Turkish Forum

Tag: Immigration

  • Are You from Turkiye ? Do You Really Need an Immigration Lawyer in USA ?

    Are You from Turkiye ? Do You Really Need an Immigration Lawyer in USA ?

    Are You from Turkiye ? 

    Do You Really Need an Immigration Lawyer? The Answer May Surprise You.

    Every day, thousands of individuals attempt to cross into the United States through the southern border. Reports suggest that many pay an average of $10,000 to criminal smuggling networks on the Mexican side just to make the journey. Sadly, the financial burden does not end there. Once inside the country, many new arrivals are told they must spend an additional $10,000–$20,000 on immigration lawyers. But the real question is: Do you truly need an immigration lawyer to file your documents with the U.S. government?

    The simple answer is no.

    With today’s technology, anyone can access the official forms directly from the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) website here is the link https://www.uscis.gov/ . All forms from asylum applications (Form I-589) to visa extensions (Form I-539) and document for visa extension you need  are free to download. Filing fees may apply, but there is no cost for the forms themselves. Even more importantly, thanks to tools like Google Translate or you can contact Asil Cavlak at email  [email protected] for translation of any document for much less money , instructions can be translated into nearly any language, including Turkish, helping applicants understand what is required.

    Let’s take asylum as an example.

    • Lawyer not required: The law does not require you to have an attorney to file Form I-589 for asylum.
    • Forms are available for free: USCIS provides both the forms and step-by-step instructions on its official site.
    • Interpreter provided: If your case advances to an interview, Homeland Security provides an interpreter at no cost.

    The same applies for visa extensions, student visas, and other filings. Many individuals successfully complete these documents on their own. The government has designed the system so that people can access and file the necessary paperwork without legal representation.

    Of course, there are times when a lawyer is helpful—particularly in complex cases involving prior deportations, criminal records, or unusual legal circumstances. But for most straightforward filings, the process is simpler than many realize.

    It is time, especially for newcomers from our NATO ally, the Republic of Türkiye, to pause, take a deep breath, and realize: you can start this process yourself. Don’t be intimidated by those who insist you must pay thousands of dollars to an attorney whose main task is filling out the same USCIS forms you can access online.

    Knowledge is empowerment. The forms are free, the instructions are clear, and interpreters are available when needed. Korkma /  don’t be afraid. Begin the process yourself, save thousands of dollars, and take control of your own future.

    Ibrahim Kurtulus
    Community Activist 

  • White House Receives Petition To Stop All Islamic Immigration Into US

    White House Receives Petition To Stop All Islamic Immigration Into US

    It’s time to expose Islam for what it is to the American public at large and bypass the mainstream media. There is a way to make them talk about the threat of Islam. To do that, I’ve submitted a petition at WhiteHouse.gov in order to bring attention to this issue. If the Obama administration are so hell bent on pushing gun control in the wake of mass shootings like Newtown, then they should be even more vocal on the Islamic threat to America in the wake of more than 20,000 Islamic terrorist attacks since September 11, 2001.

    In my petition, I call on the administration to “Stop any and all Islamic immigration Into the US in light of Islamic attacks against The US.” Why? Well in the same fashion that we heard Barack Obama say, “If we can do just one thing” to save a life we should do it, perhaps we should take that attitude when it comes to Islam. Well friends, after yesterday’s post where David Wood so poignantly and brilliantly demonstrated the deceptive practice of Islam, both in its teachers and in politicians like Barack Obama and Representative Keith Ellison (D-MN).

    The petition reads as follows:

    In the wake of the Newtown shootings, the Obama administration thought they should overstep their Constitutional authority to impose gun control. Now in light of the Boston bombings and the direct ties to Islam, I’m calling on the administration to stop all Islamic immigration into the US.

    Mr. Obama and others quote Qur’an 5:32, which is about the people of Israel, but NEVER quote the next verse which is about Muslims and indicates the real threat of Islam.

