• INS Guidance on 245(i)
• Abuse of Women Detainees at Krome Prompts Federal Inquiry
• Uncertainty Over Gender-Based Asylum Claims
• Chapter 6 - L-1 Visas for Intracompany Transferees

A Note from the Editors:

St. Valentine's Day

St Valentine's Day is celebrated every year on February 14, the supposed anniversary of the execution patron saint of lovers, St Valentine. The history of St. Valentine's Day remains unclear, but one of the more popular legends claims that he was a Christian priest in Rome during the reign of Claudius II in the third century. When Claudius ordered that young men could not marry because he needed them to fight for the empire rather than concentrate on their loved ones, Valentine disobeyed the order and secretly married young couples. Valentine was eventually imprisoned and put to death.

The Greek figure Eros, son of Aphrodite, goddess of love and beauty, was know as Cupid in the Roman pantheon. He is portrayed as a mischievous, winged child, whose arrows pierce his victims making them fall deeply in love, and is closely associated with Valentine's Day. Legend has it that Cupid's mother was jealous of the beauty of the Psyche, and ordered Cupid to punish her. Instead, Cupid fell deeply in love with her and married her, but as a mortal she was forbidden to look at him. One day, spurred by her sisters, Psyche looked at Cupid and Cupid hastily departed leaving Psyche on her own. Wandering the earth in search of him, Psyche came across Venus, who imposed difficult and dangerous tasks on her. Finally, moved by Psyche's love, Cupid forgave her and the Gods made her immortal.

On Valentine's Day people all across the country exchange gifts such as sentimental greeting cards, romantic poetry, roses, heart shaped candy, stuffed animals, etc. and many people attend social gatherings or fancy balls to mark the day.

Network Failure

On February 8 technical problems interfered with the scheduled chat with attorney Margaret Stock. The ILW.COM site is hosted on servers which depend on the Sprint network. Sprint carries approximately 30% of the world's Internet traffic. The failure of a Sprint router caused intermittent failures in communication for more than five hours. The problem was not one over which ILW.COM had any control. We share the frustration of Ms. Stock and the visitors to the site over this failure in communication. While the internet benefits people around the world, yesterday's outage was a reminder of its weaknesses.

Abuse of Women Detainees at Krome Prompts Federal Inquiry
Carl R. Baldwin writes that the Department of Justice and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, working with the assistance of the Women's Commission for Refugee Women and Children, are investigating allegations of the rampant abuse of women detainees by INS employees at the Krome Service Processing Center outside Miami.

Uncertainty Over Gender-Based Asylum Claims
Andrés Benach from the offices of Cyrus D. Mehta writes about the regulations clarifying certain issues raised by Matter of R-A-, and the delay in implementation caused by the Bush administration's review of those regulations.