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New questions loom as EB-5 visa program explodes

noreply@blogger.com (Fred Soratas) — Sun, 28 Apr 2013 05:41:00 +0000

New questions loom as EB-5 visa program explodes

The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service sanctions the EB-5 visa program, which is intended to help spark job creation. As long as 10 jobs can be created or saved within two years of a $500,000 investment, a green card will be rewarded. (AP Photo)

TALLAHASSEE — Washington’s EB-5 visa program is big business in Florida. A few years ago, four regional centers in the state were soliciting foreign investor money in exchange for U.S. citizenship.
More than two dozen are now. Proponents say it’s been good for the state’s economy, but critics charge it’s nothing more than selling green cards.
With genuine results of the EB-5 program difficult to determine, questions loom about the jobs created and the apparent loss of investors’ money.
The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service sanctions the EB-5 visa program, which was designed to spur job creation. As long as 10 jobs can be created or saved within two years of a $500,000 investment, a green card will be rewarded.
The jobs can be created directly or indirectly by the investment and, oftentimes, multiple foreign investors are associated with individual projects.
The seemingly low job threshold has had the recent effect of lining up green-card seekers to pay big money, as business developers have expanded their courtship of foreigners as a way to secure cheap financing.
Florida Watchdog contacted the USCIS to ask about job creation data and success rates of EB-5 projects, but the agency’s press secretary, Christopher Bentley, told us the USCIS “does not track business ventures to see if they’ve been successful.”
At the direction of Bentley, Florida Watchdog then contacted the Florida Department of Economic Opportunity, the agency responsible for designating EB-5 investment areas within the state.
DEO’s press secretary, Jessica Sims, confirmed the agency does not keep job-creation statistics, information regarding immigrant investor residency or data showing whether foreign investor funds are recouped.
An analysis of information provided by the USCIS regarding I-526 and I-829 forms, however, shows that of the 7,871 alien entrepreneur applications accepted over the past four years, only 2,424 were ultimately approved for permanent residency.
In other words, 7,871 immigrant investors paid $500,000 to $1 million depending on the project, and 2,424 actually received green cards. Additionally, far fewer jobs were created than expected, according to the data.
USCIS keeps no records as to whether foreign investor funds are returned after their petitions for residency are denied, nor does the agency monitor employment data after two years of accepting an EB-5 application.
Mohammed Shaikh, an Orlando-based certified fraud examiner with extensive EB-5 experience, has openly questioned the efficacy of the visa program. Shaikh raised concerns with Florida Watchdog about the state’s regional centers’ practice of soliciting cash abroad for risky domestic investments as potentially conflicting with U.S. securities laws.
“U.S. investors would never invest in many of Florida’s regional center ventures; that’s why they seek foreign cash,” said Shaikh.
The low number of green cards issued and subsequent jobs created is particularly troubling when considering that EB-5 investors can receive credit for positive employment results, even when other domestic investors contribute to the overall financing of a project.
Florida Watchdog asked Bentley whether the cheap EB-5 financing makes it easier to build businesses and create jobs, or if the funding simply alleviates risk for the developer.
Bentley declined to answer but instead explained that, “in order to qualify for the program, the individual investor must put their $500,000 to $1 million fully at risk.”
The EB-5 investor can move to the United States on a two-year temporary visa, along with their spouse and children, once the initial visa application and investment money is accepted.
If the associated business venture fails to produce the necessary jobs, the onus to deport falls on the immigrant investor. USCIS keeps no data pertaining to self-deportation or instances in which individuals may have stayed past the terms of their temporary visa.
President Obama’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness called for the EB-5 program to be “radically” expanded to generate at least 40,000 jobs a year.
William Patrick is a reporter with Florida Watchdog.org, which is affiliated with the Franklin Center for Government and Public Integrity.

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Will you earn enough 'points' to win new US green card?

noreply@blogger.com (Fred Soratas) — Sun, 28 Apr 2013 05:35:00 +0000

Will you earn enough 'points' to win new US green card?

WASHINGTON: For years, millions of immigrant applicants hoped they would be lucky enough to win the US green card lottery. Under reform being considered in Congress, they may soon be asking: "Am I skilled enough?"
By 2017, according to a proposed revamp of laws governing admission to the United States, permanent residency permits known as green cards could be doled out not on luck but "on merit," via a points system that would put more qualified applicants at the front of the line.

Are you a French computer scientist with a strong command of English, already living in the United States on a visa but whose employer is reluctant to sponsor you for permanent residency? The new system may work in your favor.

Nothing is set in stone yet, but an 844-page measure, the most comprehensive immigration reform in a generation, is working its way through the Senate, and members of the House say they, too, are hopeful a bill can be signed into law this year.

Ten criteria for immigrant applicants will be taken into account in the system, which has a theoretical maximum of 100 points.

Under the new system, a university degree will be worth five points, a master's degree 10 and a doctorate 15.

Each year of work experience will provide an applicant from zero to three points, depending on the employment level, for a maximum of 20 points.

Are you a programmer, computer scientist, or software developer? 10 points.

If your job is in an occupation related to your degree: 8-10 points.

A TOEFL English language proficiency score of 80 or more? Chalk up another 10.

Contractors who employ at least two people: 10 points.

Clearly, skills and experience count under the proposed system -- but so does youth. Those age 25 and under will receive eight points; 25-32 year old are awarded six points; and age 33-37 years, four.

Those age 38 or above receive no bonus.

A sibling of a US citizen earns 10 points, as does the married child, 31 or older, of a US citizen.

Community service will help. Those who can prove their "civic involvement" will be allocated five points.

A final clause gives five points to those from countries with low immigration, which rules out Mexicans, Chinese and Indians.

Unlike other countries that have adopted the points scheme, including Britain and Canada, the exact bar for immigration admission under the proposed US system remains a mystery: other factors are also at play. But if your score is among the top 60,000, you will gain a green card.

Another block of 60,000 will also be awarded permanent residency based on criteria that favor lower-skilled labor such as construction.

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It’s easier to apply for greencard than Obamacare

noreply@blogger.com (Fred Soratas) — Thu, 11 Apr 2013 02:50:00 +0000

It’s easier to apply for greencard than Obamacare

April 4, 2013, 12:15 p.m. EDT

Application for new health exchanges includes 61 pages of instructions

Yuri Arcurs / Shutterstock.com

If you thought nothing could be more tedious than filling out your tax forms, just wait until you try to apply for health insurance through the Affordable Care Act’s new exchanges.

The draft of the paper application is 15 to 21 pages, depending on whether someone is applying individually or for their family. See the Application for Health Insurance

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And the instructions for the application run no less than 61 pages. That’s nearly six times longer than the instructions for a green-card application. (There are alsovideos of the process.)

“If you like IRS forms, you’re going to love this one,” says Ken Hoagland, chairman of Restore America’s Voice, a conservative organization that advocates for the repeal of the health-care law. “These are the kinds of things that are going to drive people crazy.”

Adding to the confusion from this new bureaucracy is that experts say most Americans are still largely in the dark about what the health-insurance exchanges — the new marketplaces for individual insurance stipulated by the health-reform law — even are. Though government officials are hurrying to set them up before open enrollment for 2014 begins this fall, a survey released today by InsuranceQuotes.com found that 90% of U.S. consumers don’t know that the exchanges open Oct. 1, and 22% said they thought the exchanges were already open now.

That lack of knowledge doesn’t bode well for how consumers will actually manage to sign up for insurance on their own, experts say — something they will have to do or else pay a penalty mandated by the health-reform law.

The Department of Health and Human Services recently released the draft versions of the applications consumers will need to fill out in order to get insurance if they can’t get it through their employer or family. But while the point behind the law and the exchanges is to make it easier for Americans to get health insurance, some consumers are complaining that a major barrier now stands in their way: too much paperwork.

“It’s a lot of information that consumers are going to have to provide, and that could deter people from signing up,” says Laura Adams, senior insurance analyst at InsuranceQuotes.com, part of Bankrate.com, which tracks interest rates. “That could be an issue for some people who don’t like paperwork. And who likes paperwork?”

The forms bring to mind the IRS instructions for filing the 1040 tax form, which is 105 pages long. In fact, many of the questions have less to do with health matters than financial ones.

A little-known government disclosure requirement offers a clue, at least, to how much time it will take consumers to fill out the forms. To comply with the Paperwork Reduction Act, the Health Department had to submit an “Information Collection Request” along with the draft forms, detailing why it is seeking the information and an estimate for how long it will take the public to provide. The online application will take 15 to 30 minutes to complete depending on whether consumers are applying for additional government subsidies, according to theICR.

Meanwhile, the paper application will take 20 to 45 minutes to finish. (By comparison, the department estimated that applications through the small-business health-plan exchanges, known as SHOP, will only take about 10 to 13 minutes to complete.)

But experts say those time estimates don’t include the many hours of homework consumers will have to do before they will even be equipped to fill out the forms, like gather proof of their income. “Consumers are going to need to be prepared,” Adams says.

Government officials and all kinds of other organizations are now parsing the exchange applications and sending feedback to the Health Department on how to make the forms clearer if not idiot-proof. The Massachusetts Medicaid office, for example, suggested in a letter in February that the phrase “please print” be added to the paper form, “so the written information will be as legible as possible.”

And members of the House Ways and Means committee complained that the forms included too many gratuitous questions, asking about applicants’ voter registration status. “As if the insurance application process will not be complicated enough, HHS’s proposed application includes an inquiry about something totally unrelated to health insurance,” wrote Louisiana Republican Rep. Charles Boustany in a letter last week to the Department.

While the health reform law also provides for a support staff known as “Navigators” to help consumers sign up for insurance in the exchanges, experts worry that the Navigators will be overwhelmed with requests, and consumers who call their inundated phone lines will be stuck on hold for a while. “People won’t be able to get through,” Adams says. (Yesterday, HHS proposed training and ethics regulations for the Navigators, which don’t include specific provisions about answering phones in a timely fashion, but dictate that Navigators “will be fair and impartial and will be appropriately trained, and that they will provide services and information in a manner that is accessible.”)

Adams recommends that consumers start the application process right away when the exchanges open in October, because as 2014 approaches, the deadline for when all Americans must have health insurance, the rush of last-minute applicants may bring the enrollment websites crashing down. “Our fear is that people are going to put it off til New Year’s Eve, and by then the sites will be overloaded and Navigators will be overloaded,” Adams says.

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US Issues 1 Million Green Cards, Naturalizes 757,000 in 2012

noreply@blogger.com (Fred Soratas) — Wed, 27 Mar 2013 02:50:00 +0000

US Issues 1 Million Green Cards, Naturalizes 757,000 in 2012

March 23, 2013

Nearly a million people became U.S. citizens last year, and just over a million became legal permanent residents, according to new data released by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

The data shows the numbers of new “green card” holders and naturalizations, the process of becoming a U.S. citizen, have been fairly steady over the past few years, with a modest bump in naturalizations last year.