    Islam is not a religion of peace. It is a totalitarian, political death cult and as such is not compatible with American culture.

    We cannot sit idly by and allow more people into this country that believe the teachings of a lying, thieving, murderous pedophile and who are commanded to provide:

    “The punishment of those who wage war against Allah and His apostle and strive to make mischief in the land is only this, that they should be murdered or crucified or their hands and their feet should be cut off on opposite sides or they should be imprisoned; this shall be as a disgrace for them in this world, and in the hereafter they shall have a grievous chastisement.”

    –Qur’an 5:33

    Click Here to sign the petition and grab the image and link and share on other sites.

    If someone says that you must be able to read Arabic to understand this or that you must sit under their teachings to understand this, then that is simply illogical in my book. We are an English speaking culture. The Qur’an has been translated into English and as such, this verse is clear and it has no place in a free society. In fact, this isn’t even about their government. This is about the individuals!

     

    This is why individuals like the Ft. Hood shooter can easily kill his fellow soldiers while praising the fictitious Allah. This is why Barack Obama can provide “cover” for Islamists by not calling them out and quoting the previous verse in the Qur’an, which is about the people of Israel, not Muslims.

    Additionally, there should be deportation of all those still here with expired visas and also no new visas should be extended. Consideration should also be given to deporting those here on legal visas as well.

    My fellow Americans, jihad is not just being waged with bombs. There’s a political jihad taking place as well. They are after our guns and free speech.

    If you believe that Islamic immigration must cease and want to help bring it to the forefront of the media’s attention as a viable solution to the Islamic threat in America, I invite you to sign the petition and also to work in your local and state government to remove mosques and end Islamic proselytizing. You can get an understanding of how that works here. Sign the petition here.

    UPDATE: The White House is suppressing the petition as it is not showing up in the “Open Petitions” nor can you find it by searching for it. The only way to bring it up is via the direct links in the article.

    Read more: http://freedomoutpost.com/2013/04/white-house-receives-petition-to-stop-all-islamic-immigration-into-us/#ixzz2RJ0v9qAr

  • Jobseekers from Greece try chances in Istanbul

    Jobseekers from Greece try chances in Istanbul

    Erdem Güneş / ISTANBUL- Hürriyet Daily News

    The peaceful atmosphere between Turkey and Greece is a major factor in Greeks choosing to seek employment in Turkey, according to Assistant Professor Dimitris Triantaphyllou who came to Istanbul from Athens last year

    Homeless people sit at tables during a New Year’s meal in Athens Jan 1. Greek jobseekers are looking for work in cities like Istanbul. This happens during hard times, like the emigration process after the World War II, says Triantaphyllou. REUTERS photo
    Homeless people sit at tables during a New Year’s meal in Athens Jan 1. Greek jobseekers are looking for work in cities like Istanbul. This happens during hard times, like the emigration process after the World War II, says Triantaphyllou. REUTERS photo

    Turkey – especially Istanbul – stands out as a popular destination for Greeks seeking jobs abroad as Greece suffers a major economic crisis.

    In spite of accusations of “betrayal” by ultra-nationalist Greeks, rapprochement between Turkey and Greece is resulting in increased political, economic and social benefits for both sides, Assistant Professor Dimitris Triantaphyllou, Director of the Center for International and European Studies (CIES) at Kadir Has University, told the Daily News.

    Some 1.2 million people, nearly 10 percent of the population, emigrated from Greece last year, according to recently published statistics in the World Bank’s “The Migration and Remittances Factbook 2011.”

    Triantaphyllou, who came from Athens to Istanbul more than a year ago before Greece was hit hard by the economic crisis, said not only single, educated, young people were leaving Greece, but even some families had begun to emigrate.

    “This happens during hard times, like the emigration process after the Second World War,” he said.

    According to Triantaphyllou the peaceful atmosphere between the neighboring countries, for which he gave credit to late İsmail Cem and Georgios Papandreou, is a major factor in Greeks’ preference of coming to Turkey.

