For years, immigration lawyers have advised those with status problems to come up with contingency plans to deal with potential separation from loved ones. A report in today's USA Today discusses how the increasingly tough environment for illegally present immigrants around the US is forcing many to take this advice more seriously.

According to new data from the federal government's National Center for Health Statistics, Hispanics in the US outlive whites by 2.5 years and blacks by more than seven years. Researchers are struggling to understand why, but some theorize that the "healthy migrant effect" may be at work. The idea is that people who migrate tend to be healthier than those that stay put. Now scientists will study the differences between native-born and immigrant Hispanics as well as different Hispanic communities and also compare their mortality rates to other immigrant communities in order to learn why there are such disparities in lifespan.

Lovely...

1300 regular H-1Bs were claimed last week and 500 masters cap cases, each slightly more than the recent pace, but not enough to change the target date for exhaustion of either category. Look for masters cap numbers to run out around the end of the year and regular cap numbers to run out in March unless the pace starts to change.

Congressman Luis Guitierrez is sounding like piecemeal immigration reform will be the new order of the day in the next Congress. Here's what the Cleveland Plain Dealer is reporting:

The man widely seen as the leader of the nation's immigration reform movement told a Cleveland audience Monday that a worthy but flagging crusade may need to lower its expectations.

Rep. Luis Gutierrez, a Democrat from Chicago, said the quest to change the nation's immigration system -- and to offer illegal immigrants a path to citizenship -- needed more fervor and, perhaps, less lofty goals.

If comprehensive immigration reform cannot be achieved with a Democratic congress and a pro-immigrant president, he said, it may be the impossible dream.

"Maybe it's time to change the language, to change the strategy, to change what it is we're shooting for," Gutierrez told a largely Hispanic audience gathered at a landmark African-American church on Cleveland's East Side. "Either we achieve comprehensive immigration reform, or we stop the destructive nature of our immigration system."

ImmigrationWorksUSA is launching a national petition drive, President Obama, Can You Hear Us Now? to let the Administration know that that business needs an immigration reform bill and one that will work for America's employers. While the business community is highly supportive of strong enforcement measures to prevent illegal immigration and also a pragmatic path to legal status for the millions of individuals illegally present in the US, business needs to remind the President that immigration reform is incomplete and ultimately unworkable unless the question of the fugure flow of workers is addressed through the establishment of a genuine guest worker program. To sign on to the petition, click here.

My friend David Leopold, current president of the American Immigration Lawyers Association (I'm on its board of governors) talks to Nora O'Donnell of MSNBC about Lou Dobbs, the new deportation statistics and the need for immigration reform.