Claire Bergeron, a researcher with the Migration Policy Institute, attributes that increase to the 2012 presidential election.

“There were a lot of outreach efforts leading up to the presidential election to get people to naturalize. A lot of the big ones we saw this year were Latino organizations,” she said.

Latino voters, including many new citizens, helped secure President Barack Obama’s re-election and increased the power of his Democratic Party in Congress.

A total of 757,434 people naturalized in 2012, up from 694,193 the year before. The majority of new citizens were born in Mexico, the Philippines, India, the Dominican Republic and China, according to the data released Friday.

Naturalizations increased the most among people born in the Dominican Republic and Cuba between 2011 and 2012.

Vietnam, South Korea, Pakistan, Iran, Nigeria and Somalia were among the top 20 countries of origin.

Immigration policy experts say the 2012 data is fairly unremarkable, except that it may be a point of reference as immigration trends change in future years if Congress passes immigration reform.

Growing numbers of lawmakers are calling for a path to citizenship for the estimated 11.5 million unauthorized immigrants in the U.S. But what type of path, and how long it would take is the subject of intense debate, with new pitches flying through Washington each week.

Last year, the U.S. granted “green cards” to 1,031,631 foreigners. That lets them live and work permanently anywhere in the U.S. and opens the door to citizenship within five years.

Mexico, China and India were the leading countries of birth of America’s newest legal permanent residents. People born in Iraq, Burma, Bangladesh and Ethiopia were among the top 20.

The majority of the green card holders already lived in the U.S. when their status changed. Nearly 66 percent were granted permanent resident status based on a family relationship with a U.S. citizen or another green card holder.

The system to determine who gets a green card is a complicated process, with preference going to family members and foreigners with needed job skills or who came from countries not well represented in the U.S.

Some immigration reformers are suggesting a new green card category be created for the undocumented immigrants in the U.S., while others object to what they consider to be an “amnesty” for people who broke the law.

Erwin DeLeon, an immigration specialist with the Washington-based research group the Urban Institute, says he expects new data trends will emerge in about a decade because of the work Congress is doing now.

If Congress passes immigration reform this year or next, he says, “by 2020 you’ll see a big spike” in permanent residents and new citizens.

Bergeron isn’t so sure about the timing, however, since some proposals are suggesting unauthorized immigrants would have to wait as long as 10 years to become legal, with an additional five-year wait to naturalize.

Persons Naturalized by Region and Country of Birth: Fiscal Years 2010 to 2012:

2012 2011 2010

Num. % Num. % Num. %

REGION Total 757,434 100 694,193 100 619,913 100

Africa 74,775 9.9 69,738 10 64,022 10.3

Asia 257,035 33.9 249,940 36 251,598 40.6

Europe 82,714 10.9 82,209 11.8 78,011 12.6

North America 261,673 34.5 217,750 31.4 163,836 26.4

Caribbean 109,762 14.5 79,820 11.5 62,483 10.1

Central America 40,592 5.4 33,784 4.9 25,706 4.1

Other North America 111,319 14.7 104,146 15 75,647 12.2

Oceania 3,886 0.5 3,734 0.5 3,646 0.6

South America 76,992 10.2 70,485 10.2 58,474 9.4

Unknown 359 — 337 — 326 0.1

COUNTRY Total 757,434 100 694,193 100 619,913 100

Mexico 102,181 13.5 94,783 13.7 67,062 10.8

Philippines 44,958 5.9 42,520 6.1 35,465 5.7

India 42,928 5.7 45,985 6.6 61,142 9.9

Dominican Republic 33,351 4.4 20,508 3 15,451 2.5

China, People's Republic 31,868 4.2 32,864 4.7 33,969 5.5

Cuba 31,244 4.1 21,071 3 14,050 2.3

Colombia 23,972 3.2 22,693 3.3 18,417 3

Vietnam 23,490 3.1 20,922 3 19,313 3.1

Haiti 19,114 2.5 14,191 2 12,291 2

El Salvador 16,685 2.2 13,834 2 10,343 1.7

Jamaica 15,531 2.1 14,591 2.1 12,070 1.9

Korea, South 13,790 1.8 12,664 1.8 11,170 1.8

Peru 11,814 1.6 10,266 1.5 8,551 1.4

Pakistan 11,150 1.5 10,655 1.5 11,601 1.9

Brazil 9,884 1.3 10,251 1.5 8,867 1.4

Iran 9,627 1.3 9,286 1.3 9,337 1.5

Ukraine 9,459 1.2 8,489 1.2 7,345 1.2

Nigeria 9,322 1.2 9,344 1.3 9,126 1.5

Somalia 9,286 1.2 7,971 1.1 5,728 0.9

United Kingdom 9,145 1.2 9,246 1.3 8,401 1.4

All other countries 278,635 36.8 262,059 37.8 240,214 38.7

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Figure rounds to 0.0. Countries ranked by 2012 persons naturalized. Source: U.S. Department of Homeland Security, N-400 naturalization data for persons aged 18 and over, Fiscal Years 2010 to 2012.

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Senators agree on how to offer legal status to illegal immigrants - latimes.com

noreply@blogger.com (Fred Soratas) — Mon, 11 Mar 2013 19:01:00 +0000

Senators agree on path to legal status for illegal immigrants

WASHINGTON — Eight senators who have spent weeks trying to write a bipartisan bill to overhaul immigration laws have privately agreed on the most contentious part of the draft — how to offer legal status to the nation's 11 million illegal immigrants.
According to aides familiar with the closed-door negotiations, the bill would require illegal immigrants to register with Homeland Security Department authorities, file federal income taxes for their time in America and pay a still-to-be-determined fine. They also must have a clean law enforcement record.
Once granted probationary legal status, immigrants would be allowed to work but would be barred from receiving federal public benefits, including food stamps, family cash assistance, Medicaid and unemployment insurance.
RELATED: Is the border secure?
The group's current draft is largely in line with President Obama's call to set a pathway to earned citizenship as part of a broader immigration reform package, as well as with recent efforts by prominent Republican lawmakers to resolve an issue that hurt GOP candidates in November's election.
Though the draft is a long way from becoming law, immigration advocates expressed guarded optimism about a possible breakthrough.
"Nine months ago, people would have thought you were nuts to say that four Republicans and four Democrats were working on a way to legalize 11 million people," said Angela Kelley, an immigration expert at the Center for American Progress, a think tank with close ties to the White House. "It's a Rubik's Cube, but more sides are matching in color than ever before. That's significant."
Still undecided is how long illegal immigrants would need to wait before they could apply for permanent resident status and eventually become citizens. The delay for a green card probably would be 10 years or longer, the aides said.
Also unresolved are such politically charged topics as how many visas to issue to high-tech specialists and other guest workers; how to keep track of when visitors leave the country; and how to pay for more Border Patrol officers, fencing and other security measures in an era of shrinking budgets, the aides said.
The eight senators met Tuesday and Wednesday, alternating between a private office in the Russell Senate Office Building and a marble-floored ceremonial room off the Senate chamber.
The group had hoped to deliver a completed bill to the Senate Judiciary Committee for consideration before the Senate leaves for Easter recess on March 22. But aides said remaining issues required more technical advice and cost estimates that could delay delivery until early April.
The group includes Republican Sens. John McCain of Arizona, Lindsey Grahamof South Carolina, Marco Rubio of Florida and Jeff Flake of Arizona. The Democrats are Sens. Charles E. Schumer of New York, Richard J. Durbin of Illinois, Robert Menendez of New Jersey and Michael Bennet of Colorado.
The draft bill will be several hundred pages long when finished. For now, the unfinished pieces are peppered throughout the draft.
"We're working through them. I'm not sure we'll get them all done," McCain said in an interview. "Some of these issues are very controversial."
Business groups and Silicon Valley companies have pushed for more H1B visas for software engineers and other high-skilled employees, for example, while labor unions have warned that too many immigrants would undercut qualified Americans seeking high-tech jobs in a weak economy.
Unless the group designs a visa program that ensures a robust labor force, Rubio told reporters, "What you're going to have is people coming into the country illegally or overstaying visas."
Immigration overhaul bills floated in 2006 and 2007 were sunk by disagreements between labor and business leaders over how many workers to allow into the country. Some senators are skeptical that the current group can find a solution.
"The country can absorb only so much low-skilled labor without significantly impacting the prospects of working Americans to get jobs and get higher pay," said Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), a member of the judiciary panel who has been critical of previous efforts to expand the visa program.
In an effort to resolve the issue, negotiators from the AFL-CIO and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce have worked with Senate staffers to set a formula so the number of visas for both high-tech and low-skilled workers can fluctuate. They have agreed that the tally would move up or down based on job demand, unemployment rates and other data.
"We're really trying to fill in the details," said Ana Avendano, an AFL-CIO negotiator.

Page 2 of 2

The two sides have agreed that a work visa need not be tied to a specific employer and that foreign workers would be allowed to change jobs. Unions want assurances that foreign workers have the same rights as Americans to report mistreatment to the Labor Department and to sue employers for unpaid wages.
Unlike in the past, both business and organized labor want an immigration bill to pass, said Eliseo Medina, secretary-treasurer of the Service Employees International Union, which represents more than 2 million workers.
"No one wants to be responsible for deep-sixing the effort," Medina said.
Negotiators also have hit a roadblock on whether the government should keep track of who is leaving the country and how to do so.
Under current law, U.S. immigration authorities do not keep a record when tourists and other foreign visitors leave the country. So the government doesn't know whether they have overstayed their visas, as thousands do each year.
The Senate group has tentatively agreed to create a system to check visas against an immigration database at international airports and seaports but have not determined whether it is feasible at much busier border crossings. The task is potentially huge: U.S. borders with Mexico and Canada are the most highly trafficked in the world, with 250 million crossings each year.
Some lawmakers warn that checking visas as people leave the country would be expensive to implement, further clog busy border crossings and slow crucial commerce.
Muzaffar Chishti, director of the Migration Policy Institute at New York University School of Law, said the real legislative battle over immigration would come after the bill was made public.
"We haven't even begun to see the opposition to the bill," Chishti said. "Because there isn't meat on the bone."

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U.S. Struggles to Nab Visitors Who Overstay

noreply@blogger.com (Fred Soratas) — Tue, 26 Feb 2013 19:58:00 +0000

U.S. Struggles to Nab Visitors Who Overstay

WASHINGTON—A long-standing problem in immigration enforcement—identifying foreigners who fail to go home when their visas expire—is emerging as a key question as senators and President Barack Obama chart an overhaul of immigration law.

