PRESS RELEASE Release Date: May 31, 2017 For Immediate Release Office of the Press Secretary Contact: 202-282-8010 WASHINGTON — U.S. Customs and Border Protection will now remind travelers of their last possible departure date from the United States, according to the terms of their admission, via email and a new feature on the I-94 website. Beginning today, eligible Visa Waiver Program travelers will be able to check how much longer they can remain in the United States without overstaying the terms of their admission. Further updates to the I-94 website will incorporate additional nonimmigrant travelers. “Terms of admission can vary widely for travelers based on their purpose of travel, visa, and classification. This new feature makes it easier for travelers to find their specific admitted until date in order to comply with U.S. immigration laws,” said Acting Commissioner Kevin McAleenan. “CBP remains committed to facilitating lawful travel and improving the international travel experience for both U.S. citizens and visitors to the United States.” To check their admitted until date, travelers will enter their name, birthdate, passport number and passport country of issuance. If a traveler has overstayed the terms of their admission, the I-94 website will provide travelers with information regarding next steps to take. An “overstay” is defined as someone who was lawfully admitted to the United States for an authorized period, but remained in the United States beyond his or her lawful period of admission. Periods of admission vary based on the traveler’s class of admission. For example, a lawful admission period can be a fixed period, or based on the completion of a certain activity, such as a student seeking a college degree. In September 2016, CBP launched an online I-94 application and payment option for travelers arriving at a land port of entry. Travelers can provide their biographic and travel information, and pay the $6 fee for their I-94 application online up to seven days prior to their entry. Form I-94 provides non-immigrant visitors evidence they have been lawfully admitted to the U.S., which is necessary to verify alien registration, immigration status, and employment authorization. In May 2013, CBP automated the I-94 in the air and sea environment. The automated system allows CBP Officers to create an I-94 Arrival Record within primary and secondary inspection processing systems at the time of inspection with passenger manifest information—eliminating the need for paper forms and manual data entry. CBP encourages travelers to plan ahead to ensure a smooth and efficient processing experience. Visit CBP.gov for travel tips. U.S. Customs and Border Protection is the unified border agency within the Department of Homeland Security charged with the management, control and protection of our nation's borders at and between official ports of entry. CBP is charged with keeping terrorists and terrorist weapons out of the country while enforcing hundreds of U.S. laws.

“A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth gets its boots on,” the sagacious Mark Twain declared. And that was almost a century before Josef Goebbels, cable television, the “internets” and the perpetual propaganda/marketing Mighty Wurlitzer. The ball having mercifully dropped on Annus Horribilis 2016 and the heavy weight of Annus Insanitus 2017 now fully upon us, the truth, even with jets on its boots, cannot catch up with the shameless audacity and sheer volume of the lies Disinformation Nation USA is spewing around the world. Or to paraphrase Winston Churchill, in our time the precious truth is being completely overwhelmed by its surrounding bodyguard of lies. *** Real news was made on election night, November 8th, 2016 after months and months of relentless propaganda, lies, smears, salaciousness and slander, malicious provocations, magical thinking, fortune telling, pathological denials, journalistic malpractice and political awfulness. Truth: Donald J. Trump, blowfish-faced, weirdly-coiffed, brand-name New York City real estate tycoon and former reality TV star, self-regarding sociopath and seriously uninformed political neophyte yet instinctive world class political disrupter, was in fact elected the 45th President of the United States. Much to the shock and awe of the entire Wall Street/War Street/Washington DC Axis of Evil and their corrupt and tattered standard bearer, Hillary Clinton, the Candidate of Yesteryear. As an extra added bonus, the Bush and Clinton crypto-dynasties, after nearly 40 dismal years, were both chucked into the dumpster of history. Whodathunk it?? Anyone with eyes to see. Lie: Vladimir Putin, allegedly Stalin born