E-Verify Extended Through March 6, 2009
• On September 30, 2008 the President signed into law an appropriations bill that, among other items, provides additional funding for the E-Verify program until March 6, 2009.  This funding effectively extends the E-Verify program through that date. 

The Department of State released its October Visa Bulletin on September 11, 2008, with much worse news on priority date movement than expected.  This was particularly true for Chinese and Indian nationals.  

For the month of October, EB-2 Chinese nationals face priority date retrogression to April 1, 2004. [This is a 2 year differential from the August 1, 2006 cut off listed under the September Visa Bulletin.]   For EB-2 Indian nationals, priority dates retrogressed almost 3 years, from August 1, 2006 to April 1, 2003.  All other EB-2 foreign nationals are current for the month of October.   All EB-1 (PhD level) foreign nationals remain current.

For the EB-3 category, January 1, 2005 is the cut off priority date which is current for all nationalities except China,  now at October 1, 2001; India,  now at July 1, 2001, Mexico,  now at July 1, 2002 and the  Philippines, now at January 1, 2005. 

As we have previously related, visa retrogression will continue to be a problem until the government increases its current annual allotment of 140,000 employment-based permanent visas.

Stephanie Corinna Smith
Has Joined The Firm

Associate Stephanie Corinna Smith handles both employment-based and family-based immigration and naturalization cases. Ms. Smith has litigated family-based adjustment of status, asylum, and cancellation of removal cases, both in immigration court and at the appellate level. Ms. Smith has also defended criminal cases in state and federal court and advises on the impact criminal convictions have in the immigration context.

Stephanie C. Smith can be reached at (415) 395-9331 or by email at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

Congratulations to Partner, Kirsten Schlenger for once again being named a Super Lawyer in 2008.

Since the 2004 inception of the Super Lawyer poll by Law & Politics, Ms. Schlenger has been selected each year by her peers as a Northern California Super Lawyer (top 5% in the immigration field), and in 2005, was recognized as one of the top 50 women lawyers in Northern California.