The Senate is discussing an overhaul that would require the government to track foreigners who overstay their visas. The problem is the U.S. currently doesn't have a reliable system for doing this.

Talk of illegal immigration often conjures images of people sneaking across the U.S. border from Mexico, but an estimated 40% or more of those now illegally in the U.S. entered with a valid visa.A group of Democratic and Republican senators say that a better visa-tracking system should be in place and that there should be improved U.S. border security before any of the estimated 11 million people now in the U.S. illegally can apply for citizenship under proposed new laws. Mr. Obama wants no such precondition before illegal foreigners can apply for citizenship.

Congress moved to tighten the system after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks. Foreigners now get their fingerprints taken when they enter the country. A similar biometric system to track exits also was mandated. But it proved costly and tricky to set up, and it wasn't put in place. Among other things, airports have no obvious place to do the checks.

Now, as the Senate tackles immigration overhaul, the visa-overstay challenge is gaining new attention. "We need a visa-tracking system,'' Sen. Marco Rubio (R., Fla.), a member of the bipartisan group, told talk show host Rush Limbaugh. "We don't track people when they leave. We only track them when they come in." He added that he wouldn't support a bill unless "enforcement mechanisms are in place."

The Senate group aims to introduce a bill by March and hopes to begin moving it through the legislative process this spring. President Obama has said he would propose his own immigration legislation if progress stalls, though White House officials say they are pleased with the pace so far.

Mr. Obama's potential legislation would allow all people in the country illegally to qualify for a "Lawful Prospective Immigrant" visa right away if they passed a criminal-background check, submitted biometric information and paid fees, according to a person familiar with the bill.

After eight years, people with provisional status could qualify for a green card—legal permanent residence—if they learned English and U.S. history and paid back taxes, under Mr. Obama's approach. That would allow them to apply for citizenship after a further five years. The green cards would be available earlier if the government clears the backlog of people waiting legally before eight years pass. Details of the president's draft legislation were reported earlier by USA Today.

Nobody is sure how many people are in the U.S. on expired visas. The most commonly cited figures equate to some four million to five million people. But that is based on a 2006 study by the Pew Hispanic Center, which relied on a formula that was created using 1990 data.

In 2011, there were 159 million nonimmigrant visits to the U.S., according to the Department of Homeland Security. More than three-quarters were for pleasure. But millions also involved business travelers, temporary workers and students.

A handful of other countries have established systems for monitoring visa overstays, according to the Migration Policy Institute, a nonpartisan think tank that studies immigration issues.

The institute singles out Australia as having a particularly effective system. Information is collected and electronically recorded for all visitors entering Australia, and then checked again on the spot as people depart. People who have overstayed their visas are flagged for a secondary inspection upon departure. The institute also points to Japan, which implemented an entry-exit system in 2007 that includes fingerprinting visitors.

The Senate legislation under discussion wouldn't create any additional enforcement program to track down people who overstayed visas, Senate aides in both parties said. Still, they said it is important to understand the scope of the problem, and that tougher employment-verification systems contemplated by the legislation would deter future visitors from overstaying their visas.

The Department of Homeland Security says it is on its way to creating a tracking system, though it isn't clear if it will satisfy the senators working on immigration overhaul.

The department is no longer focused on implementing a biometric system, one relying on fingerprints or other unique personal markers, to make sure someone leaving the country is the same person who entered on a particular visa. Instead, the department has begun comparing lists of people with expired visas with lists of foreigners who depart through airports and seaports.

However, the department has no current way of tracking foreigners who leave by land. And officials said the department still can't say how many people are in the country on an expired visa.

Another problem is that some of the people who haven't left the country have found legal means of staying—such as getting employment or student visas, or gaining refugee status. Officials said they are working to integrate all these databases now.

At a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing last week, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said that her department should be able to report the rate of visa overstays by the end of the year.

A biometric system that included measures like fingerprints, she said, would be "extraordinarily expensive."

The department tested three possible biometric checkpoints in pilot programs, and all had problems. The first checked travelers when they got their boarding passes. But airlines balked at that additional responsibility, and officials concluded it would be easy for travelers to "check out" at the counter and then simply leave the airport.

A second option was processing people at the security checkpoint. But that diverted officers' attention from their prime responsibilities, and slowed the lines, officials said. Plus, travelers could still leave the airport after going through security.

The final option was to do the checks in or near the jetways to capture people just before boarding.

But it was difficult to find space at the gates, a senior homeland security official said, and airlines again balked at any additional responsibilities, arguing that this is a government function.

source: wallstreetjournal

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Huffington Post: The Oscar s WINNERS LIST

noreply@blogger.com (Fred Soratas) — Mon, 25 Feb 2013 04:54:00 +0000

		WINNERS LIST
	Kanye's Rant.. Leaked Frank Ocean Track.. Ready For The Oscars.. James Brown And Tupac

WINNERS LIST

A list of Oscar Winners from the 2013 Academy Awards, courtesy of THE ASSOCIATED PRESS.

1. Supporting Actor: Christoph Waltz, "Django Unchained."

2. Animated Short Film: "Paperman."

3. Animated Feature Film: "Brave."

4. Cinematography: "Life of Pi."

5. Visual Effects: "Life of Pi."

6. Costume: "Anna Karenina."

7. Makeup and Hairstyling: "Les Miserables."

___

Oscar winners previously presented this season:

Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award: Jeffrey Katzenberg

Honorary Award: Hal Needham

Honorary Award: D.A. Pennebaker

Honorary Award: George Stevens Jr.

Award of Merit: Cooke Optics

The Academy Awards was set to include a tribute to James Bond, performances from Adele and Barbra Streisand and a host of other goodies. More from the Oscars is available in the live blog below.

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Huffington Post: PHOTOS: See The Gorgeous Dresses Of The 2013 Oscars Red Carpet

noreply@blogger.com (Fred Soratas) — Mon, 25 Feb 2013 01:24:00 +0000

		PHOTOS: See The Gorgeous Dresses Of The 2013 Oscars Red Carpet
	Jessica Chastain Stuns.. FLOTUS Talks Dates.. Independent Spirit Awards.. Best & Worst Beauty

Oscar Preparations: Movie Stars Get Ready For Hollywood's Biggest Night

noreply@blogger.com (Fred Soratas) — Sun, 24 Feb 2013 19:09:00 +0000

Oscar Preparations: Movie Stars Get Ready For Hollywood's Biggest Night

Filed by: AP

Posted: 02/24/2013 8:47 am EST
Updated: 02/24/2013 9:12 am EST

LOS ANGELES — Some dressed down in jeans and hoodies. Others looked camera-ready in suits or chic dresses and spiky stilettos.

But all of the stars who rehearsed Saturday for the 85th Academy Awards seemed excited about being a part of the big show.

They paraded through the Dolby Theatre in 15-minute increments: Meryl Streep. Ben Affleck. Reese Witherspoon. Richard Gere. Jennifer Aniston. John Travolta. Nicole Kidman. Jack Nicholson. And dozens more.

Each practiced their lines in front of an audience of show workers and awarded prop Oscars to rehearsal actors. They also scanned the theater from the stage, searching for their show-night seats.

"Oh, wow. That's a very dramatic picture of me," best-actress nominee Jessica Chastain said after spotting her seat-saving placard. "I'm looking at everyone's headshots. It's kind of incredible."

Affleck confessed his excitement from the stage as he looked out at all the famous faces expected Sunday.

"This is like the most memorable aspect of the Oscars," the "Argo" director said. "You see all these place cards (at rehearsal), then you come back and they're all here!"

Affleck also chatted backstage with the college students who won a contest to serve as trophy carriers during the ceremony.

"I love that," he said. "It's super cool."

Travolta also took time with the students.

"I was there when that idea was born and I said it was the best idea they could possibly come up with," he told the aspiring filmmakers backstage. "And here you are!"

Travolta plans to bring his 13-year-old daughter, Ella Bleu, to the ceremony.

Kidman made rehearsals a family affair. Husband Keith Urban and their eldest daughter, Sunday, watched from the audience as Kidman ran through her lines.

She looked impeccable in a wine-colored dress and tall, metallic shoes, but other stars were decidedly more casual. Kristen Stewart arrived in jeans, sneakers and a backward ballcap. (She also limped on an injured right foot.) Renee Zellweger also opted for comfort in jeans and running shoes.

The cast of "Chicago," including Gere, Zellweger, Queen Latifah and Catherine Zeta-Jones, injected their rehearsal with silliness. Latifah purposely over-enunciated her lines, and when a pair of rehearsal actors claimed an Oscar onstage and gave an acceptance speech, Zeta-Jones started to play them off with an imaginary violin.

"Get outta here!" Gere said with a smile.

Octavia Spencer, who won the supporting actress Oscar last year for her performance in "The Help," also had a little fun.

"I'm going to do a soft-shoe," she said, shuffling off stage.

Streep and Jane Fonda were each wowed by the set design. Fonda snapped a photo of it with her iPhone, and Streep marveled at how far the walk to the microphone was.

"All the way to here?!" she asked. "Oh my God."

Halle Berry literally stumbled during her first rehearsal, her pointy heel catching on part of the stage. She insisted on trying again.

"Woo hoo," she said. "Made it."

___

AP Entertainment Writer Sandy Cohen is on Twitter: .www.twitter.com/APSandy

___

Online:

www.oscars.org

Jane Fonda even took a picture of the stage with her iPhone.

The Academy Awards will be presented Sunday and broadcast live on ABC.

White House immigration bill offers path to residency - Immigration Reform - immigration bill

noreply@blogger.com (Fred Soratas) — Sun, 17 Feb 2013 00:34:00 +0000

White House immigration bill offers path to residency

The legislation is being developed as members in both chambers of Congress are drafting their own immigration bills.

WASHINGTON — A draft of a White House immigration proposal obtained by USA TODAY would allow illegal immigrants to become legal permanent residents within eight years.

The plan also would provide for more security funding and require business owners to check the immigration status of new hires within four years. In addition, the nation's 11 million illegal immigrants could apply for a newly created "Lawful Prospective Immigrant" visa, under the bill being written by the White House.

The draft was obtained from an Obama administration official who said it was being distributed to various agencies. The official requested anonymity because he was not authorized to release the proposal publicly.

The bill is being developed as members in both chambers of Congress are drafting their own immigration bills. Last month, four Republican senators joined with four Democratic senators to announce their agreement on the general outlines of an immigration plan. In the House, a bipartisan group of representatives has been negotiating an immigration proposal for years and are writing their own bill.

