Attorney General Janet Reno has appointed Margaret Philbin to the new position of Deputy Director to the Executive Office for Immigration Review. Ms. Philbin is currently the General Counsel to the EOIR. The role of the Deputy Director is to assist in the overall management of the EOIR, in particular supervising the staff, a role that is currently performed by the Office of the Associate Director. It is hoped that increased administrative oversight will improve all aspects of the services provided by the EOIR.

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AILA is reporting that INS Service Centers are improperly denying H-1B petitions in cases where Labor Condition Applications are submitted in response to requests for additional evidence. The cases involve instances where the LCAs are dated a date later than the date the H-1B petition is filed, but where the LCA was filed prior to the H-1B filing. The problem has been accentuated because LCA processing at the Department of Labor was disrupted for several months during the transition to the new LCA faxback system.

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Local INS offices and the Service Centers are now authorized to process adjustment of status cases filed prior to June 30, 1998. The delays are being blamed on the CIA name check program which can only handle 7,000 name checks per week. The CIA is currently backlogged nearly a quarter of a million cases. Relief will not come until a new computer system is installed in the later part of the year.

The INS is expected to issue a memorandum outlining various issues relating to adjustment of status cases including instructions for expediting cases where minor children will age-out of eligibility for dependent status and cases of DV applicants subject to a September 30, 1999 processing deadline. The INS requests that they be notified at least six months in advance on age-out cases.

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The Department of Labor appears closer to proceeding with its plans to implement its massive overhaul of the labor certification system. The overhaul is expected to have three components:

• a realignment of the program from the DOL’s Employment and Training Administration to the DOL’s Employment Standards Administration.

• moving to a system where the program is supported by user fees

• changing the basic scheme of review for labor certification cases

The DOL would like to implement a system where 75% to 80% of cases that are obviously approvable can be processed quickly so that attention can be focuses on the more difficult cases.

AILA is already on record as opposing the plan, particularly the part that envisions shifting responsibility from ETA – a program-operating agency – to the ESA – an enforcement agency.

The DOL does not plan on implementing the program any earlier than October 1, 1999 even though many details are already in place. The delay is partially due to the fact that ETA and ESA have different computer systems and the employees in each agency are represented by different unions.

In the meantime, the DOL claims its current backlog reduction program is going well and that it will have reduced its backlog by 50% by July of this year. The reduction is only for cases at the region and does not include cases still at the state level.

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Referrals of Indian H-1B cases for fraud investigations continue. While the practice has ceased at the Nebraska Service Center, the Texas Service Center is still referring cases to the US consulate in Chennai for credentials investigations.

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California Governor Gray Davis has stated that he will not implement a provision of the controversial Proposition 187 that would ban illegal immigrant children from the state’s public schools. Proposition 187 was passed by the state’s voters in 1995 and would bar illegal immigrants from receiving a variety of public benefits. The measure has never been fully implemented due to various court challenges.

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The American Bar Association’s Section of Legal Education and Admission to the

Bar has made a controversial recommendation calling for tighter restrictions on the licensing of foreign lawyers in the United States. The ABA Section is preparing a letter to the chief justices of the supreme courts of each state urging them to prohibit LLM degree holders from taking the state bar examinations. A number of law schools around the US offer such masters in law degrees to foreign lawyers. In addition to educating these lawyers on the American legal system, these degrees are often an important source of cash for law schools since these students frequently receive no financial aid. Over the last decade, law schools have seen an overall decline in enrollment and many are relying more and more on their foreign law students to help make up the gap.

The Section’s position puts it up directly against another ABA section – the Section on International Law. Leaders of that section have spoken out vigorously arguing that, among other things, the proposal is contrary to international trade obligations of the United States and could lead to a backlash against the growing number of American lawyers practicing outside the US.