As the US economy plows along with the strongest indicators in generations, Congress finally seems to be realizing that immigrants can play a vital role in the labor market. No where is this more pronounced than in the information technology industry where critical shortages have been widely reported by the media. This past month, Congress held hearings on the role of immigrants in alleviating the tight labor market, particularly those coming to the US on H-1B visas. This month, we report on plans to raise the cap on the number of H-1B visas issued each year. We also report on legislation that would again create a nonimmigrant visa category for nurses, this time for nurses in rural areas.
Fixing the badly broken naturalization system is also on the front burner. The INS recently revealed plans to dramatically change the system. Congress seems to be more concerned, however, with non-problem of non-citizens voting in elections (particularly when they non-vote for Democrats). In this month’s issue, we cover both the changes to the naturalization system and Congress’ grandstanding.
And as usual, we round up the rest of the news on US immigration as well as include our regular features. We visit the American Immigration Lawyers Association web site in our Immigration and the Internet article and take a closer look at the P-1 arts and athletics visa in Visa Spotlight. And you’ll find the latest government processing times and the State Department Visa Bulletin in this issue.
In firm news, we are pleased to announce that Greg Siskind, of Siskind, Susser, Haas & Chang’s headquarter office in Tennessee and Leonard Pearl, of counsel to the firm’s Toronto office, have signed a contract with mega-legal publisher Matthew Bender & Company to author the ENTERTAINMENT AND SPORTS IMMIGRATION HANDBOOK. The book will provide guidance for professionals assisting artists, athletes and entertainers seeking visas to enter both the United States and Canada.
In other firm news, we are very pleased to announce that we are affiliating with the immigration department of the Chinese Lehman, Lee & Xu Law Firm. The Lehman, Lee & Xu firm has more than 50 lawyers practicing in eight offices in China, Hong Kong and other parts and the Far East. US and Canadian-trained lawyers Ed Lehman, Peter Scheuer and Brinton Scott will work jointly with SSHC lawyers in handling cases at US and Canadian consulates throughout the Far East and SSHC will work Lehman, Lee & Xu clients in dealing with immigration problems after arriving in the US and Canada. The two firms will also jointly develop content for a web page providing US and Canadian immigration information specifically for the East Asian reader. Look for more news on this in the months to come.
We also would like to let our legal professional readers that our Nashville office is seeking to fill both a paralegal and an attorney position. Some experience with immigration law is strongly preferred. If interested, please e-mail your resume to gsiskind@visalaw.com or fax it to 615-843-0424.
We incorporate technology into every aspect of our practice – from communicating with clients via e-mail to using the latest case management software and CD-ROM library materials. Now we are pleased to take another major step forward with the introduction of our firm’s intranet. For those of you unfamiliar with intranets, they are, in a nutshell, private access web sites only available to persons on a local network or persons with defined user name and password access. The firm will use its new Intranet, developed in conjunction with leading legal intranet firm Legal Anywhere (http://www.legalanywhere.com), for a variety of functions:
– allow clients to download and view documents relating to the client’s case;
– provide a forms bank for firm attorneys in any of our offices to collect a wide variety of legal documents thus allowing us to more efficiently and effectively work on cases;
– allow attorneys in any of our offices to view the schedules of attorneys in any of our other offices;
– house many of the firm’s electronic library resources
– store client databases so that attorneys in any of our offices can quickly get information on a client’s case
– online invoicing where clients can view their bills at a private client web page.
While it will take some time to get everything up and running, we have already begun to use this new tool. We believe that it will be tremendously important in achieving our ongoing goal of providing quality legal service.
Finally, as always we remind readers that our twelve lawyers are able to serve immigration clients in any state or province in the US, Canada and now China. You are always welcome to call us toll free at 800-748-3819. We also provide full-scale consultations via telephone. Just complete the appointment request questionnaire at https://visalaw.com/intake.html. Most of our clients are located outside of the local areas of our offices so we are quite comfortable with using e-mail, telephone, fax, mail and our new intranet to communicate with clients.
Disclaimer: This newsletter is provided as a public service and not intended to establish an attorney client relationship. Any reliance on information contained herein is taken at your own risk.