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OPENERS
Dear Readers: 
As often happens, major news breaks just before our deadline for completing the week's newsletter. Just as we were wrapping up coding the articles for this week's newsletter, we learned that INS Commissioner James Ziglar announced his resignation. Ziglar just marked his first year in the position and will now remain in the job until the end of the year. When Ziglar took the position, his main priority was to improve the poor service record at the agency. But just a few weeks after being sworn in to office, the September 11th attacks occurred and the INS, already under fire, moved into crisis mode. Ziglar has geared the agency over the past year through a number of changes and has been preparing in the last few months to move the agency into the new Homeland Defense Department.  
Ziglar came into the office as the previous Sergeant-at-Arms for the US Senate and many believed that his experience with Congress as well as prior experience in the private sector would help improve the embattled agency's relations with Congress. Ziglar's relations with Congress have been mixed. He has enjoyed the support of childhood friend Trent Lott, the Senate's Republican Minority Leader, as well as Demorcratic Majority Leader Tom Daschle. But he has been increasingly at odds with House Judiciary Committee Chairman James Sensenbrenner (R-WI) who has favored formally dissolving the INS and splitting the agency in two. Ziglar has proposed internal reforms to the INS rather than a formal dissolution.  
The Bush Administration will no doubt have difficulty recruiting a quality candidate to fill the position of INS Commissioner. The job is probably one of the most stressful in government, and whoever takes the position will no doubt become the subject of intense criticism, no matter what decisions are made. We will, of course, follow this story closely over the next several weeks and months.  
There is other major news this week to report as well. First, the Justice Department announced that next month it will implement a key component of the new entry-exit tracking system for people seeking entry to the US. Beginning on September 11th, certain non-immigrants entering at selected airports around the country will be fingerprinted and photographed. Nationals of Iran, Iraq, Libya, Sudan and Syria will be subject initially to the new system and the Department of Justice may add additional countries. INS inspectors also can exercise discretion and require anyone, regardless of nationality, to be fingerprinted and photographed. The program will expand to all ports of entry after 20 days. The INS also released a report this week detailing H-1B usage. There are a few surprises in the report and you can learn more in this week's issue.  
In firm news, we are pleased to welcome Shadrick King as a law clerk in our Memphis Headquarters. Shadrick is a recent graduate of Pepperdine Law School in California and will be with us for the next month. He will then leave for London where he will be pursuing a master's degree at University College. Welcome Shadrick!  
We are also ready to let the "cat out of the bag" regarding our firm's web site plans. Many of you know that this publication was the very first law firm email newsletter when it was first issued in October 1994. It was and continues to be the cornerstone of our web site. That site was the third law firm web site in the world when it was created earlier in 1994. For the most part, our site largely is at the same place technologically as it was when it debuted more than eight years ago. We upgraded the logo and made some minor changes in the design, but what you see today is largely what you saw several years ago. In fact, you can go to our newsletter archives and click on some of our old issues and see just what the site looked like back then.   
Well, after nearly a year of planning and development, we are nearly ready to roll out a completely overhauled Visalaw.com web site. The new site is designed around a database that will mean that the site will be easier to navigate and it will look much better. The front page of the site will have more of a newspaper feel to it and we will be able to make changes very rapidly. The design of the site was actually finished in May. But it took several people working full time over the summer to migrate more than 4,000 articles and files to the new site. Eight years worth of work on the existing site had to be manually cut and pasted into the database. And various technical glitches held us up. But this week, the migration has been completed. While a few of the features are not yet finished, the site is ready for final testing and should debut before the end of the month.   
As we note each week, there are various ways you can communicate with us if you have questions:   
- email at gsiskind@visalaw.com    
- if you need a telephone or in person consultation go to http://www.visalaw.com/intake.html or call 800-748-3819 or 901-737-3194 and request an appointment   
- online individual chats (go to http://www.visalaw.com/chatlive.htm)  
- weekly group chats at Monster.com  
Many people also do not realize that our law firm is typically capable of handling immigration matters anywhere in North America so please don't assume that just because we don't have an office in your home town we can't handle your work.  

Hope you have a great weekend,  
Greg Siskind 
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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.