In his first term, Obama often deferred to Congress on drafting and advancing major legislation, including the Affordable Care Act. He has openly supported the efforts in Congress to move immigration legislation, and just this week met with Democratic senators to discuss their proposals.

But two weeks ago in Las Vegas, while outlining his immigration plans, Obama made clear that he would not wait too long for Congress to get moving.

"If Congress is unable to move forward in a timely fashion, I will send up a bill based on my proposal and insist that they vote on it right away," he said.

White House spokesman Clark Stevens said Saturday that the administration continues to support the bipartisan efforts ongoing in Congress.

"The president has made clear the principles upon which he believes any common-sense immigration reform effort should be based," Stevens said. "We continue to work in support of a bipartisan effort, and while the president has made clear he will move forward if Congress fails to act, progress continues to be made and the administration has not prepared a final bill to submit."

According to the White House draft, people would need to pass a criminal background check, submit biometric information and pay fees to qualify for the new visa. If approved, they would be allowed to legally reside in the U.S., work and leave the country for short periods of time.

Illegal immigrants would be disqualified from the program if they were convicted of a crime that led to a prison term of at least one year, three or more different crimes that resulted in a total of 90 days in jail, or if they committed any offense abroad that "if committed in the United States would render the alien inadmissible or removable from the United States."

People currently in federal custody or facing deportation proceedings also could be allowed to apply for the Lawful Prospective Immigrant visa. Application forms and instructions would be provided in "the most common languages spoken by persons in the United States," but the application and all supporting evidence submitted to the federal government would have to be in English.

They would also be given a new identification card to show as proof of their legal status in the country.

The immigrants could then apply for legal permanent residence, commonly known as a green card, within eight years if they learn English and "the history and government of the United States" and pay back taxes. That would then clear the path for them to apply for U.S. citizenship.

To combat fraud, the draft proposes a new Social Security card be developed that is "fraud-resistant, tamper-resistant and wear-resistant." The Social Security Administration would be required to issue the new cards within two years.

A major requirement for many Republicans is enhanced border security. The bill calls for an unspecified increase in the Border Patrol, allows the Department of Homeland Security to expand technological improvements along the border and adds 140 new immigration judges to process the heavy flow of people who violate immigration laws.

It also orders U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) to study whether a land-border crossing fee should be implemented to help offset border security costs. The draft also proposes raising many inspection fees that border-crossers already pay.

The draft bill proposes a new plan to allow Homeland Security to "accept donations" from citizens, businesses and local and state governments to improve ports of entry and security features along the border. And it would require CBP to begin collecting statistics on deaths along the border and report them quarterly.

The draft also expands the E-Verify program that checks the immigration status of people seeking new jobs. Businesses with more than 1,000 employees must begin using the system within two years, businesses with more than 250 employees within three years and all businesses within four years.

Homeland Security, working with the U.S. departments of Labor and Agriculture, the attorney general and other agencies, would engage in a $40 million-a-year program to educate business owners and workers about the program.

Homeland Security also would be required to submit a report within 18 months showing how the worker verification system is working, and specifically explain how it is affecting the nation's agriculture industry, which relies heavily on illegal immigrant workers.

The draft obtained by USA TODAY does not include sections that would alter the nation's legal immigration system to adjust the future flow of legal immigrants, which is expected to be a critical component of any immigration overhaul.

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Miami hotel selling green cards, seeking EB5 investment visas

noreply@blogger.com (Fred Soratas) — Wed, 13 Feb 2013 04:24:00 +0000

Miami hotel selling green cards, seeking EB5 investment visas

MIAMI — If David Hart gets his way, South Beach’s 42-room Astor Hotel will be on a hiring spree this year as it adds concierge service, a roof-top pool, an all-night diner, spa and private-car service available 24 hours a day.

New hires will be crucial to Hart’s business plan, since foreign investors have agreed to pay about $50,000 for each job created by the Art Deco boutique.

The Miami immigration lawyer specializes in arranging visas for wealthy foreign citizens under a special program that trades green cards for investment dollars. Businesses get the money and must use it to boost payroll. The minimum investment is $500,000 to add at least 10 jobs to the economy. That puts the pressure on Hart and his partners at the Astor to beef up payroll dramatically, with plans to take a hotel with roughly 20 employees to one with as many as 100 workers.

“My primary responsibility is to make something happen here over the next two years that will create the jobs we need,’’ Hart said a few steps away from a nearly empty restaurant on a recent weekday morning. “It’s all going to be transformed.”

Though established in the 1990s, the “EB5” visas soared in popularity during the recession as developers sought foreign cash to replace dried-up credit markets in the United States.

Chinese investors dominate the transactions, accounting for about 65 percent of the nearly 9,000 EB5 visas granted since 2006. South Korea finishes a distant second at 12 percent and the United Kingdom holds the third-place slot at 3 percent. If Latin America and the Caribbean were one country, they would rank No. 4 on the list, with 231 EB5 visas granted, or about 3 percent of the total.

Competition has gotten stiffer for the deep-pocketed foreign investors willing to pay for green cards. The University of Miami’s bio-science research park near the Jackson hospital system raised $20 million from 40 foreign investors under the EB5 program, most of them from Asia. The money went into the park’s first building; visa brokers are waiting to see if the second building will proceed so they can offer a new pool of potential green-card sales.

In Hollywood, the stalled $131 million Margaritaville resort had hoped to raise about $75 million from EB5 investors before ditching that plan last year to pursue more traditional financing. A retail complex by developer Jeff Berkowitz in Coral Gables also launched a program to raise $50 million in EB5 money for the project, Gables Station. Hart worked with other EB5 investors to back pizza restaurants in Miami and South Beach. A limestone mine in Martin County also was backed by EB5 dollars.

This year, the city of Miami itself is expected to get into the business by setting up an EB5 program to raise foreign cash for a range of city businesses and developments. The first would be the tallest building in the city — developer Tibor Hollo’s planned 85-story apartment tower, the Panorama, in downtown Miami.

With a construction cost of about $700 million, Miami’s debut EB5 venture hopes to raise about $100 million from foreign investors, said Laura Reiff, the Greenberg Traurig lawyer in Virginia working with Miami on the EB5 effort. “This is a marquis project,’’ she said.

The arrangement is a novel one for Miami, with the city planning to help a private developer raise funds overseas for a new high-rise. And it would allow Hollo and future participants to tout the city of Miami’s endorsement when competing with other Miami-area projects for EB5 dollars. “We will have the benefit of the brand of the city of Miami,’’ said Mikki Canton, the $6,000-a-month city consultant heading Miami’s EB5 effort. “A lot of these others are privately owned and they won’t have that brand.”

She said the Hollo project will be crucial for getting Miami’s EB5 designation approved in Washington, but that the program will be open to all local businesses that qualify. She sees the city’s effort as a way to make EB5 funding more affordable to Miami busineses that don’t have the funds to pursue an EB5 designation in the private sector.

Other governments have gotten into the EB5 business, too. Dallas set up an EB5 center in 2009. Vermont’s governor, Pete Shumlin, was in Miami recently to pitch his state’s EB5 program to visiting investors.

Miami will set up a committee of city department heads to screen potential projects EB5 for consideration, followed by approval by a panel of outside experts on the program, Canton said. “We really want to have a strong say in the projects,” she said. “We want to make sure the projects do create jobs and spur economic development. ”

The details remain in flux, but she said business owners like Hollo would pay a fee for using the city’s EB5 “regional center,” which is the entity that can forward projects to Washington for approval. Developers also will bear the expense of finding investors overseas and getting the project approved by immigration officials.

Hollo will initially pay about $25,000 to be the debut EB5 project for Miami, with the city kicking in about $40,000. Future participants would likely pay more, Canton said.

In an interview, Hollo said he would not have trouble obtaining financing without the city’s EB5 program and at a lower interest rate. He said his participation is tied mainly to Miami wanting a big venture to win approval for its EB5 certification in Washington. Once certified as a “regional center,” Miami’s EB5 organization can then raise money overseas for multiple ventures and submit them for approval to Washington.

“This is the poster child for the program,’’ Hollo said.

VISA RULES

Critics see the national EB5 program as more about wealthy foreigners jumping to the front of the green-card line, ahead of immigrants chasing visas tied to obtaining and securing employment in the United States. Each visa category has its own cap, so the popularity of one doesn’t affect limits on the other. But EB5 visa holders have much more flexibility when they come to the United States than do the traditional green-card holder. Most immigrants with green cards must maintain employment or risk deportation. But EB5 visa holders can hold a green card indefinitely without the need for work, provided the jobs tied to their projects get certified by Washington. A successful EB5 applicant can obtain a green card, plus visas for a spouse and their children under 21.

The system has no requirements for creating well-paying jobs, though high salaries help developers claim more economic impact. Attorneys like Hart who sell the investment slots can take credit not just for jobs on a business’s payroll, but also for “indirect” job creation from the money a business generates. And the investment dollars that pour in can mean healthy profits for developers, without the normal restrictions and costs associated with traditional financing from a bank or domestic backers.

“Frankly, it’s cheap capital,’’ said David Schubauer, a securities lawyer with Bilzin Sumberg who has worked on local EB5 projects. While most investors expect at least 8 percent back on their initial investment each year, Schubauer said he finds the typical EB5 applicant is happy with earning a return of only 1 or 2 percent.

“It’s cheap because the foreigners who invest in these deals are primarily interested in getting their green cards and becoming permanent residents,’’ he said. “They’re not so interested in the return they’re going to get from their investments.”

Supporters see the EB5 program as another option for bringing overseas cash into the domestic economy, and then target the money to increasing employment for U.S. citizens. While most green-card programs are tied to a foreign resident obtaining employment — and competing with U.S. job seekers — the EB5 program only asks that a foreign resident invest in creating jobs for existing residents.

Federal law allows up to 10,000 EB5 visas to be issued each year. The more popular visa categories, such as the H1B (skilled foreign workers) and H2B (seasonal foreign workers), regularly hit their annual caps mid-year. But the EB5 has never reached the 10,000 mark.

Immigration experts expect that to change in 2013, as applications from China threaten to push approvals above the cap. That would kick-in limits on the number of EB5 visas that could go to China, since per-country caps automatically go into effect once the overall limit is reached on a single visa category. That could make 2013 the most complicated year yet for South Florida’s cottage industry of EB5 projects as the pool of potential Chinese investors shrinks to those admitted under the cap.

The US Citizenship and Immigration Service lists more than two dozen EB5 centers in Florida, some with four or five projects attached to them. There is no official list of EB5 projects in South Florida, but the program has been popular in the region for years. Some EB5 ventures are merely ideas awaiting investor interest. Balco International in Royal Palm Beach wants EB5 backing to launch a chain of Great American Diner restaurants out of converted mobile homes. A steel-house factory to be built in Miami-Dade was announced in 2011 as an approved EB5 project but now has a dead website and disconnected phone lines.

