Join us for our monthly telephone conference on I-9 compliance where we will discuss:

• I-9 Laws and Regulations
• Completing the new Form I-9
• Documentation Requirements and Examination
• Document Retention, and
• Discrimination and Penalties
• Open Q&A

Note: April 3, 2009 is the effective date of the new I-9 form for all new hires and re-verification.

New I-9 Form

Government I-9 Guide

For those of you who don’t want to pour through 65 pages of government data, RSVP and join us on April 17 for the straight talk!

Details:

Date: Friday, April 17, 2009
Time:11am PDT  |  2pm  EDT
RSVP:info@immigrationsolution.net
We will reserve your place and provide you with dial in information and your personal access code.

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President Barack Obama will discuss the mounting drug violence south of the border and immigration during his first visit to Mexico next month to meet with Mexican President Felipe Calderón, the White House said Wednesday.

Obama mentioned the trip during a meeting with members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus. Mexican officials issued a statement that said Obama would be in Mexico April 16-17.

“During the meeting, the president announced that he will travel to Mexico next month to meet with President Calderón to discuss the deep and comprehensive U.S.-Mexico relationship, including how the United States and Mexico can work together to support Mexico‘s fight against drug violence and work toward effective, comprehensive immigration reform.

High-level members of Obama’s administration will go to Mexico before him, including Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, who will be in Mexico City and Monterrey from Wednesday through March 26. Attorney General Eric Holder and Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano also are expected to head to Mexico in early April.

Read more information on this article here.

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The President recently commented about the nursing shortage and health service’s providers use of internationally-trained workers to fill the gap in some occupations such as nursing. President Obama said “the notion that we would have to import nurses makes absolutely no sense.”

In response, the AAIHR recognized that the real question surrounding the nursing shortage is healthcare accessibility.

The ideal goals of the Emergency Nurse Supply Relief Act of 2008 is to create funding for nursing schools, and loosen the restrictions surrounding visa quotas. This ideal approach creates a balance of opportunities for a number of interested parties, such as students, schools, employers, internationally trained nurses, domestic nurses, and even more importantly – patients.

For more information on the President’s recent comments:
We share this statement with you from AAIHR.org

Bradford Smith, General Counsel for Microsoft Corp., responded to Sen. Charles Grassley’s request for more information about the company’s plans to eliminate up to 5,000 jobs over the next 18 months.

Highlights of the letter include Smith’s statement that the lay-offs planned by Microsoft will occur here in the U.S. and throughout the world, with the largest amount of lay-offs occurring in Washington State (where the largest amount of Microsoft employees work). Smith reiterated that lay-offs would affect U.S. and non-U.S. citizens alike and employees inside the U.S. and throughout the world.

In addition, in his letter, he reinforced Microsoft’s belief and support in the H-1B program and the importance of companies like Microsoft being able to continue recruiting exceptional talent from throughout the world:

“H1-B employees have always accounted for less than 15 percent of Microsoft’s U.S. workforce, the level that is used in immigration law to determine whether a company is “H-1B dependent.” Nonetheless, the ability to tap into the world’s best minds has long been essential to our success. Although they are a small percentage of our workforce, H-1B workers have long made crucial contributions to Microsoft’s innovation successes and to our ability to help create jobs in this country. We are confident this will continue to be true in the future.”

Smith also commented in his letter that Microsoft does not plan to reduce significantly the proportion of H-1B employees in its workforce after this planned lay-off of 5,000 employees.

The full text of Smith’s response can be read online here.

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Posted on Immigration Daily 3/13/09

The Federal Times reports that USCIS is spending over half a billion dollars to digitize its paper files so that it can process immigration applications over the internet instead of through US postal service. “The agency signed a five-year contract with IBM in November; the company will be the lead systems integrator on the project. It’s tasked with digitizing the agency’s processing system, which currently relies on some 70 million paper files scattered at hundreds of locations across the country.” The IBM contract – the latest in a series of modernization projects at the agency – could eventually shave months off processing times.

Read more about this story at FederalTimes.com

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Of note, there have been some substantial changes in the EB-3 category in which virtually all RNs are classified for green-card purposes. The cut-off date for worldwide and the Philippines retrogressed from May 1, 2005 to March 1, 2003, while EB-3 for India advanced 16 days to 11/01/2001. We were warned that this might happen at the start of this current fiscal year in October 2008.

The cut-off dates for the retrogressed EB-3 subcategories – which cover all countries except India and China – are effective immediately. This retrogression is due to the increased demand for visa numbers by USCIS in adjustment of status cases for persons already in the USA. Therefore, beginning today, March 9, 2009, Immigrant visa applications overseas should be processed according to the March 2009 Visa Bulletin, as the March 2009 visa numbers were allocated to the consular posts by the State Department at the beginning of the month. USCIS will not accept applications for adjustment of status in the retrogressed EB-3 subcategories unless the priority date is current under the April 2009 Visa Bulletin.

