 LEGISLATIVE UPDATE
The House of Representatives and the Senate continued advancing toward passage of legislation that would substantially alter the entire immigration system in the US. In the House of Representatives, H.R. 1915 (the "Smith Bill") has been marked up in the Immigration Subcommittee and advanced to the House Judiciary Committee. Passage at the committee would then send the legislation to the House floor. The Smith Bill's original version is at our Siskind and Susser WWW site, http://www.visalaw.com/~gsiskind. Action by the full House Judiciary Committee is not expected until September. The markups include a number of changes to the original bill including the following: tougher provisions to prevent employers from hiring H-1B workers when US workers have or will be laid off; investors under the EB-5 "million dollar" visa program must have met the investment and job creation requirements before the two year conditional status can be removed; prevailing wages for university employees are to be determined in relation to institutions and entities in the area of employment; employers will be permitted 10 days to fix I-9 paperwork violations unless there have been a systematic pattern and practice of violations; the visa program for religious workers would be extended until 2005; Though there are many provisions of the bill that will have a substantial impact on readers of this newsletter, some of the more significant are:
A reduction in overall immigration from the current level of 800,000 to 535,000. Categories for adult children of citizens and permanent residents, and siblings of citizens, would be eliminated. Parents of citizens would only be able to immigrate if the majority of their children are in the US and certain insurance requirements are met. Unskilled workers would no longer be eligible for immigration under the employment categories. EB-3 professional workers would be required to possess a bachelors degree PLUS five years work experience in addition to time spent receiving the degree. Skilled workers would require seven years experience. The Investor Visa category for persons investing million and creating 10 jobs would be continued. In addition, a three year pilot program permitting a 0,000 investment and the creation of jobs for five US workers has been included. As reported in our last issue, the Senate's main bill has moved on to the Senate Judiciary Committee. No action has been taken as of the writing of this article. | 
