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Due to technical issues with our web-hosting company, we unfortunately lost some data on our website between February and May 2007. We apologize if this caused any inconvenience. Please feel free to contact Ms. Yardum-Hunter for further information at 818 609 1953.

ABA seminar 10/28 and ilw chat 10/3

Alice Yardum-Hunter will be speaking at the semi-annual conference of the Armenian Bar Assn. On October 28, 2006 in Philadelphia at the Marriott Hotel along with renowned author and litigator, Ira Kurzban.

Ms. Yardum-Hunter will also lead an online chat on October 3, 2006 at 2 PM Pacific Time at http://ilw.com.

Chat On Line

On February 7, 2006 at 2 PM Pacific Time (5 PM Eastern Time), Alice will lead a chat on immigration law at ilw.com. Alice has been chatting here forthe past several years. There's no fee to chat, so please, stop by.

Super Lawyer 3rd year in a row

For the third year in a row, Alice Yardum-Hunter has been honored with the Super Lawyer designation published by Los Angeles Magazine and Law and Politics. After a survey of 65,000 lawyers, a blue ribbon panel review process and independent research of her background, she remains within the elite group of top 2% of immigration lawyers in Southern California.

Canadian Opinions...

Here’s what California Canadians have had to say about me lately…

1/24- 26/06 – From the California Canadians list serve lately:

OK, so can we all just agree that Alice is amazing, and we love having her on board, and her advice is ALWAYS welcome and we don't ever want her to leave us....
karine

Great support for Alice . . . it was unanimous with a great response by
everyone. Keep up the great work Alice !
Thanks
Kris
San Diego / Vancouver

I hardly write in, but everytime I do I get great advice on issues that only you all would know about and it has been a tremendous help. That goes for you especially Alice, mostly because you have access to information that few of us on here have, so thank you...you have been helpful to a lot of us who just read to keep in the know. Risa/Toronto

Thank you Alice. Your help as always is appreciated.
Will call you when I can switch over to you.
Jennifer

Along those lines, thank you Alice for helping my sister Catherine get back into the states. She was so nervous, they went across the border at a smaller station with her CA girlfriend helping her drive, and 3 huge dogs in the back. She sold her car that she bought in CA (that had BC plates) and bought a car up there that had been originally registered in CA from a dealer that winters down here often. The funny thing in the guy didn't even look up or ask her where she was from or going! 
Cynde


Talk all you want Alice! Your thoughts and opinions are a valuable resource!
Jennifer W - Aliso Viejo / Toronto

I am honestly blown away by the time and effort you put into your postings to set people straight on immigration. Well Canucks... I don't know about you guys, but sometimes I read Alice's replies to immigration questions and think, "who has the time to put together such a concise and comprehensive response like this?" I think that Alice is a very valuable contributor to the board. I learn alot when I read her responses. I think you are probably the most valuable member of the discussion group!
Best regards,
Maureen

My wife is Canadian and she is finishing up her final semester of law school here in California. From our experience of going through the immigration system and from her studies into immigration and Constitutional Law, I can assure you that Alice is giving great advice and we should all be so lucky.
Joe

Alice…provides tons of free advice and when appropriate suggests that we pay for further use of services. She has done this to me personally and I respect her for it, and I plan to use her services to get my employers to pay for my H-1 and my PERM
application. 
Wendy

Alice has been around…she has always provided legal perspective…Alice having been apprised as to the circumstances, felt that her knowledge is competent to get (Name)and her family through the border crossing and likely more…She provides a very valuable service, professional insight, and intelligent prose.
Chelsea

I have found the information that Alice contributes is very important.
Alice contributes of her own free will and the operational word is FREE. 
Les

Yardum-Hunter Invited to Join INLAC

The Immigration and Nationality Law Advisory Commission (INLAC). This body, appointed by the Board of Governor's of the State Bar of California. Ms. Yardum-Hunter is declining acceptance to this important position because of other professional commitments, however she is very flattered. Ms. Yardum-Hunter served many years ago on the commission from 1992 to 1995.

Diversity Lottery 2007 Starts 10/5

The Department of State announced that registration for the 2007 Diversity Visa (DV) Lottery will begin at noon on October 5, 2005 for two months. Persons seeking to enter the lottery program must register online through the designated Internet website during the registration period. Applicants are encouraged to enter early to receive early. The website for registering for the 2007 DV Lottery, www.dvlottery.state.gov, will be available from noon October 5, 2005 through noon December 4, 2005.

