1. House Votes to Require Verification; Senate to Take Up Immigration Reform Bills Soon
2. Congress Drops Employment Visa Provisions from Budget Bill
3. Immigrant Visa Backlogs Decline for China, India
4. IRS Announces New Procedures for Withholding for Nonresidents
5. National Interest Waiver Obtained for Inventor of "Bomb-sniffer"
6. We Welcome Liam Lee Garvey to the Miller Mayer Family!
7. True, Walsh & Miller Changes Its Name to Miller Mayer
8. New Articles on our Web Site
9. The Firm Speaks
10. Immigration Processing Times Links

1. House Votes to Require Verification; Senate to Take Up Immigration Reform Bills Soon

On December 16, 2005, the House of Representatives passed its version of immigration reform. Among other things the bill, H.R. 4437, the Border Protection, Antiterrorism, and Illegal Immigration Control Act of 2005, would require employers to verify the status of workers either by telephone or other electronic media. Civil penalties for paperwork violations would increase significantly under the bill. Employer participation in the current voluntary Basic Pilot employment verification program would become mandatory two years after enactment.

Many groups oppose provisions of the bill that would expand the Basic Pilot program. In a letter sent to House representatives, advocates noted that the Basic Pilot program currently is used by only 3,600 employers. Expanding it to all 8.4 million U.S. employers would pose serious technical obstacles, in addition to raising privacy issues and risks of identity and document fraud. The letter noted: "The system will need to verify the work eligibility of all 146 million people currently employed in the United States, plus 54 million new hires each year. We have already seen, in its current limited usage, the widespread inaccuracies in the data used by Basic Pilot. One in every ten employees must be manually verified by Department of Homeland Security staff after the automatic system fails to match the individual to the necessary data. This rate of failure, multiplied to all employers and all employees in the U.S., will have real consequences for hundreds of thousands of Americans. People could lose their jobs and others will be needlessly denied employment every year." The Government Accountability Office has estimated that such an employment verification system would cost $11.7 billion annually.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and other business groups oppose these changes because the timetable is too fast and relies upon flawed pilot programs. The U.S. Chamber said it "support[s] the concept of a workable verification system as part of a comprehensive reform package, but new laws that simply place more burdens on employers through worksite enforcement alone are not the answer."

The Senate is expected to take up these and other immigration measures in the near future. Several major immigration reform provisions may be considered, including reforming the visa system to address backlogs and other problems; a guestworker program to provide temporary work authorization to certain undocumented workers; earned legalization for undocumented workers already in the U.S.; and enhanced enforcement at the border and in the workplace.

Miller Mayer's Steve Yale-Loehr chairs the Business Immigration committee of the American Immigration Lawyers Association. He will be actively involved in the immigration reform legislation. Contact Steve at syl@millermayer.com for more details.

For an article Steve has written about the House immigration bill, see article no. 8 below in this issue.

2. Congress Drops Employment Visa Provisions from Budget Bill

In other action, Congress did not include in the Deficit Omnibus Reconciliation Act the employment-based immigration provisions approved overwhelmingly by the Senate. The Senate provisions would have added 30,000 H-1B visa numbers each year, and increased employment-based visa numbers by 90,000. Also dropped in the final bill was a plan to increase the L-1 intracompany transferee fee.

Sandy Boyd, vice president for the National Association of Manufacturers, told the Associated Press that "there is a real global competition for this work and for these employees, and the question is not whether the work is going to get done, it's where is the work going to get done. We've missed a real opportunity by not ensuring the work would be done here."

3. Immigrant Visa Backlogs Decline for China, India

Immigrant visa backlogs for employment-based applicants born in China and India have declined over the past three months, but the backlogs still range from 30 months for the India EB-1 category to over six years for the India EB-3 category. Also, the worldwide EB-3 backlog for countries other than China, India, Mexico, and the Philippines remains at almost five years. The worldwide EB-1 and EB-2 categories, however, continue to be current with no cut-off dates.

The Department of State reported that applicant demand for immigrant visa numbers may be expected to increase following rapid advances in cut-off dates. "This could cause cut-off date movement to be sporadic, and eventually slow or stop later in the fiscal year," the Department noted in its December Visa Bulletin (see http://travel.state.gov/visa/frvi/bulletin/bulletin_2744.html). The January Visa Bulletin is available at http://travel.state.gov/visa/frvi/bulletin/bulletin_2757.html.

4. IRS Announces New Procedures for Withholding for Nonresidents

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) announced new rules effective January 1, 2006, for determining the amount of income tax employers must withhold from wages paid for services performed by nonresident foreign workers within the U.S. The notice also provides new rules for use by nonresidents in completing Form W-4 (Employee's Withholding Allowance Certificate). The IRS said it made the changes because certain nonresidents were experiencing overwithholding of income tax on their wages. For details, see http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-drop/n-05-76.pdf.

The IRS also announced that effective January 1, 2006, it is eliminating the filing requirement for certain nonresident foreign workers who are required to file a return under current regulations solely because they earn wages that are "effectively connected with a United States trade or business in the tax year." The new exception will apply only to those nonresident individuals who earn wages less than the amount of one personal exemption under section 151 of the Internal Revenue Code, which is $3,300 for tax year 2006. For details, see http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-drop/n-05-77.pdf.

