Senate negotiations aiming to prevent another U.S. government shutdown over immigration feature a variety of factions, hard-liners, political actors and presidential hopefuls who will determine whether people who arrived in the U.S. illegally as children will be spared deportation.

Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has promised to bring up immigration legislation by Feb. 8 in a fair and neutral process – whether or not there’s a deal beforehand.

President Donald Trump fleshed out his offer at the State of the Union on Tuesday: a path to citizenship for 1.8 million undocumented immigrants who arrived as children — balanced against $25 billion for border security and internal enforcement, an end to a diversity visa lottery, and drastic reductions in family-based migration. Only immigrants’ spouses and minor children would be allowed.

Trump’s plan was swiftly eviscerated by the left as cruel, while some anti-immigration conservatives blasted it as overly generous to lawbreakers, indicating the passions underlying the ideological divide.

The president’s decision to end the Obama-era program known as Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals on March 5 means the beneficiaries could face deportation if Congress fails to act. And the government could shut down again after current funding ends Feb. 8 if Congress doesn’t meet Democrats’ demand to protect the young immigrants alongside a new budget deal.

A number of controversial issues would have to be resolved, including: Will the immigrants be guaranteed permanent residency and, eventually, citizenship? What will become of their parents who are already in the U.S.? And how far is Congress willing to go to cut legal immigration though family sponsorships?

Among the 100 senators, here are six to watch in the debate over immigration:

– John Cornyn: The No. 2 Senate Republican, from Texas, has the voting record of an immigration hard-liner and the demeanor of a sympathetic dealmaker. He voted against comprehensive immigration overhaul bills in 2006, 2007 and 2013. He voted against Dream Act legislation in 2007 and 2010 that would have given permanent residency to a similar group of undocumented immigrants who arrived as children.

This time, he said he wants to craft legislation he can support.

“I’m having three meetings a day,” he said. “Lot of interest in getting to a solution.”

He said he’ll be a “facilitator” with Dick Durbin of Illinois, the chamber’s No. 2 Democrat.

Cornyn’s task will be to bridge a vast and bitter divide between a passionate core of anti-immigration Republican voters and an American electorate that is overwhelmingly sympathetic to the young immigrants, known as dreamers. He’s ruled out a simple measure to legalize the immigrants.

– Dick Durbin: Durbin is the Democrats’ liaison for striking a deal. He wrote the original Dream Act of 2001 and has made protecting the young immigrants a career-defining cause. This time, he is cosponsoring legislation with Republican Senator Lindsey Graham that promises citizenship to dreamers who meet certain criteria, while giving their parents renewable legal status.

Durbin bashed the White House proposal as holding dreamers hostage to Trump’s “crusade to tear families apart” and enact a hard-line agenda that includes “massive cuts to legal immigration.”

There’s a long way to go in the talks, Durbin said last week. “We’re going to start negotiations with a clean slate,” he said. “There is not even an agreement on a starting point.”

One of his demands is to protect dreamers’ parents from deportation — a contentious issue as many Republicans view them as lawbreakers for bringing their children to the U.S. illegally. “If they’re going to include family reunification limitations, that is an absolute essential,” Durbin said.

– Lindsey Graham: The South Carolina Republican has spent years pleading with his party to appeal to the fast-growing Hispanic electorate, warning that being anti-immigration is a formula for political extinction. He cosponsors the DACA legislation in the Senate with Durbin. Once a fierce Trump critic, he’s now a frequent defender and golfing buddy of the president.

“Today’s DACA recipients can be tomorrow’s Trump Dreamers,” if lawmakers reach an agreement, he said in a statement last week.

He has been at the center of failed immigration efforts for years, but says this time is different.

“I’ve never seen this movie where you’ve got a March 5 deadline,” he said. Still, a legal challenge to the Trump administration’s effort to undo the DACA policy has put that deadline in question.

– Tom Cotton: The Arkansas Republican represents the right flank of the DACA debate and strongly supports Trump’s calls to cut family-based immigration, which he calls “chain migration.”

“We believe in an unlimited number of sponsorships for spouses and unmarried minor children. But not for parents, not for adult kids, not for married kids, not for siblings,” he said.

Cotton, who called the White House proposal “generous and humane,” could be a barometer for the sentiments of conservative skeptics who fault Trump for ceding too much on “amnesty.” His position — along with those of like-minded hard-liners like Georgia’s David Perdue and Iowa’s Chuck Grassley — could go a long way in swaying hesitant House Republicans to support the bill. That in turn would help determine whether Speaker Paul Ryan moves forward with it.

Cotton has also described as “a joke” a diversity visa lottery program aimed at people in countries with low levels of immigration to the U.S. “It should just be ended,” he said.

– Kamala Harris: The first-term California Democrat reflects the progressive side of the debate. She’s from a blue state with the largest number of dreamers – more than 200,000 – and is seen as a possible presidential candidate in 2020. She’ll have her finger on the pulse of the party base.

It’s not clear how much Harris is willing to concede to get a solution, especially if she’s trying to position herself to challenge Trump. She said the president’s plan is “a complete nonstarter. Pitting young dreamers against immigrant families runs counter to the values of our country.”

In an interview, Harris said she supports border security measures as well as passage of the Dream Act. “I’ve always felt that some security measures are appropriate,” she said. “I want a secure border.” But she said she opposes cutting family-based immigration sponsorship and eliminating the diversity lottery program.

Harris is among several Democratic senators who are seen as possible presidential contenders – including New Jersey’s Cory Booker, New York’s Kirsten Gillibrand and Massachusetts’s Elizabeth Warren – and there may be jockeying among them.

– Cory Gardner: The first-term Colorado senator is chairman of the GOP’s Senate election committee, which means he’ll be keenly attuned to the politics of any immigration deal as the party wades into primary season.

He cosponsored the Graham-Durbin bill.

It’s a big issue in Colorado, which has thousands of immigrants protected under DACA, as well as a growing Hispanic population that helped Democrat Hillary Clinton win the state in the 2016 presidential contest.

Despite being near the center of the debate, Gardner plays down his role. “Oh, there are going to be 100 people who have an opinion in this,” he said, “and they’ll all get part of the say.”

Cornyn expressed some frustration with the negotiations on Monday, tweeting: “On #DACA, both parties seem to want the quid without the quo.”

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Pakistan’s defense minister said his country is determined to retain a positive relationship with the U.S. despite President Donald Trump’s decision to suspend military aid to the nuclear-armed nation.

In an interview in his parliamentary office on Wednesday, Khurram Dastgir Khan played down the significance of Trump’s Jan. 1 halt to about $2 billion in funding, saying aid had been considerably reduced already and the U.S. hadn’t provided spare parts for its weapons systems for three years. Pakistan will increasingly seek weapons from China and Russia, along with Eastern European and South American countries, he said.

“Just to say because of one president we’re going to scuttle the relationship, that would be incorrect and unwise,” he said. “We have a long relationship and we want to keep it.”

