My uncle was deported in 1992. It was a pretty insane time for my entire extended family. Immigration uprooted a man who was married for years and had two sons and a green card. Why? Quoth the Omaha INS big shot, "I will keep him out of the country for twenty years if I want." They accused my aunt and uncle of not having a bona fide marriage; basically, that he just married her for citizenship. Oh of course the INS knows best, and of course that marriage with a five-year-old and a three-year-old didn't mean a thing. And if it really didn't mean anything, would the family be paying lawyers to fight this after almost sixteen years? Doubt it.

The story got a lot of local press, and the family fought it to the 8th Circuit. The lawyers get burned out on it; they say things like, "well it's been so long now...what's the point?" Nobody seems to have the heart for it. But the point is my cousins got to grow up without their dad; and that is a big point.

Regardless of any views on immigration issues or what we should do about the system in general, I think we can all agree on a few things: a) the system sucks, and b) there is no justification for taking a personal dislike to someone and then tearing apart a family over it. I was really young when this all happened, and back then I thought it was "unfair." Now as 2/3 of a lawyer, it is more like an infuriating injustice. After almost sixteen years, we have only a few more years before Omaha gets his way. And the family isn't in the mood to let that happen.

One common criticism of my family in general has been that we just don't know when to quit. Well of course we don't, because we never have. Anyone know a good immigration lawyer who won't?

Bahamas coast guard officers remove the body of a drowned migrant from a recovery vessel earlier this month.

As the voices grew quiet one by one, the student clung to the only life preserver she could find: the lifeless body of a Haitian who had shared her American dream.

"I was holding onto a dead woman to keep afloat," said Rodene Fileresaint, 23.

Nine hours later, day broke and rescuers finally arrived. Two dozen people were dead. Three were alive, including Fileresaint.

She was still clinging to the corpse.

Thousands of Haitians fleeing poverty and hopelessness make the illegal crossing to Florida each year. The U.S. Coast Guard has intercepted 737 since January 1; nobody knows how many more have drowned or been killed by sharks.

This group of migrants took a common route, boarding a smuggler's boat to the Bahamas, two survivors told The Associated Press late Wednesday from hospital beds. Bahamian police grabbed several of the migrants as they reached land, and those who escaped made it to a safehouse, where they spent two weeks waiting to move on.

On Saturday night they boarded a go-fast boat bound for Miami, with a planned stopover in Bimini, a speck of land where police don't have a single boat to give chase. Fileresaint, the daughter of rice farmers, was excited, her dream of becoming a nurse in Miami finally within reach.

Fileresaint said she counted 27 people aboard the speedboat. Survivor Johnny Boucher, 26, said they were packed in shoulder-to-shoulder.

This was found @ http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/americas/04/24/bahamas.survivors.ap/index.html?eref=rss_latest

http://www.inplacenews.com

She works them more hours than they get paid for and doesn't care about any types of labor or immigration laws.  All she cares about is keeping her cost down so she can put funds into her pockets, or the pockets of her children.  Never in the pockets of people that work for her.

See a collection of interactive Mad Magazine fold in's HERE. 

The government is scrapping a $20 million prototype of its highly touted "virtual fence" on the Arizona-Mexico border because the system is failing to adequately alert border patrol agents to illegal crossings, officials said.

This 98-foot tower, seen last year in Avirica, Arizona, has radar, sensors and sophisticated cameras.

The move comes just two months after Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff announced his approval of the fence built by The Boeing Co. The fence consists of nine electronic surveillance towers along a 28-mile section of border southwest of Tucson.

Boeing is to replace the so-called Project 28 prototype with a series of towers equipped with communications systems, cameras and radar capability, officials said.

Less than a week after Chertoff accepted Project 28 on February 22, the Government Accountability Office told Congress it "did not fully meet user needs and the project's design will not be used as the basis for future" developments.

A glaring shortcoming of the project was the time lag between the electronic detection of movement along the border and the transmission of a camera image to agents patrolling the area, the GAO reported.

Although the fence continues to operate, it hasn't come close to meeting the Border Patrol's goals, said Kelly Good, deputy director of the Secure Border Initiative program office in Washington.

