A MESSAGE FROM SISKIND, SUSSER, HAAS & DEVINE Dear Readers:
The Republican Party has gone to great efforts to court immigrant voters in the current presidential campaign. George W. Bush proudly touts the fact that he received a higher percentage of the Hispanic vote in the Texas governor’s races than almost any Republican in the country. His nephew George P. Bush is half-Latino and was given a prominent role at the national convention. And the Republicans have all of a sudden been taking a much softer approach to immigration in the Congress.
But the Democrats have answered back in one of the strongest ways possible. Al Gore has chosen as his Vice Presidential running mate Joe Lieberman, a man who is the child of immigrants and who is married to a woman who not only is an immigrant, but who entered the US as one of the first beneficiaries of the modern US refugee program. Lieberman also has one of the strongest pro-immigration voting records in the Congress. This week, we discuss Joe Lieberman’s immigration record.
Whoever wins the election, it looks like immigrants will have a reasonably friendly face in the White House (unless, of course, Pat Buchanan wins).
In recent weeks, we’ve reported on numerous accusations of gross misconduct by INS officials around the country. This week we report on new accusations of a now-suspended INS official extorting sex from female asylum applicants. The troubled agency is trying to survive efforts to split it up and this type of publicity is certainly not helping. We report this week on this story as well as other internal problems that the INS is addressing.
This week in our ABCs of Immigration feature we provide an overview of the foreign adoption immigration rules. More and more Americans are looking overseas to find children to raise and immigration procedures are frequently a serious obstacle. We also include many of our regular features this week including News from the Courts, Government Processing Times, the September 2000 State Department Visa Bulletin, News Bytes, Legislative Update and Border News. We also bring back a feature from several years ago Ask Visalaw.com. We’ll now regularly answer in the newsletter reader questions.
I also wanted to remind readers that I’ll be visiting our firm’s San Jose office later this month. If you would like a consultation with me, please go to our San Jose office page at http://www.visalaw.com/cal.html.
If you have not had a chance to visit Visalaw.com this week, here are changes that you missed:
·11 August 2000 - The September 2000 State Department Visa Bulletin is now online http://www.visalaw.com/visabulletin.html. ·11 August 2000 - SSHD has opened a satellite office in downtown San Jose, the heart of Silicon Valley. To schedule a consultation, go to our new Silicon Valley office page. http:/www.visalaw.com/cal.html. ·11 August 2000 - Update to H-1B Emergency Update page. http://www.visalaw.com/h1bpage.html. · 10 August 2000 - The latest INS Nebraska Service Center times are now available. http://www.visalaw.com/nebraska.html · 9 August 2000 - A new bipartisan bill is likely to soon pass that prevents most of the aggravated felony definitions expanded in 1996 from applying retroactively and also prevents the "clock-stopping rule" from applying to pre-1996 crimes. The bill is linked in our Documents Collection. http://www.visalaw.com/docs/. · 8 August 2000 - The Palm/Windows CE version of the 4 August 2000 issue of Siskind's Immigration Bulletin is now available for downloading. You can view instructions for downloading at http://www.visalaw.com/palminstructions.html. 4 August 2000 - The 4 August 2000 issue of Siskind's Immigration Bulletin is now online. http://www.visalaw.com/bulletin.html 04 August 2000 - Visalaw.com now has secure web pages and you can now transmit forms to us using encryption technology. We've started by making our DV-2002 lottery entry form and our consultation request form secure. We will soon be adding a number of others to the list. http://www.visalaw.com/lottery_form.html and http://www.visalaw.com/intake.html. 04 August 2000 - The General Accounting Office has released a report criticizing the INS overall computer strategy. The report is linked in our Documents Collection. http://www.visalaw.com/docs/.
And finally, as always, we remind readers that a law firm that represents clients throughout North America publishes this newsletter. If you are interested in scheduling a telephone consultation to discuss immigration questions you may have or to discuss the possibility of Siskind, Susser, Haas & Devine handling your immigration case, please go to http://www.visalaw.com/intake.html. In most cases, we are able to schedule a consultation within two days and we can often accommodate evening and weekend appointments. Thanks again for you continued loyalty, Greg Siskind | Next > Disclaimer: This newsletter is provided as a public service and not intended to establish an attorney client relationship. Any reliance on information contained herein is taken at your own risk. | 