Relations between Pakistan and the U.S. have deteriorated rapidly since Trump announced his South Asia strategy in August. In that speech he joined a long list of other American officials in accusing Pakistan of duplicity for taking aid while supporting groups that attack U.S. forces and allies in Afghanistan.

Tensions worsened further after Trump’s first tweet of 2018, in which he said Pakistan gave “nothing but lies and deceit.” The discord comes as Pakistan faces rising economic imbalances six months before an election, with foreign reserves dwindling and current account and trade deficits widening.

Trump’s words stoked speculation that Pakistan may close U.S. ground and air supply routes to landlocked Afghanistan in retaliation for the aid suspension. Khan said Pakistan has yet to take that action out of hope the relationship can be salvaged.

The fact that ground and air supplies “are still open is a very clear signal of intent that we want a positive relationship with the United States,” he said. “We haven’t acted hastily and unlike the tweet we haven’t acted impulsively — we are acting with due deliberation.”

Khan rejected Trump’s complaint that Pakistan isn’t doing enough to stop militants that conduct cross-border attacks. Islamabad is committed to fighting extremism and doesn’t grant safe haven to terror groups, he said, citing an announcement this week that 27 Taliban and Haqqani network militants were handed over to Afghanistan in November. Kabul denied the transfer.

“There are no safe havens of any terrorist organization in Pakistan,” Khan said. “But we should remember there was a time there were about five million Afghans in Pakistan and so they are scattered across the country.”

In the past three years, domestic security across Pakistan has vastly improved following anti-terror operations on insurgents targeting the country.

“This is a Pakistan that has largely prevailed over terrorism on its soil,” said Khan. “But apparently the Americans continue to persist in their old ways of thinking and they continue to externalize their failures in Afghanistan by blaming it on Pakistan.”

Despite being at loggerheads with its war-torn neighbor, Khan hinted that Islamabad is willing to help arrange peace talks with the Taliban when Pakistan officials meet with Afghan counterparts in the coming days. He cautioned, however, that Pakistan’s influence over the group has “substantively” waned.

Many of the Taliban’s leaders were trained and schooled in extremist seminaries in Pakistan, and have allegedly taken shelter in cities such as Quetta and Karachi over the years.

“We will facilitate to the maximum extent we can, but we cannot guarantee anything,” Khan said. “We want peace in democratic Afghanistan so we can begin to exploit the economic benefits of regional connectivity.”

It’s yet to be seen if such talks would join the countless failed attempts to bring the Taliban to the table. Kabul has repeatedly accused Pakistan of assisting the group and affiliated militants. Islamabad has denied these allegations, but opposes increased Indian influence in Afghanistan, which Trump is encouraging. Pakistan’s military, which effectively controls security and foreign policy, fears encirclement from its arch-rival on two fronts.

Khan suggested a recent spate of Taliban-claimed attacks in Kabul that left hundreds dead and wounded last month were “blowback” for Trump’s troop increase and aggressive policy reducing U.S. efforts at nation building, which Khan called “short-sighted.”

Since then no “serious dialogue is happening” between Pakistan and the U.S. and intelligence cooperation has drastically been reduced, Khan said. Lower level working relations have been blocked, while ministerial and higher level bilateral discussions aren’t productive, he said.

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NEW YORK – Lately, stories on H4 visa holders’ quandary has been making headlines in various newspapers in the U.S. and in India, as the Trump Administration  shows spouses of H-1B visa holders the sign to “next exit”, take away their Employment Authorization Document (EAD), work permit.

The H4 spouses who got work authorizations (and converted their H4 status into H-1B in matrimony and now working) under President Obama’s Administration Executive Order (and their husbands’) lives are imperiled with an “uncertain” future.

Also, every other non-immigrant worker who comes to the U.S. on work-related visas life is imperiled and is in a state of desperation and despondency in their personal lives when it comes to matrimony.

Parents seeking matrimony for their sons and daughters on work visas in the US are exasperated, to say the least, in their never ending search, that leads them nowhere and they simply don’t understand why these highly educated boys and girls with Masters and Ph.D. degrees cannot get married to one another.

Let me elaborate:

• The dilemma of women on H-1B visa (not transitioning into Green Card (GC)), in seeking matrimony, is that if they marry another boy on H-1B (not transitioning into a GC status, with a Labor Certification approval), the bride will convert into a H4 status, not allowed to work in the U.S. legally, which means she will have to quit her $100K job and “sit on the bench” and no girl earning $120K in the Bay Area is ready to quit her job for matrimony.

Some couples on H1B are getting married, retaining their individual H-1B status, living as “husband and wife”, filing their tax returns separately; however, without notifying USCIS of their “marital” status and filing for a “status adjustment” form.   USCIS found a few cases and the DOS (Department of State) has recently clarified:

• Undertaking any other activity for which a change of status or an adjustment of status form would be required, without the benefit of such a change or adjustment. This is a clear case of violation of USCIS visa rules, and if caught later on, can be punishable with deportation and/or refusal of re-entry into the U.S. for both the spouses, forever! So many H1Bs have stopped reaching out to H1Bs in matrimony!

Non-immigrant brides have been extremely careful in reaching out to those who are on a straight H1B visa, (not transitioning to a GC​ ​– because those who are particularly into their second term of H1B (not having been sponsored for a Green Card) will be seeking exit options to relocate back to India and or to other countries.​  If brides seek those prospects in matrimony, they should be ready and willing to relocate to wherever the boy goes ~ often times the H1B brides are just into their first 3-year term of H1B, whereas the prospective husband is into his later part of second H1B extension (because of the age difference between a boy and a girl). This situation presents the brides with a difficult choice to step up to H1B alliances facing an exit option from the U.S.

• Those boys and girls transitioning onto OPT (Optional Practical Training) visas granted immediately upon (F1) students’ graduation, are not being embraced in matrimony by those on H1B, or H1B-GC, L1 or on GC status, because of uncertainty and fear that if he or she, is not successful in a lottery the first or a second time into a H1B status, will have to return to India for good.

The fear and uncertainty over their OPT visa status is driving away the eligible brides and grooms on OPT from consideration in matrimony.    Besides, as USCIS makes visa renewals tougher, non-immigrant H1B brides from one state are finding it difficult to relocate to in matrimony to another state easily, for fear of losing their job and finding another within a limited, 30-60 day window. So, brides living in the tristate area seek grooms within the tristate, and similarly grooms living in Bay Area are seeking brides living in the Bay Area, and so on.

(c) Brides on F1 (student visa) status again are not preferred, because upon graduation, she will have to slide into an OPT visa status and will have to go through an uncertainty, in a lottery situation, as described under (b) above.

(d) Those transitioning from an H1B into a GC status (with an approved Labor Certification), who could previously get married to brides from India or those here on H1B and get their spouse converted into a H1B work visa, to work legally) and get her a Green Card, under President Obama’s Executive Order, are in a state of “limbo” over the uncertainty that has now imperiled precarious future of H4 spousal visa work authorizations issued under President Obama’s Executive Order.  So the marriages of brides and grooms on H1B with Labor Certifications transitioning from (H1B-GC) are all stalled, awaiting President Trump’s (to be) newly enunciated policy to be announced shortly. If these people are barred from work visas we are going to see lots of “class action suits” which is going to further cause uncertainty and misery in their lives.