While getting an EB5 project approved in Washington takes time, the real crunch comes in the two years when the ventures must create the jobs tied to the visas. At the start of the two years, investors receive a temporary green card. At the end of the two years, if the jobs have been created and still exist, investors receive permanent green cards — a crucial step that makes citizenship within reach . Investors face deportation if immigration officials conclude there aren’t 10 jobs to match each visa.

At the lone building at the new University of Miami Life Science and Technology Park, developers hope to soon win final approval for their 40 investors, said Benjamin Cummings, the Richmond, Va., consultant to who brokered the EB5 deals for UM’s developer, Wexford Science and Technology.

The foreign investors covered about $20 million of the building’s $107 million price tag. About half of them were from Asia, Cummings said, with Latin America accounting for a third of the investors. Federal rules require the creation of 400 jobs to justify those investment visas for a building that Wexford said is 75 percent full and where the main tenants are existing UM operations that relocated from other locations.

Thanks to indirect employment calculations, Cummings said the UM building expects to take credit for at least 1,000 jobs. “We will be well over the 400,’’ Cummings said.

HIGH STAKES

The stakes are high for projects like UM’s Life Science park. With hundreds of EB5 projects competing for a limited pool of deep-pocketed foreigners willing to invest, the pressure is on to promise sure-fire job creation in the United States.

“In China, in particular, it’s like snake-oil salesmen. It’s crazy the promises being made,’’ said Jose Latour, a Miami immigration lawyer who helps raise EB5 cash and is a partner in the venture that backed the Martin County mine. Not all foreign investors “are so rich they can lose half-a-million bucks. There are a lot of families who have been destroyed. There is a lot of greed that is happening.”

Immigration lawyers and others involved in EB5 projects said wealthy foreign residents often will gift the EB5 money to adult children who attended college in the United States and want to stay there to work. In China, brokers play key roles in matching projects with investors for a commission on the deal. In the Astor Hotel venture, each investor pays $550,000 — $500,000 toward the hotel expansion and $50,000 as a transaction fee.

As for the Astor investors, Hart said he’s lined up foreign residents for about half of his slots: two from Venezuela, two from Colombia, three from Mexico and one from Canada. He’s expecting to round out the offering with investors from China.

Hart and his partners hope to raise $8 million from 16 foreign investors, meaning the Astor expansion must claim 160 new jobs to justify the visas. About 100 will be employed by the Astor, and 60 jobs will be claimed as created indirectly by construction work and the money that flows out from the Astor itself.

The $8 million infusion would fund most of a $10 million redo at the Astor, a hotel located on the 900 block of Washington Avenue and a few blocks back from the beach. Hart is partnering with the existing operator to renovate and relaunch the Astor, and he is promising new jobs from almost every inch of the 1936 hotel.

“This is not a full-service hotel. Right now, there is no room service. There is no concierge,’’ he said. “That’s all going to change.”

At the valet stand outside, Hart pictures two cars with drivers ready to ferry guests wherever they want. In the upscale Italian restaurant off the lobby, dei Frescobaldi, continental offerings will be replaced with full breakfast service. An idle bar off to the side will be converted into an all-night diner.

And for guests interested in al fresco dining, they can head up to the roof. Now just a shabby expanse of HVAC equipment with partial ocean views, Hart and partners want to add a rooftop pool and restaurant. A name change is in the works, too: the New Astor Hotel and Spa. And while there’s no space for a spa right now, the Astor plans to sacrifice one of its 42 rooms to create one.

Hart said there wouldn’t be the pressure to add so many new employees at the $400-a-night Astor if not for the EB5 investors. “We need to maximize the amount of jobs,’’ he said.”

But Hart insists the ambitious plans will work well for a hotel market where rates are at record levels. “We’re doing a complete renovation, and we’re doing a complete transformation,’’ he said. The aim is to earn a four-star ranking, but Hart said “we’re hoping for five stars.’’

source: adn.com

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Rio Carnival 2013 kicks off with Samba parade - video

noreply@blogger.com (Fred Soratas) — Tue, 12 Feb 2013 16:44:00 +0000

Rio Carnival 2013 kicks off with Samba parade - video

Brazil's famous Rio Carnival kicks off on Friday with the traditional parade through the city's Sambadrome. The epicenter of the celebrations in Rio de Janeiro hosts dance schools' performances that are watched by audiences and judges. The three-day event is expected to see millions of revelers enjoy the thousands of unofficial street parties around the city

Huffington Post: MUSIC'S BIGGEST PARTY - Grammy award 2013 - Winners

noreply@blogger.com (Fred Soratas) — Mon, 11 Feb 2013 02:18:00 +0000

		MUSIC'S BIGGEST PARTY
	Grammy Winners List.. Performances.. Affleck Again.. Song Of The Year.. New Drake Video

For more on the Grammys, click here. Find more Grammy award 2013 winners in the liveblog below.

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Kimpeach 49 seconds ago (9:16 PM)

931 Fans

Its still hard for me to welcome Timberlake back to music after he mocked those homeless people at his wedding. I am also disappointed Fiona Apple didn't win her award for Best Alternative.

john77 3 minutes ago (9:14 PM)

79 Fans

Why on earth is Katy Perry there? The dear woman can't sing live. She's a fake. Most female singers these days are fakes and should not be rewarded with awards. It makes a mockery of all those performers who can actually sing.

Nothing_Profundus 5 minutes ago (9:12 PM)

65 Fans

How did Call Me Maybe not win song of the year?

john77 6 minutes ago (9:11 PM)

79 Fans

I just feel that the Grammy Awards have become irrelevant. Most singers these days are fakes. They use AutoTune, for instance. Singers like Britney Spears mime to tracks. Other singers - females in particular - use pre-recorded vocals to disguise their inability to sing live. When you give awards to people who can't sing live, you are rewarding fakeness.

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BlueZoo 6 minutes ago (9:11 PM)

1153 Fans

Timberlake needs to know he looks a lot like Leonardo DiCaprio with that haircut! btw: When did Timberlake's voice get so high?

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mmjcrab711 7 minutes ago (9:10 PM)

151 Fans

Justin Timberlake did good. His performance was awesome. He got his sexy back with his performance.

kesslangley 9 minutes ago (9:08 PM)

40 Fans

Justin Timberlake is so overrated. This is the worst Grammy Show ever.

bradleybt 13 minutes ago (9:04 PM)

12 Fans

I'm 32 and even I don't know most of these people... but good God... Katy sweetie... I need to pick up my tongue off the floor and shove it back into my mouth! Also, the Grammy's need a little less Chris Brown and a little more Slayer... actually a lot more Slayer... and Slipknot, Korn, Deftones, MudVayne, Linkin Park, Cold, Chevelle, Sevendust... etc.

john77 5 minutes ago (9:12 PM)

79 Fans

Katy Perry is yuck. Yuck, yuck, yuck.

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Danny_Dan 13 minutes ago (9:03 PM)

596 Fans

SO who sold the most records wins usually. Someones pockets still get lined....

Dr_Jimmy_and_Mr_Jim 14 minutes ago (9:03 PM)

1153 Fans

I thought Woodstock was Music's Biggest Party... (.5 million)

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Danny_Dan 14 minutes ago (9:03 PM)

596 Fans

Money and chisel @ the grammy's. The talent is all in the backround......

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mmjcrab711 15 minutes ago (9:02 PM)

151 Fans

Britney Howard from the Alabama Shakes looks so pretty. I loved Adele's dress. Katy Perry's dress was awesome too.

Word2ThaWize 16 minutes ago (9:01 PM)

190 Fans

BIG congrats on actually allowing the mainstream music you never allow, like REGGAE, to make an appearance and be seen.

Lisztomania 16 minutes ago (9:00 PM)

0 Fans

It's one big infomercial for the rather tired music industry.

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Buying U.S. Green Card More Popular Than Ever: Chart of the Day - Bloomberg

noreply@blogger.com (Fred Soratas) — Fri, 08 Feb 2013 13:09:00 +0000

Buying U.S. Green Card More Popular Than Ever: Chart of the Day

By Max Raskin & Jasmine Zhao - Feb 7, 2013 6:00 AMFacebook ShaLinkedIn

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Jim Watson/AFP via Getty Images

Permanent residence cards, known as green cards, rest on the check-in table as resident alias arrive for a naturalization ceremony in Alexandria, Virginia.

The number of foreigners who have purchased green cards by investing in the U.S. has exploded in the last decade.

25:24

Jan. 29 (Bloomberg) -- U.S. President Barack Obama speaks about proposed sweeping revisions to the nation's immigration laws. Speaking at Del Sol High School in Las Vegas, the president gave cautious endorsement to a new Senate blueprint for immigration legislation and offered more details of his own plan. (Source: Bloomberg)

The CHART OF THE DAY shows approved applications for the EB-5 visa increased to 3,677 in 2012 from 69 in 2002, according to data from the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services. This visa gives foreigners permanent resident status if they show they'll spur 10 jobs for every $500,000 spent in a rural or high-unemployment area and for every $1 million elsewhere. The total number of immigrant visas grew 24 percent to 482,300 from 389,157 during the same period.

"Taking a job from an American is not an issue here," saidEdward Alden, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations specializing in visa and immigration policy. "If you look at investment in the U.S. economy over the past decade, it's been fairly weak. Anything you can do to strengthen investment, even at the margins, is valuable."

The EB-5 program has generated more than $6.8 billion in U.S. investment and created at least 49,300 jobs since it was established in 1990, according to the immigration agency.

The White House proposed that opportunities for the investor visas be expanded as part of a broad immigration program announced Jan. 29.

"The time has come for common-sense, comprehensive immigration reform," PresidentBarack Obama said the same day in a speech at Del Sol High School in Las Vegas.

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We're Ready For Immigration Reform: A Novelist's Perspective

noreply@blogger.com (Fred Soratas) — Tue, 05 Feb 2013 04:48:00 +0000

		We're Ready For Immigration Reform: A Novelist's Perspective
	For several years, I have been talking about illegal immigrants, all over the country. Every time I finish my talk, I wait for a blast of hostility. It never comes.

US Greencard

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Super Bowl 2013: Most Googled Super Bowl questions -

noreply@blogger.com (Fred Soratas) — Sat, 02 Feb 2013 20:27:00 +0000

NFL

SUPER BOWL 2013

Super Bowl 2013: Most Googled Super Bowl questions

USA TODAY Sports

You have questions about the Super Bowl, and I have answers about the Super Bowl.

