SSB ATTORNEYS PRESENT AT IBA ANNUAL MEETING IN SINGAPORE

Several Visalaw International member lawyers presented on immigration topics at the annual meeting of the International Bar Association which was held last month in Singapore. Gunther Maevers papers on German immigration law are posted here.

US: GREG SISKIND TESTIFIES ON CONSULAR PROCESSING IN CONGRESS

Greg Siskind of Visalaw International's US firm Siskind Susser Bland testified yesterday in front of the US House of Representative's Immigration Subcommittee on the need for a Board of Visa Appeals to review denials of green card petitions at US consulates around the world. The hearing was televised and we will link to the video and the written testimony when they are posted shortly on the Subcommittee's web site.

CANADA PLANS CREDENTIAL ACCREDITATION OFFICES IN INDIA AND CHINA

Minister Finley announces overseas expansion of Foreign Credentials Referral Services

New Delhi, India, November 6, 2007 — The Honourable Diane Finley, Minister of Citizenship and Immigration, today announced the expansion of services to help immigrants from India and China get their professional credentials assessed and recognized in Canada as quickly as possible with the assistance of the Foreign Credentials Referral Office (FCRO).
While in India, t he Minister announced the open ing of a new office of the Canadian Immigration Integration Pro ject in New Delhi. The new office, which is centrally located, is in response to increased demand in the region.
“The Government of Canada is committed to helping newcomers succeed, and one way to do that is to help them before they get to Canada,” said Minister Finley. “Too many newcomers have come to Canada only to learn after they’ve arrived what credentials are needed. By expanding our FCRO programs overseas, we’re helping prospective immigrants to get a head start by providing information on the foreign credential recognition process and the Canadian labour market.”
Today’s announcement adds service on a rotational basis in the states of Gujarat and Punjab, which are major sources of skilled immigrants from India. In China, rotational services have been added in Beijing and Shanghai so services are available to more potential immigrants.
Until now, the orientation sessions have been available in three cities in India, China and the Philippines. To date, more than 1,200 prospective immigrants have registered, and benefited. Overall, participants say they are more confident about being able to settle successfully when they arrive in Canada.
When the Foreign Credentials Referral Office was launched in May of 2007, the Government of Canada committed to expanding overseas services. Today’s expansion is another step towards meeting this commitment. The sessions are funded on a pilot basis by Human Resources and Social Development Canada’s Foreign Credential Recognition Program and delivered by the Association of Canadian Community Colleges’ Canadian Immigration Integration Project.
The Foreign Credentials Referral Office was established following consultations with provincial and territorial governments and other key stakeholders, including regulatory and assessment bodies, post secondary education institutions and their national organizations, employers, sector councils, immigrant serving organizations and newcomers themselves. While credential recognition in Canada is a provincial and territorial responsibility, the federal government plays a facilitative role, funding projects and providing a range of information, path-finding and referral services to help internationally trained persons navigate through the foreign credential assessment and recognition processes and obtain up-to-date information about the Canadian labour market.

http://news.gc.ca/web/view/en/index.jsparticleid=359019&categoryid=1&category=News+Releases

CANADA LIFTS VISA REQUIREMENT ON CZECH REPUBLIC AND LATVIA

Under pressure from the EU, Canada has removed the visitor visa requirement (Temporary Resident Visa) for citizens of the Czech Republic and Latvia. The two visa requirements date back to very different sets of circumstances: The visa requirement on citizens of Latvia is a leftover from the breakup of the Soviet Union; Latvia (together with Estonia and Lithuania) was a former Soviet satellite, where citizens used their new found freedom to go abroad and never come back, but the situation changed dramatically when Latvia joined the EU and began experiencing strong economic growth, an incentive for its citizens to stay in Europe. The visa situation with the Czech Republic is more complex: in the 1990s, the Czech Republic enjoyed visa-free status, but a deluge of bogus Czech and Hungarian Roma "refugees", encouraged by unscrupulous lawyers and consultants, inundated Canada's asylum system. It is then surprising that the visa has been removed, and further monitoring to determine if the situation will repeat itself is warranted.