(d)  Those in the U.S. on L1, (intra-company transfer visa) – for instance an employee of GE in India whose services are transferred to GE in the U.S. under L1 status – L1 is a non-transferable work visa in the U.S. also face problems. So those on L1 here in the U.S. cannot seek a change of status of an L1 to another category such as H1B, while they are within the U.S., on an L1.   In the event a bride or groom on L1 wants to get married to someone on H1B in the U.S., he or she has to go back to India, resign his/her job, and then re-enter the United States with a H4 visa status (somewhat doubtful if the Consulate will grant one these days), as USCIS here and the American Consulates in India are becoming tough with enforcement and are issuing more and more RFEs ~ so the brides and grooms on L1 are unable to marry, while on their stint in the U.S.  Usually, the employers bring the L1s with a “promise of Green Card” but this is becoming more and more difficult with USCIS stricter enforcement on non-immigrant visas.

(e) J1 visa which is also called “visitor exchange visa” with a 3 year  “shelf life” (extendable to six years in some cases, such as medical doctors completing residency, entering into fellowship), but comes with a caveat provision, that the holder of this classification of visas will have to return to India or another foreign country for a period of two years, before seeking re-entry to the U.S. So more and more boys and girls are definitely avoiding reaching out to those on J1 visas in the U.S. Those who are medical doctors, coming to the U.S. on J1 visas are facing enormous problems in getting their green cards, because they will have to serve for a few years in rural hospitals in the U.S.  Moreover, they go through enormous red tape in getting the Government of India’s NOC (No Objection Certificate) to not return to India, for which, they have to get four Indian Ministry’s approval namely, Home, Health, NRI and Education Ministries.

(f) Brides from India are ready to come to the U.S. and embrace boys who are on H1B status, in matrimony, because they too know that they have to come here under a H4, not legally permitted to work and will have “to sit on the bench” – so the brides from India are also “shying away” from boys in the U.S. on H1B in matrimony.

(g) U.S. citizens who could previously marry those visiting the U.S. on a B1/B2 visitor and work visas are also “shunning” these B1-B2 visiting the U.S., and those brides coming to the U.S. on non-immigrant visas, because the Department of State recently issued bulletin dated September 1, 2017, has lifted an hitherto existing “bar on 30-60 day rule and the Immigration Department now retains powers on adjudication even after 90 days after entry of the beneficiary into the United States. If the USCIS suspects that a change in status of a non-immigrant visa holder has been sought in matrimony to a US citizen or Permanent Resident, to just circumvent the rules, with (a preconceived intent), that petition can or may be denied. The USCIS could take the position that the beneficiary did not disclose his/her intention to get married to a U.S. citizen or a Green Card holder, in her original visa application she made for purposes of traveling to the United States.  So more and more U.S. citizens and Permanent Residents are only seeking those who are U.S. citizens and Permanent Residents, like “themselves”.

(h) US citizen brides (born and raised in the U.S.) also are wary of marrying a man on H1B and other work related visas. These brides have also heard of many cases where the non-immigrant boy on H1B has deserted her after getting a Green Card.

(Sashti Srinivasan has been assisting Hindu and Sikh brides living in the U.S. and Canada in matrimony, through parental-assisted introductions in a noble cause via his initiative, www.globalmatri.org)

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NEW YORK – An Indian American mother and her son were found dead inside their Aldie, Virginia home on Wednesday, according to wtop.com.

Mala Manwani, 65, and Rishi Manwani, 32, were found by police after they received a phone call from one of Mala’s co-workers, saying that she had shown up to work this week.

According to wtop.com, both mother and son were discovered dead with gunshot wounds, leading police to believe that they are victims of a double homicide.

However, Kraig Troxell, a spokesman for the Loudoun County Sheriff’s office told wtop.com that there was no evidence of a forced entry into the home.

Troxell added that he doesn’t believe that anyone else lived in the residence with them and police have never responded to any incidents at the residence in the past.

Troxell did not tell wtop.com what evidence was recovered from the scene and didn’t even say how investigators had determined that the deaths were indeed homicides instead of a murder-suicide.

Troxell told the Washington Post that they are “trying to determine when they were last in contact with anyone” and that “he is ‘not aware of’ a suspect or suspects in the case at this time” adding that an autopsy will likely be done soon.

According to the Washington Post, Sheriff officials say that the case does not appear to be a “random act and there is no indication of any threat to the public.”

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NEW YORK – Indian American Aruna Miller, who is running for Maryland’s sixth congressional district, has raised a total of nearly $863,000 after she raised $301,628 in the fourth quarter of 2017.

According to a campaign press release, Miller finished as the top fundraiser for the third consecutive quarter and has more than doubled her nearest competitor in funds raised in the fourth quarter of 2017.

More than 1,400 individual contributors gave a total of 1,723 distinct contributions to the campaign, a statement said.

Miller has worked for 25 years for Montgomery County as an engineer and was first elected to the Maryland House of Delegates in 2010, representing the 15th district as well as serving as a member of the Appropriations Committee.

Miller came to the United States in February of 1972 at the age of 7.

“I can still remember that snowy day, tucked away safely in my dad’s arms, as we stepped off the plane in New York City. I didn’t know it then, but America had just welcomed me home, and it was my turn to give up who I had been for what I was to become, an American,” she said on her website.

She learned English while attend public schools and quickly adapted to her new world.

“When I was a senior in high school, my father faced a major health crisis and eventually lost his job. I got a job working at a fast food restaurant. I applied for student loans, obtained Pell grants, and worked my way through college to become a civil engineer. I married my college sweetheart, we moved to Maryland, built a home, and together we raised three daughters – Meena, Chloe, and Sasha – and a few dogs,” she states on her website.

“As a working mom, I juggled raising a family, caring for aging parents, and working full time. I chose a career in public service and worked for 25 years as a Transportation Engineer for Montgomery County and other local governments,” she added.

Miller gained political interest during the 2000 Bush vs. Gore election in 2000.

“It was then I realized Democracy needed me. Not as a bystander or to cast a vote when there’s an election — I needed to engage and empower others every day. I started to volunteer locally which brought me face to face with the needs and problems of others in the community,” she said on her website

So after for Montgomery County as an engineer for 25 years, in 2010, Miller was elected to the Maryland House of Delegates where she represented the 15th district and has also served as a member of the Appropriations Committee.

Miller announced her run for congress last year.

“I am running for the United States Congress because I am fighting for a place we call home, a home that provides security, opportunity, equality, and freedom for all. I am asking for your vote because we must build upon the promise of America and ensure that the America we leave our children is even better than the one we were given,” she stated on her website.

