Dear Readers:

Many readers have written to me asking about the report in our last issue that visa revalidation would be ending on July 16^th. So here’s a quick primer. Visa revalidation is a process where a person in the US in certain visa categories – E, H-1B, L, I and a few others – can get a new visa stamp rather than traveling to a consulate when they leave the US. This is only available if you have previously gotten a visa stamp abroad in that particular category and you are applying for a new stamp in that category within a year of the visa stamp expiring. This is a process that is not used very often anyway because it means parting with your passport for 3 to 6 months while waiting on the new stamp.

Visa revalidation does NOT apply to extensions of status and changes of status. A visa stamp and a non-immigrant status are two entirely different things and many people are confusing the concepts. You normally need a visa stamp to present at a port of entry to enter the US in a particular non-immigrant category. The port officer will grant you an I-94 card that officially allows you to remain in the US in that particular non-immigrant category for a set period of time. You can remain in the US with an unexpired I-94 even if your visa stamp has expired since the stamp is only used as a ticket to enter the country. The I-94 controls how long you can remain in the US on any particular trip.

I-94s can also be obtained for a new non-immigrant category by filing for a change of status from one non-immigrant category to another. You can still file for a change of status by mail in the US. An expiring I-94 can also be extended by mail from within the US. These two processes are NOT changing and these processes affect many, many more people than visa revalidation. Most people will not be affected by the end of visa revalidation.

For those that do use visa revalidation, the alternative will mean getting a new visa stamp to reenter the US at a consulate in one’s home country or at a US consulate in Mexico or Canada.

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I have received with skepticism my reports in this column in recent months that the USCIS is finally getting serious about improving processing times and making changes to improve customer service. I’ve discussed new pilot programs involving super-fast processing of certain types of applications, initiatives like making Employment Authorization Documents valid for two years instead of one, and the expansion of electronic filing to more types of applications.

But the mother of all initiatives is the USCIS plan to get ALL processing times to less than six months by no later than September 30, 2006. Granted, Clinton INS Commissioner Doris Meissner made a similar promise in the 90s. But her goal was never funded and other than mentioning this target at meetings with groups like the American Immigration Lawyers Association, nothing really was ever done. But I am optimistic that this time we’re going to see results. The money is there, the leadership is interested in making this happen, technology is finally starting to improve and an actual game plan is taking shape. We report on that plan this week and look forward to hearing reports on its implementation.

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This was an interesting week for troubleshooting at our office. The cases all illustrate how seemingly minor problems can escalate into major crises.  Coincidentally, they all involved doctors.  In one case, a physician booked an H-1B appointment at a US consulate in Mexico rather than going to his home country where appointments where visas are taking several weeks to be issued. Unfortunately, the consulate refused the visa because the physician lost an enormous amount of weight and did not look like his passport photo. The physician was actually labeled an imposter and his visa was denied. Resolving the issue involved our speaking to the consulate and then getting the physician a new appointment the next day and presenting documentation of his recent medical history.

Another case involved a university hospital nearly having to shut down because an I-539 change of status application for a spouse was never submitted by the immigration department at the university as part of the physician’s visa extension paperwork. By the time the problem was discovered, the wife of the doctor had become subject to a three year reentry bar. The physician made it clear that he was leaving if the USCIS did not grant a late filed change of status application and his threat carried real weight since this physician worked in a critical specialty area. Without his services, the hospital would have no choice but to close. Fortunately, the USCIS did come through after a lot of work from our firm, several key people at USCIS and the hard work of a congressional liaison.

The third case involved another lawyer who is a friend of our firm and who was at a US consulate in Mexico with a husband and wife who both happen to be physicians. The husband was a J-1 who received a waiver and was at the consulate to get his H-1B visa. The wife was a J-2 who used her Employment Authorization Document to participate in a medical residency program as well. Unfortunately, the consular officer did not understand that using a J-2 to work in graduate medical training is perfectly permissible.

Our lawyer friend’s office on the east coast was closed and she was stranded in Mexico without the resources to document that the consular officer was wrong. She’s helped us out in a pinch and I was happy to return the favor doing the research to document that the officer was in the wrong. The matter was resolved successfully. I actually was able to cite the  J-1 Visa Guidebook which I co-author for LexisNexis with Bill Stock and Steve Yale-Loehr. I also cited to my friend Bob Aronson’s recent article on this subject in AILA’s new Immigration Options for Physicians (I’ve written several articles in there as well). The regulation itself only says that a J-2 can work and does not include any restrictions that would prohibit a physician from participating in a residency program. And this has been common practice for many years.

The last case actually illustrates how nice it is to be an immigration lawyer in the US. There is a camaraderie in the immigration bar that is unmatched in any other practice area. Maybe it is because we are never going up against each other as adversaries. The government is always our opponent. This bond is well demonstrated by a group that I’ve just taken over as chair. The FMG Taskforce (formally known as the “National Healthcare Access Coalition”) is a group of about 100 immigration lawyers around the country that work on physician immigration matters. We have bi-weekly conference calls to discuss the latest developments in our practice area, raise money to lobby on behalf of physician immigration, confer regularly agency officials and serve as a resource to each other when we have problems of the type I described above. Sure, we’re competitors in this “niche” practice area. But we all know that we’re more than about making money. Besides, we’ll all make more money if we work together to provide better service to our clients and resolve fundamental problems facing our clients.

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Finally, as always, we remind readers that we're lawyers who make our living representing immigration clients and employers seeking to comply with immigration laws. 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