In April, priority date cut-offs for the first three employment-based categories will be as follows:

* EB-1: Current for all countries.
* EB-2: China – February 15, 2005; India – February 15, 2004; all other countries – current.
* EB-3 Professionals and Skilled Workers: India – November 1, 2001; all other countries – March 2003.
* EB-3 Other Workers: All countries – March 1, 2001.
The notes to the Visa Bulletin indicate that depending upon future demand for visa numbers for the remainder of fiscal year 2009 (through September 30, 2009), further retrogression and unavailability is possible. It further indicates that this situation is temporary pending release of the October 2009 Visa Bulletin – the start of fiscal year 2010.

Although this is the not the greatest of news, in an effort to continue to keep you informed with accurate information, we’d rather you hear this from us then in the chat rooms and nurse forums. We remain optimistic that new legislation will be enacted this year to increase visas for nurses and speed up the process.

If you’re an employer, compliance with immigration laws is crucial. We are in a historic moment regarding U.S. Immigration reforms. Major U.S. companies have been slapped with steep fines for non-compliance with immigration laws and contractors have been closed and even jailed for employing illegal immigrants.

Now is the time for prudent companies to implement a Corporate Immigration Compliance Program. Our firm’s years of experience and knowledge with employer compliance and worksite enforcement issues can assist your business in offsetting the extent of sanctions and other ICE enforcement threats. Because of this, employer compliance is becoming more complex and enforcement (investigations and audits) is increasing.

In order to effectively deal with these issues and avoid the very severe consequences for non-compliance, employers must take the time to develop a strategy and be prepared in advance with an Immigration Compliance Program. Immigration Solutions has created a package of services and solutions to assist you with your compliance procedures that can be tailored to your specific needs and concerns.

Review our services page for more information.

Contact us, we’ll be glad to schedule an initial consultation with a licensed immigration attorney who specializes in compliance, 562 612.3996 or info@immigrationsolution.net

On February 11, 2009, a new Nurse Relief Act was introduced in the House – HR 1001.

The purpose of this Act is to create a new nonimmigrant, temporary visa category for registered nurses – the W Visa, that will work in a very similar way as the H-1B visa.

The bill is a good one for nurses, healthcare providers and, of course, for patients. Whether or not it survives and garners the recognition that it urgently requires at this time in our nation and makes it though the arduous process in the House and Senate and passes – well, we don’t have a crystal ball on this one.  We are, however, extremely pleased to see the issue brought before the House once again this year and salute all the sponsors -and are hopeful that it passes.

The Findings and Purpose of the Bill:

1. There are more vacant nursing positions in the United States than there are qualified registered nurses and nursing school candidates to fill those positions.
2. According to the Department of Labor, the current national nursing shortage exceeds 126,000.
3. States in the West and Southwest have a disproportionate number of nursing vacancies because of rapid population growth, which exacerbates a widening gap in the number of facilities and staff compared to patients that need care.
4. Foreign countries such as the Philippines, India, and China have an oversupply of nurses.
5. Major hospital systems in the United States spend hundreds of millions of dollars every year recruiting foreign nurses under our current immigration system.
6. Current law, with certain limited exceptions, requires health care providers to sponsor desired nurses for permanent resident status while the nurses remain outside of the United States, which can take as much as 3 years or more.
7. This cost is passed on to consumers and adds to the rising cost of health care.
8. Health care providers cannot efficiently and effectively recruit qualified foreign nurses through the existing immigration process.
9. Our health care system requires an immediate modification of Federal laws relating to recruitment of qualified foreign nurses in order to operate at an efficient and effective level.

Read more about the bill here.

Read the White House Immigration Agenda here.

On February 12, Chairman Patrick Leahy and Ranking Member Arlen Specter announced membership lists for the Senate Judiciary Committee’s subcommittees in the 111th Congress.

There will be six subcommittees: Administrative Oversight and the Courts; Antitrust, Competition Policy and Consumer Rights; The Constitution; Crime and Drugs; Immigration, Refugees and Border Security; and Terrorism and Homeland Security…

Senator Schumer has been a big proponent of Comprehensive Immigration Reform and co-sponsored the Nurse Relief Act of 2008.

Learn how Schumer has voted on Immigration

For more information on the subcommittees being announced:
Read this article from OnTheIssues.org

Immigration, Refugees and Border Security

Democratic Members
Charles Schumer, New York (Chairman)
Patrick Leahy, Vermont
Dianne Feinstein, California
Richard Durbin, Illinois
Sheldon Whitehouse, Rhode Island
Ron Wyden, Oregon

Republican Members
John Cornyn, Texas (Ranking Member)
Charles Grassley, Iowa
Jon Kyl, Arizona
Jeff Sessions, Alabama

$500 Million for Nursing and Health Professional Training

$300 Million is to be allocated to the National Health Service Corps with the remaining for Titles VII and VIII for health professional and nurse development programs.

American Association of Colleges of Nursing President Fay Raines said in a press statement, “Nurse educators are grateful for this infusion of funding which will help nursing schools battle the financial challenges they are currently facing.”

Additional provisions in the bill:

• $2 Billion in renovations and health IT purchases for community health centers
• $9.5 Billion for biomedical research
• $1.1 billion for comparing the effectiveness of treatments funded by Medicare, Medicaid and the State Children’s Health Insurance Plans (SCHIP)
• $2 Billion for the Office of national Coordinator for Health Information Technology
• $50 Million to improve IT security at the Dept of Health and Human Services

For a copy of the bill: www.Recovery.gov