Besides Miller, six other Democrats are eyeing the congressional seat that Democrat John Delaney vacated in July; David Trone, Nadia Hashimi, Roger Manno, Andrew James Duck and Bill Frick along with one Republican, Matt Mossburg.

Miller has so far been endorsed by EMILY’s List, 314 Action and state assembly Speaker Michael Busch.

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The New Jersey city of Bayonne has agreed to a $400,000 settlement with a local Muslim group that will allow a planned mosque to proceed, ending a lawsuit that accused officials of illegally rejecting the zoning application.

“It is in the best interest of our city that we settle this case,” Mayor Jimmy Davis said in a statement. “That we permit members of our community to have a place to gather and worship is the right thing. That we afford all residents the same opportunities is essential.”

The Bayonne Muslims filed a federal lawsuit last year after their application to establish a permanent home was rejected by the city’s zoning board, claiming the decision violated a U.S. law that prohibits local governments from imposing an undue burden on religious exercise through land use regulations.

The agreement calls for a public hearing within 30 days to approve the mosque.

“We are so grateful for the support of so many of our fellow Bayonne residents through this long struggle and we commend the city of Bayonne for moving now to correct the wrong that was done to Bayonne’s Muslims,” said the president of Bayonne Muslims, Abdul Hamid Butt.

The settlement does not affect a probe opened by the U.S. Department of Justice last year into the case. A spokesman for the U.S. attorney’s office in New Jersey, which launched the investigation, declined to comment on its status.

In recent years, the Justice Department has settled lawsuits against numerous localities for denying mosque applications, including Bernards Township, New Jersey; Bensalem, Pennsylvania; and Des Plaines, Illinois.

A similar Justice Department lawsuit against Culpeper County, Virginia, was dismissed as moot by a federal judge after the county agreed to allow the mosque to be built.

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NEW YORK – The worst fears of the H4 visa holders who have a work permit, an Employment Authorization Document (EAD) could be near at hand: a report says the Trump Administration may end the EAD for all H4 visa holders as soon as this month, forcing tens of thousands of legal immigrant workers to quit work.

A report by the McClatchy Bureau reported that ending or changing the Obama-era rule, which granted the EAD for some H4 visa holders, in 2015, could have major effects in western Wake County, where a group of 200 people – almost all women – have organized to fight against the potential change, writing letters and meeting with their members of Congress.

Abhigna Polavarapu is among them. She came to the United States on a student visa, earning her masters’ degree in bioinformatics and a doctorate in computational chemistry. Now, on a visa for spouses of highly skilled workers holding H-1B visas, she’s working as a research scientist at UNC-Chapel Hill.

She and her husband have two children, a 3-year-old girl and a 4-month old boy. Both are U.S. citizens. They live in Cary, where they own a home.

“Me not working with a PhD? I would not like to just sit at home because the visa does not permit me to work after all this effort into my education and research,” said Polavarapu, whose visa expires at the same time as her husband’s and must be renewed in May, reported McClatchy Bureau. “It will be a bad example that I cannot show them that your effort pays off at the end.”

The Obama administration implemented the rule known as H4 EAD in part to help deal with a massive backlog of H-1B visa holders from India and China waiting for green cards. Some estimates put the backlog at more than 1 million.

H-1B visa holders from India can remain in the green card queue for years. If the backlog were to remain at current levels, they could wait up to 70 years, according to members of the group. The H4 EAD allows their spouses to work while they wait for a green card. Previously they were allowed to accompany their spouse to the United States, but not to work.

The Department of Homeland Security announced plans last fall for the change, citing President Donald Trump’s “Buy American and Hire American” executive order issued in April. The order tells agencies, among other things, to “protect the interests of United States workers in the administration of our immigration system, including through the prevention of fraud or abuse.”

“The agency is considering a number of policy and regulatory changes” to carry out the executive order, said Joanne Talbot, a spokeswoman for Homeland Security, “including a thorough review of employment based visa programs. No decision about H4 visas is final until the rulemaking process is completed.”

The work authorization for a spouse is not tied to a specific employer, unlike an H-1B visa, and it must be renewed at the same time as the H-1B visa. More than 104,000 visas have been distributed to spouses in the three-plus years since the rule was changed. The rule change was first proposed in 2012, but was implemented in 2015.

Still, those workers remain a fraction of the country’s legal foreign workers. In fiscal year 2016, the last year for which complete information is available, 41,526 people were on the spouses’ visas, 3 percent of the 1.268 million foreign workers with employment authorization documents, according to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.

Vesudha Mor, a 36-year-old Cary resident, left her job and career in India to join her husband in the United States in 2010. She tried to secure an H-1B visa of her own with no luck before obtaining a spouse’s visa after the Obama administration made them available in 2015, reported McClatchy.

“It’s not about just a work permit,” she was quoted as saying. “We did a lot of financial planning.”

She and her husband have two daughters, an 8-year-old and a 5-year-old. The youngest is an American citizen. The family recently bought a second home but plans to sell one of their houses because of uncertainty over visa status. If Mor loses her ability to work, she said her family would consider moving to another country.

“We will not live here because once you expand your family, you start planning your financial things, you cannot shrink yourself in the middle. I cannot stop doing the things that I want to do for my future,” she said. “I can earn money. Why can’t I? It’s better I can go to another country.”

A group of about a dozen women met with Rep. David Price, a Chapel Hill Democrat, in Durham last week to lobby on behalf of the current rule. A different group met with staffers from Republican Rep. George Holding’s office in Raleigh.

“The 2015 change needs to be preserved. We want to do everything we can to head off a change in that,” said Price, citing what he said was a careful rule-making process that went into implementation. “If you’re just saying to them that they’re going to be relegated to simply staying at home no matter what the family situation is, no matter what their needs are, that’s going to make the situation for that family more difficult and for the visa holders more difficult.”

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NEW YORK – Indian American businessman Digvijay ‘Danny’ Gaekwad has bought the Church Street Exchange Building along with Orlando businessman Robert Yeager of Sullivan Properties for $14.2 million, according to a Lockport Press report.

Gaekwad, an entrepreneur and developer, has been involved with Visit Florida and also owns properties in downtown Ocala.

“These are beautiful buildings. We will focus on filling them up with quality tenants. This is the perfect place to start something new. It’s easy to find, and it’s iconic in my heart. I lived in Orlando in the 1980s, when Church Street was big,” Gaekwad told the Lockport Press.

According to his website, over the last three decades, Gaekwad has built over a dozen small-and medium-sized companies including convenience stores, real estate development, hotels, and IT consulting companies, all over the country.

Born in Baroda, Gaekwad graduated with a political science degree from Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda and then moved to the United States in 1987 after marrying his wife Manisha, according to his website.

According to his website, when he landed in the U.S. in 1987, Gaekwad stepped into the business world by purchasing a convenience store in Orlando, Florida which he ran for eight years during which he built and sold a chain of 26 convenience stores across Florida.

