There are so many heartbreaking stories in immigration. Just today, we hear the news of the arrest by Mexican authorities of the suspect in the shocking, brazen, and terrible shooting death of an American border agent that happened a few days ago. And on this same day, a jury sentenced to death an American anti-immigrant activist who orchestrated the heinous, criminal and tragic home invasion shooting death of a 9 year old girl.
I can't comment on the specifics of these stories, you can read all the details yourselves on the links provided. But I have to say the following. I got into immigration law because I was an immigrant myself, as were my parents and my grandparents. We had to flee our home country due to circumstances beyond our control and beyond even our comprehension. Far from the political wheelers and dealers and the extremist factions, it is the average people, the families with small children, the elderly, the disabled, the hopeless, who are the ones who suffer from the turmoil of civil war and unrest, revolutions and coups, drug wars and genocide. And for most of these people, their dream is to attain the West. Not that Western countries are perfect. But no matter how flawed or imperfect Western countries are, it is a reality that this is where people seek refuge because they feel they have the most chance at safety and a normal life, and yes, even maybe happiness.
News stories like the ones I have read today break my heart. So much death, destruction, and hate, that will only add to the fuel of more death, destruction, and hate...
Thursday, February 24, 2011
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
New policy on Gay marriage may affect immigration
President Obama, in a major legal policy shift, has directed the Justice Department to stop defending the Defense of Marriage Act — the 1996 law that bars federal recognition of same-sex marriages — against lawsuits challenging it as unconstitutional.
Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. sent a letter to Congress on Wednesday saying that the Justice Department will now take the position in court that the act should be struck down as a violation of same-sex couples’ rights to equal protection under the law.
The government’s new position could have far-reaching implications for the rights of gays and lesbians that extend beyond the Defense of Marriage Act, for example in immigration law, where right now, only marriages between a man and a woman are recognized and therefore given the right to sponsor a spouse for a Green Card.
To read more about this, you can read the article in the New York Times here.
Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. sent a letter to Congress on Wednesday saying that the Justice Department will now take the position in court that the act should be struck down as a violation of same-sex couples’ rights to equal protection under the law.
The government’s new position could have far-reaching implications for the rights of gays and lesbians that extend beyond the Defense of Marriage Act, for example in immigration law, where right now, only marriages between a man and a woman are recognized and therefore given the right to sponsor a spouse for a Green Card.
To read more about this, you can read the article in the New York Times here.
Tuesday, February 22, 2011
The Beacon: USCIS' Official Blog
The Beacon is USCIS' Official Blog. You can subscribe to it to get the latest news and info on immigration forms, filing fees, deadlines for applications etc.
The latest post has photos of the naturalization ceremony conducted in Afghanistan for U.S. military personnel.
I am sometimes asked if you can get a (quicker) path to citizenship if you sign up for the Army. There are certain special provisions made to make it smoother and in some cases quicker for military personnel to acquire citizenship as well as extending immigration benefits to the spouse and children of a deceased military personnel. By the same token, dishonorable discharge and other conditions may bar or revoke citizenship. More information can be found on the USCIS facsheet on naturalization of military personnel, here.
The latest post has photos of the naturalization ceremony conducted in Afghanistan for U.S. military personnel.
I am sometimes asked if you can get a (quicker) path to citizenship if you sign up for the Army. There are certain special provisions made to make it smoother and in some cases quicker for military personnel to acquire citizenship as well as extending immigration benefits to the spouse and children of a deceased military personnel. By the same token, dishonorable discharge and other conditions may bar or revoke citizenship. More information can be found on the USCIS facsheet on naturalization of military personnel, here.
Sunday, February 20, 2011
New Governmental Initiative against Fraudulent Immigration Service Providers
The USCIS has released the transcripts of a press conference held by its director Alejandro Mayorkas on February 17, to answer questions and highlight the achievements of the previous year as well as anticipate the goals for the current year.
Among USCIS accomplishments in the year 2010, Mr. Mayorkas mentioned:
-10,000 issued U visas (which I spoke about in an earlier blog)
-620,000 new naturalized citizens
-565,000 Green Cards approved
As for the goals for this year, there were the usual stated goals of improving USCIS operation and customer service and strenghtening security measures. Interestingly, there is also a new initiative against the unauthorized practice of immigration law or UPIL initiative. It remains vague as to what exactly the initiative will accomplish.
