The New York Times (subscription restricted) is reporting that Dennis Haster, Speaker of the House of Representatives is interested in compromising on immigration reform. Hastert told the Times:

"Speaker J. Dennis Hastert said Wednesday that he and other House Republicans recognized the need for a guest-worker program, opening the door to a possible compromise with the Senate on fiercely debated immigration legislation.

"We're going to look at all alternatives," Mr. Hastert, an Illinois Republican, said at a news conference. "We're not going to discount anything right now. Our first priority is to protect the border. And we also know there is a need in some sections of the economy for a guest-worker program.""

Bender's Immigration Bulletin has republished a Congressional Research Service report on criminalizing unlawful presence. This is the provision in the House immigration bill that has been motivating 100s of thousands of people around the country to take to the streets and protest.

As the debate heats up on immigration reform, I'll be updating both the web site front page and the blog. For starters, I'm pleased to post a detailed 18 page section by section summary of the version of the Specter immigration bill being debated in the Senate. The 471 page bill was just released yesterday. We poured through the bill and found the changes from the previous version and note those changes in our draft. And changes there were. The amendments adopted over the last two weeks have added 200 pages to the bill. You can find the bill summary on our web site here. A PDF version of the Specter bill can be found here.

The latest issue of Siskind's Immigration Professional is now online. Click here to read it.

A special version of Siskind's Immigration Bulletin is online with an update of the immigration reform bill. Click here to read it.

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

1. Openers
2. The ABC's Of Immigration: Foundations of Immigration Law, Part I
3. Ask Visalaw.com
4. Border News
5. News From The Courts
6. Government Processing Times
7. News Bytes
8. International Roundup
9. Legislative Update
10. Immigration Service Reopens Past Citizenship Denials
11. Siskind Susser Career Opportunity: Immigration Paralegal

As we go to press with our latest health care newsletter, Congress is once again dealing with key health care immigration issues. The Specter comprehensive immigration reform legislation currently being debated in the Senate contains a number of provisions that affect health care workers. First, Senator Sam Brownback (R-KS) has introduced a provision permanently extending the Conrad 30 J-1 waiver program for physicians. That program is set to begin to expire in June . Advocates for the program are hoping to get other changes made, but a permanent extension is the most important priority.

Readers of this newsletter are probably familiar with the nursing and physical therapist green card set aside included in the May 2005 REAL ID Act. That bill reclaimed 50,000 unused green cards from previous years to be used by Schedule A workers – nurses, physical therapists and certain exceptional ability workers. Those visas are likely to run out later this year or early next year. Another Brownback provision under consideration for being added to the bill will permanent exempt nurses from the green card cap.

The bill contains provisions for a new H-2C visa for workers that don’t currently qualify in the other major non-immigrant categories. This might solve the problem for nurses who have not had access to a temporary visa in many years.

Physicians and other health care workers are likely to benefit from another provision that increases the number of employment-based green cards as well as exempting family members from the green card caps.

Finally, the H-1B cap would rise to 115,000 workers per year for four years with the possibility of rising by 20% per year after that depending on demand for the visa in the previous year.

We will keep you up to date with developments, of course. If you interested in advocating for health care immigration, drop me an email and tell me a bit about your background. I send out special advocacy emails to readers updating on late-breaking legislative new advising on how to make your voices heard in Congress.

Here's the table of contents for the latest Visalaw.com Health Care Bulletin. Click here to get to any of the articles.

1. Openers
2. Ask Visalaw.com for Healthcare Workers
3. Health Care News Bytes
4. The ABC’s of Healthcare Immigration: National Interest Waivers for Physicians
5. USCIS Amends Policies on Postings in Nurse Cases
6. Decline in HHS Waivers
7. Hospitals Associations Oppose Provisions of Border Protection Bill
8. Nursing Statistics
9. Chart Of Nurse Licensing Requirements By State
10. State 30 Physician Waiver Chart
11. Physician National Interest Waiver Chart
12. Physician Job Center

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

The Episcopal News Service referenced Visalaw.com in an article discussing immigration reform and how it relates to the faith communities. Click here to read this and other articles.

We've posted our new chart of National Interest Waiver Requirements for Physicians. Click here to see it.

Last week we reported on progress on the Specter comprehensive immigration reform bill in the Senate. A few amendments have since been added to the bill that are worth noting. In this issue, we summarize these changes to the Specter bill.

We also report on recent criticism of the L-1 visa program and how USCIS is reacting. At one time, the L-1 visa was off the radar screen for anti-immigrant groups largely focused on H-1B visas. But in recent years, the L-1 has come under attack, particularly as it has become a more popular option for companies facing the H-1B cap. Accusations of fraud and poor adjudicating at USCIS have become more common and the visa is under greater scrutiny.

In this issue, we also have a guest article from an unexpected source – Roy Lawson from the Programmers Guild. The Programmers Guild has been one of the leading voices OPPOSING increases in H-1B visas. While I know most of our readers don’t share the views of the Programmers Guild, Roy’s article provides insight into the views of H-1B opponents and also offers some interesting ideas that might provide common ground for eventual agreement on a new approach to admitting foreign professional workers.

Here is the table of contents for the latest issue of Siskind's Immigration Bulletin. Click here to read any of the articles.