    Psychologist Odysseas Voutsinas moved from Athens to Istanbul last month. Voutsinas was born in Istanbul in 1964 and studied at the Özel Fener Rum Erkek Lisesi before moving to Athens with his family. In the 1960s Turkish-Greek relations were strained over the Cyprus issue, so many Greeks left the country because of the high tension.

    Voutsinas studied social services and psychology in the University of Athens and worked in Greece for 30 years, but he said that he always had the idea of “returning” on his mind.

    ‘Hard to leave, hard to come back’

    Last year he decided to come back. “It was hard to leave Turkey, but it was hard to come back too. The crisis in Greece was maybe a chance for the ones who wanted to come back to Istanbul.”

    Voutsinas said the patriarchate and the Greek community welcomed the newcomers just like the locals did.

    Fouli Koti, 25, came to Istanbul three months ago from Thessaloniki. “I am afraid that the Greek economy is going to get worse. My friends also do not have hope for the near future. They want to leave as well,” she said.

    Koti was working as a manager for a Vodafone franchise store in Thessaloniki. She said that one year ago there were more than 30 stores, but only two remain open in the city. She decided to come to Turkey after a call from her childhood friend Apostolos, who had been living in Istanbul for one year. Koti moved to Istanbul and began working in the customer service department of an international oil company.

    “I wanted to take a risk and have a ‘Turkey adventure,’ but I must say I am disappointed in some ways,” she said. “I was living in one of the most popular districts in Thessaloniki and I was paying 340 euros for a big house of my own. Now I live in the central European side of Istanbul and pay the same amount for a small room in a shared house.”

    January/09/2012

    via LABOR – Jobseekers from Greece try chances in Istanbul.

  • New train to Germany will refresh memories after 50 years

    New train to Germany will refresh memories after 50 years

    New train to Germany will refresh memories after 50 years

    This Wednesday the state-run Turkish Radio and Television Corporation will host a remembrance event at the Sirkeci railway station.

    It was a long ride; it took more than three days. Muharrem Mirlihay entered the train in the Sirkeci station in İstanbul, and left it in an alien country far to the north: Germany.

    This happened in 1961, and the young man from İstanbul took the train because Germany needed a workforce for its booming industries — and he needed an income after his own company, a copperplate printing business in İstanbul, had gone bankrupt. Mirlihay, now 85 years old, was one of the first guest workers to move from Turkey to Germany.

    This Wednesday the state-run Turkish Radio and Television Corporation (TRT) will host a remembrance event at the Sirkeci railway station. A “Germany train” will leave on a symbolic trip to Munich in southern Germany. This project will bring to life the memories of many guest workers from those first years.

    Mirlihay started to work at the construction company Züblin in Berlin in 1962. He stayed there until 1988, when he retired. He is still partly living in Berlin: He has an apartment there as well as one in his old hometown, the İstanbul suburb of Şile on the Black Sea. His daughter and son live in Berlin, but the grave of his wife, who followed him to Germany in 1963, is in Şile.

    “I like the climate and the food in Şile,” he told Cihan news agency, sitting in a cafe in the town center, “It keeps me healthy.” He prefers to speak Turkish; his knowledge of German has remained rather limited, although he belonged to the very first wave of “guest workers.” The agreement between the Turkish and the German state governing the transfer of laborers was signed on Oct. 30, 1961.

    The 50th anniversary will be celebrated by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and German chancellor Angela Merkel in Berlin, and for the occasion many cultural events are taking place or have already occurred in both Turkey and Germany.

    It was not Germany’s first guest worker agreement — similar agreements with Italy, Spain and Greece were already in place — but it was the one with the deepest impact. However, at the time when the contract was signed no one could imagine how profoundly this piece of paper, bearing German government file number 505-83 SZV 3-92.42, would change German society. Thanks to this, Europe’s biggest state developed willy-nilly into an immigration country.