"Probably not to the level that Border Patrol agents on the ground thought that they were going to get. So it didn't meet their expectations."

The rest of the story can be found @ http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/04/23/border.fence.ap/index.html?eref=rss_latest

http://www.inplacenews.com

My friend concluded that quite often, the same thing happens in life, and the effects are felt not just in the spine. So for today, the yoga instructor's directive on what should take the lead in life:

"Lower the head. Raise the heart."

www.himni.or.id

Has this happened to you?

let me know by leaving a comment!

Until then

~halst la vista, baby! LOL! 

Institutul Naţional de Statistică:

Populaţia României continuă să scadă

Scaderea numarului popu­laţiei a continuat şi în luna februarie, înscriindu-se în tendinţa ultimilor ani, informează Institutul Naţional de Statistică (INS), care arată că natalitatea s-a situat sub nivelul mortalităţii şi a avut drept consecinţă un spor natural negativ al populaţiei. Faţă de luna februarie 2006, numărul născuţilor-vii a scăzut cu 486 copii, rezultând o scădere a ratei natalităţii (de la 10,2‰ la 9,9‰). De asemenea, a scăzut şi numărul deceselor cu 1.350 persoane, determinând o scădere a ratei mortalităţii (de la 13,2‰ la 12,4‰). Comparativ cu luna februarie a anului precedent, rata mortalităţii infantile a scăzut de la 14,2 la 10,7 decedaţi, sub 1 an, la 1.000 născuţi-vii. În luna februarie, au fost înregistraţi 16.402 de născuţi-vii, cu 2,4 mii mai puţini decât în luna precedentă, determinând o rată a natalităţii de 9,9 născuţi-vii la 1.000 locuitori (10,3‰ în luna ianuarie). Numărul decedaţilor (20.482) a fost cu 5,1 mii persoane mai mic decât în luna ianuarie, în consecinţă, precizează INS, rata mortalităţii a scăzut de la 14,0 decedaţi la 1.000 de locuitori, la 12,4‰. Rata mortalităţii infantile (decedaţi sub un an, la 1.000 de născuţi-vii) a înregistrat o scădere: 10,7‰ în luna februarie, faţă de 15,5‰ în luna ianuarie. Sporul natural negativ, care indică un deficit al născuţilor-vii faţă de cel al decedaţilor, a scăzut de la - 3,7 mii persoane în luna ianuarie la - 2,5 mii persoane în luna februarie.

Visit the Island now and you’ll only find a museum and perhaps a few protestors begging for the Island’s preservation. The old processing rooms are empty, as sign that America’s policies towards integrating foreigners has changed. However, the nation’s attitude on immigration has not changed. This division has caused the people to grow apart from the government in immigration ideology, and the first step towards a successful solution is getting on the same page. Smith’s question should evoke a change in thought on immigration, as we adjust to the 21^st Century, what can the past teach us about our policies today?

Once we know our history we can ask the proper questions about our future. What do we want as a nation through immigration? What values do we want our policies to uphold? The answers to these questions are prerequisites to solving the immigration crisis. We must also identify what crisis we are trying to solve. It’s not simply that there are millions of people here illegally, but rather we don’t have standard policies with how to deal with them. Practices vary from sanctuary cities, where police aren’t allowed to check the immigration status of arrested felons, to INS raids on factories putting hundreds through deportation procedures.

Historically, America has been a place where people can have a chance at a better life. But the American Dream has been twisted from a promise of opportunity to a promise of success. Even illegal immigrants have developed a sense of entitlement as America has grown prosperous, due in no small part to successful immigration in the 20^th Century. The new superpower status of the United States should cause us to take a step back and chart the proper course for our nation. Our place in history in 2008 is not the same as 1958 when my grandfather came over from Sicily. Thus we cannot have the same attitude towards immigration as we had before.

Considering all this, we must cast off the shackles of old thinking and establish our primal values. We need to preserve our sovereignty, our ability to manage who comes in and how long they stay here, so that we can most effectively determine the course of our nation. We need to understand the needs of our economy to provide the appropriate amount of workers, taking into consideration the available American labor and the unmet needs of American businesses. Whatever the process, we need to bring ease and simplicity to the system in order to remove the deterrent of entering the country illegally. With our values clear, and an understanding of the new world America has become, we can set down an effective, unified policy on immigration, helping America continue to become the greatest nation history has ever seen.

