Dear Readers:

There were several long-awaited announcements that were released this week on various immigration issues. First, the July 26^th deadline for health care workers in non-immigrant status to comply with VisaScreen was reached today. A modest extension of that deadline was approved. Basically, any Canadians or Mexicans who held TN or TC status and worked in the US prior to September 23, 2003 with a US license are eligible for an additional year without having to have the credentialing certificate in place. Everyone else must have the credentialing in hand prior to entering the US or prior to their next status extension.

F-1 and J-1 students got a break as USCIS issued a blanket extension of their status if they request an H-1B change of status with an October 1^st start date. Note that J-1s in other categories (such as physicians in graduate medical training) and J-1s subject to the 212(e) home residency requirement are not covered by the extension.

People waiting on notification that they have won the lottery can now get on with their lives. The State Department confirmed that all winners of the DV-2005 green card lottery have been notified.

Finally, there are more signs that the Labor Department is getting ready to roll out the PERM e-filing system for labor certifications. This week they proposed a rule centralizing labor certification processing for backlogged cases, something that is an important part of the planned switchover to the new program.

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