1. Openers
2. The ABC's Of Immigration: Child Citizenship Act Regulations
3. Ask Visalaw.com
4. Border 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. Guest Column: Abolish the H-1B; Green Cards for US Graduates Instead, by Roy Lawson
12. USCIS Responds to DHS Inspector General's Report on the L Visa Program
13. Updated Information for Those Affected by Hurricane Katrina
14. Modifications to Specter Bill

We've posted the State Department Visa Bulletin for April 2006. Click here to read it.

Our latest newsletter is another special issue covering a massive immigration reform package moving through Congress. As we have with the other major immigration bills, we are providing readers with a detailed summary of the key provisions.

The Specter bill is a compromise bill that is designed to bridge the gap between the enforcement-only approach of the House’s Sensenbrenner bill and the broad legalization provisions found in the McCain-Kennedy immigration bill introduced last year. Most of the enforcement provisions from the Sensenbrenner bill remain, but the Senate bill provides for new guest worker programs designed to ensure employers can access needed workers and that the large undocumented population in the US can be put into legal status. The bill does not grant permanent residency to the undocumented, but it does make it possible for workers to get to the back of the line and pursue a green card legally.

The Specter bill is still being revised, but changes now being introduced are relatively modest compared. Important amendments may still be offered and the bill still may not pass in the Senate, but we decided to proceed with offering a detailed review of the 305 page piece of legislation.

If the Specter bill passes, the House will need to reach a compromise regarding how they will proceed. In December, the House passed the Sensenbrenner reform package. That bill mainly focuses on immigration enforcement, while the Specter bill covers enforcement as well as legal immigration (including the creation of a guest worker program that would be available to out of status immigrants). Whether the House will go along with accepting those changes is far from certain at this point.

The Specter bill has already drawn fire from pro and anti-immigration groups. Certain harsh provisions from the Sensenbrenner bill (including making it a felony to fall out of immigration status) made it into the Specter bill. And the Specter bill includes two new guest worker visa programs – a general program and another for workers in the US without legal status.
While many, many more people will be able to legally work in the US and while green card quotas will rise significantly, it is still very likely that there will be long waits for green cards after the legislation passes. One can easily envision a system where it would take a decade or more for people to eventually achieve permanent residency status. Nevertheless, a long path to permanent residency will likely be seen by immigration advocates as preferable to no path at all. And the ability of illegal immigrants to be able to work, travel home freely and have family members with them in the US will probably convince many that this is a better alternative to the status quo.

We will be monitoring this legislation closely in the weeks and months to come. If I were a betting man, I would still put the odds at no better than 50-50 that the bill will pass. But the picture will become much more clear especially if Senator Frist is able to achieve his goal of getting the Specter bill to the Senate floor for a vote within the next month.


Read the summary of the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act of 2006 here.

Attorney Sergio Karas in our Toronto office wrote an article for the Ontario Bar Association Citizenship and Immigration newsletter on the question of misrepresentations in Canadian immigration law. Click here to read the article.

Attorney David Jones will be a faculty member on a March 15 teleconference for the American Immigration Lawyers Association. This program will focus on substitutions at the labor certifications stage, substitutions at the I-140 stage and later, and highlight the DOL's proposal regulations that propose eliminating substitution as well as other changes. Click here for more information on the program and how to register.

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

We've posted the State Department Visa Bulletin for March 2006. Click here to get to it.

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

The debate on massive immigration reform is about to heat up in Washington. Over the next month, the Senate is expected to produce a bill and have a vote on an immigration bill. Will they follow the lead of the House of Representatives and pass a bill focused entirely on enforcement? Or will they pass a comprehensive bill that deals with border enforcement as well providing a legal means for employers to hire guest workers? And if there is a guest worker component to the bill, will the bill provide a path to legalization for the eleven million undocumented immigrants in the country?

If the Senate passes a bill, there will be a clash with the much more restrictive House when the two bodies try and reach a compromise bill. There are a number of factors that could influence the outcome. Will the White House, which has been vocal in supporting guest worker legislation, use its influence to the fullest extent? And given the serious political problems facing the White House today, how much power does the President really have anymore over his party in Congress?

It is now two years since President Bush’s famous nationally televised speech calling for immigration reform. Over the last two years, people on all sides of the immigration debate have been gearing up for the battle about to take place. We’ll be covering this debate closely and will send out special alerts as news develops. We will also provide information to you, our readers, on weighing in with members of Congress via fax and email.

*****

Not surprisingly, immigrants contributed greatly to the success of the US Olympic team. That continues a long tradition, of course. Congratulations to Tanith Belbin, the newest American on the US team who with partner Ben Agosto, won a silver medal in Ice Dancing, the first US medal in the sport in three decades. And kudos to Korean-born Hyo Jung Kim who competed in short track speed skating and Russian-born Denis Petrukhov, who also represented America in ice dancing.


*****

In firm news, I will be speaking on two panels at the annual immigration law conference of the State Bar of Texas. The meeting is Thursday and Friday of this week in Houston. I’ll be speaking about immigration resources on the Internet on one panel and then I’ll be moderating a panel on dual representation, client agreements and fee agreements. If you’re interested in attending, you can view a course brochure and register online at http://www.texasbarcle.com/CLE/AABuy0.asp?sProductType=EV&lID=5835.

Kudos to Karen Weinstock in our Atlanta office who is nominated in the 2006 International Women of Influence Awards presented by GlobalEXECWomen and the International Council. The award goes to top female business and technology executives. Well done Karen!

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