Dear Readers:

Developments in the immigration world are coming at us in a frenzy. Just consider the list of major news items in the last few days:  

·         The collapse of the Senate comprehensive immigration reform bill

·         The Visa Bulletin fiasco where hundreds of thousands of people are potentially on hold trying to figure out whether their cases will be accepted or not this month

·         The Department of Labor’s potentially unconstitutional regulation barring workers from paying labor certification legal fees and barring substitutions of aliens goes in to effect on July 16^th

·         The revelation that some of the accused terrorists in the foiled car bomb attack in London are foreign health care workers has raised questions about the security of our skilled worker programs

·         The "no match" social security number rule that would deem employers to have knowledge that a worker was employed illegally if a social security number and name do not match will apparently come out this month  

So if your immigration lawyers seem a little frazzled lately, be understanding. Of course, keeping up to date is hard enough. Fortunately, with so many sources of information on the web, it’s possible to stay well informed even when a story is rapidly changing.  

As immigration lawyers, we have to do more than just keep up with the news. We also have to keep clients informed, a task that is not so easy when a deadline is short and your clientele is scattered across the planet. Of course, here again the Internet helps as well as a good case management system that allows for quickly culling client contact information.  

But this is also a case where clients need to help themselves and stay up on the news. A lawyer can only do so much so it is imperative that to the extent possible, clients should check their lawyers’ web sites and pay attention to the news.  

I know some lawyers get aggravated when people hear rumors on the web or elsewhere, but it’s better to have a client who is "over-informed" than one who misses out on a benefit because they somehow cannot be reached or don’t think to visit a lawyer until they’ve missed out on an opportunity.  

*****  

In firm news, we welcome Christi Hufford to our Memphis office. Christi is a Yank who has spent the last several years in London working for Cameron McKenna, the well-known UK law firm. She handled US immigration matters at the firm and has a great deal of knowledge about all things consular as well as E-1 and E-2 visas, L visas and other categories used frequently by multinational companies. You can learn more about Christi at http://www.visalaw.com/chufford.html. Welcome Christi!  

*****  

Many of you have discovered my blog at blogs.ilw.com/gregsiskind The site has become extremely popular in the last few weeks as I’ve been covering the Visa Bulletin mess extensively. In fact, the blog seems to have taken on a life of its own with hundreds of comments now being posted and entirely separate discussions taking place between readers. I’m more of a discussion generator it seems. I was told the blog has become so popular that this morning 50% of all the traffic on ILW.com, a vast site with thousands of articles and resources, was on my blog page alone. ILW.com is one of the most popular immigration sites on the web, so was pretty interesting news.

*****

Regards,

Greg Siskind

Print This Page

Disclaimer: This newsletter is provided as a public service and not intended to establish an attorney client relationship. Any reliance on information contained herein is taken at your own risk.