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Elvira Sosa left Mexico for the United States more than 30 years ago, but last year was the first time she’d been counted as part of the U.S. Census.

Sosa was among thousands of illegal immigrants in Los Angeles who filled out a census form last year, and city officials said the response, especially among Latinos, might have saved the area money and congressional representation.

The increased count was purposeful: A Census Bureau outreach program urged undocumented workers to fill out the census and assured them that nothing on the form could be used against them.

The program included Spanish call centers that would field questions about the census, plus billboards, bus advertisements and fliers with information. Celebrities publicized the census, too.

The response: The 2010 census showed that the numbers of Latinos living in this country increased by 43%, from 35 million to more than 50 million, during the past 10 years.

Read more….

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It’s an age where almost every country is tightening its borders and increasing security in order to keep out unwanted elements and terrorist activities – after the recent spate of destruction on a mass scale, many more visa restrictions are in place. So if you’ve secured a visa to the USA as a tourist, a student, a non-immigrant worker, or in any other non-immigrant category, you must be careful not to abuse the privileges you’ve been given. There are consequences to overstaying your visa, and they’re harsh and could have a severe effect on the rest of your life; so before you’re trapped by visa regulations because of your lack of awareness or your overconfidence, here’s how you can set out to minimize your US visa troubles.

• Know the visa rules of the country you’re traveling to – the rules are different for each country and each type of visa. If you’re not sure, ask a few people who are knowledgeable about these issues, like visa lawyers or others who are professionally linked to immigration offices.

• Do not overstay your visa by even a few hours – you may assume that it’s ok, but it’s actually not. You will have to face severe consequences by overstaying your visa, for whatever reason.

• If you need to overstay your visa or desire a change in the status of your application, file for an extension well in advance. Even if your application is pending, you could have to leave the US for your home country and return when your visa has been approved. Check with an experienced visa lawyer about the rules regarding extension of stay and change in status of visa.

• If you have overstayed your visa for any period of time, you could not be allowed back into the country for as many as 10 years. Check with your visa lawyer to see what consequences you could be facing and how to negate them if you’ve overstayed your visa.

• If you overstay your visa, your application may not be considered favorably even if you apply for a visa after serving your three or ten year ban.

• Don’t violate the terms of your visa – if you are not permitted to work, then don’t do so; if you are not permitted to study, then don’t do so – violating the terms of your visa too could get you deported and bring about a ban on future visa applications.

• Remember, even if you hold a valid visa, the country you are trying to visit could still refuse you right of entry at the immigration point if they find that your answers are not satisfactory. So know what you must do and say in order to honor your visa and be a respected guest in the USA.

By-line:
This guest post is contributed by Chris Jacobson who writes on the topic of Criminal Justice Degrees . Chris can be reached at his email id: chris.jacobson7-AT-gmail-Dot-com

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From time to time we accepts guest articles for our popular Blog, this time Lior Levin from City-Immigration in New York provides great Tips on the usage of MacBooks in the Immigration practice for lawyers.

Lawyers using Macbooks in their practices can benefit in many ways from the release of several useful software programs. The majority are specifically designed to increase productivity and make life a little easier for the busy attorney.

Here is an overview of some of the best attorney-specific software programs available for Mac users. We specifically tried them all at City-Immigration :

Law Stream

Law Stream is an excellent law office management software package. It’s specifically designed to assist attorneys who need a little help managing contacts, schedules, to-do lists, meetings and deadlines. The program also allows lawyers to simplify and streamline finances with features that include tracking money coming into and going out of the practice, as well as accurately recording time spend with various clients.

However, it’s the ease of being able to quickly manage contacts that makes this software so good. It allows attorneys to record information regarding that client, such as phone numbers, email addresses and other contact information, plus it records any work completed on any projects for that particular client. The software also has the ability to run reports on which clients are producing the most work and most revenue for the practice.

