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May 1, 2004

This newsletter, edited by Theodore Sherman, Esq., and published strictly in an electronic format, contains information pertinent to immigration issues for physicians and scientists who desire to reside in the U.S. on a temporary or permanent basis.

Readers who wish to obtain more information on topics are encouraged to forward your queries to us by completing the online consultation form on our website. We will respond to your particular queries as soon as possible. Also, please don’t hesitate to contact the author directly if you wish, as I do attempt to answer all emails personally within just a few days of my receipt.

New and Improved Website. We have recently updated and expanded our website. Please visit us as www.MDgreencard.com and let us know your comments about our new site design. Please be sure to visit our bulletin board feature, which allows you to post messages/comments for others (including ourselves) to address. For those subscribers who have been with us since the beginning, this is indeed the second major revision to our website, since we first designed the site back in the year 2000. Our web developers, Chris and Ellie at C2G Media operating (operating out of the small town of Tustin, Michigan), have been with us since the beginning, and we owe the many of the ideas and improvements in the site to them. Should you have questions about website design we highly recommend contacting them at www.C2gmedia.com. Just tell them that Ted recommended you.

Table of Contents
Topics for Physicians / Scientists

1.1 The End of Visa Stamp Revalidation in the USA?

Due to security concerns, it may no longer be possible to obtain visa stamp revalidation in the USA beginning as early as October 2004. For individuals now in the US in most visa classifications, visa stamp revalidation often just requires sending the visa approval notice and passport to the US State Dept. and waiting 14 weeks or so for a new visa stamp to be affixed to his/her passport. Should the revalidation process be cancelled, individuals will only be able to obtain renewed visa stamps at a U.S. Embassy/Consulate abroad, and most preferably in the person’s home country.

1.2 H-1B Processing for Medical Residents/Fellows

The H-1B visa cap has (for the most part) not negatively affected our clients who have been offered residency/fellowship programs at hospitals throughout the U.S., as more than 90% of the hospitals are indeed exempt from the visa cap. With a few exceptions, so long as the hospital is non-profit and maintains an affiliation with a U.S. medical school, the hospital is exempt.

1.3 Immigration Filing Fees Rise (Again)

Effective on April 30, 2004, immigration filing fees are increasing again, this type rising an average of 40% (or $ 55 per application). In 2000, the filing fee for an H1B visa application was $ 75. With the latest fee increase, the new filing fee for H1B visa is $ 185. Continued increases are due to the high costs incurred in implementing heightened screening/security processes.

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1.4 The Importance of Maintaining Valid Immigration Status

We cannot stress enough to our clients the importance of maintaining valid immigration status at all time while they are in the U.S. For example, we receive many queries from physicians in the U.S. on B1/B2 visit visas who have received job offers for residency/fellowship positions beginning on July 1 of the particular year. Often times, the individual’s visa may expire prior to July 1 – hence, applying for a change of status from B to H1B may be problematic if there is indeed a gap in valid immigration status. Hence, we usually recommend that our clients file for extension of B visa until July 1, so as to ensure continuity in visa status.

Individuals who are not able to show maintenance of valid visa status throughout their entire stay in the U.S. may encounter difficulties at later times, especially with respect to Green Card applications. Please be sure to call me directly with questions or issues with respect to this important area of the law.

Hardship waivers are continuing to be possibilities for those individuals who can set forth hardships their U.S. citizens children or spouses will face if the two-year home residency requirement is imposed.

A few of our latest hardship waiver approvals involved the following situations:

Based on our continued success in this area, we recommend that you consult our staff concerning your likelihood of obtaining J1 waiver based on exceptional hardship if you have a U.S. citizen spouse or American born child.

Even with pledges by President Bush to cut processing delays on all cases to less than six months, the delays continue to increase at the U.S. Immigration Service. Please note the following:

• Green Card applications now require an average of 36 months for processing (up from 14 months in 2001).
• The number of pending applications for such things as applying for a visa extension and obtaining citizenship has increased nearly 60% in three years, to just over 6 Million
• Pending cases more than 6 months old at the U.S. Immigration Service have increased by 89% since 2000, from 1.8 million to 3.4 million.

Reasons for the increased delays include the following:

• The U.S. Immigration Service is now performing full background checks on 7 million applicants per year, compared with 2.5 million prior to September 11, 2001
• Out of 4,500 officers who handle immigration applications, 1,000 have been relegated to do nothing but security checks.
• In addition, errors have led to costly setbacks. In late 2001, when a security check conducted by the FBI failed to flag a suspected terrorist who was seeking citizenship, the immigration agency had to recheck 3.2 million applicants to make sure there were no other mistakes. More delays resulted when immigration case officers were diverted to handle a controversial registration program for men from predominantly Muslim countries.
• Efforts to make the system friendlier and more efficient created their own problems. A national toll-free call center was set up to handle questions and ease some of the burden on immigration district officers. But the private contractor employees who answer the phones know little about immigration matters, have no access to individual files and largely stick to scripted responses.
• Like a bureaucratic nightmare, the backlog has begun to perpetuate itself, say those caught in it. Consider green cards: Because the applications are taking so long, supporting documents, including fingerprints, medical records and security checks, often become lost or outdated and have to be resubmitted. That means the application is delayed, with more chores for employees and more anxiety for immigrants.
• In December, a former immigration contractor at the agency's Laguna Niguel office was convicted of shredding immigrants' files to clear up a 90,000-document backlog.

Instead of empathy with individuals dealing with the increased processing delays, the Immigration Service is offering a fee increase. As noted above, fees for most applications will soon increase by $55 to $60, and henceforth will be automatically adjusted for inflation. The cost of a citizenship application will increase to $320 (a few years ago, the cost was under $ 150).

Bush's 2005 budget proposes a $58-million increase that would bring immigration funding to $1.7 billion. But the President is also calling for a reduction in general fund dollars to the agency as those are replaced with receipts from higher fees. Therefore, additional funds (if any) may indeed not even be available to reduce the backlog in immigration processing. We shall see.

(Source – Los Angeles Times)