Immigration Makes Following The Rules Worthless This Time

On July 2, 2007, the U.S. State Department, working in conjunction with the Department of Homeland Security, announced that it would break its promise to allow people who prepared green card applications based on their employment if they filed them in July.

On July 13, 2007, they had announced that starting July 2, they would let people go ahead with those applications. This left people a few weeks to spend money preparing all the forms, the (soon-to-increase) application fees, and to pay certified doctors to conduct medical examinations. In a turn that appeared as if a bad prank, the State Department and the immigration authorities on July 2nd said forget it, it was rejecting anything such as I-485 adjustment of status application people filed based on employment (employment-based adjustment applications). It said the Visa Bulletin it had announced was going to be changed as of immediately.

All the money and time people spent on getting medical examinations (which expire after a certain number of months, by the way), paying lawyers to hurry up with the forms, and to pay for overnight delivery of the entire packet are probably going to have everything returned to them. They will have to give up the cost of taking back the money orders they might have prepared and the time and effort involved. One of the main points of a Visa Bulletin is to inform people who want to follow the rules how to prepare for the coming month.

Now, the State Department and immigration authorities in cruel twist are basically saying that they can take away what they promised several weeks earlier. It is especially ironic that in many instances, immigration will make very harsh decisions if the immigrant breaks any rule, even for example by mailing something one day late. But if immigration changes the rules and breaks its promises, I suppose it can just get away with it and do whatever they want. Broken promises, once again.