New Zealand Cites Obesity In Denying Chef's Work Visa

Chef Albert Buitenhuis has been declared too fat to live in New Zealand, a country with one of the highest obesity rates in the developed world.Immigration officials recently informed South African Buitenhuis that his work visa would not be renewed because, at 286 pounds, he falls short of what Wellington deems "an acceptable standard of health."According to in Christchurch, "Immigration authorities cited the demands his obesity could place on New Zealand health services."At 5'10", Buitenhuis' body mass.es in at 40, which makes him medically obese. Adding irony to insult, he's actually shed more than 65 pounds since moving to New Zealand six years ago.Buitenhuis' wife, Marthie, said their annual visa renewal has gone smoothly since 2007 until now.

Staff at the embassy will continue to take visa applications but from today diplomats will not be there to approve them.The industrial action is part of a series of rotating strikes by embassy staff that began in April in a pay dispute between the diplomats' trade union and the Canadian government.The strikes initially targeted three diplomatic missions but have since spread. Diplomats who approve visas will not be at work today in the Canadian embassies in Abu Dhabi, Riyadh, London, Paris, Beijing and 10 other cities.It is not known how long the strike will last.The industrial action will add to an existing backlog of applications, immigration consultants said yesterday. "This is not a good move," said Mohammed Amini, a director at Unican Immigration in Dubai. "It's going to affect our clients undoubtedly."

"There has already been a slowdown in the application process," said Ravi Lakhani, a consultant with Vision Consultancy in Abu Dhabi."This is likely just going to add to the backlog. From a consultant's point of view, it's not good for us because we'll be losing revenue."From the view of our clients, these people are pinning their hopes on their application and getting a visa – be it tourist or immigration."The strike is likely to most affect anyone wishing to holiday in Canada, students who plan to start studying in the autumn, and individuals seeking to emigrate to the country, Mr Lakhani said."In the past two weeks I have submitted eight applications for student visas, six or seven applications for tourist visas and three for work permits."

Feds' probe of visa program echoes in Virginia governor's race

An email outlining the IG investigation, obtained by the Times, was sent to members of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.The email said that investigators, who initially acted on a tip from an FBI counterintelligence analyst, uncovered "subsequent allegations involving alleged conflicts of interest, misuse of position, mismanagement of the EB-5 program, and an appearance of impropriety by Mayorkas and other U.S. CIS management officials."The email stated that the IG's office informed FBI agents conducting a pre-nomination background check on Mayorkas about the investigation last month, noting there have been no findings of criminal misconduct.

But the revelation could hurt confirmation prospects for Mayorkas china visa application instructions, who is the only person Obama has nominated to the department in his second term despite several leadership posts remaining vacant.Mayorkas was reportedly scheduled to have a confirmation hearing on Thursday, but Sen. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, the ranking Republican on the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, "has asked the committee to allow the inspector general to complete his investigations before moving ahead with the nomination," his spokesman, John Hart, told the Times.A Senate aide told the newspaper that the administration had asked the committee to expedite the nomination so that Mayorkas could be confirmed as deputy secretary before the August recess, allowing him to act as secretary after departing Secretary Janet Napolitano steps down in September, CNN reports.

New developments in a federal investigation of a program that offers U.S. visas to foreign investors have Virginia Republicans attacking Democratic gubernatorial nominee Terry McAuliffe and the electric-car firm he headed with a plant in Mississippi and ties to China.The Associated Press reported Tuesday that President Barack Obama's pick for the Homeland Security Department's china travel visa requirements Citizenship and Immigration Services director Alejandro Mayorkas, is under investigation for his role in helping a company run by Hillary Rodham Clinton's brother, Anthony Rodham.

Large scale fraud within visa system exposed

Thousands of Indian students, skilled workers, and 457 visa holders are living in Australia after being admitted on false travel and work documents.Briefings prepared by the Immigration Department, obtained by the ABC's Fact Checking Unit under Freedom of Information, show large scale fraud of the visa system.The internal audits show fraud rates approaching 50 per cent, and a Department struggling to properly identify people who are entering the country.Will Ockenden reports.One of the arguments used in the asylum seeker debate is that by arriving by boat, they're.ing to Australia via the back door.But while the political focus remains on the boats, documents obtained by the ABC point to thousands of people arriving fraudulently with bogus documents straight through the front door.

