For the last year, one of the most common questions we’ve received at our firm is “when are we getting PERM?” PERM is the new electronic labor certification filing system that was proposed by the US Department of Labor a few years ago. PERM promised decisions on cases in as little as 21 days, something that is immensely appealing given the multi-year waits common in several states. The program does away with local processing for all but the wage determination part of the process and seeks to standardize how all labor certification cases are handled.

Sound great, right? But when the proposed PERM rules came out they contained much more than just the electronic filing system. They contained a smorgasbord of controversial new policies that the Department of Labor had been seeking for many years and which immigration practitioners have fought as being anti-business and impractical. Many, many comments were received criticizing these provisions and many believe that the negative reaction has been the source of much of the delay in getting the rules into final form.

Now we know that we’re close to the publication of the final rules. The Department of Labor has been waiting for months for the final clearance of the new rules from the Office of Management and Budget. That has now happened and the rules will be published any day now in the Federal Register. Once that happens, a 60 day implementation clock will begin ticking and the new process will start right after that.

When a major law or regulation has been published over the last ten years, Visalaw.com has always rushed to produce a detailed summary for our readers. We will do so again this year and will likely publish a special issue explaining what is changing. So keep an eye out for this special newsletter issue.

Of course, with the retrogression of EB-3 numbers for nationals of the Philippines, China and India coming next month, taking advantage of the faster process will be an exercise of “hurry up and wait” for many. The retrogression to January 1, 2002 for people in this category is going to be extremely bad news, particularly in industries like nursing where non-immigrant visas are not available to get people into the US working while they wait on a number. Look for a major lobbying effort to begin in the new year to address this issue. We’ll be providing news on this as it develops.

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Every congressional and presidential election brings change even when incumbents get reelected. That is especially true this year. Despite the fact that the most recent Congress’ chairs of the two committees that oversee immigration - the Judiciary Committee and the Immigration Subcommittee – remain in the Senate, neither will return to those posts in the new Congress that will be sworn in next month. Senator Arlen Specter will take over the Judiciary Committee. Specter, a moderate Republican, is seen as pro-immigration, though the outgoing chair, Senator Orrin Hatch, also had a similar reputation. Hatch was the sponsor of last session’s failed DREAM Act. Senator Saxby Chambliss will leave his post as chair of the Immigration Subcommittee. But the replacement has not been named yet. It will be one of the following Senators:

Hatch
Grassley
Kyl
Dewine
Sessions
Graham
Cornyn
Brownback
Coburn

Some are betting on Senator Kyl from Arizona. Kyl is seen as a hardliner on immigration enforcement though a moderate on legal immigration measures. Senator Brownback rejoins the Judiciary Committee.

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Another major legislative change that recently took place is the passage of a new H-1B law that increases slot availability for US-educated workers as well as imposing new fees for employers. This week, we’re updating our ABCs of Immigration article on H-1B processing to include the new changes.

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In firm news, Jack Richbourg, an attorney in our Memphis office had his recent circuit court asylum win written up in the Memphis Commercial Appeal newspaper this morning. You can see the article on our web site at www.visalaw.com/news/.

Here's the table of contents for this week's Siskind's Immigration Bulletin. Click here to get to any of the articles.

1. Openers
2. The ABC’s of Immigration: The H-1B Visa
3. Ask Visalaw.com
4. Border and Enforcement News
5. News From The Courts
6. Government Processing Times
7. News Bytes
8. International Roundup
9. Legislative Update
10. FY 2005 H-2B Processing Begins
11. EOIR Notifies Aliens Eligible for Full Asylum Benefits
12. US Arrival Added to US-Visit

Attorney Jack Richbourg was mentioned in the December 21 issue of The Commercial Appeal in an article about a political refugee he is representing. Mr. Richbourg got the case overrulled in a Sixth Circuit appellate court, providing a good chance that his client will soon make the United States his permanent home. Click here to read it.

We've posted the latest processing times for the Vermont, California and Texas Service Centers and the National Benefits Center in Missouri. Click here to see them.

Attorney Greg Siskind and Siskind Susser staff member Gilda Bollwerk co-authored an article in the December 19 issue of La Prensa Latina detailing the O-1 visa. Click here to read it.

Immigration was in the news in a big way this week – two items we expected and one we did not. The bigger headline was the surprise withdrawal of Bernard Kerik from consideration as Secretary of Homeland Security. This is the Cabinet Department that oversees the country’s three immigration agencies. Why did Kerik pull out of the process? An old familiar reason was offered – the employment of an illegal nanny in the Kerik household. Like Linda Chavez who withdrew from consideration as Labor Secretary four years ago, the White House felt that it could not defend his nomination when the position came with the responsibility of enforcing the country’s immigration laws.

The Kerik withdrawal once again illustrates just how seriously flawed our immigration system is. The Kerik family is no different than thousands – perhaps hundreds of thousands – of families around the US who depend on foreign undocumented workers who help in their households. The anti-immigrants in our country will say that if these jobs just paid better, plenty of Americans would line up for them. That’s just ignoring reality. First, there are an estimated 14,000,000 undocumented workers in this country and only 8,000,000 unemployed Americans. Even if you could magically force every undocumented worker to leave and gave Americans the opportunity to fill all these jobs, there would still be millions of vacancies. Second, ask your average unemployed stockbroker or middle manager whether they’re interested in laundering soiled patient garments in a nursing home or cleaning dishes at the local diner and you’ll likely get a “forget it” in response. These ARE jobs Americans simply aren’t available to do.