again, hacked the election, destroying our “wonderful democracy” (huh?) and stealing the presidency from Hillary on behalf of his secret agent Trump. Evidence? None!! Truth: World Class sore loser Hillary Clinton, the Democratic Money Party’s Queen of You Owe Me, didn’t lose the election because of the Russians or the Martians. She lost the old-fashioned way: She EARNED it! For all the million$ in moolah mooched and the huge home team of “experienced” enablers, alibiers, fixers, surrogates, apparatchiks, coat carriers, political pimps and backstabbers on the payroll, the ginormous “Stronger Together” / “I’m With Her” Clinton campaign juggernaut succeeded only in meeting the definition of a camel: a horse put together by a committee. Her entire pitch was based on being the “most experienced” person ever to run for the top office and therefore entitled to be the first woman President. Her battle plan was to out-money and muscle aside any prospective opponents before they could get their running shoes tied and become the inevitable (anointed) winner two years before a single vote was even cast. As a has been, she peaked too soon. Has been 1st Lady, has been Junior Senator for Wall Street, has been Secretary of State and has been failed candidate for President. Her actual positive accomplishments in those stellar positions did not exactly warrant a statue in the Mall near Lincoln and Jefferson. Indeed, her resume was more like a rap sheet. Pathological dishonesty. Scandalgates galore. Enabler of Billy goat’s White House Bimbo Eruptions. Neo-con fellow traveler, war monger/cheerleader and coup coordinator. (Can you say: Iraq War. Libya. Honduras. Ukraine.) Shameless insatiable money-grubber: Dining for dollar$ from corporate crook$ and bank$ter$. Hustling (extorting?) million$ in “contribution$” for the Clinton Global Got Bucks Foundation from foreign countries doing business with the State Department. (Can you say: Private email server). Sabotaging the Bernie Sanders primary campaign. Talk about undermining our “precious democracy”!!!! All these known knowns about this awful candidate were simply re-enforced by the WikiLeaks release of thousands of embarrassing-for-being-true DNC and Clinton Campaign emails, exposing various Clinton shenanigans. So how does the worst candidate in history explain LOSING to the worst candidate in history? Putin ate my presidency! The entire Democratic Money Party that was likewise utterly vanquished in the election, have subsequently snatched up Hillary’s gigantic and historic deception and have been running with the fumble to the wrong end zone. Yelping hysterically: The Russians are coming! The Russians are coming! Aided, abetted and cheered on by their irresponsible Amen Corner, the national media and with the connivance of Rogue Nation’s 17 intelligence (duh!) agencies (not to mention much of the ridiculous and despised GOP, who piggybacked on The Trump to dubious victory). Indeed, the Democratic Money Party, snouts long buried in the deep pockets of their Donor Class and utterly tone deaf, dumb and blind to the needs and desires of their gen pop constituency, have tumbled helter-skelter into such a profound state of alibi and denial it is borderline Crazy Eddie INSAAAANE!! Exceeding even the tawdry Monicagate “scandal” in frenzy and ersatz righteous indignation, the Dementedcrats and their fellow travelers, almost every day since the election, have cranked out evidence-free accusations and allegations of Putin-Trump criminality, conspiracy and treason with every (fake) news cycle. It has been the Obama is a Kenyan gambit multiplied exponentially. Except in this case, Putin has nukes. *** There are little white lies: “I love you baby” and “The check is in the mail.” There are big lies: “Climate change is a hoax!”. “Single payer health care is Communism/Socialism!” “Iran is the world’s #1 supporter/exporter of terrorism.” And there are zombie lies that never seem to die and keep coming back in different grotesque disguises: “Poland invaded Germany.” “The North Vietnamese attacked our ships in the Gulf of Tonkin.” “Saddam has WMDs.” “Putin invaded Crimea”. After months of relentlessly waterboarding The Trump with Putin! Putin! Putin!, his bitter and desperate political establishment torturers resurrected a recent trickeration that hadn’t worked the first time around on Obama. The Syrian arch-villain Pres. Bashar al-Assad poison-gassed his own people. And Putin helped him! OMG! OMG! Don’t just stand there, do something!! It was a grim echo of a 2013 false flag propaganda operation by the “rebel” side (i.e. al-Qaeda by various names and other assorted Sunni Muslim mercenaries) in the gruesome, seemingly