Who? What? When? Where? Why? And sometimes How? Frankly, I'm a little sick and tired of treating How like it's different or less important just because it starts with an H instead of a W. If we're going to be that picky about word choices, then I guess we should have called it Wow or Whow with a silent W. Otherwise, How is probably a more important question than When or Where. We know when the Super Bowl is (February 3rd, 2013) and where the Super Bowl is (New Orleans) but isn't the more important question... How the Super Bowl is?

Deep stuff.

You have asked many questions regarding the Super Bowl through the internet tool known as Google. Thanks to Google giving us great suggestions (but sometimes crappy life advice. Thanks a lot, Google. I should have remembered that websites still don't understand human emotions) I can tell exactly what it is that you are searching for and the questions that you're asking. Now let me take a moment to try and give you the answers you seek. Even if you just want to know how the Super Bowl is doing.

'Super Bowl' suggestions

'Super Bowl winners' -

That's easy. I've spent a lot of time on the Super Bowl over the last two weeks. Here are the 46 winners:

Packers Packers Jets Chiefs Colts Cowboys Dolphins Dolphins Steelers SteelersRaiders Cowboys Steelers Steelers Raiders 49ers Redskins Raiders 49ers Bears GiantsRedskins 49ers 49ers Giants Redskins Cowboys Cowboys 49ers Cowboys PackersBroncos Broncos Rams Ravens Patriots Bucs Patriots Patriots Steelers Colts Giants Steelers Saints Packers Giants

Any more brainbusters?

'Super Bowl 2012' -

Ugh, that's SO yesteryear! The Giants upset the Patriots 21-17. New York became the first team in NFL history to win the Super Bowl after being outscored during the regular season. You got to love the NFC East for letting the Giants into the playoffs!

'Super Bowl time' -

6:30 EST on CBS. It will be preceded by six hours of pregame coverage. No, I'm being serious.

'Super Bowl food' -

People love the heck out of eating but especially during the Super Bowl (or any other time to make an excuse to eat too much food. My work had a potluck for when we switched from Notes email to Outlook). In fact, SBNation wrote a whole crapload of articles relating to Super Bowl recipes. I wrote this one about Jello Shots. It'll get ya drunk.

Follow Ken on Twitter

Now onto the questions:

'Where?'

If you Google "Where Super Bowl" it will actually suggest terribly-worded questions like 'Where Super Bowl 2013" and "Where Super Bowl" as well as "Where Super Bowls Were Played" which sounds like the name of some very inspirational sports movie.

If you want to know "Where is the Super Bowl" this year, then the answer is that it is being held in New Orleans for the tenth time. The last time it was played in the Superdome, the Patriots beat the Rams in one of the biggest upsets in Super Bowl history.

Next year, the Super Bowl is held on February 2nd at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey.Joe Flacco, Jersey native, thinks that's stupid. You don't "go to the Jersey Shore, betch" unless it's summer.

"When?"

If you Google "When Is" then the first suggestion right now is "When is Super Bowl 2013" followed by Easter, Thanksgiving, and "When is the end of the world". The latter could always eliminate the necessity of the former suggestions. There's still time for an apocalypse before the Super Bowl this year! /crosses fingers

(The first hit to that end of the world question is actually a link to nasa.gov, because they felt that really needed to explain why the world didn't end on December 21st.)

The Super Bowl is February 3rd in the evening on the east coast and in the afternoon on the west coast. Some other time of day on the west coast of Africa.

"What?"

There are still people that need to know what the Super Bowl actually is. "What is Super Bowl Sunday" is a top suggestion on Google and the answer is "The Super Bowl is the championship game of the National Football League (NFL), the premier association of professional football." My only question to anyone that needed to ask that question was how they even heard of the Super Bowl in the first place.

Are you five? I suppose it makes sense if you're five. Kids that are five are controlling the internet. Wait, I just said "kids" and "internet" in the same sentence. I'm just gonna go sit over there.

"What Super Bowl..."

"What Super Bowl is it?" Super Bowl XLVII, or, Super Bowl 47 if you don't know what those extra letters are all about. (There is no other reason to really know what they are about. We did a good job of inventing and then transitioning to numbers.)

"What Super Bowls did the Packers win?" 1, 2, 31, and 45. There were longer breaks in between wins than you might have thought.

"Why?"

Why is a funny question to ask about the Super Bowl, but I did it anyway. "Why Super Bowl ads" is the top suggestion. There really isn't an answer to that, just hits about Super Bowl ads. I guess the answer is because more people watch the Super Bowl than anything else every year, so companies are likely to advertise on that day, and so they go all out. Therefore, people watch for the commercials.

"Who?"

"Who Super Bowl" mostly pertains to musicians actually. "Who Superbowl Drummer" is a top suggestion and leads to The Who drummer Zac Starkey performing in 2010. This year, Beyonce (and likely surprise guests) will perform the halftime show, while Alicia Keys will sing the national anthem. And of course, Beyonce already crapped all over that by performing the national anthem at her Super Bowl press conference.

Last year, Madonna performed at halftime in front of 114 million viewers, 3 million more viewers than those that actually watched the game itself. I'm hopeful that 50 million people were in the bathroom or having a cigarette at halftime.

"How?"

"How the Super Bowl works" is actually an article on the awesome site, How Stuff Works. Just in case you were like "How'd they get that darn fangled game to work??" It's actually quite simple and not much different than how other football games work. The only difference is that halftime is about 18 minutes longer and more people watch than a regular game.

"How did the Super Bowl get its name?" Now there is a good question!

Lamar Hunt, "architect of the AFL", coined the term when the first post AFL-NFL merger championship game was played between the Packers and Chiefs in 1967. Hunt made a joke that they should call it the "Super Bowl" after a toy his daughter had... a Super BALL! So there you go, the most important sporting event in America is a bad pun.

That sounds about right.

Now, are there any questions?

SUPER BOWL 2013

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White House: Immigrants Shouldn't Wait 'Decades' For Green Card | whitehouse.gov

noreply@blogger.com (Fred Soratas) — Sat, 02 Feb 2013 16:06:00 +0000

White House: Immigrants Shouldn't Wait 'Decades' For Green Card

Experts warn that under the current legal process, backologs and quotas could take so long to overcome for some categories of applicants that they'd effectively never become permanent residents or citizens. The Senate's bipartisan working group has kept thing vague as to how they'd deal with this issue.

The White House's plan, by contrast, suggested some means of speeding up and expanding the green card process to provide a more reliable path to citizenship for the estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants.

"We've though through how to do it in a resonable amount of time," Munoz said in a Google+ panel on Thursday, saying it was "a very, very important piece of what's in the presidents proposal."

Barack Obama 2013

noreply@blogger.com (Fred Soratas) — Fri, 01 Feb 2013 14:46:00 +0000

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Video : Obama lays out immigration reform plan 2013 ! Washington Post

noreply@blogger.com (Fred Soratas) — Wed, 30 Jan 2013 05:33:00 +0000

npost.com/wp-srv/video/videoEmbed.html?uuid=a8782f7c-6a4e-11e2-95b3-272d604a10a3&noheadline=0">

LAS VEGAS — President Obama on Tuesday put the weight of his administration behind efforts to pass legislation allowing many of the nation’s 11 million illegal immigrants to earn citizenship, seeking to build on a rapidly shifting political consensus around the issue.

Obama dedicated the first trip of his second term to calling for an overhaul of immigration laws, making clear that it is one of his top domestic priorities. The president — who has said that not passing an overhaul in his first term was his biggest failure — also suggested he has little patience for Congress and would demand that lawmakers vote on his more permissive plan if they do not swiftly pass their own.

“Now is the time,” Obama said, eliciting chants of “Si, se puede” — roughly translated as “Yes, it’s possible” — from the crowd at a majority Hispanic high school here. “We can’t allow immigration reform to get bogged down in an endless debate.”

Fresh off a decisive reelection, Obama is seizing this moment as one in which both sides could come together to address widespread anxieties within rising demographic groups, particularly Hispanics and Asian Americans.

But obstacles still loomed large Tuesday on Capitol Hill, fueled by continued unease among conservative Republicans over going too far to loosen immigration restrictions. One of the biggest disputes centers on whether illegal immigrants would have to wait to seek a green card — the first step to full citizenship — until the U.S. border with Mexico is secure and other enforcement measures are in place.

A bipartisan Senate plan released Monday would tie the possibility of citizenship to several such enforcement measures, including a system to verify the immigration status of employees. The president did not comment explicitly on that proposal in his speech, but the administration suggested in its own guidelines released Tuesday that it does not want to link the citizenship process to other goals.

“It must be clear from the outset that there is a pathway to citizenship,” Obama said, adding that the administration has made great strides in an effort to toughen enforcement.

Some key Republicans expressed concern with any approach that does not link border security with the proposal to offer illegal immigrants a way to become citizens.

“Without such triggers in place, enforcement systems will never be implemented and we will be back in just a few years dealing with millions of new undocumented people in our country,” said Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), a potential 2016 presidential candidate and one of eight senators who signed on to the bipartisan framework.

Another set of pitfalls awaits in the House, where many Republicans are deeply skeptical of any legislation that they believe might be overly generous to illegal immigrants.

“There are a lot of ideas about how best to fix our broken immigration system,” said Brendan Buck, a spokesman for House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio). “We hope the president is careful not to drag the debate to the left and ultimately disrupt the difficult work that is ahead in the House and Senate.”

Page 2 of 2

The White House had considered releasing its own legislation to overhaul the immigration system, but Obama said it would not immediately do so. The president and his aides have long worried that by simply endorsing a position, Obama could turn Republicans against a proposal they otherwise might support.

Obama said the Senate framework is “very much in line with the principles I’ve proposed and campaigned on for the last few years.” But — in keeping with the more muscular approach he has taken in other recent debates — Obama also made clear he would not wait long.

“If Congress is unable to move forward in a timely fashion, I will send up a bill based on my proposal and insist that they vote on it right away,” he said.

Just a year ago, during a Republican presidential primary season dominated by tough talk on immigration, it seemed implausible that legislation to address the issue could muster support. But many Republicans have shifted rapidly on the issue since the November election, when Obama won more than 70 percent of votes from Latinos and Asian Americans.

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), Obama’s 2008 opponent, said he was “cautiously optimistic” that the two sides could reach a deal.

“While there are some differences in our approaches to this issue, we share the belief that any reform must recognize America as a nation of laws and a nation of immigrants,” said McCain, who spearheaded a failed 2007 immigration overhaul effort before emphasizing tough border positions during his 2010 reelection.

The senators have said they want to draft a bill by the end of March and pass it through the Senate by the summer, striking quickly while there is momentum on the issue.