    TRT’s Germany train will follow the historic path of the guest workers: They also travelled from Sirkeci to Munich before they were allocated from there to different cities. The train will arrive on Oct. 30 in Bavaria, on the actual anniversary date. In a press conference on Friday, TRT General Manager İbrahim Şahin gave information regarding the project.

    According to him, Turkish workers who immigrated to Germany from Sirkeci, journalists, artists, and politicians will join the ride.

    “Deputy Prime Minister Bülent Arınç, who is responsible for TRT, and Deputy Prime Minister Bekir Bozdağ, who is responsible for Turkish citizens abroad, are likely to join this train tour. The parliament speaker will also be with us until we reach Belgrade. Ten deputies from different political parties will also join the Germany Train. This train journey will allow us to produce a documentary on our people’s immigration to Germany in the 60s. There will be live music shows aboard the train, which will be shown live on TV,” said Şahin.

    Fifty years ago, Muharrem Mirlihay felt very sad after the train from Sirkeci arrived in Germany. When he got off the train he “deeply regretted” his decision to leave Turkey, his wife and his two children, he said, “I knew no one, I didn’t understand the language.” The first months he worked at different factories in the southwestern State of Baden-Württemberg before he moved to Berlin. His son and his daughter were born in Turkey, but started primary school in Germany after they and their mother had followed Mirlihay to Berlin. Mirlihay’s job at the construction company Züblin was to repair and operate cranes. He liked his job and his colleagues; his boss helped him to find a good apprenticeship for his son.

    After 12 years, in 1973, Germany stopped recruiting Turkish workers because of the economic downturn due to the oil crisis. By that time, 2,659,512 Turks had applied to be guest workers, and 648,029 of them had been placed in Germany. About half of them returned to Turkey, the other guest workers decided to stay with their families in Germany. Today more than 2.5 million inhabitants of Germany have Turkish roots, like Mirlihay and his children’s families.

    He said that now his homeland is half in Turkey and half in Germany. One of the things Mirlihay liked most about Germany was that thanks to his rather good income he did not have to work evenings and weekends, and therefore had more time for his family. Difficult to cope with were the prejudices and the rejection he sometimes felt in Germany. “On the other hand, we also had contacts with some German neighbors, and we visited each other.” Cihan news agency asked Mirlihay: If he passes away in the remote future, does he want to be buried in Berlin or Şile? “I think when I am dead I will not care,” he says.

    Cihan

  • David Cameron says that immigrants should learn English

    David Cameron says that immigrants should learn English

    The prime minister warns in a speech that an unwillingness to integrate has created a disjointed Britain

    Full text of David Cameron’s speech

    Comments (964)

    • Nicholas Watt, chief political correspondent
    • The Guardian, Thursday 14 April 2011
    • Article history
      • David Cameron blames Labour for allowing immigration to become ‘too high’ Link to this videoDavid Cameron will warn that immigrants unable to speak English or unwilling to integrate have created a “kind of discomfort and disjointedness” which has disrupted communities across Britain.

      In his most outspoken speech on immigration since becoming prime minister, Cameron will blame Labour for allowing immigration to become “too high” and for adopting an approach that allowed the British National party to flourish.

      The prime minister will open his speech, in Hampshire, by saying that immigration is a hugely emotive subject that must be handled with sensitivity. But he will then say that Labour presided over the “largest influx” of immigration in British history, which saw 2.2 million more people settling in Britain between 1997 and 2009 than leaving to live abroad.

      Cameron will say this has placed serious pressure on schools, housing and the NHS, and has also created social pressures.

      “Real communities are bound by common experiences forged by friendship and conversation, knitted together by all the rituals of the neighbourhood, from the school run to the chat down the pub. And these bonds can take time,” he will say.

      “So real integration takes time. That’s why, when there have been significant numbers of new people arriving in neighbourhoods, perhaps not able to speak the same language as those living there, on occasions not really wanting or even willing to integrate, that has created a kind of discomfort and disjointedness in some neighbourhoods. This has been the experience for many people in our country – and I believe it is untruthful and unfair not to speak about it and address it.”

