Dear Readers:

This week marks the beginning of a new era in the history of American immigration. The INS as an agency will be pronounced dead this evening. Its heirs are three new agencies - The Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services (BCIS), the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (BICE) and the Bureau of Customs and Border Protection (BCPB).  The Department of Homeland Security replaces the Department of Justice as the parent department. We know the names of the new agency heads and we know that the INS' very useful web site will transition to the Department of Homeland Security (mostly as part of the BCIS). You can get there now by going to www.immigration.gov. Beyond that, your guess is as good as mine. Even officials at the soon-to-be-former INS have no idea what is going on.

So it is hard to delivery a eulogy for the INS. And besides, there would be few mourners at this funeral. Conceivably, all we will see is a name change and added chaos as three agencies operate independently. I am an optimist by nature, however, and believe that after a period of uncertainty and natural difficulties in the transition, the change will be a good thing. Hopefully a services agency that is not trying to be an enforcement agency at the same time can actually do a decent job providing services. And maybe Homeland Security can increase the professionalism and morale problems plaguing the INS' enforcement efforts over the last several years. Some of my colleagues have said that they would rather maintain the status quo (the devil we know) versus something even worse in the future. But at least when it comes to service at the INS, it is hard to see how things could get worse (well, maybe things could always get worse,  but I shudder to think what that would be like).  This President wants to win the next election and knows that immigrant voters are the key. So he has a real stake in making the change work. A successful transition and a dramatic improvement in service at the INS would go a long way to showing he is a friend of immigrants.  

The other big news in immigration this week is the reversion back to INS fees that existed prior to January 24th. Was it all just a dream? A strange form of a tax holiday designed to pump money into a struggling economy? Actually, it was really probably just the result of an oversight on Congress' part when it failed to authorize the INS to charge a surcharge to help support refugees in the this country.

In firm news, today I participated in a national telephone seminar on physician immigration run by ILW.com. If you have never participated in an ILW.com seminar via telephone, they are excellent. I'm posting my notes from my remarks in this issue for those of you not able to participate in the call. I also was interviewed today by National Public Radio.

As always, we remind readers that we're lawyers who make our living representing immigration clients. We would love to discuss becoming your law firm. Just go to http://www.visalaw.com/intake.html to request an appointment or call us at 800-748-3819 or 901-682-6455.

Regards,

Greg Siskind