After exiting from the convenience store business, he launched NDS Global, a medical billing and transcription company which became the largest medical billing and transcription business in the world within five years after which he entered the hospitality and real estate development industries in 1997, according to his website.

Gaekwad has also been active in local, state and national politics and has been trying to increase the representation of the Indian American community in the political arena.

Gaekwad has served on many boards in the community as well as received many awards from various organizations along with being recognized by other organizations.

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NEW YORK – The National Council of Asian Indian Associations (NCAIA), along with other local community organizations, held a grand ceremony to celebrate the 69th Republic Day of India at Eleanor Roosevelt High School Auditorium in Greenbelt, Maryland on Saturday, January 27.

Among those who attended include Vinod and Sarala Prakash of India Development and Relief Fund, Vinod and Sudarshan Goel, Raj Mallick, Gita Shah, Indian Embassy Head of Chancery Mridu Malaya Das, Convener and Chairman of National Council of Asian Indian Associations Er Shreekanta Nayak, Vice Chairs Satish Korpe and Adapa Prasad, President of FIA Satish Satish Mishra, Representative of Sanskrootee Bharatee Foundation Achrya Shankar, who came from India, the governor of Maryland, the Senate Majority Leader, Prince George’s County Executive, and some U.S. Senate and House Representatives.

The ceremony began with the singing of “Vande Mataram” by Lipishree Nayak after which the lamp lighting ceremony took place followed by the singing of the national Anthems of both the U.S. and India.

Shreekanta Nayak emphasized the fact that although we live in the U.S., we are still connected with our roots which we pass them on to the next generation by teaching them that we learned and gathered while growing up in India.

Nearly 380 children performed classical, folk and Bollywood dances while Lipishree Nayak sang some patriotic songs. A music and dance performance lasted around four hours. The entire program was skillfully presented by Manas Samantray and Subharekha Nayak.

On completion of the cultural show, all the teachers and performers were felicitated with individual trophies sponsored by Sanskrit Bharati Foundation and mementos were distributed by Gita Shah, Raj Mallick and Lipishree Nayak.

Several distinguished Indian Americans were recognized for their lifetime achievement and service for the community on this glorious occasion. This included Dr. Vinod and Sarala Prakash of India Development & Relief Fund, for 30 years of dedicated service to the downtrodden in India; Dr. Vinod & Sudarshan Goel for promoting Indian news, views and music through Bibidha Bharatee for four decades; Dr. Raj Mallick at 95 years of age for community philanthropic activities for over six decades and Dr. Gita Shah, MD, for her experience over four decades in healthcare services.

The vote of thanks was delivered by Er Manasa Samantaray at the end of the trophy distributions.

The grand event ended with a complimentary community dinner catered by Nataraj Restaurants and Caterers.

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NEW YORK – An Indian American entrepreneur, Parimal Mehta, the founder and owner of FutureNet, an IT company in Detroit, Michigan, is facing an 11-count indictment for a series of payments he was said to have made to Charles Dodd, who at the time was the director of Detroit’s Office of Departmental Technology Services, reported The Register.

Mehta, 54, a former top executive at FutureNet Group Inc., has been charged with five counts of honest services mail and wire fraud, one count of federal program bribery and five counts of unlawfully using interstate facilities, according to a U.S. Department of Justice press release.

The indictment accuses Mehta of making cash payments to Dodd from 2009 through August of 2016, in exchange for preferential treatment for his company.

According to the Crains Detroit Business report, Dodd pleaded guilty in 2016 to accepting more than $29,500 in bribe payments from two information technology companies.

According to the U.S. Department of Justice, the payments were often made in sums of $400 or $500 which Mehta directly paid to Dodd while they were in the restroom of various Detroit restaurants.

In addition to handing over the alleged envelopes stuffed with dollar bills, Mehta is also accused of buying Dodd’s favor with a bottle of cognac, and giving his wife and two stepchildren jobs at FutureNet, according to The Register.

Among the deals the city awarded to FutureNet during that time were a $2.8m Accela software implementation project used to manage building safety inspections and permits for Detroit and further multi-million-dollar agreements to expand and support the system, according to The Register.

According to the indictment, altogether FutureNet received about $7.5 million from the city in 2015 and 2016,

“On a regular basis, Dodd directed lucrative city business to FutureNet, including by approving the selection of FutureNet to provide numerous contract employees to perform work for Detroit, and by advising other city officials to select FutureNet to provide such contract employees. Detroit paid FutureNet up to approximately $94 per hour for the services of such contract employees, much or which was retained by FutureNet as profit,” the complaint reads.

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NEW DELHI – Actor-politician Kamal Haasan will deliver a keynote at the Harvard University on February 10. He will talk about the issues plaguing Tamil Nadu, which he feels has “sunk to the lowest depth”.

This is the second time the legendary actor will be seen speaking at the prestigious business school. He had earlier spoken at Harvard in 2016 on the topic of freedom of speech.

This time, he will speak about Tamil Nadu and the issues plaguing the state at the annual Indian Conference of the University, read a statement.

“The topic is Tamil Nadu. I chose to speak on it out of sheer necessity. Our state has sunk to the lowest depth. It is affecting my dignity as a man, even more as a Tamilian,” Haasan said.

Only a few weeks away from announcing the name of his political party, Haasan is taking the issue to a bigger level so that people become aware of what is happening.

“I yearn to see my state rise to the height it deserves. The rise of my state will translate into the rise of my nation. Harvard is a seat of learning like our Nalanda University. If only we had continued that tradition without any break, we would have been holding such seminars at least 200 years back.

“These platforms are important and can’t be neglected. This is going to be an engagement with more fortunate minds who availed an opportunity to seek knowledge. A place that dispenses knowledge, for money or free, is still a seat of wisdom. Having their ears, even though only momentarily, is a great opportunity,” he said.

Haasan will commence his political journey from his hometown Ramanathapuram on February 21, when he will also reveal the name of his party.

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MUMBAI – Megastar Amitabh Bachchan has threatened to quit Twitter, accusing the micro-blogging website of reducing his followers.

The fan following of Big B has quickly dropped from 33 million to 32.9 million.

Amitabh, who shares Twitter ranking with superstar Shah Rukh Khan (32.9 million followers), tweeted late on Wednesday: “Twitter! You reduced my number of followers. Haha! That’s a joke. Time to get off from you. Thank you for the ride. There are many ‘other’ fish in the sea – and a lot more exciting!”

Several prominent celebrities across the world — including entertainers, entrepreneurs and media figures — have lost their followers after a probe was announced in the US last week into digital marketing company Devumi that is reportedly selling fake followers to some of the Twitter users.

A New York Times report claimed that Devumi is providing fake followers to social media users.

It is still unclear whether Amitabh losing his followers is part of this.

According to Twitter’s policy, “it strictly prohibits the purchasing and selling of account interactions on its platform. When you purchase followers, Retweets and likes, you are often purchasing bot (fake) or hacked accounts. Any account caught participating in this behaviour will be in violation of the Twitter Rules and may be suspended.”