But aides acknowledge there are dozens of questions they must answer before they can come forward with legislation. For example, what measurements will be used to determine if border security has been improved sufficiently to allow illegal immigrants to pursue full citizenship? How large a fine would be required to get probationary legal residency? How would a temporary-worker program operate?

Under Obama’s plan, illegal immigrants seeking citizenship would register, submit biometric data, pass background checks and pay fees before gaining provisional legal status, according to a White House summary. After taking those steps and learning English, the immigrants would wait in line for existing immigration backlogs to clear before being allowed to apply for permanent resident status, which immigrants must hold before they can apply for citizenship.

Children brought to the United States illegally would be eligible for an expedited process if they go to college or serve in the military for at least two years. The plan would also allow citizens and permanent residents to seek a visa for a same-sex partner — an idea opposed by many religious groups and one that went unmentioned by Obama in his Tuesday speech.

“It won’t be a quick process, but it will be a fair process,” Obama said Tuesday in Nevada, which is 27 percent Hispanic.

‘Us versus them’ dynamic

The president, the son of a Kenyan man and an American woman, also sought to remind the audience of immigration’s central role in the nation’s history.

“When we talk about that in the abstract, it’s easy sometimes for the discussion to take on a feeling of ‘us versus them,’ ” Obama said. “And when that happens, a lot of folks forget that most of ‘us’ used to be ‘them.’ ”

Obama, who will take his case to the Spanish-language Univision and Telemundo networks on Wednesday, said his principles for immigration reform also include strengthening border security and cracking down more forcefully on businesses that knowingly hire illegal workers.

Immigration advocates reacted enthusiastically.

“The president faced a tough situation on how to encourage the bipartisan process without becoming hostage to it,” said Frank Sharry, executive director of America’s Voice, an advocacy group. “As someone who has been concerned and hoping he would be aggressive, I thought he did strike the right tone.”

Helderman reported from Washington. David Nakamura, Tara Bahrampour and William Branigin contributed to this report.

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Disney brings more oomph with New Fantasyland Disneyland Orlando

noreply@blogger.com (Fred Soratas) — Wed, 30 Jan 2013 04:58:00 +0000

Disney brings more oomph with New Fantasyland

Orlando (CNN) -- When Walt Disney World's New Fantasyland opens Thursday in the Magic Kingdom, guests will be in for a slew of magical moments, and they'll have plenty of room to enjoy them. This portion of the park nearly doubled in size, making it the largest expansion in the park's 41-year history.

"It gives guests another level of immersion," says Tom Staggs, chairman of Walt Disney Parks and Resorts. "We have technology to play with that Walt DIsney didn't have."

For instance, part of the expansion includes Beast's Castle, which sits atop Be Our Guest restaurant. During lunch hours, guests order at touch-screen kiosks and take radio-frequency devices to their tables. Once the pager is placed on the table, servers know exactly where to deliver the food. And voila, meals arrive within minutes via a glass-enclosed cart.

"Everything is fresh, made to order, and for lunch we are hoping for the bustling kind of energy like the movie scene (from 'Beauty and the Beast') in the dining room," says Lenny DeGeorge, Walt Disney World executive chef.

Weatherman dances at Fantasyland

In the evening, the restaurant transforms into fancy table-service dining, inviting guests to feast upon French onion soup, mussels Provençal and charcuterie while sipping on French wines and beers. This is a first, since alcohol has never been served before in the Magic Kingdom.

In true Disney style, the decor inside and out is over the top. From the chandeliers to the walls to the terrazzo floor to the draperies, it's all true to the movie. Even suits of armor that whisper to passersby line the hallway. Guests then make their way into the grand ballroom, which has an entire wall of arched windows, complete with magical snowflakes falling upon the French countryside.

Faith Lee, from Lake Mary, Florida, appreciates the extreme theming. "I felt like a kid again entering (Be Our Guest restaurant)," she says. "It completely recreates the details of Beast's Castle to the most minute aspect."

Other areas of New Fantasyland involve similar attention to detail, completely immersing guests in the beloved Disney stories. The expansion, which has been in the works for more than three years, introduces two new areas ---- the Enchanted Forest, which focuses on Beauty and the Beast and The Little Mermaid, and Storybook Circus, an area inspired by the Disney animated feature "Dumbo."

Have you been to New Fantasyland? Share your images

Major focus on character time

Outside, to the far left of Beast's Castle is Maurice's Cottage, a provincial abode that houses an enchanted mirror. It spectacularly transforms into a portal whisking guests into the story of Beauty and the Beast. Once in the Beast's library, Enchanted Tales with Belle goes way beyond a typical meet and greet when Belle and friends invite guests to help act out the "tale as old as time."

Next door at Prince Eric's Castle, kids and adults alike will enjoy Under the Sea - Journey of the Little Mermaid (almost identical to the Disney California Adventure version). After walking through an interactive queue, guests board giant clamshells as animation and animatronics retell Ariel's story. Afterward in Ariel's Grotto, guests score one-on-one time with the redheaded mermaid herself as she poses for photos and signs autographs.

"For us, the Fantasyland expansion was more than we could have imagined," Lee says. "It was like being immersed in the stories of Belle and Ariel, not just visiting attractions."

Lee and her family were also impressed with Storybook Circus, which opened over the summer. This portion of the park includes a water play area, tame roller coaster and gift shop. The revamped Dumbo ride, with its new indoor queue lounge, is a crowd pleaser for parents who want to sit down for a bit and children who want to enjoy an elaborate playground. Guests receive a pager that virtually holds their place in line; it lights up when it's time to board the ride. Another option is to grab a FastPass and wait in a traditional line outdoors.

Overall, the new additions certainly have Disney fans aflutter, but will this translate to an influx of Orlando visitors?

Danielle Courtenay, chief marketing officer for Visit Orlando, thinks so.

"When any major new attraction opens in Orlando, there's always a positive impact in terms of increased awareness and interest in the destination," she says. "With New Fantasyland being the largest expansion in Magic Kingdom history, we are certainly optimistic that it will impact visitation for 2013 and beyond."

Coming soon

Princess Fairytale Hall is scheduled to open in 2013 in the former home of Snow White's Scary Adventures. Located in the Castle Courtyard in the center of Fantasyland, it will be a place for guests to meet Disney princess characters.

Come early 2014, the finishing touch will be a roller coaster, the Seven Dwarfs Mine Train, in the heart of it all. This family thrill ride will be an experience somewhere in between the tame Barnstormer, a re-themed "beginner's coaster," and the classic Big Thunder Mountain Railroad. With its patented train of vehicles that swing back and forth, the attraction will be the first of its kind.

Have you visited Disney World recently? Please share your experiences and tips in the comments section below.

Obama To Push Progressive Immigration Plan Today

noreply@blogger.com (Fred Soratas) — Tue, 29 Jan 2013 18:48:00 +0000

		Obama To Push Progressive Immigration Plan Today
	WASHINGTON -- President Barack Obama is encouraged by work in the Senate on immigration reform, and he will now use his bully pulpit during a speech in Las Vegas on Tuesday to push for concrete legislation, aides said on Monday. Administration officials briefed reporters on the speech Monday evening, on the condition they not be quoted directly. Obama's speech, which was announced on Friday, will come a day after a bipartisan group of eight senators -- dubbed the "gang of eight" -- released a framework for immigration reform. The White House knew the Senate group was working toward an agreement, but they didn't expect it to come so quickly, and did not think the president would have a concrete example of bipartisan agreement to point to in his speech, an official said. Another official said the Senate group may have been sped along by the president's announcement of his Las Vegas speech, but the White House does not suspect any ill will. Rather, it's a good sign that lawmakers are jockeying for credit for immigration reform, the official said. Regardless of order, the president wants to see action, and he will acknowledge the senators' announcement as a positive step. There have been conflicting opinions about the president's role in immigration reform, which Obama has made a top priority for his second term. Lawmakers have asked him to lead on the issue, but some want legislation and others want him to keep clear as bipartisan groups in both chambers find agreement. The White House officials said they have worked on legislative language on immigration since 2009, but are unlikely to unveil it when progress is being made in Congress. Instead, Obama can push for reform in other ways, such as speaking to the public and meeting with lawmakers and interested parties, one official said. The president's speech on Tuesday will focus on his own framework for immigration reform, which largely aligns with the broad principles put forward by the gang of eight -- although officials emphasized that Obama issued a blueprint with the same values in 2011. An aide said the president will go into more detail on Tuesday than he did then, but the speech will largely be about building momentum for reform in Congress. Obama will press for immediate action, but not a specific timeline, according to one official. Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), a member of the bipartisan senate group, said earlier on Monday that the senators hope for a bill in March or April, and then a vote by late spring or early summer.

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Oscars SAG Awards Winners 2013: Screen Actors Guild Honors Best In Film & Television

