The American Immigration Lawyers Association held their annual conference in Las Vegas from June 3rd to June 6th. Approximately one thousand immigration attorneys from around the country attended the conference. The opening speeches were inspiring and optimistic, hoping for comprehensive immigration reform (“CIR”) in the near future. Several speakers stated that they hoped that CIR would be possible ‘because’ of the economy and not inspite of the economy. Much information and updates were shared by the various agencies. One such important information, I thought, was that employment based first preference visas (EB1) are likely to become unavailable in the coming months. The conference was a 4-day event covering every topic in immigration law.