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The Many Faces of Stern Elkind Curray & Alterman LLP

Since 1985,Stern Elkind Curray & Alterman has limited its practice to immigration law, with a special emphasis on matters relating to the employment of foreign professionals. Mr. Stern and Ms. Elkind founded the firm with the goal of providing the very best immigration advice and representation to our clients. As the firm has grown, we have continued our commitment to maintaining a high level of expertise combined with an understanding that our clients are individuals whose lives are deeply affected by the work we do. Over the years, we have developed expertise and wide-ranging experience in all facets of immigration law.

We continue to be deeply affected by our clients, some of whom are introduced within this web site.

US Department of Labor Instructs States on Transition to PERM

October 19, 2004

The U.S. Department of Labor's Employment and Training Administration ("ETA") has issued instructions to State Workforce Agencies ("SWAs") including the Colorado Department of Labor concerning the processing of labor certification applications in the near future.

As background, the instructions indicate an expectation that the long awaited PERM regulations will be published before the end of calendar 2004. In that event, the SWAs will stop accepting labor certification applications 61 days after publication and applications will be processed at one of two ETA national processing centers in Atlanta and Chicago.

In the event the PERM regulations are not published, a contingency plan provides that two centralized backlog reduction centers will process labor certifications. Two backlog reduction centers have been established in Dallas and Philadelphia. At present, these two centers are working to address the backlogs at federal regional offices but it is expected that in the near future, they will begin to process backlogged cases from the SWAs. Funding is being provided by ETA to SWAs to establish transition positions to ship the backlogged labor certifications from the SWAs to the federal backlog reduction centers. These centers are expected to be closed within two years.

As of January 1, 2005, SWAs are directed to stop processing cases received. The SWAs will continue to "date stamp" the applications but they will then be forwarded to one of two separate ETA national processing centers that have been established in Atlanta and Chicago in anticipation of the PERM program.

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