Month: August 2007

An interesting article about how the town of Carpentersville, Illinois is coping with the immigration issue appears in today’s New York Times Magazine.

The USCIS issued an update on the processing of various types of cases at their service centers.

According to an article on CNN.com, the Republican presidential nomination-seeker and resident anti-immigration House Nut, Tom Tancredo, has “stood by his assertion that bombing holy Muslim sites would serve as a good ‘deterrent’ to prevent Islamic fundamentalists from attacking the United States, his spokeswoman said Friday.”

From the comments posted on CNN’s blog, I am thankfully not the only one shocked and dismayed that this man keeps being reelected to Congress.

In an Update issued yesterday, the USCIS is urging employers to continue identifying “returning workers” on H-2B petitions for Fiscal Year 2008 start dates.

In the past, when the USCIS requested additional evidence prior to adjudicating a petition or application, the petitioner, applicant or their attorney had ninety days in which to respond or the case would be deemed abandoned and denied.  The USCIS is now allowing less time to respond to many Requests for Evidence (RFEs), the maximum allowable time is now ninety days.

It is therefore important to carefully examine the due date by which one must respond to a particular RFE to avoid having one’s case deemde abandoned.

According to a New York Times article: “When a broad immigration bill failed in the Senate in June after a vitriolic national debate, many legislators said the issue was dead, perhaps until President Bush left office. But already some of the less contentious pieces of the bill are returning to life.”

Perhaps a piecemeal approach is the way to get things accomplished on the immigration front.

The Department of Labor today published an e-mail address to which persons can address alleged violations of the recently implemented “Substitutions Plus Rule” (AKA Fraud Rule).  The address is: laborcert.fraud@dol.gov.

As you may recall, among other things, the rule that is currently in effect requires employers to pay all legal and other fees associated with the filing of a Labor Certification (PERM) Application.  The penalties for violations are severe and may include debarment of the lawyer or employer from filing future Labor Certification Applications.

Although we do not yet have Receipt Notices for these cases, the filing fee checks for our office’s first few I-485 applications that arrived at the USCIS on July 2, 2007 and were filed pursuant to the July Visa Bulletin, were processed by our bank and assigned receipt numbers.  So it looks like they are slowly but surely moving along to receipt in these cases.

The USCIS has released a Fact Sheet regarding naturalization through military service.

According to an article on dallasnews.com:  “Employers across the country are preparing to fire workers with questionable Social Security numbers to avoid getting snagged in a Bush administration crackdown on illegal immigrants.”

Details on how employers will be required to handle “no match” letters received from the Social Security Administration will be posted as clear guidance is made available.