I took the picture on a beautiful July 4th afternoon. You can see blue sky and palm trees in the background, traffic lights that happened to be green at the time, and a gas station located conveniently nearby. What a fitting image for Immigration Road!

Now, can anyone guess where this road is?

For one month, however, ESPN is changing priorities. All 64 world cup matches will be aired live and in high definition on ESPN, ESPN2 and ABC. In addition, most games will also be shown on ESPN360.com. For people who work in an office with a door, this is great news Even if you can’t (or don’t dare to) catch live broadcasts, DVR is your friend. If you still miss an important match, it looks like the sports network will replay selected games throughout the month. It helps that the NBA season will be over, and NFL hasn’t started, but as soccer fans living in the U.S., we still appreciate ESPN’s rather comprehensive coverage of soccer’s biggest tournament.

This is the TV schedule:

The frustration with the federal government’s failure to deal with the issue of illegal immigration resulted in passage of a flawed [Arizona] state law. However intended, the result of passing this law is that our basic principles of equal rights and protection under the law are being called into question, and Arizona’s already struggling economy will suffer even further setbacks at a time when the state can ill-afford them.

The political gesture also caught the attention of President Obama. Speaking to a crowd in the Rose Garden for a Cinco de Mayo reception,

“I know that a lot of you would rather be watching tonight’s game — the Spurs against ‘Los Suns’ from Phoenix,” Obama said. He also added that “I want to begin work this year, and I want Democrats and Republicans to work with me — because we’ve got to stay true to who we are, a nation of laws and a nation of immigrants.”

San Antonio might have done the same if they had enough time to make “Los Spurs” jerseys, according to coach Gregg Popovich.

NBA commisioner David Stern supported the move. And the NBA Players Association not only backed the Suns, but released an even stronger statement criticizing the nation’s toughest immigration law:

“The recent passage of the new immigration law in Arizona is disappointing and disturbing,” said Billy Hunter, executive director of the NBAPA. “The National Basketball Players Association strongly supports the repeal or immediate modification of this legislation. Any attempt to encourage, tolerate or legalize racial profiling is offensive and incompatible with basic notions of fairness and equal protection. A law that unfairly targets one group is ultimately a threat to all.

The Lakers, of course, have been doing their part even before Arizona’s immigration law, by calling themselves “Los Angeles” Lakers.

The surprising move is part of a campaign to bring Google’s 1GB ultra speedy broadband Internet into the Agency. Alejandro Mayorkas, USCIS Director, explained during the formal proclamation:

In order to provide high-speed immigration services, we must have high-speed internet services.

His agency, often criticized for being slow and inefficient, has unveiled a slew of changes in recent months in order to improve its public image. Backlog reduction is apparently an important part of the plan, but according to GAO, the effort has been hindered by spotty internet connections available to adjudication officers.

Sometimes I sent a request for evidence, but it took five months to leave our system!

An immigration officer, speaking on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to discuss internal issues with the media, told AF reporters.

USCIS must fight to win a seat in Google’s broadband experiement, which will introduce internet connections 100 times faster than current standard. The pilot project is open to only a few participants, however. By changing its name to Google!, especially with the addition of an exclamation mark, USCIS hopes to increase its chances.

Update April 1, 2010:
USCIS just learned that Google officially changed its name also, to Topeka. Given that immigration is a federal matter, USCIS has decided to put the name change plan on hold, i.e. in pending status, indefinitely.

Check it out! The ad is super simple, in typical Google style, but is quite clever and fun.

Now you’ve seen the video, “where did you get the idea about an immigrant?” you might ask. Well, it is all my interpretation, based on the fact that he searched for “study abroad,” had to fly to Paris, and looked for advice on “long-distance” relationship. I’m sure the Googler who created this video didn’t have immigration in his mind, but it is actually a beautiful cross-border love story that usually involves not-so-beautiful immigration processes. By the way, if the guy were French and the girl in California, he’d be spending more time searching for green card help than chocolate shops.