TrialSmart

TrialSmart is a legal application that facilitates trial presentations. This software is ideal for lawyers wanting to analyze, review, edit and present legal transcripts. Lawyers are also able to add documents, video footage and exhibits to the transcripts for later presentation. It’s possible to import other transcripts into the software to be annotated. This allows for fast generation of reports.

TrialSmart is ideal for running reports that can be exported and saved to various other program formats, such as Microsoft Word, Adobe PDF, or Microsoft Excel. Other features include a PDF text search function, group reports and saved layering. Any attorney wanting to build a case quickly and effectively can benefit from this software.

MacSpeech Dictate Legal

Speech recognition software like MacSpeech Dictate legal is ideal for dictating notes into your computer that is automatically converted into text format. This particular software was specifically designed for the legal field, which means it can easily recognize more than 30,000 legal terms, phrases and words without misinterpreting the words you’ve spoken. Add to this the ability of the software to ‘learn’ new words that it doesn’t recognize and you have a powerful piece of software. Simply train new words into the Vocabulary Editor and it will remember them for future use the next time you dictate something into the software.

The software boasts a 99% accuracy rate, so you know your text will end up error free and without spelling mistakes. MacSpeech Dictate Legal alleviates laborious typing time and makes it much easier to dictate items of importance easily and quickly.

3D Timeline

The 3D Timeline software is the ideal tool for any lawyer who wants to ensure that all details of a case are presented clearly and in context by using interactive timelines. The software generates a 3D perspective of the given chain of events that includes the addition of photos, notes, files or even web pages. This gives an attorney a unique opportunity to build a case story that highlights all details and aspects of that case to highlight the truth without being misunderstood or misinterpreted.

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The principality of Liechtenstein got the green light Monday from the European Union for its long-sought admission into the world of relaxed borders of Europe’s Schengen zone. The European Council ratified the final agreement in the official acceptance process, the council said late Monday.

But the process won’t be finished until the tiny Alpine country, with its population of 36,000, shows evidence that it meets Schengen standards for data protection and police cooperation.

“The admission of Liechtenstein to the Schengen region could finally take place in the second half of 2011, when Poland has the EU presidency,” said Liechtenstein’s Interior Minister Hugo Quaderer. Entry into the Schengen agreement means not only that systematic passport controls at the border are done away with, but also that Liechtenstein commits to working more closely with police and justice officials of other member states.

The tiny country, bordered by Switzerland to the west and south and Austria to the east, is not a member of the European Union. After successive expansions, the Schengen agreement now includes 25 countries, including the 22 members of the EU as well as the associate members Norway, Iceland and Switzerland.

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U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, Catholic Charities, Santa Rosa and Petaluma Adult School will host a free information session at the Catholic Charities Immigration Services Office on March 19. The objective is to help immigrants better understand the naturalization process, including the content of the naturalization test, and to become familiar with free educational resources and materials available from the agency. Those who attend will also learn how to avoid being victimized by people not authorized to practice immigration law.

The public is invited, and USCIS personnel will be on hand to discuss the naturalization process step-by-step, and provide information about eligibility and residency requirements, application forms, fees, the background security check and processing times. Participants will also see sample questions from the new test, and will receive an overview of U.S. history and civic principles. Free educational materials will be handed out while supplies last.

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To reach out to the vast Indian community, which has one of the highest penetrations of Internet users among all ethnic communities in the States, Indian embassy in U.S. launched its Facebook page recently.

It’s a part of the efforts of its Ambassador Meera Shankar to reach out to the ever-increasing and vibrant Indian-American community. “We are happy to announce the launch of the Facebook account of the Embassy. The address is http://www.facebook.com/pages/Embassy-of-India-Washington-DC/164730746912290,” Embassy spokesman Virander Paul said in a statement. “Please join the group and also invite other ‘friends of India’ to join,” he said.

The ‘Maximum India’ festival being launched by the Kennedy Center from March 1 is one of the few first messages on the page.