Unauthorized practice of immigration law has been prevalent in "hot" immigration jurisdictions like Los Angeles, because it is easy to prey on immigrants who face language, educational, financial etc. barriers and thus everyday we hear stories of "notarios" and even attorneys swindling people of money under false promises and putting them in a collision course with the law, unbeknownst to them. Even though fraud is so prevalent, there has been very little that the defrauded individuals could do as recourse.
Neither the USCIS nor the state criminal prosecutors or police have shown much interest in going after these people. The most an attorney like me could do, if presented with such a set of facts, is to help the client file a complaint with the Consumer Affairs Office. And very little has come out of that! I mean, these non-attorney immigration "law" offices are not regulated at all. Only in really egregious cases have we seen the closing down of the offices, and most often than not, those same individuals pop up somehwere else, under a new company name and start all over again. Very frustrating to say the least!
The entire transcripts of the Press Conference can be read here.
Among USCIS accomplishments in the year 2010, Mr. Mayorkas mentioned:
-10,000 issued U visas (which I spoke about in an earlier blog)
-620,000 new naturalized citizens
-565,000 Green Cards approved
As for the goals for this year, there were the usual stated goals of improving USCIS operation and customer service and strenghtening security measures. Interestingly, there is also a new initiative against the unauthorized practice of immigration law or UPIL initiative. It remains vague as to what exactly the initiative will accomplish.
Unauthorized practice of immigration law has been prevalent in "hot" immigration jurisdictions like Los Angeles, because it is easy to prey on immigrants who face language, educational, financial etc. barriers and thus everyday we hear stories of "notarios" and even attorneys swindling people of money under false promises and putting them in a collision course with the law, unbeknownst to them. Even though fraud is so prevalent, there has been very little that the defrauded individuals could do as recourse.
Neither the USCIS nor the state criminal prosecutors or police have shown much interest in going after these people. The most an attorney like me could do, if presented with such a set of facts, is to help the client file a complaint with the Consumer Affairs Office. And very little has come out of that! I mean, these non-attorney immigration "law" offices are not regulated at all. Only in really egregious cases have we seen the closing down of the offices, and most often than not, those same individuals pop up somehwere else, under a new company name and start all over again. Very frustrating to say the least!
The entire transcripts of the Press Conference can be read here.
Friday, February 18, 2011
Family Petitions Delay addressed by USCIS
On February 8, USCIS posted a notification regarding the delay in processing of approximately 36,000 immediate relative petitions (that would be for American citizens filing for their spouse, their parents, or their minor children) that were transferred from the California Service Center to the Texas Service Center, ironically because USCIS thought that Texas could process them faster. In fact, the opposite happened and so, in that February 8 notification, USCIS advised that some cases were transferred back to the California Service Center to take advantage of currently available resources.
The following update is provided as of February 14, 2011, and reflects the number of cases in this group that have been processed to date by the Texas Service Center and the California Service Center.
Approved: 10,264
Denied: 55
Request for Evidence/Intent to Deny: 4137
Referred to District Office for Interview: 408
If you have filed a family petition that has been delayed, or if in fact if you have filed any type of immigration application that is currently pending, you can monitor the progress of your case by accessing My Case Status online on the USCIS official website at www.uscis.gov. If you do not see any action on your case, such as an approval, denial or an RFE, by March 1, 2011 you should contact a legal representative to make a formal inquiry with USCIS. Please note that you also have the option of contacting your Senator and/or Congressperson in your district. These offices usually have an immigration congressional liaison who can intercede on your behalf and find out what happened to your case and in many cases, obtain your approval notice without further delay.
The following update is provided as of February 14, 2011, and reflects the number of cases in this group that have been processed to date by the Texas Service Center and the California Service Center.
Approved: 10,264
Denied: 55
Request for Evidence/Intent to Deny: 4137
Referred to District Office for Interview: 408
If you have filed a family petition that has been delayed, or if in fact if you have filed any type of immigration application that is currently pending, you can monitor the progress of your case by accessing My Case Status online on the USCIS official website at www.uscis.gov. If you do not see any action on your case, such as an approval, denial or an RFE, by March 1, 2011 you should contact a legal representative to make a formal inquiry with USCIS. Please note that you also have the option of contacting your Senator and/or Congressperson in your district. These offices usually have an immigration congressional liaison who can intercede on your behalf and find out what happened to your case and in many cases, obtain your approval notice without further delay.