CANADA: PASSPORT OFFICE DELAYS GETTING WORSE, APPLY EARLY!

Delays plague passport office
It takes at least six weeks to get document by mail, two weeks longer than benchmark

TERRY PEDWELL
The Canadian Press
October 29, 2007 at 5:42 AM EDT

OTTAWA — Passport Canada is reporting continued long delays in processing mailed-in passport applications, despite a streamlined renewal process and hundreds of new employees.
And there is concern those delays will only get longer as the busy winter travel season approaches.
Officials blame a glut of new applicants for the delays, as demand for the documents continues to soar.
It now takes a minimum of six weeks to get a passport through the mail; two weeks longer than the agency's benchmark of four weeks.
And that doesn't include the time it takes to get applications and documents through Canada Post.
Passport Canada spokesman Fabien Lengelle said many more people have applied for passports in the past six months than applied within the same period last year.
"The reason we have delays is that we have a very, very high demand," Mr. Lengelle said.
In October, 2006, Passport Canada was issuing about 13,000 passports a day. By late last spring, that number had reached 21,000.
Since the start of April, the beginning of the fiscal year, the agency has issued 2.2 million passports, a 42-per-cent increase from the same period in 2006-2007 when just 1.5 million were issued.
In June, then-foreign affairs minister Peter MacKay announced measures to speed up the processing of passport applications, including a simplified renewal process.
At the time, there was a backlog of roughly 170,000 applications.
Since then, Passport Canada has hired nearly 700 new employees, raising the number of passport officers and clerks to the equivalent of more than 2,600 full-time personnel.
Agency officials won't divulge the size of the current backlog, arguing that the number fluctuates from day to day.
"[Backlog] is not a very accurate measure," Mr. Lengelle said. "Demand is the true driver here."
The new renewal process, which came into effect Aug. 15, allows Canadians to renew their passports without getting guarantors, as long as their current passport is less than a year from expiry and has never been lost or stolen.
Traditionally, the busiest time of year for Passport Canada is the period from Nov. 1 through the end of March.
The agency is preparing for a further upswing in demand, but acknowledges delays could lengthen. "It all depends on demand," Mr. Lengelle said. "If demand goes above capacity, then we will have [further] delays," he added.
"Passport Canada is doing everything it can to raise its capacity to a level where we will be able to meet demand over the coming months."
The agency has been able to maintain a two-week timetable for processing applications delivered in person at passport offices.
As well, Canadians who can apply in person, are willing to pay more and who can prove they will be travelling sooner, can get a passport within 24 hours on an urgent basis, or through Passport Canada's "express" service.
But that doesn't help the thousands of Canadians who have no choice but to use the mail system to obtain travel documents.
Demand for passports has increased dramatically since the United States imposed rules requiring them for air travellers. Similar rules are expected to be in place as early as next summer for land travel across the U.S. border.
In the United States, demand also peaked earlier this year from Americans seeking passports, causing significant disruptions to some people's summer travel plans.
But the State Department announced last month it had worked through a massive backlog of passport applications and that its processing times were back to normal after months of major delays.
However, the normal waiting period for a standard passport application in the United States is six to eight weeks - three weeks for expedited service. U.S. officials deal with 17 million passport applications annually.

Visalaw International's US law firm lawyer Greg Siskind has just had the third edition of his marketing book published by the American Bar Association. He co-authors the book with Google executive Rick Klau and legal industry marketing consultant Deb McMurray.

The book has also had its first review at LexBlog.

VISALAW INTERNATIONAL LAWYERS MEET IN SINGAPORE

Visalaw International lawyers met last week at the Fullerton Hotel in Singapore to discuss matters of mutual concern and visa policies in their respective countries, with a view to assist corporate clients to deal with their immigration needs. Another meeting is set to take place in London in mid-November.