In what may be the first case of its kind, the Immigration and Naturalization Service has approved a National Interest Waiver-based Permanent Residency Petition for a software engineer responsible for developing and testing specialized software tools to prevent computer programs from falling victim to the Year 2000 computer bug. The case was submitted on the client's behalf by Duran Dodson and Greg Siskind of the immigration law firm of Siskind, Susser and Haas. The year 2000 crisis, also referred to as the Y2K problem or the millennium bug, has received a great deal of attention in the press in recent years, alarming and motivating computer experts, corporate information officers and congressional leaders  to take serious steps to address it. The problem results form the use in software of only the last two digits to indicate the year in a date (e.g. "96" for 1996). For early programmers, this shortcut made sense because using two digits instead of four saved storage space and saved simplified calculations. Unfortunately, those programmers never considered that their software would still be around when the two assumed digits ("19--") changed to "20--." Much of that software is no longer expected to work properly after January 1, 2000 because most of the world's mainframe computers are riddled with software that refuses to recognize that when 1999 runs out, the year 2000 follows.

The case presented documentation showing that as the year 2000 approaches, tens of thousands of government agencies, institutions, corporations and smaller businesses worldwide must face the software problem.  If the problems are not addressed, some of the serious problems that are concerning experts include the following:

* The bug could cause serious disruptions and perhaps total shutdown of power plant operations (including nuclear power plants), air traffic control systems, weapons systems, medical billing systems, insurance claims, patient records, the communications industry, the banking industry and just about everything else that operates using a computer with date-sensitive controls and data

* Prisoners could be notified that they will be released on parole years before they really are eligible for such release (this actually happened already in Florida)

* Date-dependent administrative systems (such as those used by the Immigration and Naturalization Service) will be reduced to chaos

* Consumer credit cards with expiration dates beyond 2000 and insurance policies and contracts will be considered already expired, causing widespread confusion in the affected industries and mass frustration for consumers

* The estimated impact on the economy will be enormous; one study estimates that as many as 5% of all businesses in the United States will go bankrupt from this problem alone; another puts the price tag at $600 billion.

In the case presented to the INS, emphasis was placed on the urgency of the matter. In essence, if companies do not begin to address the question immediately, there is no hope that the problem will be solved. Many companies are already resigned to the fact that they do not have the time to adequately fix the problem and are trying to address how they will handle system failures that will inevitably occur.

In addition to providing substantial documentation showing the significance and the urgency of the problem, supporting letters and other documents were presented from numerous experts as evidence of the fact that the applicant in this case is playing a significant role in designing solutions to help companies not only fix their Y2K problems, but to significantly speed up the process of fixing them.  The application also contained documentation showing that the client's work has already been utilized by a number of major corporations and government agencies.

The Y2K problem has been recognized by many governments as a central reason for liberalizing visa policies for high tech workers. The United Kingdom, for example, recently announced plans to create a special visa program to allow in an additional 20,000 programmers to help fix the bugs. Canada is considering a similar program. In the US, however, not only has a new program not been created, but there is now a freeze on issuing H-1B visas due to a quota being prematurely reached and plans to allow additional workers in are being challenged by anti-immigration and labor union supporters.