrutiny for several years. “There was concern for a long time that the test was too easy,” Schildkraut said. “People felt that it needed to measure more meaningful things.”

The old test emphasized more trivia-based questions, such as “What is the name of the ship that brought the pilgrims to America?” The new test asks more detailed history questions, such as “The Federalist Papers supported the passage of the U.S. Constitution. Name one of the writers.” It also incorporates more questions on current U.S. poltics, recent events in America, U.S. geography and conceptual questions on U.S. government structure.

But at Tufts, even the easier exam would be challenging to some students, according to a Daily poll conducted this weekend. The Daily asked 24 students in the campus center and dining halls to answer a sample of 20 questions listed on the USCIS Web site as being used on the old, easier citizenship exam. The quiz included easier questions such as “For how long is the president elected?” and harder questions like “Name the amendments that guarantee or address voting rights,” (more…)

Prague- U.S. ambassador to the Czech Republic Richard Graber announced that the number of Czech applications for U.S. visas had dropped to 6.7 percent, which might qualify Czechs for inclusion in the U.S. visa waiver regime in one or two years. The 6.7 percent of rejected applications is well below the 10 percent which the recently passed U.S. legislation sets as the upper admissible limit for the visa-free regime.

Graber said all further steps to be taken for the visa duty to be lifted could be fulfilled within the current term of President George W. Bush that expires in January 2009.

Graber told journalists that the steps would definitely take no more than one or two years.

Graber said the Czech Republic and the United States also must reach agreement on a security memorandum.

Also important for the visa waiver regime introduction for Czechs is the completion of the U.S. electronic system that will monitor the arrivals of visitors to the United States.

The Czech government has been striving for the lifting of the visa duty for both tourist and working trips to the Untied States for a long time. (more…)

SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP) — The placards made clear this was not your typical immigrant rights march: “We played by the rules, now it’s your turn,” read one. “Legal immigrants keep America competitive,” read another. High-tech workers here on federal permits are speaking out — many for the first time — over rules that leave them in personal and professional limbo.

After Congress failed to reform immigration laws for the second year in a row, hundreds of the largely India- and China-born workers protested this summer in Silicon Valley and Washington, D.C. They were frustrated that the divisive debate over illegal immigration had overwhelmed efforts at comprehensive immigration reform.

“I’ve never held a banner before, but I don’t know what else to do,” said Gopal Chauhan, a high-tech employee who has been waiting seven years for a green card. “We usually have better things to do, like invent the next iPod.”

Legal immigrants who feel squeezed by limits on the number of green cards issued each year are trying to separate their complaints from the protests by illegal immigrants. And high-tech companies that say they can’t fill jobs because of a cap on skilled-worker visas have stepped up their long-standing plea for the cap to be raised.

“It gets too frustrating sometimes,” said Sandeep Bhatia, a software engineer from Mumbai who first applied for a green card in 2001.

Since then, Bhatia has completed an MBA and was joined in the U.S. by his wife Preeti, who also has an MBA. But he cannot be promoted to a job that would use his new skills, and Preeti can’t get a job, until the government finishes processing his green card. (more…)

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