The President intends to designate Eduardo Aguierre, Jr. of Texas , to be Acting Director of the Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Service at the Department of Homeland Security. He is currently the Vice Chairman and First Vice President of the Export-Import Bank of the United States . Mr. Aguierre previously worked for Bank of America for 24 years. Mr. Aguierre was named "One of the 100 most Influential Hispanics in the Nation" by Hispanic Business Magazine for three consecutive years. He is a graduate of Louisiana State University .

We now know who will oversee the new immigration services agency when the INS is split up and merged into the Department of Homeland Security later this year. President Bush has tapped Eduardo Aguirre, Jr. of Texas to be the Acting Director of the Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Service. Mr. Aguierre is the Vice Chairman and First Vice President of the Export-Import Bank of the United States . He previously worked for Bank of America for 24 years. Hispanic Business Magazine named Mr. Aguierre one of the nation's 100 most influential Hispanics for three consecutive years.

Aguierre is an immigrant himself who arrived in the US as a child from his native Cuba in the early 1960s.

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The INS now estimates that there are seven million illegal immigrants in the United States . The agency believes the number of illegal immigrants is growing by 350,000 people each year. California is the home to the largest amount - well over two million. Texas is home to another million. About two-thirds of the illegal immigrants are from Mexico . Other significant undocumented populations include nationals from El Salvador , Guatemala , Colombia , Honduras , China and Ecuador .

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The State Department has announced that it will continue its Interim Student Exchange Authentication System (ISEAS) for the time b eing. The announcement is a response to the recent INS announcement that it was postponing implementation of the new SEVIS system for two weeks b eyond the anticipated January 30, 2003 start date. The ISEAS system requires schools to post online info rm ation on people that have b een issued I-20s and DS-2019 fo rm s for issuance of F-1 and J-1 visas.

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The United States will accept up to 12,000 Somali Bantu refugees beginning in the spring. The refugees are descendants of slaves from Mozambique an southern Africa and have been languishing in Kenyan refugee camps on the Somali Kenyan border for much of the past ten years. They will be placed in extended family groups in up to fifty cities and  towns across the United States throughout 2003 and 2004

Upon arrival in the U.S. , each Bantu family will be assigned to one of the ten voluntary agencies under cooperative agreement with the Department of State to provide reception and placement services. These agencies are Church World Service, Episcopal Migration Ministries, Ethiopian Community Development Council, Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, Iowa Bureau of Refugee Programs, Immigration and Refugee Services of America, International Rescue Committee, Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Services, United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, and World Relief Refugee Services. They will assist with basic immediate needs such as housing, furniture, clothing, food, and referrals to employment, ESL, and other services. In addition, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Service s Office of Refugee Resettlement provides funding to the states and voluntary agencies for longer-term programs for refugees.

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The California Service Center is reporting that it now has IBIS security checks down to a 15 day turnaround time.

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Last week we reported on the indictment of two contract workers at the California Service Center accused of shredding tens of thousands of document filed by immigants seeking visa benefits. This week, the two workers pleaded not guilty to the charges and demanded a jury trial.

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Fujie Ohata, the INS' Associate Commissioner for Service Center Operations, has to memoranda to INS service centers explaining which types of L-1B visa applicants qualify as managers and specialized knowledge employees.

Ohata notes that a 1994 memorandum regarding specialized knowledge employees written by James Puleo still is in force and examiners must follow it. The 1994 memo noted that the alien should possess a type of specialized knowledge that is different from that generally found in the particular industry and that the knowledge need not be proprietary or unique. It might be enough if the alien has specialized knowledge of the company product if the knowledge is noteworthy or uncommon. Where the alien has knowledge of the company's processes and procedures, the knowledge must be advanced. The knowledge does not, however, have to be narrowly held throughout the company. And no test of the US labor market to show a lack of specialized knowledge in US workers is needed. Only an examination of the knowledge possessed by the worker is needed.

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The INS' California Service Center has released data regarding H-1B approval rates. Interestingly, people who used the Premium Processing program were actually approved in higher numbers than those who do not. This is contrary to the conventional wisdom that Premium Processing examiners apply a tougher standard than regular examiners. In the latest month available. For regular cases filed in September 2002, the latest month for which statistics are available, 49.61% of cases were initially approved, 21.11% were denied and 29.28% were issued Requests for Evidence. For Premium Processing cases, 77.96% were approved, 6.11% were denied and 14.79% were issued Requests for Evidence. The difference in the approval rate was similar for the two prior months as well.