On October 25, the USCIS announced that it had received over 6,000 H-1B visa applications in the past 30 days, with only about 12,000 visas remaining. Once the H-1B Visas are exhausted, applicants will have to wait Oct 1, 2010 to begin working under next year’s H-1B work visas. Apply early before the H-1B visas are gone.

On October 30, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) lifted a ban against immigrants and other foreign nationals who are HIV-positive, and will allow such individuals to enter U.S. beginning January 4, 2010.

The new regulations remove ‘‘Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) infection’’ from the definition of communicable disease of public health significance and remove references to ‘‘HIV’’ from the scope of medical examinations for aliens. Prior to this final rule, aliens with HIV infection were considered to have a communicable disease of public health significance and were thus inadmissible to the U.S. As a result of this rule, foreign nationals will no longer be inadmissible into the United States based solely on the ground they are infected with HIV, and they will not be required to undergo HIV testing as part of the required medical examination for U.S. immigration.

In a recent push to gain momentum on Immigration Reform initiatives, over 100 democratic Congressional representatives signed a letter supporting President Obama’s promise for and dedication to Comprehensive Immigration Reform. House Democrats expressed their commitment to “fix our broken immigration system” and “strong support for moving forward on fair and humane comprehensive immigration reform this year.”

As a leader in recent rallies in Washington to support immigration reform, House Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-IL) announced that he will introduce a major immigration reform bill as early as next month. At the same time, momentum appears to be growing for passage of the DREAM Act as part of the general immigration reform initiative.

On Capital Hill, bi-partisan immigration briefings were held in the Senate sponsored by Senators Richard Durbin (D-IL) and Richard Lugar (R-IN) and in the House sponsored by Representatives Howard Berman (D-CA) and Diaz-Balart (R-FL), which included pro-immigration reform  immigrants’ rights groups, faith-based organizations and Dream Act activists.