This month, we continue to report on developments relating to last year's immigration overhaul law. Two of the most important developments are a vote in Congress relating to Section 245i of the Immigration and Nationality Act and the issuance of a new Affidavit of Support form and related regulations called for under the new immigration law. Section 245i, as most of our readers now know, can help a person potentially subject to the new 3 and 10 year immigration bars avoid the harsh penalties by paying a $1000 fine to the Immigration and Naturalization Service. We also report on problems that are appearing in the new law's credible screening asylum process.

We also have our usual features including an Immigration and the Internet report on the revamped INS web site, government processing times and a Consular Focus article on the US Consulate in Managua, Niceragua.
In firm news for this past month, partner Greg Siskind has received a contract from Matthew Bender, one of the nation's leading legal publishers to write a book on J-1 Visas. He was also interviewed in USA TODAY regarding Siskind, Susser, Haas & Chang's web site and by Berliner Zeitung, one of Germany's largest newspapers, regarding the DV-99 Green Card Lottery. Siskind also delivered a speech on the Internet and the legal profession at West Publishing's Minnesota Law and Technology Conference and accepted an appointment to serve on the American Bar Association's Publishing Board.

Visitors to Siskind, Susser, Haas & Chang's Visalaw web site at http://www.visalaw.com will find a number of new additions. We've added a number of new items in our site's Documents Collection, provided new information in our New Law Emergency Update, added several dozen articles to our site's articles index (and reorganized the index to reduce download times) and added additional forms to our immigration forms library. Thanks to our web site visitors who helped push our monthly traffic statistics to a record 600,000 plus hits for the month of October.

Finally, as always we remind readers that our twelve lawyers are able to serve immigration clients in any state or province in the US or Canada. You are always welcome to call us toll free at 800-748-3819. We also provide full-scale consultations via telephone. Just complete the appointment request questionnaire at http://www.visalaw.com/intake.html.