• Myrtle Beach Sun-News: Immigration: Ongoing culture clash

Can’t get enough immigration coverage? Click on the pages below and check out Think Immigration’s daily links to stories throughout the country.

Knowledge is power!

NEWS: BORDER: LEGISLATION:

LAW ENFORCEMENT: OPINION:

..Gefährlich wirds, wenn man Liebe mit Faszination verwechselt...

und das mach ich wohl grade.......

(irgendwo aufgelesen)

Governor Richardson endorsed Obama overnight. He gave Obama’s speech on race as part of the reasons, and mentioned that as a Hispanic, he was particularly touched by it. He also added that the ‘demonization of immigrants’ has bothered him for a long time.

I’m paraphrasing.

Maybe this could further the discussion that we need to have in this country; and maybe we can finally discuss the dirty little secret surrounding the illegal immigration debate. Much of this debate sounds so reasonable; of course people shouldn’t break the law, you’re supposed to respect the borders and the laws of the land you move to; you should learn the language, you should respect the local customs.

Having said that, I moved here legally, went through hell and high water to obtain my green card; I have never broken the law, and speak decent English. Yet, why do I wince whenever the word ‘immigrant’ is used? I shouldn’t identify with somebody who crossed the border in the middle of the night and doesn’t speak English, should I?

But I do. I think this is because I know what it’s like to be a ‘stranger in a strange land’. I know what it is like to constantly be asked: “Why did you come here?” An innocent question that continues to put me on edge. I know what it’s like to board a plane when I travel home to see my family, and be picked out of the line by some anonymous border guard at the airport, again and again; to have to defend myself for moving here just because my passport has a different color. All my papers are in order, I am completely legal, and yet I sweat each time I have to visit the Immigration and Naturalization Service, a place most Americans born here have never seen the inside of.

I know, I sound whiny. The plain truth of it is, most days I really like it here; every once in a while, being an immigrant sucks. So yes, I sympathize with immigrants, legal or not. Because, with the exception of the real hard criminals, most are people like you and me.

And I think that the more we talk about them as faceless, anonymous nobodies, the more likely we are to forget that they are human, every last one of them. There, I said it: the current climate surrounding immigration is dehumanizing, and it’s getting worse by the minute.

Nation of immigrants, my ass.

By the way, did I hear that right? Scooter Libby disbarred? That’s all?

Immigtant Smuggling Ring Busted- Immigration and Customs Enforcement agenst foiled an illegal immigrant smuggling ring in Los Angeles earlier today in onr of the largest busts in West Coast history.  The organization, ran by Guatemalan nationals, transported some 100 people into the country each week and offered transportation and housing as part of the operation (http://the115.wordpress.com/news/).  The investgation, launched three years ago by the ICE, centered around a safe house in south Los Angeles where some 140 illegals  were living.  "Based on our investigation, we suspect this ring was transporting more than 100 illegal aliens a week into this area," said Los Angeles ICE investigator Jennifer Silliman.  It is believed that the group charged between $1200 and $3700 for each trip to the US.  What?  You hombres paid $3700 to be squeezed into the trunk of a rusty pick up truck and smuggled across the border in the wee hours of the morning?  That's laughable.  Why didn't you just jump one of Little Georgie Bush's $30 million dollar barb wire fences for free like everyone else?  There's always the tunnels used by the Mexican drug cartel.  Those are free.  What about swimming across the Rio Grande in the middle of the night like the other cabelleros?  Oh well.  We'll pay for your room and board for the next three weeks at the local INS office, then we'll send you back to Mexico on our dime.  A month from now you'll be found loitering in the parking lot of some Lowe's or Home Depot looking for lanscaping or brick laying jobs that pay $6 per day.  After that you'll come back and do it again until your caught, then the madnes begins all over again.  I have no problem with needy people jumping the border and working cheap so they can feed their families.  I also strongly feel that everyone has a right to come to the USA for a better life, but why would you pay those Guatemalan gangsters hard earned money when they're going to end up getting you nabbed by the Immigre?  You're best bet is to just sneak over the border and run like hell, just like the other 12 million illegals living here.  It's a great way to save a few pesos.

