New immigration law passed

Recently, the retiring president Bill Clinton and the Republican-ruled Congress have agreed on a new immigration package. This will be called "Legal Immigration and Family Equity Act (LIFE)" and is basically the Republican alternative to Clinton's original suggestion, the LIFA (Latino Immigration Fairness Act). This is also supposed to be a kind of "start-up grant" for the new president Bush, because he had made some promises to the Hispanic part of the population. The three most important regulations:

1. One time only the US will grant something like an "amnesty" for people willing to immigrate, who are already in the US when the law is signed. Under this amendment, all those who fall under an immigration category and would be qualified to immigrate, but are not allowed to change their status due to earlier violation of immigration law (e.g. illegal immigration into the US), will get a chance. Usually, these people would be facing an entry ban of 3 to 10 years, so that they couldn't further pursue their visa application. For a fine of $1,000 they are now allowed to further pursue their immigration application. All applications must have been filed by April 30, 2001 at the latest.

2. A new, temporary V-Visa will be made available. It can be applied for by spouses and children of green card holders who have been waiting for more than three years in their respective categories (see Visa Bulletin below). With this transitional visa the family members may stay and work in the US until they can be issued a green card. The visa will even be issued in case the person has been living or working illegally in the US before. This is especially interesting for green card winners who don't want to move to the US right away. Up to now, due to the long waiting times, there was no real alternative than to apply for the green card for the entire family right away. However, now it might be easier to have the rest of the family come over later ... if you are one of our winners we will he happy to advise you on this.

3. The existing "K" Visa will be expanded. In the future it will not only be for fiancé(e)s of US citizens who want to get married in the US, but also for spouses and children of US citizens who are living abroad. Working in the US is explicitly permitted.