These are the folk's who were going to do a background check in 24-hours .... aren't you glad we got the bill killed?


Immigration lawyers to sue over U.S. about-face on visas
By Julia Preston

Friday, July 6, 2007 - INTERNATIONAL HERALD TRIBUNE

A national association of immigration lawyers plans to bring a class-action lawsuit against the U.S. immigration agency for refusing to accept thousands of applications for work-based permanent visas from highly skilled immigrants who were encouraged by the government to apply.

According to accounts Thursday by officials and lawyers, the immigrants were caught in a confrontation between the two federal bodies that control the immigration system: the State Department and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.

The hopes of thousands of foreigners who have been working legally in the United States were unexpectedly raised and then abruptly dashed as a result of the disagreement.

They had responded last month to an announcement that permanent residency visas would be available, but on Monday learned there were none.

The immigration lawyers said the about-face by the immigration system had no precedent in at least three decades of legal practice and that it violated the immigration agency's regulations. The American Immigration Lawyers Association's legal action arm was preparing the lawsuit, said Crystal Williams, deputy director.

Federal officials said a misunderstanding had arisen from an effort by both agencies to reduce huge backlogs of applications for permanent residence visas, known as green cards. Immigration officials acknowledged that the effort was poorly handled.

"Was there a lack of communication between us and the State Department?" said William Wright, a spokesman for the immigration agency. "Certainly."

The episode started June 12, when the State Department announced in a monthly bulletin that green cards would be available starting July 2 for applicants across the range of high-skilled categories. That was a signal to immigrants who have been working in this country on temporary visas that they would be able to apply to become permanent residents.

Thousands of immigrants rushed to obtain certified documents, assemble employer-sponsorship papers, take medical examinations and dispatch their applications. Many canceled travel plans so they could be in the United States when their applications arrived on July 2, as the law required.

But on Monday, the State Department announced that no more green cards were available. Snared in the turnabout were well-educated, highly skilled legal immigrants, many of them doctors and medical technicians, with long work experience in the United States. All had obtained federal certification that no U.S. workers were available for the jobs they hold.

The episode laid bare conflicting interests between the State Department, which manages the offering of visas, and Citizenship and Immigration Services, a branch of the Department of Homeland Security that processes the visa applications.

By law, only about 140,000 employment-based visas are available annually, so there are huge backlogs of applications.

State Department officials said their June alert that visas were available was intended to prompt the immigration agency to speed its processing so that no visas would go unused. Since 2000, 182,694 work-based visas have not been given out because the immigration agency had fallen behind in processing applications, according to the 2007 report of the agency's ombudsman.

"We were determined that every employment number that was available would be used," June Kunsman, acting deputy assistant secretary of state for visa services, said Thursday.

Immigration agency officials said they were surprised by the department's action. They said they immediately advised the department that they had already finished approving enough applications to use 60,000 visas of those offered. Department officials did not revise their public notice offering visas.

"We said we already have more than enough applications, and we expect to complete them in time to use the visa numbers," said Mike Aytes, director of domestic policy operations at the immigration agency.

In its bulletin on Monday, the State Department said that "unexpected action" by the immigration agency had used up all the visas for the 2007 fiscal year.
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http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/07/06/news/visas.php