Bureaucrat ‘Insiders' Working for Islamofascists?

By Michael Cutler

There is an article appearing in the August 15 edition of the Washington Times that should alarm every citizen of the United States. According to Washington Times reporter, Sara Carter:

"A criminal investigations report says several U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services employees are accused of aiding Islamic extremists with identification fraud and of exploiting the visa system for personal gain.

"The confidential 2006 USCIS report said that despite the severity of the potential security breaches, most are not investigated 'due to lack of resources' in the agency's internal affairs department."

Carter went on to quote an internal document obtained by the Times that two District Adjudications Officers are allegedly involved with "known Islam terrorist members," whose identities were redacted for security reasons.

As a former INS senior special agent and as someone who was also detailed to the division of the former INS that adjudicated applications for residency based on marriage to United States citizens and resident aliens, it gives me no pleasure to write this commentary. I hate to see instances where those in positions of national trust violate the trust that their positions automatically imply. The sad thing is that this story has to infuriate the many honest employees who must feel, as I do, a particularly keen sense of betrayal.

I have often heard various people talk about the need for border security and I have countered by saying that simply securing the border will achieve little if the other components of the immigration system lack meaningful integrity. In order to hammer this point home, I have stated that even if our government could borrow the "deflector shields" from the Starship Enterprise and install them along our nation's borders, little will have been accomplished if USCIS then provides criminal and terrorist aliens with resident alien status, and especially United States citizenship, because these gifts represent the "Keys to the Kingdom."

It would be the equivalent of hiring locksmiths and contractors to install gates on the windows and door of a home, put in the most secure locks and erect tall gates around the perimeter of the house and then hang the key to the locks on the outside doorknob!

I want you to consider a statement made by the Director of USCIS, Emilio T. Gonzalez that appears in the Times article:

USCIS Director Emilio Gonzalez in March told Congress that he could not establish how many terror suspects or persons of special interest have been granted immigration benefits.

"While USCIS has in place strong background check and adjudication suspension policies to avoid granting status to known terror risks, it is possible for USCIS to grant status to an individual before a risk is known, or when the security risk is not identified through standard background checks," said a statement provided to lawmakers.

"USCIS is not in a position to quantify all cases in which this may have happened. Recognizing that there may be presently known terror risks in the ranks of those who have obtained status previously."

This is an area of frustration for me that I have addressed at a number of Congressional hearings concerning the failings and limitations of USCIS to know who would receive official identity documents if a Guest Worker Amnesty program such as the one recently defeated in the United States Senate was to have been implemented. There is a world of difference between a background check and a background investigation.

The background check Mr. Gonzalez refers to would simply require that an applicant's name and fingerprints be run through computer databases to determine if the prints or the name relate to a known terrorist or criminal. Terrorists understand that in order to be effective they need to do everything in their power never to be fingerprinted in the United States before making any application for an immigration benefit. Then they provide a false name to immigration with clean fingerprints. Since the name and the fingerprints result in "No hit," that is to say no matches are found, the terrorist alien in question will receive an official identity document in the false name he (she) provided to USCIS.

Clearly Mr. Gonzalez has no idea as the scope and magnitude of the corruption and incompetence at an agency that hands out the "Keys to the Kingdom." I also want to make it clear that this inept and corrupt agency would administer any Guest Worker Amnesty Program that our government would implement if such "leaders" as Ted Kennedy, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid and the President of the United States had their way.

A true background investigation such as that which I was required to undergo every 5 years because I had a "Top Secret" clearance required that investigators actually went out into the street with my photo and knocked on doors and interviewed neighbors, relatives and others to determine if I was known by any other names or if I was conducting myself in a suspicious manner. They also checked into my finances and other relevant avenues of inquiry.

The bottom line is, as the article noted, a terrorist needs to obtain official immigration status as a means of embedding himself in our country to be able to hide in plain sight.

