Dear Readers:

Good news from the INS? Lately I've been talking a lot of doom and gloom, but a curious news development has occurred in the last 24 hours. The INS is planning a rollback on its fees to levels not seen in quite some time. Yes, the INS is lowering its fees across the board. Why? Congress specifically called on the INS in the Homeland Security Act of 2002 to drop the surcharge in its applications to support refugee and asylum petitions as well as cases where application fees are waived. Some of the fees will drop substantially and we include the revisions in this week's issue. The fee drop goes into effect today. The INS says not to worry if you happen to send in the higher amount and that it will send refunds later. I'm not ready to jump for joy just yet. First, aside from the issue of what this will mean for the funding of cases for refugees and asylees, there is some indication that Congress might modify the law and drop the provision calling for the fee rollback. If that happens, the INS has suggested that it may send out requests for people to send in more money. I can't help but think that this could cause substantial processing delays if this were to happen.

Another interesting piece of news came up in the last few hours. The American Immigration Lawyers Association is reporting that the INS' General Counsel, Bo Cooper, has stated that people who have entered the US in advance parole status based on an adjustment of status application are not subject to the Special Registration requirements. This contradicts the stated policies of some local INS offices. Of course, the INS has not always followed the rulings and statements of their own lawyer, so this does not mean the issue has been put to rest. Hopefully, INS headquarters will issue a memo on this subject.

As usual, we include all of the week's news as well as our regular features this week. We welcome your suggestions and comments; please send them to us at gsiskind@visalaw.com.

As always, we remind readers that we're lawyers who make our living representing immigration clients. We would love to discuss becoming your law firm. Just go to http://www.visalaw.com/intake.html to request an appointment or call us at 800-748-3819 or 901-682-6455.

Regards,

Greg Siskind