Big B, 74, is ahead of stars Salman Khan (30.7 million), Aamir Khan (22.8 million), Priyanka Chopra (21.6 million) and Deepika Padukone (23 million) on the micro-blogging website.

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MUMBAI – Fans of actress Rani Mukerji will have to wait a little longer to watch her comeback film “Hichki” as its release date has been shifted from February 23 to March 23. The decision has been taken by Yash Raj Films keeping in mind the audience that will come post exam period.

Yash Raj Films (YRF) on Thursday announced the date change for the movie, which is about turning disadvantages into opportunities.

YRF head honcho Aditya Chopra is said to have been convinced by the marketing and distribution team at the banner that “Hichki” needs a release window that could bring in more audience.

Producer Maneesh Sharma said in a statement: “The multiple screenings of ‘Hichki’ saw outstanding reactions. The audience in attendance have called it one of the best content driven and heartwarming movies to ever come out of YRF. So naturally, the reaction of the team is that does Hichki currently have the best release date to get an extended run in cinemas across India.”

He described it as an “out and out family movie that will entertain audiences across all age groups”.

“The YRF team decided that 23 March, 2018 is the best release date for ‘Hichki’, especially given the post exam scenario for students and families – the most relevant target audience for this film,” Sharma added.

Manan Mehta, Vice President – Marketing and Merchandising, YRF said: “With exams out of the way, March 23 gives us the opportunity to reach out to and speak to the youth, especially school students, and their families as this film is extremely relevant to them.”

Rani plays Naina Mathur, who has a nervous system disorder, Tourette Syndrome that forces an individual to make involuntary repetitive movements or sounds.

Directed by Siddharth P. Malhotra, the film essentially is about staring down at challenges that life throws at one and ultimately winning over them, apart from being a subtle reminder about discrimination that exists in our society.

It highlights this through the story of Naina, who faces discrimination from society that firmly believes she cannot be a teacher because of her disorder.

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MUMBAI – Bollywood actor Shahid Kapoor, who essays Maharawal Ratan Singh in Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s latest epic drama “Padmaavat”, says he would have done the role of Delhi Sultan Alauddin Khilji differently than Ranveer Singh in the film.

Did he wish to play Khilji?

Shahid said: “Of course. Which actor would not wish to play a character like Khilji in a Sanjay Leela Bhansali film? You know, once on ‘Koffee with Karan’, Ranveer said he would have done my role in ‘Kaminey’ better than me… I would have done Khilji differently.”

Asked how different would his approach have been to play Khilji, Shahid said: “Firstly, I do not want to get into those details. Always remember, Sanjay Leela Bhansali is the hero of all his films and we actors come second.

“So whether it is the loud and larger than life character of Khilji or the subtleness of Ratan Singh, everything was governed by Sanjay Sir. So, this is his vision of his. What I just said about performing differently, is because we are two different actors and our style of acting is different.”

How was the interaction between Ranveer and Shahid on the set of “Padmaavat”?

“I was Rawal Ratan Singh, who doesn’t react much, so I underplayed on the set as well. I was in my zone, listening to music, in between the scenes.”

However, according to Shahid, working with an talented actor like Ranveer made him put his best foot forward too.

“The dynamics of two characters — Khilji and Maharawal Ratan Singh — was quite interesting for an actor to play. I would say that the scenes between me and Ranveer were some of the best in the film. So, I got that adrenaline rush to up my game to get all the scenes right. It improves our performance.”

The story of “Padmaavat” revolves around three characters – Queen Padmavati, Maharawal Ratan Singh and Sultan Alauddin Khilji.

The film “Padmaavat” released on January 25 and it has already crossed 100 crores at the box office despite not being released in few states due to protests by the Rajput Karni Sena which alleged that the film had distorted history.

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NEW YORK – Remittances to India maintained its pole position globally, in 2016, with the Diaspora sending back more than 12 billion dollars from the United States alone, of the total of $62.7 billion – just ahead of the $61 billion received by second-place China, according to a new report by the Pew Research Center, based on data collected by the World Bank.

Worldwide, remittances by migrants to their relatives in their home countries decreased by seven billion dollars, in 2016, from $581 billion in 2015, to $574 billion in 2016, a 1% decline, according to economists at the World Bank. India too saw a dip: in 2015, remittances were to the tune of $69 billion.

This is the second drop in global remittances since the global financial crisis. Despite this recent decline, remittances sent by migrants are still about double what they were a decade ago, before the sharp decline in the global economy during the late 2000s.

Tracking remittances worldwide is difficult because many countries do not track funds that are sent or received. Based on data it is able to collect, the World Bank has used a statistical model to estimate the amount of money coming from each sending country to each receiving country.

The significance of remittances to a country’s overall economy depends not just on the amount of the remittances, but the size of the economy, noted the Pew report.

According to the World Bank estimates, India received the most remittances in 2016 by sheer dollar amount: $62.7 billion. But those billions – most of which came from Indians working in the United States or the Arabian Peninsula – were equal to just 2.8% of GDP, making them a just a drop in India’s $2.3 trillion economic bucket.

The countries for which remittances are most economically significant generally share two traits: relatively small economies and relatively large diasporas. Nepal’s GDP in 2016 was just $21.1 billion, ranking it 96th in the world by purchasing power parity. Meanwhile, more than 1.6 million Nepalese were living in other countries in 2015, according to a Pew Research Center analysis. The biggest source countries of remittances to Nepal in 2016 were Qatar, Saudi Arabia, India and the United Arab Emirates.

The sheer size of remittance flows means that one country’s immigration policies can have significant effects on other, more remittance-reliant countries. For instance, the Trump administration recently announced that nearly 200,000 people from El Salvador – who have been allowed to live in the U.S. under the Temporary Protected Status program since the small Central American country was hit by a pair of major earthquakes in 2001 – will have to leave by September 2019.

The decision could impact El Salvador’s economy, given that remittances from Salvadorans abroad in 2016 were equivalent to 17.1% of the country’s GDP. More than 90% of the $4.6 billion the country received in remittances came from the estimated 1.42 million Salvadoran immigrants living in the U.S.

Studies have shown that remittances can reduce the depth and severity of poverty in developing countries, and that they’re associated with increased household spending on health, education and small business.

India’s Outflow of Migrants

India’s huge remittances are a reflection also of its outflow of migrants.

India is the top source of international migrants, with one-in-twenty migrants worldwide born in India. As of 2015, 15.6 million people born in India were living in other countries. India has been among the world’s top origin countries of migrants since the United Nations started tracking migrant origins in 1990. The number of international Indian migrants has more than doubled over the past 25 years, growing about twice as fast as the world’s total migrant population.

Nearly half of India’s migrants are in just three countries, noted Pew: the United Arab Emirates, Pakistan and the United States. About 3.5 million Indians live in the UAE, the top destination country for Indian migrants. Over the past two decades, millions of Indians have migrated there to find employment as laborers. Pakistan has the second-largest number of migrants, with 2 million.