And it turns law enforcement heroes like Bernard Kerik, admired jurists like Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer, popular commentators like Pat Buchanan and countless others into lawbreakers. The self-righteous will say “Hey, employers should just do it the legal way instead of hiring people illegally. Well folks, there is no legal way. We don’t have a guest worker program in this country and getting a visa for a nanny and many other types of skilled and unskilled workers is usually out of the question. President Bush’s immigration plan would be an important step in the right direction. Hopefully, the one positive result of the Kerik mess is that it will help the President make the case that immigration reform is needed.

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The shocking news of the week for many, however, was the retrogression of the EB-3 employment green card category for skilled and unskilled workers. We new this was likely to come in early 2005 and we have been warning readers of the possibility. For the first time in several years, cutoff dates have been published in this category. For now, Filipino, Chinese and Indians are affected. But the remaining green card categories will likely start to roll back in the coming months. In this issue, we explain what the EB-3 cap means and how to deal with it.

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Another important development is that President Bush signed the H-1B and L-1 reform bill we described in our special newsletter issue a few weeks ago. At the time the bill passed, we were unsure how the USCIS would determine which of the two new fees went into affect right away. The USCIS has now said that the $1500/$750 worker retraining fee applies right away while the $500 fraud protection fund will not start until March 5, 2005. Note also that USCIS will not begin taking cases under the new quota until March either. We’ll report more on the new law as we learn of developments.

This is a picture of our staff, taken at our firm's Holiday celebration.

We've posted the latest processing times for the Nebraska Service Center. Click here to see them.

Attorney Greg Siskind and Siskind Susser staff member Gilda Bollwerk co-authored an article the December 12 issue of La Prensa Latina detailing the J-1 Visa. Click here to read it.

Here's the table of contents for this week's Siskind's Immigration Bulletin. Click here to get to any of the articles.

1. Openers
2. The ABC’s of Immigration: Understanding the State Department Visa Bulletin
3. Ask Visalaw.com
4. Border and Enforcement News
5. News From The Courts
6. Government Processing Times
7. News Bytes
8. International Roundup
9. Legislative Update
10. State Department Visa Bulletin
11. Commentary – What do the EB-3 Green Card Cutoff Dates Published Mean?
12. DOL Addresses Issue of Shipping Unprocessed Cases to Backlog Processing Centers
13. USCIS Reminds Eligible Hondurans and Nicaraguans to Re-register for TPS
14. Omnibus Appropriations Act for FY 2005 Yields New Fees for H-1B Visas

We've posted the State Department Visa Bulletin for January 2005. Click here to see it.

We've posted the latest processing times for the Vermont and California Service Centers and the National Benefits Center in Missouri. Click here to see them.

In previous issues, we mentioned that the 9/11 intelligence bill in Congress was dead including a number of key anti-immigration provisions being pushed in the House version of the bill. Congress has reconvened for an unusual extra lameduck session this week, however, and as of today it looks like a bill will pass. A number of immigration provisions WILL be in the bill and we’re sorting through right now what has been included. It looks like there are 43 sections in the bill with immigration provisions - many modified from the prior House version – and in our next issue we’ll sum them up for readers. The good news is that a preliminary review indicates that many of the most onerous provisions in the House bill have been deleted or modified.



This week saw the resignation of Department of Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge. Ridge will be remembered most as the man who oversaw the biggest reorganization in the US government’s history. He presided over the dividing up of the old Immigration and Naturalization Service into its current three agency configuration (though many people believe the two enforcement agencies will eventually combine). Former New York City Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik is taking over. Kerik, a protégé of former NYC Mayor Rudolph Guiliani, lacks a definitive record on immigration issues, but Guiliani has a record that is generally considered pro-immigration.



We also reported recently on the passage of a major H-1B/L-1 bill tied to a massive “must pass” spending bill. The bill was expected to pass nearly two weeks ago, but has been held up by a single controversial provision that would allow Congress to see individuals’ tax returns. The spending bill will still eventually pass (or the US government would cease operations eventually), but for now the immigration provisions in the bill are on hold (including the fee increases that will take effect immediately when the bill is signed by the President). We do NOT expect any changes in those provisions between now and final passage of the bill.



One bill that has passed and is now officially a law is the J-1 physician bill we have been championing since early this year. This bill represents one of the few “good news” stories in a year of little immigration-related legislative activity in Congress. The bill extends a popular program placing US-trained immigrant doctors in medically underserved areas around the US. The bill also makes it easier for these doctors to practice specialty medicine and have access to needed H1B visas.



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In firm news, Memphis Siskind Susser attorney Arda Beskardes presented a program on immigration for scientists onsite at Oak Ridge National Laboratory.



I was also quoted this past week by the San Jose Mercury News in an article on the affect of L-1 provisions in the appropriations bill mentioned above.



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For those of you who have been concerned about the EB-3 roll back that is expected to begin next month, we’ll be gearing up for special coverage to get the word out to our readers on how to make your voices heard on this critical issue. For health care employers, I’m one of the leaders of a new coalition group that will advocate on behalf of international health care worker immigration. If you’re a health care employer interested in this issue, email me at gsiskind@visalaw.com and I’ll send you more information.

Attorney Greg Siskind and Siskind Susser staff member Gilda Bollwerk co-authored an article in the December 5 issue of La Prensa Latina giving the new USCIS address to use for certain immigration filings (en Espanol). Click here to read it.

Attorney Greg Siskind was quoted in a November 25 article in The Mercury Times about the recently passed L-1 visa reform. Click here to read it.

We've posted the latest processing times for the Texas and Nebraska Service Centers. Click here to see them.

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