State Dept. warning against travel in Mexico
After months if not years of news about the escalating violence in Mexico by drug cartels, which caused the temporary closings of American consulates there several times already, we now have an official warning by the U.S. Department of State against travel in Mexico. This latest step was taken after the killing of a U.S. federal agent by a drug gang on the Texas-Mexico border.
Travel warnings are issued when long-term, protracted conditions that make a country dangerous or unstable lead the State Department to recommend that Americans avoid or consider the risk of travel to that country. A Travel Warning is also issued when the U.S. Government's ability to assist American citizens is constrained due to the closure of an embassy or consulate or because of a drawdown of its staff. It has recently issued a travel warning against Egypt, on February 6, 2011, in the wake of unrest in the Middle-East. The latest travel warning against iran was issued in 2010.The Department of State make periodical reviews and issuance of warnings which can easily be found on its website here.
Travel warnings are issued when long-term, protracted conditions that make a country dangerous or unstable lead the State Department to recommend that Americans avoid or consider the risk of travel to that country. A Travel Warning is also issued when the U.S. Government's ability to assist American citizens is constrained due to the closure of an embassy or consulate or because of a drawdown of its staff. It has recently issued a travel warning against Egypt, on February 6, 2011, in the wake of unrest in the Middle-East. The latest travel warning against iran was issued in 2010.The Department of State make periodical reviews and issuance of warnings which can easily be found on its website here.
Thursday, February 17, 2011
Immigration Backlog at Record High
The figures are astounding! According to Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, a non-partisan research organization from Syracuse University, the backlog of immigration cases pending before the Immigration Courts throughout the country is 44% higher than it was in 2008.
The average time these cases had been pending, TRAC said, was 467 days.
California led states with the longest wait time – 639 days, followed by Massachusetts with 615 and Nebraska with 511 days.
Among the countries with the most people involved in Immigration Court cases, people from Armenia had the longest wait – 886, nearly twice the national average of 467 days, the report said.
Other nationalities that waited the longest were Indonesians, Albanians, Iranians and Pakistanis.
This could be in part due to the delay in processing all the background checks, something over which neither the applicant nor the Department of Homeland Security have any power. But it is also a sign of the budgetary crisis faced by the federal government since, clearly, there needs to be additional Immigration Judges, court staff and Department of Homeland Security attorneys hired to deal with this mass of cases.
How many times did I show up in court, ready to present my client's case,and the case was continued, either due to lack of background check, or DHS counsel having misplaced the file, or an interpreter not being available, or the Judge simply having a boatload of cases that took priority because they were pending for even longer than my client's? And of course let's not forget the unscrupulous individuals, attorney and non-attorney alike who have abused the system so egregiously by submitting forged documents, resulting in an entire ethnic group being placed under suspicion because of the actions of a few, and therefore more delay while the government attempts to examine the validity of every documentation submitted by the applicant in their out of state forensics lab, or through certification at the American consulates abroad.
I remember around 2002 the Board of Immigration Appeals underwent major restructuring, with many of the Judges being fired, and the processing of the cases expedited due to a new one member vs three member panel decision making process. But swift justice is not always adequate justice.
What happened is that temporarily, the BIA was able to clear some backlog by basically rubber stamping denials on complex cases that demanded more analysis and these simply ended up being remanded back fromt he Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals because the decisions simply failed to articulate or demonstrate if the legal and factual factors were properly evaluated.
And that is for the people who were able to afford legal representation to take them all the way to the Ninth Circuit. For those who didn't, it simply reaffirmed in them the notion that justice is not for the poor! This was a really sad situation as we are not talking about contractual disputes between multi-million dollar companies but the life and death issues of largely indigent families with small children who had survived the most terrifying acts of physical and mental abuse in their home countries.
So we are stuck between a rock and a hard place. What is the better of two awful scenarios? An extreme delay in adjudication that basically places a family's survival options in limbo for several years or the kind of swift justice that unfortunately more often than not destroys that same family's chance of survival?
You can read more about TRAC's backlog study in this article here.
The average time these cases had been pending, TRAC said, was 467 days.
