Dear Readers:  

In fewer than ten days, the immigration debate in Washington will start turning hot. Senator Harry Reid, the Democrat’s Majority Leader, has set August 14^th as the deadline for Democrat and Republicans in the Senate as well as White House negotiators to hammer out a deal. If the deadline is not met, the Democrats will introduce their own bill. Whether the votes are there or not to pass a bill without the Republicans’ blessing is very hard to predict and whether the White House would sign such a bill is also not clear.  

Depending on who you talk to and on what day you ask, negotiators are either on the verge of a deal or moving further apart. There seem to be several issues causing contention including  

-         The White House proposal to eliminate family immigration categories including the ability of parents to sponsor adult children and US citizens to sponsor brothers and sisters (and to replace these visa numbers with a new employment-based point system similar to systems in the UK, Australia and Canada).

-         Whether to include or exclude spouses and children in a proposed guest worker plan

-         Proposed minimum salary requirements for the guest worker plan

-         The amount of the fines to be paid to participate in the proposed legalization plan  

The House of Representatives, in the mean time, is patiently waiting for the Senate to finish up debate by Memorial Day and then plan to move forward with their bill. But which House bill. While everyone assumes the House bill the STRIVE Act is the House’s comprehensive immigration reform vehicle, don’t be so sure. Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren, the chairwoman on the House Immigration Subcommittee, is very busy working on numerous provisions for comprehensive immigration reform and as the chair of the committee, if she chose to advance a different bill than Congressman Gutierrez’s STRIVE, she would only be doing what every committee chair has done in reform bills of the past. What a Lofgren bill will look like is yet to be determined, but with Lofgren’s extensive experience in the area, expect the language to address many, many longstanding problems not previously addressed in immigration reform bills.  

If all goes according to plan, we’ll have a Senate bill by Memorial Day and a House bill by the August recess with the President signing by the end of the summer. But there is still a great deal of uncertainty so don’t count on success.  

As I did last year, I’ll be live blogging to update readers on what’s happening on the Senate floor once debate begins. This year I’ll also be doing podcasts as well. Check my blog at www.visalaw.com/blog.html or my ILW.com blog for updates.  

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Kudos to SSB lawyers Eric Bland and Protima Daryanani and SSB-affiliate attorney Sergio Karas in Toronto for a great job conducting the Am eric an Bar Association Forum on Entertainment and Sports Law’s first ever seminar on immigration. The talk went so well, that Eric and Protima have been asked to do a similar program for the New York City bar next month and again for the ABA in Los Angeles . More information to come.  

I also was on the speaking circuit this week with a talk on physician immigration law at the annual meeting of the National Association of Physician Recruiters on the subject of physician immigration law.  

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Finally, as always, if you are interested in becoming a Siskind Susser Bland client, please feel welcome to email me at gsiskind@visalaw.com or contact us at 800-748-3819 to arrange for a telephone or in person consultation with one of our lawyers.

Kind regards,

Greg Siskind

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