Dear Readers:

I am writing this week's Openers from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. I'm here attending the first conference sponsored by the Association of Nurse Executives specifically covering the subject of foreign health care workers. The conference is timely because the nation's health care worker shortage is growing and all signs point to a severe widening of the shortage over the next decade. The program provided nearly 200 attendees with information on US immigration rules, information on the variety of business issues that come up when recruiting foreign health care workers and information on how best to integrate the workers into the general work force.

I had the opportunity to see many of our clients in person as well as to see several fellow lawyers who work on health care immigration matters and who we work with from time to time on projects of interest to our collective base of clients. In about a week and a half, we'll be posting our latest health care immigration newsletter and we'll describe some of the more interesting information we learned at the meeting.

The Wal-Mart raids are in the news this week again with the news that the government is targeting the company for using contractors to supply cleaning workers that Wal-Mart should have known were out of status. The government's theory is aggressive to say the least.  According to the theory, Wal-Mart had to know that the contractors were hiring undocumented workers because its stores were raided twice in the past. The trouble with this argument is that Wal-Mart is a company that is massive - its revenues are more than many countries and it accounts for as much as 30% of the sales of some many of the leading manufacturing companies in this country. There are thousands of Wal-Mart stores in this country employing about a million people.  Wal-Mart has contracts with employers of all sizes all over the US.  So it is a bit simplistic to say Wal-Mart had to know. That's just not reality when you are talking about a company this big.

Nevertheless, the raids should provide a wake up call to employers around America. If Wal-Mart is vulnerable, every company is vulnerable.  Smart employers will want to be pro-active in reviewing their I_9 policies to be sure that they are not potentially liable for hiring undocumented workers or failing to comply with recordkeeping requirements. Contracts with employers should be reviewed to make sure that immigration issues are addressed and background checks on contractors should regularly be conducted to make sure that they have clean immigration records.  HR departments should receive regular training in immigration law compliance as well.  Your immigration lawyer should be able to provide these services.

Two other stories we report on this week involve declines - declines in the number of foreign students admitted to the US and declines in refugee admissions. Both drops can directly be attributed to the 9/11 attacks and both stories should concern folks interested in America's image in the world. Millions of students from around the world have studied in this country over the last several years. Most have gone home and have helped to shape the positive views that much of the world still has of this country. Many students have gone on to become leaders of their countries and their positive experiences in America provide important intangible benefits to the US in shaping our foreign policy.

As for refugee admissions, the Bush Administration will keep the set level of refugee admissions the same as last year. The catch is that the Department of Homeland Security has not been using up the refugee slots called for by President Bush. In fact, only about a third of the refugee slots got filled last year even though the demand is stronger than ever. There is much finger-pointing going on as far as why DHS is not doing its job and processing these cases. But none of the excuses justifies defying the President either intentionally or simply as a matter of not committing the resources to process the cases.  We urge readers to contact their Congressional representatives to push them to in turn push the Department of Homeland Security to do their jobs and process the cases budgeted for by President Bush.

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