Dear Readers: 

We return this week to our regular newsletter format after catching our breath from a week of major news developments. The appropriations bill containing REAL ID, new green card numbers for nurses, reforms to the H-2B visa category and a new E-3 visa for Australians has now passed both houses of Congress and is on the way to the President for signature. If you need information on any of these items as well as the H-1B regulations that take effect tomorrow, please review last week’s newsletter which is archived on our web site, www.visalaw.com. 

But just as we thought we could rest on our laurels, another major development is taking center stage. Remember last year when we reported on President Bush’s major immigration policy speech. The first bill was introduced in Congress this week that would put into law what the President outlined in his address. The bill is 150 pages long and has a lot of important provisions in it. We’re in the process of summarizing all of the bill’s key provisions and will have a separate newsletter on the new law later this week. 

In other news, there is a new proposed regulation from USCIS regarding O-1 and P-1 visas. The regulation seeks to require applicants to apply at least six months ahead of time and no more than a year ahead of time. Some of my colleagues are speculating that USCIS simply made a drafting error in requiring applicants to apply six months ahead of time because they can’t believe that a policy this misguided would have deliberately been issued. I’m of the opinion that USCIS simply did not realize just how impractical requiring O-1 and P-1 employers to apply so early would be. I represent many clients that file these kinds of cases and can say confidently that this provision would impose a major hardship on employers and workers with no appreciable benefit. 

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I am writing this article on an airplane on the way to two back to back events that I’ve been looking forward to for a while. This week the American Bar Association’s Law Practice Management Section is having its spring meeting in Orlando. I’ve plugged LPM before and am happy to do so again. I’ve been active in this section of the ABA for the last nine years, most recently chairing the book publishing program. If you’re one of our lawyer readers and are looking for a great resource for information on finance, management, marketing and technology issues, you ought to consider joining the LPM Section of the ABA. Feel free to email me at gsiskind@visalaw.com if you need more information. 

Next, I’m off to Washington, D.C. for a lobbying trip for members of the Board of Directors of the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society. HIAS, founded in 1881, is the world’s oldest refugee organization. It helped to settle my family in the US at the turn of the last century and is today involved in helping refugees of all faiths. With passage of REAL ID and various other attacks on asylum laws over the last few years, HIAS has its hands full. That’s why I consider trips like this one so important. Most people never take the time to go to Washington to tell government officials and elected representatives what they think. But such trips can be very effective. 

After that, I will be joining a few lawyers who handle physician immigration cases in a meeting at USCIS to discuss issues affecting MDs. It has been nearly a decade since the last such meeting. Hopefully, however, this is the beginning of an ongoing discussion with USCIS on physician questions. 

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In firm news, several publications interviewed me last week on the passage of the appropriations bill. I was interviewed by Modern Healthcare on the nurse provisions, various Australian papers regarding E-3 and two papers in California on border enforcement issues. And I was interviewed on Bloomberg Radio about REAL ID’s drivers license provisions. The articles are linked at www.visalaw.com/news.html. 

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