Dear Readers:

Almost as a sign of retreat, the US House of Representatives passed a relatively modest immigration enforcement bill that is a mere shadow of the enforcement bill passed last December and containing none of the legalization or backlog reduction provisions contained in the Senate bill. It is safe to say that there will be no comprehensive immigration reform legislation passing before the election. Whether anything will happen after the election really depends on whether the Republicans retain control of the US House of Representatives or not. At this point, the odds of the Democrats taking control of the House are probably about 50-50. This week we report on the House fence bill.  

We also report on an important AAO decision in our News from the Courts article. The AAO has approved an H-1B cap exemption for a teacher based on a narrow finding that the school system and a university were properly related. We’ll discuss what the decision says and does not say.  

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I’ve been practicing immigration law for 16 years and never thought I would be writing a congratulatory note to USCIS regarding the elimination of the backlog of naturalization applications. More than 10 years ago I attended a conference where President Clinton’s INS Commissioner Doris Meissner announced the goal of processing naturalization applications in a standard timetable of six months or less. A decade later USCIS has announced the elimination of the naturalization application backlog.  

In 2004, USCIS had 3.5 million citizenship cases queued up for processing. By this summer, they had gotten the number down to 1.1 million. Only 140,000 of those cases are considered "backlogged" by USCIS’ six month definition. Other cases are either pending less than six months or are outside USCIS’ control (such as those cases with pending security checks, naturalization test retakes, cases where USCIS is awaiting evidence from the applicant or naturalization candidates awaiting scheduling of a judicial ceremony).  

The average processing time is down to five months. That’s far better than the multiyear waits that used to be normal just a few years ago. Congratulations, USCIS!  

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In firm news, accolades all around. Sergio Karas, our affiliate lawyer in Toronto was named this week as the Chair of the International Bar Association’s Immigration Committee. That post was previously held by Graeme Kirk, our affiliate lawyer in the United Kingdom . Well done, Sergio!  

Yvette Sebelist in our Nashville office was named as one of the best immigration lawyers in her city by the Nashville Business Journal. Well done Yvette!  

And I’m pleased to tell folks that I was named as one of the Best Lawyers in America in that publication’s annual survey.  

AILA members can read the latest technology column written by David Jones and me in the just published issue of Immigration Law Today.  

You can read about all of these at www.visalaw.com/news.  

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As always, we welcome you to contact us if you are seeking an immigration law firm to represent you or your company. Feel free to call us at 901-682-6455 or email me at gsiskind@visalaw.com.  

Kind regards,  

Greg Siskind