Happy Thanksgiving to all our readers in the United States!

We're still catching our breath from last month's flurry of immigration-related legislative activity. There are actually a few measures we did not discuss that we are covering this month - a new visa category called the Q-2 for residents of Ireland and Northern Ireland as well as the long-awaited approval of the merger of the United States Information Agency into the State Department.

Many of our readers were avidly following last month's legislative activities. We know that because our web site (www.visalaw.com) received more than 1,000,000 hits last month, well in excess of our previous record of 827,000. We thank you for making our web site one of the most popular law-related web sites on the entire Internet and expect to continue to improve the quality of the site.

The big news story this month is, of course, the recent Congressional election. Republicans were expected to make gains in both Houses, but Democrats defied the conventional wisdom and held their ground in the Senate and actually gained five seats in the House of Representatives. Republican House Speaker Gingrich resigned his position in the wake of the poor showing by his party and President Clinton will now most certainly finish his term. This month, we'll take a look at the role immigration issues played in the election and take a look at the immigration record of Bob Livingston, the man who will replace Speaker Gingrich.

Other issues making the news this past month include the arguing of a key deportation case in front of the US Supreme Court, extension of TPS status for three more countries, temporary relief for illegal aliens from countries affected by Hurricane Mitch and more developments on Iranian visa restrictions. We cover these stories and include our regular features as well - Consular Focus, Non-Profit Corner, Visa Spotlight, Immigration and the Internet, Government Processing Times, Border News and Citizenship Update. Finally, your humble editor attended a meeting of a delegation of representatives of the American Immigration Lawyers Association with officials of the United States Information Agency in Washington, DC. We'll report on this meeting in our regular AILA/NAFSA/AGENCY meetings highlights report.

Siskind, Susser, Haas & Devine has been in the news this past month. The Lawyers Weekly, one of Canada's leading legal profession newspapers, interviewed your editor Greg Siskind regarding the firm's web site. The article is also on the web at http://www.butterworths.ca/five.htm. Greg will also be delivering speeches this month to the Southeast Regional Meeting of the National Association of Foreign Student Advisors and to the Memphis Bar Association. Last week he gave a speech in Washington to the American Immigration Lawyers Association on the subject of using the Internet for immigration research.

If you work on immigration matters in your work, we remind you that we have a sister publication, Siskind's Immigration Professional. The newsletter provides notices of job openings, reporters seeking story leads, conference announcements, book and software reviews and other announcements that will be of interest to immigration lawyers, paralegals, foreign student advisors and anyone else who handles immigration matters for a living. If you wish to be added to our email distribution list, just email us at immigration.professional@visalaw.com and be sure to tell us a little bit about what kind of work you do and where you work. More than 400 of our readers who are immigration professionals have already subscribed and we are only going on our third issue. We only include professionals on this list so it is important to specify the type of work in which you are engaged.

We're pleased to announce a new addition to the staff of our Nashville office. Nanette Bernadou-Adair, currently the Director of International Services at Vanderbilt University (she handles all of the employment-based immigration matters for this top college), Nanette will begin work with our firm in January. Welcome Nanette! Finally, we offer congratulations to SSHD lawyers Mabel Arroyo and Duran Dodson, both of whom gave birth to healthy babies over the last month. The SSHD family continues to grow!

As always, we remind readers that this publication is put out by Siskind, Susser, Haas & Devine, an immigration law firm, and we are available for telephone or in-person consultations to answer immigration questions and discuss our representing individuals and employers in immigration matters. If interested, please go to http://www.visalaw.com/intake.html.

As always, we remind readers that this publication is put out by Siskind, Susser, Haas & Devine, an immigration law firm, and we are available for telephone or in-person consultations to answer immigration questions and discuss our representing individuals and employers in immigration matters. If interested, please go to http://www.visalaw.com/intake.html.