Dear Readers:

I’m back from the annual meeting of the American Immigration Lawyers Association that took place this past week in Salt Lake City, Utah. Nearly 3,000 immigration lawyers from around the US attended as well as various immigration lawyers from other countries. The meeting, as always, was a blockbuster, with three and half days of outstanding educational programs, AILA business meetings and an exhibit hall with the major vendors servicing immigration lawyers.

I was busy at several events. I was the moderator of the annual meeting’s technology panel. We covered a variety of topics on the panel including case management systems, document assembly and document management solutions, new gadgets and advice on hiring IT professionals.

I spoke at the Foreign Nurse Taskforce meeting and the Foreign Medical Graduate Taskforce meeting. The FNT is the organization of lawyers that deals with nursing immigration issues. Members of the group submit a substantial portion of the nation’s nurse immigration petitions. I’ve been leading the FNT’s legislative advocacy efforts for much of the past year including the recently passed law allocating an additional 50,000 green cards for nurses. I spoke to FNT members about what lies ahead on the regulatory and legislative front.

The FMG Taskforce is the coalition of law firms that handle physician immigration issues. I am the current chair of that group and spoke to that group about the group’s legislative agenda in the wake of the recently passed physician immigration bill. The FMG Taskforce led the lobbying effort to pass that bill.

One of the highlights for me was the honoring of my friend Dan Kowalski by the National Immigration Project of the National Lawyers Guild, Inc. Dan is the editor of the excellent Bender’s Immigration Bulletin. I’ve been on the BIB’s editorial board for a few years and Dan has been become one of the most important sources of information on immigration law in the country. Many of the items you see in our issues of this newsletter are a result of Dan getting the word out. Congratulations Dan!

I also want to commend my law partner Lynn Susser on her speaking about L-1 visas on a fundamentals panel. Lynn’s audience was comprised of several hundred novice immigration lawyers and Lynn did a great job in taking a number of complex issues and making them understandable for less experienced lawyers.

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Aside from being away from several days at the AILA meeting, we held up the newsletter in the hope that we would be able to report on the release of the Cornyn-Kyl immigration reform bill. This is the bill that is expected to compete with the McCain Kennedy immigration reform bill proposed a few weeks ago. We’ll try and quickly get a section by section summary of the new bill posted on our site after it is released. Senator Cornyn promised the bill would be released this month, but just this morning we learned that the bill is now going to be released after the Independence Day recess.

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Next week I’m off on my annual summer vacation with the family and will be away for the better part of two weeks. This year we’re off on an Alaska cruise and I’ve promised my wife and kids that I’ll lay off the email and the writing. So my law partner David Jones will pitch in by writing next week’s Openers and editing the newsletter. Thanks in advance David!

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I’ll miss his departure next week, but my colleague Arda Beskardes will be taking a summer sabbatical in Turkey beginning on July 6^th. Arda will be taking two months off to go home to his native Turkey. We’ll miss him while he’s gone and will be eagerly awaiting his return in September.

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I’ll be out of pocket for the Fourth of July, but I wish everyone a happy Independence Day. One of the nice things to do on the holiday is to watch one of the mass swearing in ceremonies for citizens that traditionally are scheduled on that day. Check with your local USCIS office for information on the where and when details. I’ll be trekking around in Alaska on the holiday, a change from the sweltering heat of Memphis. Enjoy everyone!

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Finally, as always, we remind readers that we're lawyers who make our living representing immigration clients and employers seeking to comply with immigration laws. 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