For years the emphasis at USCIS is to make the rapid adjudications of applications the priority and not to uncover fraud. The GAO has issued a number of reports about this issue. Last Year USCIS claims to have "lost" more than 110,000 immigration alien files relating to aliens seeking a wide variety of immigration benefits including 30,000 alien applicants who applied to naturalize. Incredibly, according to the GAO, those aliens were naturalized even though the adjudications officers had no access to the relating immigration files!

I have no way of proving this, but I could not imagine losing 110,000 jellybeans or paper clips. I suspect that USCIS management simply decided that it would take too long to have the adjudicators review those files and so they simply claimed to not be able to find them. (The bureaucratic version of "Don't ask; don't tell.") To my knowledge not a single employee was fired or even disciplined for "losing" 110,000 files!

There are three ways that a job is not done properly. There is nonfeasance, which simply means that the job is not done. There is misfeasance which means that the job is not done properly and then there is malfeasance which means that the job is not done properly because of corruption. It seems that all three issues are involved in the disastrous situation at USCIS today.

I wrote several months ago concerning the leadership at USCIS since its creation roughly 4 years ago as a result of an article that appeared in the Washington Post on May 28 of this year entitled, "Immigration Agency Mired in Inefficiency."

The thesis of my commentary concerning that article illuminates the climate at USCIS today, which in turn probably contributed to the wide-scale corruption found at that component of DHS which I have come to refer to as the Department of Homeland Surrender:

There is a Yiddish expression that says that when a fish goes bad, it smells from the head. Let us consider the two men who have served as the director of USCIS. The first director of USCIS, Eduardo Aguirre is currently the United States' Ambassador to Spain. It would be worth your while to read Aguirre's full bio as posted by the United States Dept. of State.

However, for the sake of brevity, let me say that two things immediately stand out in his bio. First of all, as he himself testified before the House Subcommittee on Immigration, Border Security and Claims and is now noted in his official bio, as the director of USCIS he listed his priorities as being "first, to eliminating backlogs, second to improving customer service and finally third, enhancing national security."

You simply cannot make this stuff up! Next it is worth noting that Aguirre had previously been the President of Bank of America's International Private Bank. Yes that bank! - the one that issues credit cards to illegal aliens!

As for the current director of USCIS, Emilio T. Gonzalez, you can access his bio at the Whitehouse.gov website.

According to his official biography, Gonzalez worked for the Miami based international law firm of Tew Cardenas. It is important for you to know this because Tew Cardenas offers many services to its clients. The service of interest to me is that it offers services as a lobbying firm. It is, in fact, registered as representing the foreign governments of the Dominican Republic, El Salvador and Panama as a lobbyist for those countries.

While both the previous director of USCIS and the current director have had distinguished careers, I find it interesting that these two leaders did not come from a background of law enforcement, notwithstanding Mr. Gonzalez's background as a military officer.

Frankly I am concerned that a former banker and a former attorney with a lobbying firm would wind up in charge of an agency that has such a strong national security component to the work that is conducted by its employees. Certainly the scathing reports that have been issued by the GAO and OIG have done nothing to dispel my apprehensions. This is an issue that warrants revisiting and ongoing attention.

Democracy is not a spectator sport!

Lead, follow or get out of the way!

FamilySecurityMatters.org contributing editor Michael Cutler is a Fellow at the Center for Immigration Studies and a well-respected authority on immigration and border security issues.
read full author bio here

Tagged: Bank of America, Bureaucrats, Democracy, Eduardo Aguirre, Emilio T. Gonzalez, Harry Reid, INS, Islamic extremists, IslamoFascists, Michael Cutler, Nancy Pelosi, President of the United States, security breaches, Ted Kennedy, USCIS, Washington Times.

Entre otras actividades el Congreso incluirá:

•  Una visita a la Isla de Elba, incluyendo un vuelo turístico y una visita en autocar de los lugares de interés Napoleónicos.
• Por primera vez en la historia de estos Congresos, se habilitará un servicio de podcast. Las ponencias serán distribuidas en este formato y al final del congreso, se entregará un DVD con todos ellos (gratis para los participantes).
• Sean Richarz de Seattle interpretará en directo música de los Cien Días de Napoleón.