noreply@blogger.com (Fred Soratas) — Tue, 29 Jan 2013 18:46:00 +0000

		SAG Awards Winners 2013: Screen Actors Guild Honors Best In Film & Television
	Each year, the SAG Awards honor the best actors on film and television, and the 2013 Screen Actors Guild Awards ceremony was no different. Daniel Day-Lewis, Hugh Jackman, Anne Hathaway, Jessica Chastain and Jennifer Lawrence were among the movie stars nominated at the 19th annual SAG Awards. Once again, however, it was Ben Affleck who stole the show. Affleck's "Argo" took home the Outstanding Ensemble in a Motion Picture, upsetting "Lincoln" and "Silver Linings Playbook" to win the award. Following the film's victory at the Producers Guild of America Awards on Saturday night, "Argo" is in prime position to win Best Picture at the Academy Awards on Feb. 24, this despite Affleck being snubbed in the Best Director category. Lawrence solidified her status as Best Actress front-runner by grabbing the Outstanding Female Actor in a Leading Role for her performance in "Silver Linings Playbook"; Day-Lewis, also favored at the sOscars, won Outstanding Male Actor in a Leading Role for "Lincoln." Tommy Lee Jones won the first award of the night. The actor, who wasn't at the ceremony, captured Outstanding Male Actor in a Supporting Role for "Lincoln." Anne Hathaway won the Outstanding Female Actor in a Supporting Role trophy for "Les Miserables." Accepting her award, Hathaway joked that she was happy to have dental insurance. On the television side, Alec Baldwin won Outstanding Male Actor in a Lead Role for "30 Rock"; Tina Fey won the Outstanding Female Actor in a Lead Role for the same series. "Amy, I've known you since you were pregnant with Lena Dunham," Fey joked during her acceptance to friend and fellow nominee Amy Poehler. Despite those wins, "30 Rock" lost to "Modern Family" for Outstanding Ensemble in a Comedy Series. "Modern Family" star Jesse Tyler Ferguson thanked the casts of "30 Rock" and "The Office" for inspiration and general awesomeness, as both shows are going off the air after this season. Julianne Moore won Outstanding Female Actor in a TV Movie or Miniseries for playing Sarah Palin in "Game Change." Kevin Costner was awarded with the Outstanding Male Actor in a TV Movie or Miniseries for "Hatfields and McCoys." Costner wasn't at the SAG Awards ceremony. After a flurry of early awards, Baldwin came back out on stage to announce Dick Van Dyke's Screen Actors Guild lifetime achievement award. Bryan Cranston kicked off the second half of the SAG Awards by winning Outstanding Male Actor in a Drama Series for "Breaking Bad." He thanked his family, his cast and AMC. Claire Danes won the Outstanding Female Actor in a Drama Series for "Homeland." "Downton Abbey" was an upset victor in the Outstanding Ensemble in a Drama Series, defeating "Mad Men," "Breaking Bad," "Homeland" and "Boardwalk Empire" for the honor. The 2013 SAG Awards results could help clear up the very murky Oscar race. From previous HuffPost Entertainment coverage of the SAG Awards, via The Associated Press: Honors from the actors union, next weekend's Directors Guild of America Awards and Saturday night's Producers Guild of America Awards – whose top honor went to "Argo" – typically help to establish clear favorites for the Oscars. But Oscar night on Feb. 24 looks more uncertain this time after some top directing prospects, including Ben Affleck for "Argo" and Kathryn Bigelow for "Zero Dark Thirty," missed out on nominations. Both films were nominated for best picture, but a movie rarely wins the top Oscar if its director is not also in the running. Steven Spielberg's "Lincoln" would seem the Oscar favorite with 12 nominations. Yet "Argo" and Affleck were surprise best-drama and director winners at the Golden Globes, and then there's Saturday's Producers Guild win for "Argo," leaving the Oscar race looking like anybody's guess. The Screen Actors Guild honors at least should help to establish solid front-runners for the stars. All four of the guild's individual acting winners often go on to receive the same prizes at the Academy Awards. Last year, "The Help" won Outstanding Ensemble in a Motion Picture, while Viola Davis, Jean Dujardin, Octavia Spencer and Christopher Plummer won the respective acting awards; all but Davis won on Oscar night (she lost to Meryl Streep for Best Actress). Check out a full list of SAG Awards winners below, as the awards are announced: Outstanding Ensemble in a Motion Picture: "Argo" Outstanding Male Actor in a Leading Role: Daniel Day-Lewis, "Lincoln" Outstanding Female Actor in a Leading Role: Jennifer Lawrence, "Silver Linings Playbook" Outstanding Male Actor in a Supporting Role: Tommy Lee Jones, "Lincoln" Outstanding Female Actor in a Supporting Role: Anne Hathaway, "Les Miserables" Outstanding Ensemble in a Drama Series: "Downton Abbey" Outstanding Male Actor in a Drama Series: Bryan Cranston, "Breaking Bad" Outstanding Female Actor in a Drama Series: Claire Danes, "Homeland" Outstanding Ensemble in a Comedy Series: "Modern Family" Outstanding Male Actor in a Comedy Series: Alec Baldwin, "30 Rock" Outstanding Female Actor in a Comedy Series: Tina Fey, "30 Rock" Outstanding Male Actor in a TV Movie or Miniseries: Kevin Costner, "Hatfields & McCoys" Outstanding Female Actor in a TV Movie or Miniseries: Julianne Moore, "Game Change" Outstanding Action Performance by a Stunt Ensemble in a Motion Picture: "Skyfall" Outstanding Action Performance by a Stunt Ensemble in a TV Series: "Game of Thrones"

An app to book a private jet ... for less Blackjet allows you to buy a seat in a small luxury plane similarly priced to a first class ticket.

noreply@blogger.com (Fred Soratas) — Tue, 29 Jan 2013 05:13:00 +0000

An app to book a private jet ... for less Blackjet allows you to buy a seat in a small luxury plane similarly priced to a first class ticket.

Blackjet allows you to buy a seat in a small luxury plane similarly priced to a first class ticket.

The Oscars 2013,The Oscars - Hollywood - Academy Awards - Oscar - The official Academy Awards Oscar Favorites , Oscar, Golden Globe Award

noreply@blogger.com (Fred Soratas) — Tue, 29 Jan 2013 04:58:00 +0000

Anne Hathaway, Oscar Favorite For 'Les Misérables,' Says Claire Danes Was 'Smoking' At The Globes

Posted: 01/28/2013 5:17 pm EST

At the SAG Awards on Sunday night, Anne Hathaway proved yet again that she is the woman to beat in the Oscar race for Best Supporting Actress,claiming yet another not-quite-Academy Award for her performance in Tom Hooper’s “Les Misérables.” By now, you’ve read and heard all about that performance -- the 35 pounds she lost, the hair she cut mere months before her wedding, the singing she did live, on a freezing, stinking set, instead of overdubbing it in the safety of a recording studio. So we decided to ask her about more urgent matters –- like that joke Tina Fey made at her expense during the Golden Globes and the pros and cons of wearing white around Valentino (who, we might add, designed her wedding dress).

The Huffington Post: Our Oscar Predictions Dashboard gives you a 99.2% chance of winning Best Supporting Actress at the Oscars. Are you nervous anyway, or are you feeling cool and collected?

Anne Hathaway: Is there a third option? Because I am just very grateful. I’ve had plenty of years in my career where I haven’t made it to this part of the conversation. Making it here is the gift and the goal, and I feel really proud of that.

What’s one thing people who haven’t experienced Oscar season first-hand don’t realize about it?

I don't actually know what people don't know, but what I think people lose sight of is how vulnerable everyone feels. It's very easy to look at people in these gorgeous dresses that cost more than a college education and diamonds and hairdos and forget that everyone is probably shaking in their stilettos.

How many award shows will you have attended by the time you get to the Oscars?

I’m not sure, but at least half a dozen.

And how many times will Hugh Jackman have forced you to sing at various events?

I am starting to lose count. He is so good at that. He is so charming and persuasive that he makes me forget that YouTube and the Internet actually exist.

Did Tina Fey warn you that she was going to going to send that zinger your way at the Golden Globes?

No, she didn’t. I actually appreciated it. There was a part of me that thought, “Oh, I can go home with something special now.”

It is a little bit of an honor to be singled out, isn’t it?

I have never been made fun of at one of these things before. I have never been a punch line. It is actually an honor. It’s a thrill.

I read that you warned Claire Danes before impersonating her “Homeland” character on Saturday Night Live. Did you happen to run into her at The Golden Globes?

I did. I had just finished my press and she was backstage after she had won, and I was just so gob-smacked at how great she looked. I mean, she had just given birth about three seconds ago. And she was absolutely smoking. [Pause.] Like hot -- not like that! Clear that up: Claire Danes is not a neglectful mother.

So do you have any advice for Seth MacFarlane, drawing on your experience as an Oscar host?

Don’t take my advice. Call Hugh. And get Emma Stone to co-host with you. You two were adorable at the announcements.

How does your fashion approach differ between the Globes and the Oscars?

Practically speaking, there is more room to have a train at the Oscars. At the Globes, because of the layout, with everybody sitting together, I learned the hard way that you must never wear a train. You will either be tripped on, or tripped up or tripping yourself up all night. I wore a train the first time I was nominated, and first of all it just scooped up all of the red carpet. And second of all I was just a death trap for anybody that came near me. With the Oscars, you have a little more room.

And I guess at the Globes you want to wear something where it wouldn’t be too problematic if somebody were to spill a glass of red wine on you.

Well, that happened to me, but not at the Globes. That happened to me at a premiere for Valentino’s movie, and he and a producer friend of mine, Jeffrey Sharp, actually spilled an entire vat of red wine all over me. And I was wearing a white dress.

What do you do in that situation?

You just laugh and smile. I tried to get Valentino to autograph the dress, but he wouldn’t do it. It actually wound up looking really pretty –- it was like an ombre effect. And I couldn’t really get that mad, because it was not even my dress.

Over the past 10 years, two actresses have won Best Supporting Actress for their performances in musicals. One was Jennifer Hudson for “Dreamgirls,” and the other was Catherine Zeta-Jones for “Chicago,” in 2003. Where were you on Oscar night in 2003?

I think I was in the Josselyn common room at Vassar.

Watching it on TV?

Well, I missed the first part because I had a cappella practice. I remember being very confused, because we had just gone to war with Iraq and there was a lot of talk about “Should they cancel it? What should we do?” And I thought Nicole Kidman gave the most beautiful, thoughtful response to that when she said, "I am so happy to be here tonight, because art is important.” I was just very grateful to her for that little rally cry.

Huffington Post: Senators' Immigration Reform Plans Revealed

noreply@blogger.com (Fred Soratas) — Mon, 28 Jan 2013 16:30:00 +0000

		Senators' Immigration Reform Plans Revealed
	Romney-Ryan Reset.. 'Nefarious' GOP.. Odd Haley.. GOP Self-Destruct.. Palin Flop.. McConnell Defeat

Senators' Immigration Reform Plans Revealed
Elise Foley, Posted: 1/28/13 10:37 AM Updated: 1/28/13 10:38 AM

WASHINGTON -- A bipartisan working group in the Senatewill publicly unveil its immigration reform framework on Monday. The text, though, is already out, in a five-page document that lays out basic principles for reform.

Read the full text below.

The news of a deal came out late on Sunday, and the senators plan to unveil their framework more publicly later in the day on Monday. Four members from each party -- Democratic Sens. Chuck Schumer of New York, Dick Durbin of Illinois, Bob Menendez of New Jersey and Michael Bennet of Colorado, plus Republican Sens. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, Marco Rubio of Florida, John McCain of Arizona and Jeff Flake of Arizona -- worked together on the deal.

They plan to come out with a bill sometime in March, after further negotiations on exact language. Michael Steel, a spokesman for House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), said, "The Speaker welcomes the work of leaders like Sen. Rubio on this issue, and is looking forward to learning more about the proposal in the coming days."

Here are the six most interesting, and important, elements.

There would be a pathway to citizenship.

Allowing some of the estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants already living in the country to earn citizenship, in a different system than the current one, has been deemed absolutely vital to President Barack Obama, Democratic lawmakers and Republicans in the "gang of eight." Support from Rubio is particularly significant. He was not an original member of the "gang of eight" -- he seems to have replaced Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) -- and previously floated his own ideas that, though vague, would not have given any special road to citizenship. He even claimed as recently as last week that Democrats could tank any legislation by insisting on it.

The fact that Rubio was willing to change his mind on citizenship, then, gives advocates hope that other Republicans will also support that type of pathway.

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Posted: 02/24/2013 8:47 am EST
Updated: 02/24/2013 9:12 am EST