5. National Interest Waiver Obtained for Inventor of "Bomb-sniffer"

Rosanne Mayer recently helped a client obtain approval for a national interest waiver green card in the EB-2 advanced degree holder category. The electronics engineer was an obvious candidate for the waiver. His research, which began in his home country of Russia, has been used to develop "bomb-sniffers" that can detect minute traces of explosives without touching the target. Attorney Mayer proved that his work has substantial intrinsic merit, has benefits that are national in scope, and that the engineer would benefit the U.S. more than any of his peers in the U.S. In fact, our office received the approval in just a month.

The explosives detectors can be used to detect explosive material on airliners, mass transit systems and at large public events, and thus are very valuable in preventing terrorist attacks. It can also be used in war zones such as Iraq. The US government has already bought sixteen and is considering using the devices to screen visitors to embassies all over the world. Its ability to detect explosives while avoiding contact with the materials in question is a unique advantage over other similar ion mobility spectrometry devices. This work is funded by the U.S. Navy, the U.S. Army, and the Transportation Security Agency, a branch of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). Several other countries have invested in the explosive detectors as well, and they even enhanced security at the 2004 Athens Olympics.

For more information about national interest waivers, please visit our website at http://www.millermayer.com/resources/immigrant/immigrant9cont.htm or contact one of our attorneys if you believe you qualify.

6. We Welcome Liam Lee Garvey to the Miller Mayer Family!

On December 20, 2005, Carolyn S. Lee gave birth to Liam Lee Garvey, a healthy baby boy. Carolyn expects to be out of the office until early April on maternity leave. The Miller Mayer immigration practice staff, including Steve Yale-Loehr, Rosanne Mayer, Hilary Fraser, Gloria Huizinga, Coralie Gahn, Christine Watson, Michelle Parker, Lindsay Schoonmaker, and our office support staff will continue to work on your case as necessary. If you have questions or concerns at any time, please contact the immigration assistant handling your case. Congratulations to Carolyn and her family!

7. True, Walsh & Miller Changes Its Name to Miller Mayer

We are pleased to announce that on January 2, 2006, True, Walsh & Miller changed its name to Miller Mayer, LLP. Our mailing address, phone number, and fax number remain the same. You can find our new email and web site contacts at the bottom of this newsletter and can always stay up-to-date by visiting our website. We look forward to continuing our tradition of offering excellent, cost-effective legal service for many years.

8. New Articles on our Web Site

Steve Yale-Loehr has co-authored an article titled "Immigration Reform: Restrictionists Win in the House". The article discusses a tough immigration bill that recently passed the House and how it compares to immigration reform legislation pending in the Senate. Among other things, the House bill would criminalize unlawful presence and make it illegal to assist or encourage an undocumented noncitizen to remain in the United States. The article is at http://www.millermayer.com/resources/immigrationreform2005.

We have revised our summary of Conrad State 30 waiver programs for J-1 doctors seeking work in underserved areas. The latest version of our chart, dated January 2006, is at http://www.millermayer.com/resources/medical/conrad.html

9. The Firm Speaks

Steve Yale-Loehr will discuss asylum and refugee issues at a panel sponsored by the American Bar Association on Thursday January 26. The panel will be held at the National Press Club in Washington, DC. Also invited to speak are Senator Sam Brownback (R-Kansas) and actress Angelina Jolie. (Steve doubts she will actually be available, but is keeping his fingers crossed!)

Steve will present a seminar on visa options after graduation at Cornell University on Thursday February 16 from 7-9 pm in the Hollis E. Cornell auditorium of Goldwin Smith Hall.

Steve Yale-Loehr will chair a Practicing Law Institute immigration seminar on Thursday March 23, 2006 in New York City. Visit http://www.pli.edu/product/program_detail.asp?ptid=511&stid=3&id=EN00000000026385 for more details.

Contact Steve at syl@millermayer.com for more details on any of these talks.

10. Immigration Processing Times Links

Follow these links to access current processing times of the USCIS Service Centers and the Department of Labor, or the Department of State's latest Visa Bulletin with the most recent cut-off dates for visa numbers:

USCIS Service Centers: https://egov.immigration.gov/cris/jsps/index.jsp
Department of Labor: http://www.ows.doleta.gov/foreign/times.asp
Department of State Visa Bulletin: http://travel.state.gov/visa/frvi/bulletin/bulletin_1360.html

_____________________
That's it for this issue. Some of the information in this issue comes from the American Immigration Lawyers Association. Thanks to AILA for allowing us to reprint their information.

Some of the information in this issue also comes from the Academy of Business Immigration Lawyers (ABIL). Steve Yale-Loehr is a founding member of ABIL, the think tank of premier immigration counsel.

For answers to any of your immigration questions, contact:

Hilary Fraser (mailto:htf@millermayer.com)
Carolyn Lee (mailto:csl@millermayer.com)
Rosanne Mayer (mailto:rm@millermayer.com), or
Steve Yale-Loehr (mailto:syl@millermayer.com).

For general information, visit our web site at http://www.millermayer.com/

The usual required legal disclaimers (we ARE attorneys, after all): Transmission of this information is not intended to create, and receipt by you does not constitute, an attorney-client relationship. The information in this newsletter is for general purposes only, and is not intended as legal advice for any particular situation. If legal advice or other expert assistance is required, the services of a competent professional should be sought.

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Copyright (c) 2006 Miller Mayer, LLP. All rights reserved.