I-485
	I-485 is a busy freeway: most people in the U.S. choose this route to get their green card. Unfortunately it has a speed limit of 10mph.
Speed Limit – miles per hour (mph)
	0mph speed limit doesn’t make much sense, but if you are travelling on the Immigration Highway, don’t be surprised if you see it more than once.
Road Condition
	Slippery
	Bumpy
	Flooded
No Honking!
	Nobody would listen anyway, why bother?
Directions
	USCIS sometimes gives out better, less confusing instructions, but not always.
Stop Sign
	Stop right there, and wait for further instructions. Department of Labor once put up a huge stop sign so that they could “centralize” all labor certification applications; it only took a couple years before traffic was moving again.
Road Closed
	If you pick the wrong route, or have a late start, you will see the road closed sign eventually. You need to find an alternative as soon as possible.
Traffic Lights
	The Department of State uses traffic lights (aka visa bulletin) to control who gets to proceed, and who has to stay. Unlike regular traffic signals, a red light here could last 10 years or more.
Car Pool
	If you married a U.S. citizen and the two of you are travelling together, you can take the carpool lane. There are multiple check points though, and people who get caught with only a dummy on the passenger seat will get into trouble.
Toll Booth Ahead
	Every road is a toll road. Journey to green card is expensive.
Welcome!
	You have reached your destination.

All images used in this post are in the public domain, or licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.5 (Wikimedia Commons)

Answer: Letter ‘m’ is missing.

Ok, it doesn’t solve all the immigration problems this country is facing, but at least we are one step closer. For some reason I feel that writing this post makes the world a better place than a full day debate on Capitol Hill does, but it may just be me.

Now let me show you why this is a pressing issue before you click away.

Try a Google search on imigration:

And the smart 10-year-old offers you a friendly reminder: did you mean immigration, and also gives you the USCIS home page just in case you did:

Obviously you will see lots of “imigration discussions” in forum posts, like this one calling for respect of our imigration laws:

But you also see Amazon.com selling a book “Why Does Imigration Divide America?” Well, hopefully it is not because half the people can spell immigration correctly.

I’ll see your books and raise you videos! CBS news video: Committed to Imigration Reform.

But it is not just businesses, our higher-learning institutions often let the typo slip through too. The SFCC’s International Student Services has good information about imigration:

The State of Massachusetts joins the party too, presenting “An Act relative to illegal imigration.” You’d figure if one can spell Massachusetts, immigration should be piece of cake, no?

The Department of Justice – a federal government – has a list of free legal services providers who represent individuals in all forms of imigration cases:

The FDA, known for paying attention to small details, has this one in a data file:

And finally, the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), who doesn’t publish anything without the word immigration on it, missed one too:

Before I forget, the word emigration has only one ‘m’ though, but you will see plenty of emmigration on the internet, especially when it is discussed together with immigration.

Another daunting task for USCIS is to establish a new visa classification, Hold One Back (H-1B), which will tie the visa holder to a single employer, for the rest of his or her life.

A third mission for USCIS is to manage the Evaluate and Debate (EAD) program and the Always Pending (AP) response team. The promising Almost Completed after 21 Years (AC21) project will be demolished.

In order to focus on these objectives, USCIS has designated the handling of other visas, including Failed-Once (F1) and Bye-Bye (B2), to its sister divisions: I See Everyone (ICE) and I See Bad People (CBP).

This announcement brings devastating news to existing applicants, who will begin to receive Return or Face Eviction (RFE) notices in the coming weeks. Aliens who choose to stay will be issued a Get-out Card (GC), and must report to the Ultra Speedy but a little Creepy Immigration Services (USCIS) for prompt Deportation to Outer Space (DOS).

July 10, 2099

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This report has nothing to do with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), Customs and Border Protection (CBP), Department of State (DOS) or Department of Labor (DOL).