Almost 2 million more live in the U.S., making up the country’s third-largest immigrant group. Among Indian Americans, nearly nine-in-ten were born in India. As a whole, Indian Americans are among the highest educated and have some of the highest income among racial and ethnic groups in the U.S.

Even though the country is the top source of the world’s migrants in total numbers, India has one of the world’s lowest emigration rates. Only about 1% of India’s birth population lives outside of the country, a similar emigration rate to that of the U.S. At more than 1 billion, India’s population is the second-largest in the world behind China.  Consequently, it would take tens of millions more people to leave India before its emigration rate reached the world’s 3% average.

In an earlier study, Pew noted that religious minorities in India have been more likely to migrate internationally. Religious minorities make up a larger share of India’s international migrant population than they do among the nation’s domestic population, according to 2010 Pew Research Center estimates.

For example, about 19% of the Indian international migrant population was Christian, compared with only 3% of the population in India. Similarly, an estimated 27% of the Indian international migrant population was Muslim, compared with 14% of the population in India. The reverse is true for Hindus: Only 45% of India’s international migrant population was Hindu, compared with 80% of the population in India.

So, where all did those more than $62 billion dollars come from in 2016?

USA is behind UAE

United Arab Emirates was even ahead of the US, with a difference of more than $2 billion. UAE transferred a total of $12,575,000,000 to India. The US was second, at $10, 225,000,000. Kuwait was third with more than $4 billion.

The other countries who sent more than a billion dollars of remittances to India are: Qatar ($3 billion plus), United Kingdom ($3 billion plus), Oman ($2 billion plus), Nepal ($2 billion plus), Canada ($2 billion plus), Australia ($1.7 plus billion), Bahrain ($1.2 plus billion), and Sri Lanka ($1.1 plus billion). Singapore was not too far away with $806,000,000.

Despite this huge outflow from their adopted country to their birth nation, NRIs are disappointed with India’s 2018 budget, which did not address some demands, especially from Indians living in the Gulf nations.

Gulf News reported that NRIs had expected a custom duty exemption for gold ornaments for up to 50 grams for males and 100 grams for females. The community also wanted a rationalization of 10 per cent import duty on gold. All this, apart from long-standing demands of a pension plan, and a reduction of GST on property transaction from 12 per cent to 5 per cent, went unheard by finance minister Arun Jaitley.

“From an NRI perspective, the budget does not have anything to write home about. We expected certain tax reforms relating to investments in India, but the business community will be disappointed with the oversight,” Adeeb Ahamed, Managing Director, Lulu Exchange Holdings and Twenty 14 Holdings told Gulf News.

Tax on Remittances

The Modi government has also maintained the 2014 tax rule for NRIs. The government levies a 12.36 per cent service tax on fees or commission paid by agents for facilitating remittances, thereby making it a little more expensive for expats to send money back home.

Most of the money that is sent home by the NRIs either gets invested in property, stocks, bonds or gold.

However, companies in the money exchange and transfer business are gung ho about India.

Recently, Western Union, the wire payments company, announced the launch of its Western Union Technology Engineering Centre, a new technology center that is located in Pune, Maharashtra. The technology center, at 125,000 square feet, will serve as Western Union’s innovation and engineering hub in the area and will employ 1,000 skilled workers.

The company said remittances are important to India’s economy.

“On the anniversary of 25 years of our service in India, this is a fitting start to a new chapter. We are extremely proud to have connected Indian diaspora from nearly every country in the world by enabling money movement to their families and loved ones,” said Hikmet Ersek, president and CEO of Western Union, in a statement.

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NEW YORK – Imagine this hypothetical situation: a brilliant young man from India, 30 years old, let’s say with degrees from IIT, MIT and Harvard, get a job on an H-1B visa, applies in February, 2018, for a Green Card. Care to take a guess when he would get it? Ok, you probably guessed wrong. The answer: 100 years later. No typos there. That precious Green Card would probably come by around 2118.

Ok, let’s carry on with this hypothetical story. That young man, as he waits for permanent residency, commits the ‘egregious’ act of getting married to a brilliant young woman from India, his childhood sweetheart. She has a doctorate, a lovely job in Mumbai, but chucks it all away to be with her man in America.

Now, she’s on H-4 spouse visa, unable to work legally, so stays at home, does some volunteer work in the community, to while away time. Some years later, they have a baby, buy a house. For argument sake, let’s say the woman wanted to have her baby in India. So the child is now an Indian passport holder. Mother and son both come back to the US on an H-4 visa.

Now, this young man (not so young any more) begins to stagnate at his job waiting for his Green Card. He has marital problems at home. His wife is getting exasperated with her unfair situation, gets grumpy, angry seeing her friends in India and those lucky enough to have a Green Card in the US do great at their careers, post photos of their radiant family on Facebook; while she wilts away. Their child is getting older too.

Guess what happens to that child (now a young man himself) when he turns 21 on his H-4 visa: he has to either enroll into a F-1 international student visa program, or be forced to leave the US, go back to India. After he graduates, he has to get an H-1B visa himself, or be deported to India.

Unfortunately, this hypothetical situation is not a figment of imagination: it’s actually playing out in hundreds of thousands of homes all across the US.

The reason for the astounding, preposterous delay in issuing a Green Card to skilled workers from India on a H-1B visa, unlike other countries, is because of a ‘country cap’ on the number of visas issued every year to a particular country.

No other country – apart from Chinese citizens who have to wait for a few, have to wait like an Indian for his or her Green Card. Petitioners from other countries get it almost immediately, within a few months.

It’s only an Indian H-1B visa worker who will probably die waiting for his Green Card.

Here’s the irony: if that man (who applied at the age of 30 years) does eventually get his Green Card after 100 years, at the age of 130 (beating the record of the oldest living man on Earth), then his family too will finally get it, if his wife and son are still alive that is. But in case let’s say he dies at the age of 100, working at the same job (imagine that, if you can), then his wife and son would not get it either; would be forced to leave the US, back to India.

Now, some eminent Indian Americans have together to form a group called GCReforms.org (www.GCReforms.org), to create awareness about this massive backlog for Green Card, for Indian skilled workers.

They say it’s impacting some 300,000 high-skilled Indian applicants. Under the current regulation, these workers and their family members have to wait for anywhere from 25-92 years for a Green Card due to per-country limits.

“We not only support the physician groups involved in the immigration issues but also supports a fair green card allocation process for engineers and other professionals that are caught up in the quandary,” said GcReforms.org president Sampat Shivangi, speaking to PTI.

Other members in the group include: Ved Nanda, distinguished university professor at University of Denver Sturm College of Law, Kiran Kumar Thota, Rishi Bhutada, director at Hindu American foundation, Jagdish Sharma, chair, Indian American Friendship Forum, and Prakash Wadhwa, creator of the film ‘From The Land Of Gandhi’, on Green Card backlog.

On the GCReforms.org website, there are some interesting statistics:  out of the 1 million Green Cards issued annually, a whopping 860,000 go to family-based, refugees and Diversity Visa Lottery recipients.