California led states with the longest wait time – 639 days, followed by Massachusetts with 615 and Nebraska with 511 days.
Among the countries with the most people involved in Immigration Court cases, people from Armenia had the longest wait – 886, nearly twice the national average of 467 days, the report said.
Other nationalities that waited the longest were Indonesians, Albanians, Iranians and Pakistanis.
This could be in part due to the delay in processing all the background checks, something over which neither the applicant nor the Department of Homeland Security have any power. But it is also a sign of the budgetary crisis faced by the federal government since, clearly, there needs to be additional Immigration Judges, court staff and Department of Homeland Security attorneys hired to deal with this mass of cases.
How many times did I show up in court, ready to present my client's case,and the case was continued, either due to lack of background check, or DHS counsel having misplaced the file, or an interpreter not being available, or the Judge simply having a boatload of cases that took priority because they were pending for even longer than my client's? And of course let's not forget the unscrupulous individuals, attorney and non-attorney alike who have abused the system so egregiously by submitting forged documents, resulting in an entire ethnic group being placed under suspicion because of the actions of a few, and therefore more delay while the government attempts to examine the validity of every documentation submitted by the applicant in their out of state forensics lab, or through certification at the American consulates abroad.
I remember around 2002 the Board of Immigration Appeals underwent major restructuring, with many of the Judges being fired, and the processing of the cases expedited due to a new one member vs three member panel decision making process. But swift justice is not always adequate justice.
What happened is that temporarily, the BIA was able to clear some backlog by basically rubber stamping denials on complex cases that demanded more analysis and these simply ended up being remanded back fromt he Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals because the decisions simply failed to articulate or demonstrate if the legal and factual factors were properly evaluated.
And that is for the people who were able to afford legal representation to take them all the way to the Ninth Circuit. For those who didn't, it simply reaffirmed in them the notion that justice is not for the poor! This was a really sad situation as we are not talking about contractual disputes between multi-million dollar companies but the life and death issues of largely indigent families with small children who had survived the most terrifying acts of physical and mental abuse in their home countries.
So we are stuck between a rock and a hard place. What is the better of two awful scenarios? An extreme delay in adjudication that basically places a family's survival options in limbo for several years or the kind of swift justice that unfortunately more often than not destroys that same family's chance of survival?
You can read more about TRAC's backlog study in this article here.
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
Searchable blog of new immigration cases
Jacqueline Brown Scott, a San Francisco based immigration attorney, has a wonderful blog of the newest immigration cases in the Ninth Circuit and BIA, both published and unpublished. The search engine allows you to find the latest cases on the particular topic you are looking for, which is extremely useful for small, sole practitioners (as most immigration attorneys are) who cannot afford expensive legal search programs. She also links to some very informative blogs and websites all on the topic of immigration law. Thank you Jacqueline!
Jacqueline's blog, "New Immigration Cases" can be found here. Her law firm's official website can be found here.
Jacqueline's blog, "New Immigration Cases" can be found here. Her law firm's official website can be found here.
New: Work Permit and Travel Document now combined
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has announced last week that it is now issuing employment and travel authorization on a single card for certain applicants filing for adjustment of status (Green Card). This is an improvement because of the delay in obtaining a travel document in the past, which meant that the applicants were stuck here or else were deemed to abandon their entire application (along with the non refundable filing fees, which cost to about a thousand dollars) if they decided to leave the US without their travel document in hand. By contrast, the work permit card was usually issued pretty quickly, probably within 45 days of the application, if there were no documents lacking in the application and the results of the applicant's background check were favorable.
The new card actually looks exactly like the work permit card, except for the fine print on the card that reads "Serves as I-512 Advance Parole." This seemingly does not apply to other types of travel documents (at least not yet), like the refugee travel document, or the re-entry permit (for Green Card holders who have some kind of emergency out of the country for which they know they must remain outside for more than 6 months).
More on this can be found on the USCIS official website here.
The new card actually looks exactly like the work permit card, except for the fine print on the card that reads "Serves as I-512 Advance Parole." This seemingly does not apply to other types of travel documents (at least not yet), like the refugee travel document, or the re-entry permit (for Green Card holders who have some kind of emergency out of the country for which they know they must remain outside for more than 6 months).
More on this can be found on the USCIS official website here.
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