Last year, the substantial labor certification backlog caused the Department of Labor (DOL) and Employment Training Administration (ETA) to hire an outside contractor to conduct a six-month study on the processing of labor certification petitions. That study is now complete and the contractor has prepared a draft training manual to be used for processing backlogged labor certifications in 2004.

This manual describes the preparation for implementation and performance of contracting out and centralizing the processing of the backlogged Foreign Labor Certification cases at a single location.  The text of the draft manual can be viewed at: http://www.ilw.com/lawyers/immigdaily/dol_news/2003,1219-SIMTraining.pdf.

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Wal-Mart is opening up a new battle with the government over the well-publicized raids that resulted in the arrests of 250 illegal immigrants working as cleaning crews in 61 stores across 21 states.  Wal-Mart says managers at many levels knew about the problem of illegal workers in its stores, because they had been cooperating for as long as three years in federal investigations in both Pennsylvania and Chicago.

Wal-Mart says it was led to believe it was not a target of the investigations, and it says it didn’t take action to sever its ties with the contractors because federal officials specifically asked it to leave the relationships in place.  Before and after the raids, Wal-Mart says it did what it could to ensure that its contractors were hiring legal workers.  In its defense, the company stated that anti-discrimination sections of the immigration code limit an employer’s ability to investigate an employee’s legal status, not a contractor’s employees.

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ImmigrationPortal.com and other plaintiffs have joined to file a lawsuit against the USCIS challenging processing delays of some applications for employment based immigrants.  The complaint alleges that in many cases, the process for obtaining employment based on Lawful Permanent Residence status may often take up to six years.  These delays have occurred for applicants in all five preference groupings of the employment-based category.  Prior to filing the complaint, the plaintiffs did seek other avenues of relief.  Thousands of petitions, for example, were signed and delivered to the government and legislature. 

A complete copy of the complaint may be found at http://boards.immigration.com/attachment.php?s=&postid=651497

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On December 23, 2003, the Secretary of State re-designated Jaish e-Mohammed and Lashkar e-Tayyiba as Foreign Terrorist Organizations.  Both groups were originally designated as Foreign Terrorist Organizations in 2001 and the designation was set to expire December 26. 

Pursuant to the Immigration and Nationality Act, persons in the United States or subject to US jurisdiction are forbidden from providing material support to groups or group members of Foreign Terrorist Organizations.  Currently, the Secretary of State has designated 36 countries as Foreign Terrorist Organizations.

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Since 2000, there has been a massive increase in Immigration Court cases on the federal docket.  In Memphis, for example, the caseload has grown from 1,215 to 1,836 in just three years. 

Greg Gagne, spokesman for immigration review with the US Department of Justice in Falls Church, Virginia, explained that the reason for this increase is greater enforcement of immigration laws.  According to Gagne, however, the number of court cases has been steadily increasing since before September 11.