      The prime minister will stride into sensitive political territory when he accuses Labour of helping to stoke an uncertain climate over immigration. Cameron believes Labour inflamed the issue by accusing critics of racism while at the same time pandering to the hard right. He will say: “I believe the role of politicians is to cut through the extremes of this debate and approach the subject sensibly and reasonably. The last government, in contrast, actually helped to inflame the debate. On the one hand, there were Labour ministers who closed down discussion, giving the impression that concerns about immigration were somehow racist. On the other, there were ministers hell-bent on burnishing their hardline credentials by talking tough but doing nothing to bring the numbers down.

      “This had damaging consequences in terms of controlling immigration and in terms of public debate. It created the space for extremist parties to flourish, as they could tell people that mainstream politicians weren’t listening to their concerns or doing anything about them.”

      The speech may add to coalition tensions after the Liberal Democrats distanced themselves from the prime minister’s language. Nick Clegg saw the speech which he “noted rather than approved”.

      One Lib Dem source said: “We use different language. But we all work in government to strike a balance to ensure Britain has a system people have confidence in.”

      No 10 insisted that the speech does not mark a return to the era of William Hague as Tory leader when he used the issue as part of a “core votes” strategy. On the eve of the 2001 election, Hague warned that Britain was in danger of turning into a “foreign land” in remarks that technically referred to the EU. Cameron will say that Britain has benefited hugely from immigration. “Go into any hospital and you’ll find people from Uganda, India and Pakistan who are caring for our sick and vulnerable. Go into schools and universities and you’ll find teachers from all over the world, inspiring our young people.”

      But the prime minister will use his speech to challenge those who say:

      • Immigration cannot be controlled because Britain is a member of the EU. Cameron will say that future EU member states will be subject to tougher transitional controls and the UK can address immigration from outside the EU through the cap on non-EU immigration.

      • Immigration can be controlled – but to do so would inflict serious damage on the economy. Cameron will say the government is thinking “incredibly carefully” about which workers should come.

      But the prime minister will make clear that immigration cannot be controlled until Britain’s welfare system is reformed. “Put simply, we will never control immigration properly unless we tackle welfare dependency. That’s another powerful reason why this government is undertaking the biggest shake-up of the welfare system for generations making sure that work will always pay and ending the option of living a life on the dole when a life in work is possible.”

      The prime minister will also condemn forced marriages and those who say they should be tolerated. “There are forced marriages taking place in our country, and overseas as a means of gaining entry to the UK. This is the practice where some young British girls are bullied and threatened into marrying someone they don’t want to.

      “I’ve got no time for those who say this is a culturally relative issue – it is wrong, full stop, and we’ve got to stamp it out. Then there are just the straightforward sham marriages.”In February, the prime minister gave a speech in Munich condemning “state multiculturalism” which had “tolerated these segregated communities behaving in ways that run counter to our values”.

  • Immigration problems depicted in cinema

    Immigration problems depicted in cinema

    Monday, November 8, 2010

    ISTANBUL – Hürriyet Daily News

    The most important problems of the world are brought to the attention of general public through cinema in Zeytinburnu, a place where domestic and foreign immigration problems are significant.

    Organized within the scope of the project “Istanbul meets her European Siblings” carried out by the Istanbul 2010 Istanbul European Capital of Culture Agency in cooperation with county municipalities, the Immigration Films Festival Zeytinburnu/Stockholm takes place at Zeytinburnu Culture and Art Center on Nov. 8-12.

    The festival will feature a selection of 11 films — five films from Sweden and six from Turkey.

    Zeytinburnu Municipality organizes various events every year to draw attention to immigration and immigrants and this year is gathering films on immigration to draw attention to the issue.

    Panels and talks about the concepts of immigration and immigrants will take place prior to film screenings during the festival. Directors, actors and scriptwriters will gather in those talks.

    There will also be a photography exhibition on the concept of immigration and depicting the lives of immigrants during the festival.