After a submission of 300 amendments from various senators, the Senate Judiciary Committee began marking up S.744 last Thursday, May 9th beginning with Title I of the bill on border security provisions. The second session of markup continued yesterday, May 14th on Title IV of the bill on employment visas. Other titles will be addressed [...]
These days, it’s hard to cull through so many articles on immigration reform and determine what’s speculative, what’s sensational, and what’s actually helpful to the immigration practitioner. By now, your clients might already be feeling a bit antsy and nervous depending on which aspects of the Senate’s CIR bill they may be preoccupied. Our longtime [...]
The talk of immigration reform has many immigrants ready to sign up for the law. Except no law has been passed yet. This fact doesn’t seem to deter “immigrant consultants” (aka “notarios”) from coming out of the woodwork though. Many organizations have been issuing public service announcements to get the word out about the unauthorized [...]
It’s been one week since the Senate’s immigration bill (now known as S.744) was officially released and the news circuit is still aflutter tripping over itself to provide coverage on the voluminous bill. In the past three (business) days, the Senate Judiciary Committee has held three separate hearings to solicit testimony from a bevy of [...]
If you look up the word “compromise” on Google, this is the result you will get: Com·pro·mise (‘kämprǝ mīz/): noun An agreement or a settlement of a dispute that is reached by each side making concessions. By all accounts, the Senate’s recent immigration reform bill, Border Security Economic Opportunity Immigration Modernization Act 2013 (BSEOIMA), released [...]
Immigration practitioners probably rank as the most optimistic of all legal professionals. [Perhaps bankruptcy and personal injury attorneys outrank us because they may or may not ever get paid.] For the most part, our optimism may stem from our sheer need to survive rather than the desire for a glass-half-full outlook. The universe [aka the [...]
[Editor’s Note: Today’s article is courtesy of Josie Gonzalez, Managing Partner at the law firm of Gonzalez & Harris in Pasadena, California. Ms. Gonzalez offers employers alternatives in case their petitions weren’t selected in the H-1B lottery.] The recent news that USCIS received over 124,000 H-1B petitions to fill its quota of 85,000 has undoubtedly [...]
When it comes to immigration reform talk, it’s a good sign when businesses and unions reach a consensus. Late last week, both the Associated Press and the Wall Street Journal reported that the AFL-CIO and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce (with the mediation of Senator Charles Schumer D-NY) had reached an agreement on a guest [...]
Last year, USCIS announced the implementation of its Electronic Immigration System (ELIS). The online filing program debuted last May allowing foreign nationals (and their attorneys or BIA accredited representatives) to file Form I-539 petitions online. Given the form’s simplicity, the implementation was an attainable milestone on ELIS. Fast-forward 11 months: USCIS announced last week during [...]
[Updated March 27, 2013] On March 21, 2013, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) announced it had submitted a rule for publication in the Federal Register on I-94 Automation. The official published version will be available on the Federal Register on March 27, 2013 but in an advanced copy issued March 26, 2013, CBP sets [...]
