Apparently there are some people in the immigrant community who misunderstand that the immigrant visa and H-1B recaptures or spouse/children special provisions may take effect soon. Passage of H.R. 4241 does not mean that the immigration bills have also passed the House. The H.R. 4241, unlike the Senate S.1932, did not include the immigration bills. Then why did the immigrant community monitor the passage of this bill? Both S. 1932 of the Senate and H.R. 4241 are two different versions of the same legislation named Omnibus Deficit Reduction Act ( also called Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act) and unless the House bill, H.R. 4241, passes, the process of conference to compromise between the House bill and the Senate bill will not be commenced. Since the House bill did not include the immigration packet, while the Senate bill included immigration packet, the immigrant community wanted to see that the conference process would start as early as possible so that they will know whether the Congress will eventually accept the S. 1932 immigration packet and legislate it into a law.
In this regard, the passage of H.R. 4241 is not the end but the beginning of the process to get the Senate S.1932 immigration recapture bill be passed as part of the final version of the Ominibus Deficit Reduction Act. The Congress will go into the Thanksgiving holiday recess from next week and no voting sessions will start until next month. Due to another big holidays ahead, Christritmas and New Year, the Congress will have a very limited time to wrap up the legislative activities of the First Session of the 109th Congress. Report indicates that the conference process is likely to start next month when the Congress returns to the Hill. Since this is the beginning of the process to get the immigration bills accepted by the both Houses, the business, academic, and immigrant communities should expand their efforts for the next one week or so in order to assure that the current immigration clog be relieved as soon as possible.