Attorney Murphy's Editorial for May 1999
Posted May 29, 1999

This issue contains some interesting articles dealing with the latest update on the H1B cap matter. Even though our Congress, in its wisdom, attempted to address the problem of reaching the H1B cap 6 months ahead to help American business, this fiscal year again, we began encountering the H1B cap problem in early April (instead of mid-May like last year), much earlier than anticipated. The details of the H1B cap with a little over 10,000 H1B numbers available for the California Service Center to catch up with the other service centers does not give one much hope for those candidates who have filed the H1B Petition and whose student or other status is expiring prior to October 1, 1999. The Law Office of Sheela Murthy will keep you posted on new developments regarding this important issue.

We have more hope with the Bill introduced to restore discretionary waivers from removal (formerly deportation) which had been eliminated by the harsh 1996 laws. We also have reason to applaud the new changes like bar coding that the INS plans to introduce for naturalization applications.

This summer, in mid June, the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA) is having its Annual meeting in Seattle, Washington, where we will have the opportunity to meet and discuss important immigration-related issues with officials of the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS), the U.S. Department of Labor and the U.S. Department of State. This forum and the exchange of viewpoints have resulted in much of the progress which AILA and your immigration law attorney may have achieved in helping to make the immigration laws more customer oriented. The Law Office of Sheela Murthy will share valuable insights which we believe will help the readers of the Immigration Law Bulletin and our clients.

We take this opportunity to wish you a wonderful summer. We hope you enjoy and benefit from our Bulletin, as always.