1. New International Students Will Start to Arrive Soon
2. July Visa Numbers For Employment-Based Permanent Residency Applicants Cease to be “Current”
3. Immigration Reform Legislation Fails in the U.S. Senate

1. New International Students Will Start to Arrive Soon

July is the height of the visa-processing season for new students coming to the United States to study. At Binghamton, we anticipate having a record entering class of new undergraduate and graduate students.  We are hearing positive news about visa issuance from students in most countries.

Federal regulations permit new international students in F or J status to enter the United States as early as 30 days prior to the start date on their I-20 or DS-2019.  The start date for this coming fall is August 20, 2007, the first day of International Student Orientation.  The start date for exchange students is August 19, 2007. Thus, we expect to see some early arrivals in just a few weeks.

If you are assisting a new student, please bring them to the ISSS so that we can greet them, note their arrival, and give them early arrival information.

2. July Visa Numbers For Employment-Based Permanent Residency Applicants Cease to be “Current”

In the June 18, 2007 edition of ISSS-BU News, it was reported that the State Department's Visa Bulletin for July 2007 announced that nearly all employment-based U.S. permanent resident visa numbers would be “current” for July 2007.   See:http://isss.binghamton.edu/news/isssbu2007/Jun182007.html#three
 
There are five categories of employment-based U.S. permanent residents visas. For some categories, sufficient visas are available each year to meet the demand. For others, there is such high demand that world-wide, there can be backlogs of as long as four years. If an applicant is a national of Mexico, China, The Philippines or India (all countries that have large numbers of citizens immigrating to the United States) the backlogs can be even longer and can extend to employment-based visa categories that may be available for citizens of other countries.

In its announcement, the State Department indicated that the “current” status might not last long due to high demand, and predicted retrogressions (role backs) as soon as August or September.

However, no one anticipated that as soon as July 2, the State Department would announce that employment-based visa numbers would be unavailable.  But, that is exactly what happened.   US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) undertook an unexpected backlog reduction effort that resulted in 60,000 employment based permanent residency visas being used up.  New applicants who were preparing to file in anticipation of the availability of visa numbers during the month of July were caught short.   There are questions being raised whether USCIS followed its own policies and regulations by approving so many applications so quickly, and the American Immigration Lawyers Foundation plans to file a lawsuit in U.S. court.

The result is that there are thousands of very disappointed employment-based permanent applicants, who thought that they would have the opportunity to file during the month of July.  To read more, visit:
http://travel.state.gov/visa/frvi/bulletin/bulletin_3263.html
http://www.uscis.gov

3. Immigration Reform Legislation Fails in the U.S. Senate

What some referred to as “Comprehensive Immigration Reform” legislation in the U.S. Senate failed to obtain sufficient votes to limit debate and allow for a vote on the legislation itself to take place.   The legislation was pulled on June 28 and will likely not re-appear until after the 2008 Presidential elections.

The legislation was controversial because it contained some provisions that both sides of the immigration debate found unsupportable.

To read more, visit: http://chronicle.com/news/index.php?id=2580
http://www.nafsa.org/public_policy.sec/international_student_1/immigration_reform_issues/immigration_reform_stalls_2

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