endless, Syrian civil war. A never-officially-determined number of innocent men, women and children in a rebel-held Syrian village had been killed in an alleged sarin gas attack by the Syrian government. Supported by no “evidence” beyond a slick and shrill anti-Assad media blitz and some YouTube videos of dubious provenance, the incident was intended to shock and awe Obama into ordering US troops to invade that hapless long-suffering country and do the Saudi/Qatari/Turkish-funded “regime change” Sunni outlaws’ dirty work for them. The propaganda ploy failed on that occasion, due, ironically, to some fancy diplomatic footwork by none other than Vladimir Putin, the Syrian government’s longtime ally. With the agreement of the Obama White House, Putin convinced, cajoled, bribed (?) Bashar to give up all the chemical weapons in his arsenal to a UN agency. That was then. This is now. On the morning of April 4th, as if performing from a script, accompanied by a continuous dramatic loop of wobbly cell phone videos of dead babies and women frothing at the mouth, Breaking News! Breaking News! TV headlines breathlessly declared: “Bashar gasses his own people. Again.” As if on cue, with no true evidence but a culprit already teed-up, the usual talking heads and ex-military brass hats rushed onto the network and cable news shows crying crocodile tears for the victims in the videos and war-whooping against Bashar al-Assad, the new new Hitler. It was déjà vu all over again. Something pretty dreadful had occurred in another small rebel-held Syrian village in the middle of nowhere. Innocent men, women and children had died. Never mind there were no reliable witnesses, no independent investigation or chemical analysis underway, and not a single legitimate journalist within 100 miles of the scene. The Syrians and the Russians immediately denied they did it. Bashar had given up his chemical weapons 3 years ago. The government and their Russian allies were more or less already “winning” the brutal civil war. And only a week earlier the US Secretary of State had essentially taken “regime change” off the menu. But the Mighty Wurlitzer once cranked into action is not easy to turn off. President Twitter in the White House, who admitted during the election to getting most of his news and information from “the shows”, reportedly saw the Breaking News loop and was miraculously “converted” from the “Can’t we all get along with Russia?” guy to a neocon saber-rattler, as if channeling Hillary Clinton. He might have been watching the Zapruder film. Two nights later, doubtless after a briefing (“do this or else…”) from his tinpot generals, playing Commander-in-Chief on TV and adlibbing exaggeratedly a trait he had never been known to possess, empathy for the “beautiful dead babies”, he announced that 59 Tomahawk Cruise missiles had been launched in the direction of a Syrian airbase. And God bless America! In the New American Empire, it has become a Presidential tradition to solemnly declare we are about to bomb the crap out of a country we don’t like, in the name of democracy, freedom, human rights and free ice cream. Obama’s mellifluous baritone was ideal for that hypocritical purpose. George W tended to stumble over his words and giggle. For the reality TV alumnus, it was a brief, less than inspiring speech, sounding more like a cross between a hostage tape and baby talk. But it had the effect, at first blush, of temporarily disarming his yowling critics. The permanently deep state embedded neocon war mongers, Putin-crazed Dementedcrats and somber TV anchormen lauded the ersatz militaristic move. The “beautiful” dead babies loop was replaced with the “beautiful” rockets’ red glare loop. CNN know-it-all newsman Fareed Zakaria set the new tone by gushing, “(tonight) Donald Trump became president of the United States…a kind of interesting morphing…” In the next days, compared to the constant waterboarding he had endured, the narcissist in The Trump naturally responded to the approval and adulation. He tripled down on his saber-rattling. Threatening longtime bogeyman Iran, North Korea’s cartoon villain Kim Jung-Un and the Chinese, with a few gratuitous digs along the way at Putin. In a dizzying turnabout, he gave a public brohug to the criminal enterprise known as the EU and “undeclared” NATO irrelevant. For good measure, our never victorious military dropped a 21,000-lb “Mother Of All Bombs” on Afghanistan just to hear the boom. What now? America duly elected the candidate, who most resembled the loudmouth at the end of the bar yelling at the TV news, over the Anointed One, who had little to offer but more of the same old same old corruption and arrogance and not even entertainment value. But after months of near-national nervous breakdown over the election results, the legitimate 45th President of the United States, like him or lump him, has “morphed” into a POW. Prisoner of the Warmongers. Doomocracy in action. ****