Around the periods of 2008, 2009, 2010, the fraud levels were quite considerable; a matter of real concern to the Department of Immigration and Citizenship.Via a Freedom of Information request which took nearly two years, the ABC's Fact Checking Unit obtained documents showing wide-scale visa and ID fraud.It suggests fraud rates approaching one in two for general skilled migration visas and 40 per cent for Indian student visas.The Immigration Department's spokesman Sandi Logan says it was a significant issue.Human nature being what it is does mean that there will always be people seeking to test, seeking to push to the limit those regulations, those program settings we have in place.The documents say "opportunities to.bat this type of fraud remain extremely difficult" and it goes on to say:

Identity fraud is a significant risk in the Indian caseload given how easily genuine documents with fraudulent details can be obtained.Sandi Logan says the documents date back several years and a lot has changed.We're quite confident that those people who were issued with a visa are largely and in the main - 99.9 per cent - are who they say they are.The documents tell a different story.One Immigration Department eyes-only briefing from the New Delhi office, published in April 2011, bluntly says its purpose is to "report on the ease with which identify fraud is possible in India".It outlines a case where a man breached Australia's borders by entering the country under a false identity.He had previously been deported from Australia, after having a protection visa request rejected and running up a debt with the Government.

Getting a Foreign Resident Visa Doesn't Mean Giving Up Your Citizenship

"I don't want to give up my U.S. citizenship when we move overseas," a woman at an InternationalLiving. conference we recently attended confided to us.Lucky for her, she doesn't need to do that.Residency and citizenship are not the same thing. This is one of the most.mon causes of confusion we've found among future expats. You don't give up citizenship in your home country when you move to another country.Instead, you'll be given a visa that allows you to spend time in the new country. Most countries offer many different visa options to foreigners, from tourist visas that allow you to be in the country for a limited amount of time usually 30-90 days to a resident visa for those who opt to live there full- or part-time.

Depending on the country, there are many different types of residence Tips for Traveling to China - China Visa Application Center. For instance, you may qualify for a student or humanitarian visa if you'll be attending school or volunteering. If you'll be working for a multi-national or national corporation you'll qualify for a work visa.Most of us, though, who are planning to retire or live in a country on savings or money we earn from back home will apply for another type of residence visa. In many countries, if you buy real estate there, you'll qualify for an investor visa. And some countries offer retirement or immigrant visas to those who can prove they have a pension or enough i.e to support themselves.

But you'll never be asked to give up your citizenship to obtain one of these visas. Only if and when you might apply for citizenship in another country would you need to consider renouncing your natural citizenship. And we don't personally know anyone who has ever done that.Obtaining dual citizenship is a different story. There can be many benefits to holding passports from two countries. If your parents or grandparents were born in Ireland or another country of the European Union,The Food of China - China Visa Application Center for example, you may be able to obtain a passport from that country. This would allow you to travel freely and work in Europe.

Congress, administration spar over legislation to scrap visa requirement for Israeli travelers

Other problems cited included instances of Israeli border officials blocking Americans at the border because of their political views and cases of U.S. citizens being forced to provide authorities with access to their personal email accounts at the risk of deportation."We have very strong concerns about the bill. It allows for the discrimination of U.S. citizens by another country," said Abed Ayoub, legal director of the American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee. "It is reprehensible that U.S. congressional members would allow for such action to take place.

"The State Department and Department of Homeland Security have expressed similar, if narrower, arguments in closed meetings with lawmakers, according to U.S. officials with knowledge of the talks. Those officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren't authorized to speak publicly on the matter. They said the administration was working with Israel to improve its border screening methods and with Congress on the wording of any future law. The State Department declined to.ment.In a response to lawmakers dated June 12, Israel's departing ambassador said Americans were being accorded all rights "to which they are entitled" upon arrival in Israel."Given the security challenges we face, every effort is extended in this regard," Michael Oren wrote to Rep.

Keith Ellison and Andre Carson, the two Muslim members of Congress, and the others who signed the original letter.On Joudah's specific case, Oren said the action was based on a r.mendation of Israel's security authorities and that all legal avenues were available to her. But he described such instances as rare.Oren said 142 Americans in all were denied entry to Israel last year, while about 626,000 were allowed in. That amounts to a refusal rate of 0.023 percent, or about 1 in every 4,400 people. The American refusal rate for Israelis seeking U.S. visas was 5.4 percent, he noted.The ambassador also defended the differential treatment Israel provides Americans who are on a Palestinian population registry. These people are allowed to enter and live in Palestinian territory, he said, but they aren't necessarily entitled to enter Israel because of decade-old security regulations enacted during a spike in Israeli-Palestinian violence.

Egypt imposes new visa rules on Syrians

"I wasn't surprised by the sentiment. I was surprised somebody put it in writing," said David Goldstein, president of the Tourism Industry Association of Canada. The waits for a Canadian visitors' visa, sometimes four weeks, or as long as eight, is a message to many travellers that Canada is not open for business, he said. "It's extremely frustrating."The official message, on the Citizenship and Immigration Canada website, isn't encouraging either: it warns tourists to "anticipate delays and submit their application as far in advance as possible." But tourists often aren't willing to wait, or to send in documents like passports for an uncertain amount of time.

