Congress wrapped up its business this week and now adjourns for the year. Congress will meet again in January and could look much different after the November elections. But before leaving town, Congress passed several important pieces of immigration-related legislation. Rather than taking our usual approach and reviewing the major developments in this column, we have instead covered each of the major immigration bills and covered them in separate articles in this issue.

The session's most publicized measure, the lifting of the cap on H-1B workers, passed. The same was true of legislation providing amnesty to tens of thousands of Haitians in this country. And Congress enacted the UN Convention Against Torture, something that will help many asylum applicants. The fate of other measures - the restoration of Section 245i of the Immigration and Nationality Act, a new visa category for nurses, the elimination of per country quotas in the employment green card categories, and others - met with a different fate. They must wait until the next session.

While the Congress is out, we are using the time to revamp the H-1B Emergency Update section of our web page to more broadly cover hot issues in immigration law. The Emergency Update has proven to be the single-most popular section of the web page and so we are seeking to duplicate the format with other issues as well. Look for this change to happen before year's end.