Press Release Washington - new.jornal.us press release-  The Department of Homeland Security has officially enacted a provision to make it easier for immigrant entrepreneurs to build startups in the U.S. The rule, proposed by President Barack Obama last summer, takes effect exactly one week before he leaves the Oval Office. Yesterday, April 13, 2017, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) released an advance copy of the final international entrepreneur rule. It will be published in the Federal Register on Tuesday, January 17, 2017, and is scheduled to go into effect 180 days from the date of publication. However, it is possible that Congress and/or President-elect Trump could take steps before then to prevent the rule from being implemented. The rule was proposed as a workaround for foreign entrepreneurs after Congress was unsuccessful in passing any substantive immigration reform. Today there isn’t an appropriate way for business entrepreneurs from other countries to establish companies in the U.S. This is due to the inherent problems associated with business visas, like the H1B, which only apply to skilled employees, not startup founders. Congress did create the EB-5 Program in 1990 to stimulate the U.S. economy through job creation and capital investment by foreign investors. In 1992, Congress created the Immigrant Investor Program, also known as the Regional Center Program. This sets aside EB-5 visas for participants who invest in commercial enterprises associated with regional centers approved by USCIS based on proposals for promoting economic growth. However its requirements are cumbersome and difficult to reach for smaller companies. Under this program, entrepreneurs are eligible to apply for a green card (permanent residence) if they: 1. Make the necessary investment in a commercial enterprise in the United States; 2. Such investments are a minimum of $500,000 in an underprivileged area or $1,000,000 for other commercial areas. 3. And plans to create or preserve 10 permanent full-time jobs for qualified U.S. workers. Under the new rules, investors would receive an initial parole of 2.5 years, followed by an extended period of 2.5 additional years. The rule requires startups to have investments of at $250,000. The official rule also gives entrepreneurs more time to land funding — 18 months instead of one year. To qualify, the founder 1. Has to prove that the startup met certain requirements and demonstrated the potential for “significant public benefit.” 2. The entrepreneurs need to own 10 percent of the startup to qualify for the initial parole period. To re-apply for an additional 2.5 years, founders just need 5 percent ownership. 3. A startup has to generate at least 5 jobs during the initial 2.5-year parole period to qualify for an extension. Generally speaking, the final rule loosens up on a number of benchmarks necessary to qualify for the parole, responding to criticism that the proposed requirements were too restrictive. It allows for startups to use “alternative criteria” to demonstrate they’ll benefit the U.S. economy. The final rule also has more relaxed requirements for qualified investments, qualified investors and startup entities. More precise information will be forthcoming prior to going in effect in the 180 days.   For more information contact : Apsan Law Offices by email at moses@apsanlaw.com http://www.apsanlaw.com/

Brazil's Musical Grande Dame BIBI FERREIRA Returns to New York to Debut 4 x Bibi;   Performing September 20 and 23 at Symphony Space, Bibi's New Show Salutes Four of Her Singing Peers: Frank Sinatra, Édith Piaf, Carlos Gardel and Amália Rodrigues;   At Age 94, a Living Legend Whose Fans Include Maria Bethania and Liza Minnelli Bibi Ferreira is Brazilian musical and theatrical royalty. As a singer, actress, and director, Ferreira-now 94-has influenced generations of Brazilian greats, including the country's fabled mythic diva, Maria Bethânia. "Everything that she does has helped Brazil with its identity," Bethânia told NPR's Weekend Edition.   Her first appearance on stage was in a play put on by the company of her godmother Abigail Maia. When a prop doll could not be found, and the curtain was about to go up, in panic someone suggested Procopio's baby daughter, who was in his dressing room. Bibi Ferreira, 24 days old, entered the stage in the arms of Abigail Maia, the leading actress after whom she was named.   