Only the rest, 140,000 go to EB (Employment Based) categories, with EB 3 the worst off, despite applicants in it even having doctoral degrees under their belt. Combined, EB2 and EBS recipients – the most common of H-1B visa aspirants for a Green Card and the worst off in the jammed pipeline, get only 80,000 Green Cards annually.

To nail it down: despite India getting 60% of these work visas, their share of the Green Cars is only 7%. Thus, every year, out of this 80,000 total Green Card issues to EB 2 and EB3 applicants, 74,400 goes to people from other countries, making them ‘current’ with no wait time. When it comes to India, the number is only 5,600 Green Cards per year. More than 44,000 EB2 and EB3 applicants from India go into a wait list every year, creating the backlog.

There seems to be no end in sight to this living nightmare for these skilled, high-income workers from India. They are model citizens, law abiding, and wait patiently for the US government to do the right thing.

President Trump, please do the right thing: remove the country cap limit on allocation of Green Cards for Indian workers.

(Sujeet Rajan is Executive Editor, Parikh Worldwide Media. Email him: sujeet@newsindiatimes.com Follow him on Twitter @SujeetRajan1)

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NEW YORK – Miss World 2017 Manushi Chhillar has announced that she will attend the 2018 South Asian Women Empowerment Gala in New York, hosted by Bindu Kohli.

“Today women have excelled in all domains and we have a lot to learn from each other. We believe in our uniqueness and are happy to be part of this event showcasing women who have made a big difference,” said Premal Badiani, the title sponsor for the black tie gala event.

“This premium event will be ideal to present and felicitate Miss Manushi Chhillar in USA amongst high profile guests and several women achievers in USA. I believe in quality and class and I am sure to make it a memorable event,’ said Bindu Kohli, who is a television host and a promoter of entertainment events.

Last year, Kohli hosted actress Shilpa Shetty in many cities across the U.S. for multiple events marking women’s empowerment.

Chhillar is the sixth Indian to win the Miss World title after 17 years.

The title was previously held by Priyanka Chopra (2000), Yukta Mookhey (1999), Diana Hayden (1997), Aishwarya Rai Bachchan (1994) and Reita Faria (1943).

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An Indian American man identified as Ishvarlal Kuvarji Patel, 60, of Troutville, New York was pronounced dead at the scene when officers responded to a robbery in progress on Jan. 23 at Starlite Motel in Roanoke, according to a WDBJ7 report.

According to Scott Leamon of the Roanoke Police Department, dispatchers told officers that when they received the call, they could hear a loud violent disorder in the background while the caller suddenly stopped talking, but left the line open.

According to Leamon, upon arrival, officers saw through a window, a man holding a baseball bat as he stood over two females who were huddled together.

Leamon told WDBJ7 that both of the females appeared to be injured; one even had serious visible injuries.

According to Leamon, when officers went to a side door, they saw Patel on the floor inside of the building; he was not moving and had obvious signs of critical injury.

According to a WDBJ7 report, officers tried to get into the building through an exterior door but found that the door was locked and when they tried to open the door, one of the female victims ran toward the door to let officers in but was grabbed and stopped by the male individual, identified as Timothy Mwandi Church, 26, of Roanoke.

Leamon told WDBJ7 that an officer began kicking the door in an attempt to get inside of the building and eventually broke the door into several pieces.

Church began trying to physically stop officers from entering but was unable to do so; he eventually dropped the baseball bat and ran after diving through a glass window to the exterior of the building, according to the WDBJ7 report.

Leamon told WDBJ7 that officers ended up catching Church; he was taken to the hospital and is now in custody.

According to Leamon, Church has been charged with one count of murder and is being held at Roanoke City Jail without a bond.

According to the WDBJ7 report, both females were related to Patel and were transported to the hospital for treatment; it is still unclear exactly how Patel died.

The investigation is ongoing.

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Pakistani American Dr. Ravindra Nanda, a now-retired University of Connecticut (UConn) Health orthodontics professor, allegedly called Arab and Muslim resident doctors, members of the Islamic State and said that the FBI might think he is building an “ISIS cell” due to the number of Arab and Muslim people in his program, according to the Associated Press.

The report also alleges that he only allowed North American residents to treat Caucasian patients and tossed out a job application from a female resident doctor, according to a Daily Campus report.

According to the Daily Campus report, Nanda retired last fall which was more than a year after the report was issued by UConn Health’s Office of Institutional Equity.

According to the Associated Press, though Nanda has denied all accusations, the Office of Institutional Equity found the testimony of several resident doctors to be credible.

“At a time when there are enough tensions in the United States, the types of (statements) Nanda made are extremely dangerous. The future medical professionals of America deserve to be respected, educated and employed regardless of their religions, ethnicities and backgrounds,” Shaheer Syed Hassan, a member of the UConn Muslim Student Association told the Daily Campus.

Hassan added that he is “concerned that incidents like this harm the image of Muslims, many of whom have much to offer to this country.”

“There is enough backlash from mainstream media and perception against Muslims. This attitude is detrimental to the success of our nation as it affects our nation’s abilities to recruit talented individuals,” Hassan told the Daily Campus.

UConn Health Chief Communications Officer Chris Hyers told the Associated Press that leaders on campus took “appropriate measures” in response to the findings.

“UConn Health does not tolerate discrimination, harassment or retaliation in the workplace or its learning environments,” Hyers said in a statement as reported by the Associated Press.

According to the Associated Press, one of the investigators Ellen Keane, recommended that “UConn consider disciplining Nanda and that measures be taken immediately ‘to protect residents against further discrimination, harassment and retaliation.’”

Jacques Parenteau, Nanda’s lawyer Jacques Parenteau said Thursday that Nanda appealed the report’s findings and the process ended with a confidential resolution and that the investigation had no bearing on Nanda’s retiring, according to the Associated Press.

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Prateek Mittal, an Indian American professor of electrical engineering at Princeton University, was chosen by Princeton University’s IP Accelerator Fund for his research-stage technology, according to a university press release.

Mittal will teaming up with Mung Chiang, a visiting research scholar in electrical engineering, to come up with a plug-in device that adds internet-connectivity to existing vehicles, according to the press release.

The device, known as SmartCore, will bring in programmability along with connectivity to existing cars, transforming them into Wi-Fi enhanced smart vehicles, with the added protection of security and privacy.

According to the Princeton University School of Engineering and Applied Sciences’ website, Mittal and Chiang say that “SmartCore will improve the driving experience, user safety and in-car communications by extending the benefits of internet connectivity to all vehicles.”

“This year’s innovations include an exciting and diverse selection of technologies, and provide a snapshot into the breadth of research going on at Princeton. These grants makes it far more likely that these projects will receive additional downstream development funding, thus dramatically increasing the probability that a particular technology will make it to the marketplace and benefit society,” said John Ritter, the director of Technology Licensing at Princeton University.

Mittal and Chiang will also receive up to $100,000 to complete the project.

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