The Tourism Industry Association estimates the delays will cost the industry $280-million this summer, by reducing travel by people who require china visa requirements houston – from growth markets such as China, India, Mexico, and Brazil – by 30 per cent.Mr. Goldstein said the industry isn't taking sides but wants the government to end it – with replacement workers, or some other immediate fix.The rotating strikes by the roughly 1,300 members of the Professional Association of Foreign Service Officers are an attempt to force the federal government to negotiate pay raises; they say they are paid less than other civil servants who do similar work, but don't get posted abroad.

In the vast numbers of the civil service, PAFSO is a small union, and the federal government has maintained there's been little impact from a strike of foreign-service officers. But the union's ranks also include immigration officers posted abroad –china tourist visa application and their rotating walkouts have caused major visa backlogs. PAFSO's president, Tim Edwards, said that on Tuesday, all foreign-service officers were off the job in Brasilia and Sao Paulo, but in 11 missions, including busy visa offices in Hong Kong and India, only immigration officers were on strike.

Close watchers of the visa programs

Of the many agreements struck in the Senate immigration bill passed Thursday, one of the most critical came courtesy of two long-standing adversaries: the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the AFL-CIO labor federation.After an impasse on guest worker visas helped derail an earlier reform effort, business and labor managed to sort out their differences this time around, settling on a deal that had a little something for everybody. Businesses essentially won an expansion of the foreign guest worker visas they've come to rely upon, while organized labor got to see meaningful protections written into the legislation for the sake of both U.S. and foreign workers.

But when it came to the visa issue, there was a workforce whose lobby lacked the money and firepower of the AFL-CIO, let alone corporations: high-skilled U.S. tech workers, like software engineers.The final Senate bill would expand the number of H-1B visas that allow U.S. tech companies to bring foreign workers here temporarily. Labor advocates have long maintained that unfettered guest worker programs have a way of depressing wages for American workers while exposing foreign ones to exploitation. The Senate bill does include labor-backed protections pertaining to the tech sector, but experts say those provisions were largely undone by loopholes added through amendments backed by Silicon Valley.

Close watchers of the visa programs say the final bill was a rout for the tech industry. Policy experts can debate whether the influx of H-1B visas will ultimately help or hurt U.S. workers, but in the end the tech companies won their visa expansion without the concessions that other industries submitted to."It was pretty much a landslide," said Daniel Costa, director of immigration law and policy research at the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute. "The industry got everything. They got way higher [visa] numbers with few protections in there."

One of the industry's major victories was the so-called "Facebook loophole." If it becomes law -- far from certain, given the House GOP's vow not to take up the immigration package as a whole -- the Senate bill would put tougher standards on companies considered "H-1B dependent." Companies where at least 15 percent of the workforce is made up of H-1B visas would have to recruit U.S. workers before foreign ones, and they would have to pay a higher prevailing wage rate to the workers on visas.

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The most difficult decision of my political life

"There will be naturally a human instinct to look back at people's past and make judgements about the future," he said."Kevin needs to be able to have that chance to prove himself through this period, and if we're re-elected to be able to show what he can achieve."Meanwhile, the US State Department said it was confident of a continued close relationship with Australia following the transition back to a Rudd prime ministership."Over the years, we have enjoyed a close, productive relationship with Australian governments, including those led by Julia Gillard and Kevin Rudd," a State Department official said."We are confident we will continue the closest relationship possible with any future Australian government."

Under the proposal canvassed by Britain's Home Secretary, Theresa May, as part of efforts to cut immigration and abuses of the system, first time visitors from Nigeria, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Ghana, Pakistan and India from November will be required to pay the ￡3,000 visa bond before they would be allowed to enter Britain.Any visitor from the targeted countries who overstays in Britain will forfeit the ￡3,000 bond.A report in Tuesday's edition of Financial Times said Cameron had reconsidered the proposal, which has provoked uproar in Delhi and threatened his attempt to boost trade links with India.Besides Indian, the proposal has also attracted criticisms from Nigerians and the federal government, which on Tuesday summoned the British High Commissioner to Nigeria, Dr. Andrew Pocock, over the policy.

Minister of Foreign Affairs, Ambassador Olugbenga Ashiru, who met with Pocock in Abuja, demanded a reversal of the policy, saying that it is inconsistent with the age-long strong relationship between Nigeria and Britain.He also said the policy could jeopardise the people-to-people relationship between the two nations.In addition, the Senate also expressed displeasure at the policy, saying Nigeria might be forced to reciprocate.On its part, the House of Representatives Committee on Foreign Affairs yesterday summoned officials of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to brief it on the policy and efforts being made to ensure its reversal.