En caso de querer asistir o para tener mayor información se puede visitar la página de la Federación Europea de Ciudades Napoleónicas o el sitio de J. Davis Markham (Vicepresidente del INS).

Anyway, it's been awhile since she tried to come back in the US and she had planned this trip mainly to introduce the fiancee to the rest of the family. She also wanted to check out some locations for her wedding as we figured that it would be cheaper for them to get married here. She purchased her tickets months ago and it finally dawned on to her last week that she may need a visa. Approval for visa's could take about 3-weeks. So her trip next week had to be postponed.

Unfortunately, my vacation is all set. We're heading to Vegas next week to celebrate my 35th birthday with or without her! My mother tried to lay the guilt trip on me but I am not having any of it. I am ready to go to Vegas baby! This photo was taken from our trip last year. We didn't gamble much but we definitely enjoyed our hotel stay.

Fig. 1 schematically shows the stripe order, and how the antiferromagnetism peak in the undoped system at Q_AF=(1/2,1/2) moved to the incommensurate peaks at (1/2±δ,1/2) and (1/2,1/2±δ) (δ=1/2p and p is the stripe spacing) when the system goes to the stripe order by hole doping. The dispersion of these peaks will be as a cone-like for the spin-wave behavior, ħω=c|Q-Q_AF| for ħω<J ~140 meV, (Fig. 1 d), or dip-hump-like for the tow-leg spin ladder theory (Fig. 1e). This difference makes hints to select more convenient theory for explaining the experimental data.  

Results:

• Experimental data shows four incommensurate peaks at 6 meV, while by increasing the energy the peaks have dispersed inward toward the Q_AF till 55 meV. At higher energy the excitations have started to disperse outwards and the shape change to the square-like with the corners rotated by 45 degree relative to incommensurate peaks. The square will be larger with increasing energy till 160 meV which its size is comparable with the antiferromagnetism Brillouin zone (Fig. 1).
• Calculations based on the spin-wave and two-leg spin ladder models indicate that the experimental data with square-shape dispersion are in agreement with the spin ladder interactions with quantum fluctuations (Fig. 3). In the spin-wave models the excitation should have a four-circle (projection of the cones at a constant energy) shape (Fig. 3a) which is completely different with the experimental observations.
• Magnetic scattering function of data, S(ω) (integrated on Q), indicates initially decreasing, then rising to a broad peak near 50-60 meV and gradually decreasing at higher energies. The computational S(ω) and dispersion along (1+q,q,0) based on a simple model of spin ladder theory are in consistent with the experimental data.

The authors have discussed that the ladder model, within the stripe picture, provides a more compelling explanation of the results. With considering the similar results for YBCO system, this study supports the concept that charge inhomogeneity, possibly dynamic in nature, is essential to achieve high T_c in HTSCs. 

Ref.: J. M. Tranquada, H. Woo, T. G. Perring, H. Goka, G. D. Gu, G. Xu, M. Fujita & K. Yamada; Nature 429 (2004) 534.  

The U.S. Citizen and Immigration Service (formally the INS)

I feel it’s a preconceived notion that when a foreigner marries an American, a gift basket complete with green card, working documents and a social security card arrives at that foreigner’s front door. In reality, this is not the case, and for those who process their papers through the Atlanta branch, the opposite is true.  Instead it is a long and confusing process that at times seems set for new immigrants to fail.
I was living in Russia with my husband, a citizen of said country, when we decided to move things over to the U.S.  We completed all necessary papers for the appropriate visa (K3, for foreigners wed to U.S. Citizens outside the U.S.).  Upon getting notice that our papers had been received, a document was sent stating that everything would be processed in 30-999 days.  Alas, after waiting six months and talking to a lawyer, meeting with the U.S. consulate and providing every train ticket or email between and documenting every financial asset to prove we could support each other - in September 2003, my husband was finally granted the proper visa to enter the U.S.