Ferreira studied piano and violin, wrote music and also had an interest in design and painting. But then, in 1941, her father offered her a role in La Locandiera (The Mistress of the Inn) by Carlo Goldoni. She was 18, and never looked back.   Bibi Ferreira was in her father's company for two years before, at 21, organizing her own comedy company. From that point on, her passion for music and theater took her on a remarkable path that includes productions of My Fair Lady, in which she played Eliza Doolitle, and Man of La Mancha (she was the first director to stage such productions in Brazil), to revues, TV specials and orchestral shows. She starred and produced music shows such as Bibi conta e canta Piaf (Bibi Speaks and Sings Piaf) and worked with some of the best artists in Brazilian popular music, including Elizeth Cardoso, Clara Nunes, Maria Bethania and Baden Powell.   Ater 75 years on stage, Ferreira says in the days leading up to a concert, she doesn't talk so as to preserve her voice. Before stepping on stage, she downs a shot of expresso "with a a dollop of butter, for the throat," and, even after all these years, she worries to the point of trembling. "I'm afraid that my voice might waver, might not be as strong," she says. "Every performance is a challenge. Each song has its own difficulties and you have to overcome them."   But she also adds: "I love my profession. I dream about it. I go to bed thinking about what I've done and what I'm doing next. It's my job. But, you know what? Even if that was not the case, I would never stop. Stopping is something that never crossed my mind. I will never retire." NPR Weekend Edition (2013) "Brazil's Leading Lady Still Shines" http://www.npr.org/2013/11/09/243788314/brazils-91-year-old-leading-lady-still-shines   Website: www.bibiferreira.com    Ferreira's career stretches back to her first film appearance in 1936; it includes the founding of an important theater company and starring roles in Brazilian productions of My Fair Lady, Hello, Dolly!, and Man of La Mancha. Today this legendary grande dame remains in peak form, with a touring schedule that would exhaust an artist half her age.   Not until 2013 did New Yorkers experience her for the first time, in a 90th-birthday concert at Lincoln Center. Later that year she sang Édith Piaf in a sold-out concert at Town Hall. This fall, Ferreira will return to Manhattan on Tuesday September 20 and Friday September 23 at Symphony Space, presenting her latest show 4 x Bibi(Four Times Bibi), a salute to four of her peers and inspirations: Édith Piaf, Amália Rodrigues, Carlos Gardel, and Frank Sinatra.   Singing Sinatra in New York is "absurd," she playfully told a TV interviewer in Brazil recently. "Besides, he's a man, and I'm singing his repertoire." But then again, Frank Sinatra, who Ferreira considers "the greatest interpreter of all time," was the singer who could "turn a 32-bar song into a 3-act play," as a colleague once put it, and few can bring a lyric to the stage as Ferreira does. Liza Minnelli, who knows something about the subject, was in the audience at her U.S. debut at Lincoln Center, on April 14, 2013, and was moved to go up on stage to join Ferreira in a performance of "New York, New York."   Few singers have the musical and theatrical tools, and nerve, to re-interpret Amália Rodrigues, the Queen of Fado, before Portuguese audiences; to invoke the power and vulnerability of Édith Piaf, not only in Rio and Sao Paulo but in Paris, or take up the challenge of summoning the spirit of yet another male idol, the iconic Argentine tango singer Carlos Gardel, in Buenos Aires. Her process, she explained, "is to listen without wanting to copy. What you want is to take in whatever is best for you."   The multilingual program of 4 x Bibi includes classics such as Sinatra's "That's Life," and "The Lady is a Tramp;" Rodrigues's "Fadinho Serrano" and "Povos Que Lavas no Rio;" Piaf's "Je Ne Regrette Rien" and "Hymne a l'Amour," and Gardel's "Cuesta Abajo." An engaging storyteller, the show also includes her witty and unvarnished commentary on life, love, age and showbiz. Ferreira will be performing with a 12-piece band conducted by her arranger and musical director Flavio Mendes.   Abigail Izquierdo Ferreira was born on June 1st, 1922 in Salvador, Bahia, in Brazil's Northeast. Her mother, Aida, was a dancer; her father Procopio, a stage actor, theater director and playwright. Her roots in show business are deep. From her mother's side, Ferreira descends from the Queirolo family, which for four generations was involved in the circus and included acrobats, clowns and comics. They were legendary both in Brazil and internationally.

