US Immigration News

The US Embassy in Ghana said on 12 Sept. that visa applicants who missed their original appointment date would not pay an additional fee of 100 dollars. Such applicants will only have to use their original receipt number to have their date rescheduled.This new arrangement is one of the measures put in place by the Embassy to reduce waiting time for interviews and to offer better services. The statement said visa applicants who would have their applications cancelled or appointments changed would have their appointments rescheduled.

Earlier this year, the US announced a new visa called the E-3, for Australians only. workpermit.com has received additional information on this visa from the US State Department, and we are pleased to announce that you may now start applying for the E-3 visa. This information should come as great news to any Australian who has been thinking of moving to the US; in the past, Australians had to battle for an H1B visa. Now they have a category all to themselves.

Julius and Ella Beno are Hungarian immigrants in the US, ages 81 and 75. They survived when the Russians invaded Budapest in 1956 and arrived in the USA with two suitcases and a 2-week-old baby. They've prospered ever since.

As Hurricane Katrina bore down on their waterfront community last week, they argued vigorously about whether to leave or stay. He wanted to go. She wanted to stay. He finally left, cussing her in Hungarian as he walked out the door and drove off.

Thousands of Vietnamese settled in the US Gulf Coast region after the upheaval of two wars in their homeland. Hurricane Katrina uprooted them again.

Quan Hong Huynh was sent to a "re-education" camp in his native Vietnam in 1975 and later fled to the United States through Malaysia.

"We have experience about escape, about evacuation," Huynh, 55, said outside the Houston church where he was among hundreds of Vietnamese-Americans being sheltered. Their homes 300 miles to the east were damaged or destroyed.

Across the US, a small group of businesses is testing a Department of Homeland Security program that can check immigration status with a few clicks on the Internet. The program would help employers determine if a new employee is in the US legally or illegally. The program will likely be at the heart of any federal immigration reform.

"It's not a question of 'can we fix this?' It's 'when and how?'" said Tamar Jacoby, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute think tank who specializes in immigration.

Record numbers of illegal immigrants who cross into the US from Mexico have died in the heat of the Arizona desert in the past year. At least 229 immigrants are known to have died since 1 October 2004, the US Border Patrol said.

Many died while wandering through vast desert areas where summer temperatures regularly soar past 40C (104 Farenheit).

In one Arizona county, a refrigerated trailer is being used to store up to 70 extra bodies as the morgue is full.