After entering the U.S., however, my husband hardly felt welcome.  His visa did not merit him a social security card or permission to work, and the DMV would not issue him a license until further paperwork explained that his visa was valid.  After four months of laborious paperwork, a driver’s license was obtained, but still no work permit.  Multiple trips were made to the local USCIS office, but as always no one knew where the papers were.  After six months, I demanded answers and planted myself before a rude immigration official.  I wanted an explanation as to why the USCIS could not locate the work papers, after the computer showed that they had been completed, but could not find them, and could not issue new a new work permit.  When the immigration official ran out of excuses, he called security and two large men soon appeared at my side, the stench of Fulton Street quickly meeting my nose.  Meanwhile, though our papers were still missing, we received the green card for an applicant of a similar name and were forced to clear up this mistake.  After eight months, summer 2004, the work permit was finally found and sent to my husband and he could begin to look for a job.

That was not the end of the troubles, as my husband’s visa was soon to expire and the Atlanta USCIS office was backlogged again.  This time we awaited his permanent resident card (green card), but again were told to wait.  My husband’s visa expired, and though he was legally in the U.S., he remained without status, unable to leave or reenter the U.S.  In December 2005 we were finally called in for the green card interview, but were declined –my husband’s fingerprints had “expired.”  We quickly got them retaken and in 2006, nearly 3 years later, he received his permanent resident/green card.

In fall 2008, it is possible to apply for citizenship, and we are placing bets as to how many years this will take.

                           α²F(ω)≈W(ω)=(1/2π)d²[ωRe(σ^-1(ω))]/dω²   (1)

Where, Re(σ(ω)) is the real part of the optical conductivity. For the electron-spin interaction systems this relation could be converted to I²χ(ω)≈W(ω), where I is the coupling constant of electron-spin interaction and χ(ω) is the imaginary part of spin susceptibility. So, comparison of the W(ω) extracted from the experimental or computational study with the phonon or spin spectral density, gives suitable information about the type and coupling strength of the interaction with the carriers. Recently, the ~41 meV resonance magnetic mode has been observed in the spin spectral of the optimal doped YBCO and Bi2212 in the superconducting state. A group of scientist from Canada, Austria, and the USA has applied this method for both YBCO and Bi2212 systems to indicate the importance of the spin fluctuations in the superconducting state of HTSCs systems.  

Results:

• The calculated W(ω+Δ₀) from Eq. 1 for optimal doped YBCO (with the gap amplitude Δ₀~27 meV) traces the resonance pattern of the magnetic susceptibility and is in good agreement with the experimental I²χ(ω) data (Fig. 2a). The χ(ω) have been taken from the spin-polarized inelastic neutron experiment (integrated over momentum space), and W(ω+Δ₀) function has been derived (by Eq. 1) from the calculated σ(ω) in superconducting state considering d-wave gap.
• The W(ω+Δ₀) function has a peak in 68 meV (=ω_res+Δ₀=41+27 meV) and the coupling constant λ~2.6 (twice the first inverse moment of I²χ(ω)) is high enough to get T_c~100 K. The negative wiggles in W(ω) above the resonance peak is not consistent with the I²χ(ω), because the I²χ(ω) is not exactly equal to W(ω), i.e. the correspondence is expectable just near the resonance peak.  
• The experimental W(ω) for YBCO_x with x=6.95 and 6.6 have been derived from the experimental a-axis σ(ω) by Eq. 1 (Fig. 2b). The lower energy peak in x=6.6 sample could be related to the smaller ω_res in x=0.6 sample relative to x=6.95, and the lower amplitude of the peak (~smaller λ) could be calculated to lower T_c in x=0.6 sample.  
• The similarity of the experimental W(ω) pattern with the calculated W(ω+Δ₀) and experimental I²χ(ω) indicates that the σ(ω) has a trace of spin fluctuation in superconducting state rather than phonon.The similar behavior has been obtained in Bi-2212 system, which shows a magnetic resonance peak at ~43 meV.   

Finally, this study indicates the important role of the spin fluctuation in the superconducting state of HTSCs, and the strength of the electron-spin interaction is high enough to account for high T_c (~100 K) in these systems.

Ref.: J.P. Carbotte, E. Schachinger, and D.N. Basov, Nature 401 (1999) 354.