Real Approvals in Small Business Immigration

They say the sun always shines in California, and that surely seems to be the case in Laguna Niguel, home of the California Service Center, but not just there. "Almost everything now is being approved," according to very reliable sources within the California Service Center. It seems that policy has changed from top to bottom. Fuji Ohata, national Director of Service Center Operations for CIS, called it quits on routine denials and Requests for Evidence. Requests for Evidence are those pesky letters from CIS requesting sometimes little documentation, sometimes the kitchen sink. Hooray! Demise of the routine RFE and denial is very, very good news, especially for small businesses, which were the target of bad news from CIS in the recent past. In the old days of just a few years ago, tiny companies of one person, without million dollar income could be easily approved for H-1 or L-1 status. O-1s and P-1s were permitted for other than Nobel prize winners and top paid league players. Immigrant employment cases were not bogged down in a system of attrition and could be approved in reasonable time frames. Progressively over time after 9/11 things began to change for the worse. Many a lawyer complained about a 50% denial and RFE rate. Not me, fortunately, as I prepare my cases with lots of work by both me and my client to avoid RFEs and denials like the plague. Still, these hurdles concerned me as well as my clients. 

The genesis of the problems was of course, 9/11 as well as bad press about a few bad apples who abused the immigration system and ruined it for everyone else. According to last year's Chief Counsel of CIS, adjudicators nationwide were scared to death of approving cases of terrorists. What if they made a mistake? Could thousands of people die as a result? Their response was to not approve cases. That mentality persisted, increasingly over time after 9/11. 

BUT EUREKA, in one fell swoop, rampant denials and RFEs are ending. It seems Ms. Ohata got tired of the problems and the broken lives of business people who are working very hard to abide by the immigration laws. She has directed her supervisors to start approving cases. It seems nearly everything is getting approved now! So risk takers, roll up your sleeves, and be prepared to work legally in the U.S.! Your time has returned! How long will this last? No one knows, so, enjoy the possibilities while they last and file your case as soon as it makes sense to do so. 

REAL ID Act Not All Bad

Though it will be tough for undocumented aliens to secure driver's licenses now that President Bush has signed the REAL ID Act (H.R. 1268), there are some gems associated with this legistlation. Here they are:

1. For H-2B (temporary non-professionals) - numbers will be allocated equally between two parts of the fiscal year to allow more availability of workers in summer positions. Also, returning H-2s will be exempt from the cap for fiscal year 2006.

2. For E-3 aliens from Australia, a new quota of 10,5000 will be available for nationals of Australia. This has the effect of increasing the H cap by allowing Australians another option, freeing up that many H-1s for other nationalities.

3. For nurses and physical therapists filing under Schedule A permanent residence, 50,000 additional visas will be allocated. Finally, some response is available to the nursing shortage in the U.S.

4. The cap on the number of asylees who are eligible to adjust status to permanent residence and the number of those eligible for asylum based on coersive population controls is eliminated.

5. Eliminates the bar to some judicial review.

20,000 H-1s for US Master Degreed Aliens

Legislation effective March 8, 2005 allowing 20,000 U.S. master degreed aliens to be exempt from the annual 65,000 cap on H-1s became operational with CIS regulations today. Starting May 12, 2005, these visas will be available. There are several special rules governing these filings, including submission at a special address in Vermont. Also, those qualified who have already applied for fiscal year 2006 can upgrade to fiscal year 2005 for pending and approved casese. There are other special rules too contained in the May 5, 2005 Federal Register. Pent up need for filing will result in a surge of filings and it is currently unknown how long the H-1s will remain available.

Speaking Engagement

Ms. Yardum-Hunter delivered a talk to educate the Capistrano Valley Republican Women, Federated group about current immigration issues. She exposed unknown, often ignored and misunderstood facts about immigration in the U.S.

Email Service Switch

Our email service was down for a few hours as we were switching exclusively to alice@yardum-hunter.com via DSL. No longer will we receive email at aliyardum-hunter@mindspring.com. In the process, we may have inadvertently deleted your email as suspected spam. If you did not receive a response to email sent today, please try again. We apologize for any inconvenience that may have resulted.

2004 and 2005 Attorney Yardum-Hunter Voted Among Top immigration Lawyers

Attorney Alice Yardum-Hunter was selected for inclusion in the inaugural and second anniversary issue of ""Southern California Super Lawyers, The Ultimate Guide to The Best Attorneys in Southern California""®, published jointly by Law & Politics and Los Angeles Magazine. Ms. Yardum-Hunter was selected by a blue-ribbon national panel of peers practicing in the field of immigration law after a preliminary survey of 65,000 lawyers in 2004 and 2005.

New Labor Certification Regulations

Today, the US Department of Labor issued final regulations after 2 1/2 years of proposed regulations for processing permanent residence by sponsoring employers on behalf of employees. Known as "PERM", the new regulations make substantial changes, most of which are beneficial including quick processing times (45 days as opposed to years of waiting) and streamlined requirements. Responsibility is put on the employer to keep records in-house, rather than bogging down the government, as was required in the past. We look forward to handling these cases in a much cleaner, faster way.