News Update - October 4, 2008
By Alan Lee, Esq.†‡
Visa Efficiency and E-Verify Extension Act of 2008 News
In our article, "October
Visa Numbers Open with a Thud: Action Needed Now to Pass the 'Visa
Efficiency and E-Verify Extension Act of 2008' ", we championed
the legislation which would recapture both employment and family
based visa numbers from 1992-2007 that were authorized but never
used. The New York Times has taken up the cause in its October 3,
2008, opinion, "Legal Immigration? Anybody?" to question
the sincerity of congressional anti-immigration hard-liners who
piously say that they love the immigrants and rage against illegal
immigrants, yet when given the chance to help legal immigrants in
a long overdue redress of past failures to correctly distribute
visas, are "strangely uninterested" in helping people
who play by the rules and wait in line. The Times points out that
a companion House bill by Representative Zoe Lofgren of California
could recapture an estimated 550,000 lost visas, and compares the
thousands of potential green cards vanishing every year to unused
cellphone minutes. The Times reiterates the views of many including
this author that recapturing visas is a modest fix that should have
been made a long time ago.
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