In a word: good. It is now clear that the Comprehensive Immigration Reform bill is dead. The good news is that this has broken the logjam that was holding up smaller immigration bills. One of the most important of these, visa recapture, is now a strong candidate for passage before the end of this year.   

Visa recapture has always been both popular and noncontroversial among members of Congress. To be sure, there are some Senators and Congressmen who will oppose any immigration measure. Fortunately, a sizable majority are on record as supporting this provision.

Unlike other proposals, all this does is reauthorize visas that were previously authorized, but not issued due to the incompetence of the immigration service. This is purely a remedial action and would do nothing more than restore things to where they would have been but for the gross malfeasance of the INS and CIS.

The chances are that this legislation will come up during what is known as the "lame duck" session of Congress, held following the November elections. The time for passage of legislation is short, but there will be ample opportunity to amend this provision to a spending bill that will move through the Congress at the end of the year.

Don't look for news on this until after the election. Once the elections are over, the Congressional leadership will decide what they want to move at the end of the year. It is highly probable that this measure will be included in the bills selected for action.

Depending upon how the legislation is drafted, the numbers of visas recaptured varies. At a minimum, however, we are looking at about 350,000 employment based visas if even the most conservative measure is enacted.

If 350,000 employment based immigrant visas are recaptured, that  will result in all preference categories becoming "current' immediately after passage and remaining "current" for at least the next few years.