“Join and enjoy the splendour of ‘Maximum India’ – a mega festival hosted by the John F Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in cooperation with the Indian Council for Cultural Relations and the Embassy of India, Washington DC from March 1-20, 2011,” the Embassy said.

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Visa-free travel with the occupied regions of Georgia will be established by Russia soon. In March Moscow will ratify relevant agreements with puppet regimes in Sukhumi and Tskhinvali. The Duma committee for foreign affairs was instructed to prepare papers for consideration.

In particular, a special regime for stay of Russian militaries in Abkhazia and the Tskhinvali region was also determined. Soldiers-contractors and members of their families will be able to travel to the occupied territory with just their service passports. And recruits will need passports of Russian citizens and their military cards.

As to civilians, residents of Russia and the occupied territories will be able to pass through a checkpoint on the Psou and Roki with their internal documents. Thus, in fact, Moscow brings regulatory framework in line with the existing order of things.

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The Philippine Embassy in Washington D.C. will conduct a consular outreach service in Atlanta, Georgia on 27 March 2011, Sunday, from 9:00 am to 12:00 noon and 1:30 p.m. to 5:00 p.m.

The Embassy’s consular team will accept and process applications for electronic passport (ePassport), notarization of documents, and registration of births and marriages. Passport applicants are no longer required to bring photographs since they will have their pictures taken using ePassport data capturing machines at the outreach site. However, they still need to bring other necessary requirements, such as their current passport, the passport application form which may be downloaded from www.philippineembassy-usa.org, an application fee of $60.00 (cash or money order payable to the Philippine Embassy) and a self-addressed stamped (Express Mail with tracking number) envelope, or a prepaid courier envelope, with their application.

The outreach program will also include an oath-taking ceremony for individuals who will reacquire their Filipino citizenship under the Dual Citizenship Law. The oath taking will be only for applicants who will send their applications to the Embassy not later than 18 March 2011. The consular services will be held at RV Industries, 1665 Heraeus Blvd., Buford, GA 30518.

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In early 2010, the visa process to enter Iraq was both liberal and easily accessible taking only around 24 to 72 hours to go through the relevant procedures and paperwork. Officials were so flexible in fact that expats who went home for the holidays without first obtaining a re entry visa for their return were simply waived through, rather than being redirected all the way to Amman to obtain permission.

Mr Karoly Niklasz Move One’s Operations Coordinator in Iraq said that this easygoing attitude has since changed considerably. Now everything is different due to changes the Iraqi government has installed.

Instead of the original five forms, now eight separate documents need to be filled out, two of which are in Arabic. Moreover, the administration process has been prolonged to at least 14 days. As of February 2011, Iraqi authorities have extended the process even further to a total of 21 days which led to complaints by the US Embassy and has caused disagreements between the two countries.

Mr Karoly said that what makes the situation even more complicated is the fact that the Iraqi Government is demanding a billion dollars from the US for damages caused to Baghdad, claiming that everything is still surrounded by T walls and that army convoys use public parks as through routes, etc.

With seven offices located throughout Iraq, Move One employees have all the necessary documentation, work permits and visas needed to reside and operate legally within the country. Our extensive local knowledge of the region dates back to 2003 and has helped us build a successful track record in handling everything from small shipments to heavy, over sized cargo for a variety of customers in the oil and gas industry as well as civil reconstruction.

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China has reached an agreement with Russia on mutual exemption of visa requirements for Heixiazi Island, vice governor of Heilongjiang Province Jiahao Du said on Tuesday. The Island, a 327 sq km sandbar in the middle of the confluence of the Heilongjiang and Wusuli Rivers, has long been a source of conflict between China and Russia and a major border irritant since it was seized by the Red Army in 1929.

China has restored sovereign control over half of Heixiazi Island from Russia since October 14, 2008 after the two countries jointly unveil a stone monument on the Island. Heilongjiang has unfurled plans to develop the Chinese side of Heixiazi as a tourist resort, including hotels and a free trade shopping area.