On July 29, 2016, the Department of Homeland Security published a long awaited rule that will help a family member of a U.S. citizen and legal resident that has an order of deportation and never left. In the past where a family member, a spouse, or child of a U.S. citizen, had an order of deportation and never left, the only way to become a legal resident was to make a motion to reopen the case (very difficult) or have an interview at the U.S. consulate. At the interview they would be told that they couldn’t be granted legal status unless they obtained two waivers. One waiver is for accruing more than 180 days of unlawful presence in the United States. The punishment for this activity is a bar to entry for either 3 or 10 years. The other is for the deportation order. There has been a provisional waiver program (I-601A) in existence since 2013, which allows the beneficiary of the application to remain in the U.S. while a decision is made on the waiver application. Without this waiver, the applicant would have to wait in their home country for many months, perhaps years until a decision is made. Now, with this new waiver, the applicant has to return to his home country, but generally remains there for only 3 weeks. A major drawback to the original 601A waiver was that it only could be used for the spouse and children of a U.S. citizen. Eligibility for the provisional waiver program will be enlarged to include all family-based and other intending immigrants who would be found inadmissible due to unlawful presence. And the qualifying relatives who will suffer the necessary extreme hardship will include both U.S. citizens and lawful permanent resident aliens (LPRs). In addition, the final regulation makes other important changes. The rule will go into effect on August 29, 2016, on which date the agency will also publish a new Form I-601A. THE ORDER OF DEPORTATION PROBLEM A major problem in the immigrant community is that there are many people that have been ordered to depart or granted Voluntary Departure but never left. When the person departs the United States while a final order is outstanding, he or she executes that order. And the execution of the order makes the person inadmissible for a period of five or ten years (20 years in some situations). There is “waiver” for the deportation called Application for Permission to Reapply for Admission into the United States After Deportation or Removal (Form I-212 ). In the past you would have to apply for this waiver after you left the U.S. creating an additional delay and longer separation of families. The new regulation allows persons who have been ordered removed to apply for a “waiver” of this ground of inadmissibility before it becomes active because of their departure. This is done by filing the Form I-212 with the USCIS in the jurisdiction where the person was ordered removed. Before going to the consular interview. Once approved, the individual's order of removal, deportation, or exclusion would no longer bar him or her from obtaining an immigrant visa abroad. Once the approval is received, the person would then be eligible to apply for the provisional waiver (I-601A) – as discussed above. Understand persons who were ordered deported and left and then reentered without inspection on or after April 1, 1997 triggers a separate ground of inadmissibility called the “permanent bar. This ground may not be cured through the provisional waiver process; instead the person must reside abroad for ten years and then obtain a waiver by filing a Form I-212. Also understand that this waiver has no affect on other bars to admissibility, such as criminal case, which requires a different waiver. These two waivers are a godsend to many families living in fear of deportation. Now they can really come out of the shadows.   For more information go to apsanlaw.com.