Service Categories: Immigration-Citizenship-Legal

12/19/18 Back in June, then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions issued one of the cruelest pronouncements of his cruel tenure in the Trump administration: That victims of domestic violence or gang violence would generally not be eligible for asylum.
Thankfully, the ACLU just won a major court victory forcing the administration to stop enforcing these policies. And the plaintiffs in the case, a dozen adults and children who had been denied asylum and given deportation orders, were ordered to be allowed to try again to seek asylum ” and to be returned to the U.S. if they’d already been deported.

12/31/18 mmigrant parents in Maryland concerned about being deported may now designate someone to care for their children under an expansion of emergency guardianship measures that take effect Tuesday.
It’s the latest move by state legislators to push back against the immigration policies of President Donald Trump. Attorneys behind the effort say it will reassure parents and prevent their children from becoming wards of the state.
“It’s emergency family planning. That’s what we were trying to provide people” said Cam Crockett, an attorney in Bethesda.

11/19/18 Starting today USCIS can begin deportation proceedings on victims of trafficking, crime, and domestic violence if their visa petitions have been denied. ***
VAWA petitions are different from U visas in that they are available only to the abused spouse, child, or parent of a U.S. citizen or permanent resident, and they do not require law enforcement’s participation. But soon these immigration provisions may expire along with the rest of VAWA. The bill was up for reauthorization in September of this year, and was temporarily passed along with other measures in a short-term spending bill designed to keep the government from shutdown. VAWA must be re-authorized by December 7 in order not to lapse. Key Words: Violence Against Women Act

12/3/18 Thousands of migrants traveling together to flee dire circumstances in their native Central American nations are camped in towns and cities edging the U.S.-Mexico border. Many hold out hopes that despite intense political pushback, they’ll be given a chance to apply in the U.S. for the humanitarian immigration status known as asylum. Key Words: Caravan

12/15/18 Rules would target some immigrants who came before 1995.
Thousands of Vietnamese immigrants could be at risk of deportation under a Trump Administration re-interpretation of a long-standing agreement with Vietnam that largely has protected Vietnamese citizens who entered the United States before 1995.
Earlier this year, the administration unilaterally changed its interpretation of that 2008 agreement to allow deportation of Vietnamese citizens who arrived before 1995 and have been convicted of crimes. But the administration quietly backed off amid a class action lawsuit by a coalition of immigrants rights groups and a backlash that included the resignation of the U.S. ambassador to Vietnam.
Now, some activists are worried that was just a temporary reprieve.

12-16-18 Now that President Trump has done everything he can to eliminate asylum access on the U.S. border, he is attempting to enlist Mexico’s newly minted President, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, in a comprehensive scheme to block asylum seekers from gaining protection in the US. Recent reports of negotiations over a “remain in Mexico” plan indicate that this bilateral agreement would keep asylum seekers in Mexico while U.S. immigration courts consider and adjudicate their asylum claims.
UN agencies, international human rights organizations, and even U.S. government agencies have produced overwhelming evidence of the humanitarian crisis that is causing many Central Americans to flee. The violence inflicted by the gangs in Central America, and the utter failure of their governments to protect them leave these individuals and families with no choice but to flee.

12/17/18 RIVERSIDE ” For immigrants facing deportation, assistance from attorneys can make a profound difference in the outcome of their cases ” immigrants with lawyers have an overwhelmingly better chance of being able to stay in the U.S. For asylum seekers, it can be a matter of life or death.
But at Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention centers in Southern California, officials make it nearly impossible for many detainees to contact and consult with attorneys. That violates not only the Immigration and Nationality Act, but also the First and Fifth Amendments to the Constitution.

11/13/18 Toddlers will continue representing themselves in immigration court in the wake of a Ninth Circuit panel’s refusal Tuesday to revisit dismissal of a class action that claimed kids should have court-appointed attorneys in immigration proceedings – a refusal that drew a blistering dissent from five circuit judges.
During oral arguments in the appeal, government attorneys told the panel that appointing representation for kids facing deportation would “destroy the framework of the immigration system.”

10/13/18 Two weeks: That’s how quickly a foreign technology worker in Silicon Valley can get an employment permit from Canada. In the US, that process takes months.
As the administration of President Donald Trump has increased scrutiny of H-1B visas for skilled foreign workers and plans to ban their spouses from holding jobs in the U.S., Canada has been moving aggressively to suck top foreign talent out of Silicon Valley and other technology-rich regions of the U.S. Key Words: Immigration, Indian

10/16/18 Under a new Trump Administration policy, family members who come forward to claim unaccompanied minors can now be arrested and deported if they are here illegally. Vetting sponsors has always been predicated on protecting children, not policing sponsors; in the past, officials from the Department of Health and Human Services made a point of stressing their independence from the Department of Homeland Security. “O.R.R. is not a law-enforcement entity” Robert Carey, the former head of the office, told me. “It’s a social-service provider.”
Now, according to advocates, the Trump Administration is manipulating the mission of the O.R.R. “They’ve flipped their mandate from the children’s welfare to immigration enforcement” Jennifer Podkul, the policy director of Kids in Need of Defense, told me. Key Words: ICE, DHS

9/12/18 Set to take effect today, new changes to U.S. immigration policies appear likely to block increasing numbers of legal immigrants from potential citizenship by ratcheting up penalties for mistakes on applications and then accelerating the process for deportation, according to immigration experts.
The new policy language ” written specifically to trigger on the anniversary of the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 ” gives broad authority to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service administrators to deny a legal immigrant’s application for a green card or citizenship over simple clerical errors.

9/18 The Trump administration continues to present a false choice between separating asylum-seeking families at the border or detaining them. That premise ignores the many alternatives to detention the government can turn
to while an individual or family goes through their asylum or immigration case, and in particular, a program
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) operated that was specifically designed for families seeking
protection in the United States. For families where the government seeks to mitigate a demonstrated flight
risk or who may need additional support, the administration should turn to ” and Congress should fund “the Family Case Management Program.

9/15/18 An estimated 100,000 foreign citizens working in the U.S. have been thrown into uncertainty by the federal government’s pledge to bar them from having a job. Since 2015, spouses of H-1B visas with H-4 visas, have been authorized to work in any field as long as their spouses are on track to get a green card. Now, H-4 holders wait and worry, wondering when ” or even if ” Homeland Security will take action and whether H-4 workers would be allowed to continue working until their visas are up for renewal or barred from employment immediately. Talk of a ban has generated strong support among critics of America’s immigration policies. Key Words: Indian

1/1/2018 As of January 1, 2018, California will offer a pretrial diversion program to qualifying defendants charged with minor drug offenses. See AB 2082 (2017) (Eggman), amending California Penal Code § 1000 et seq.
In this process, defendants will be permitted to plead “not guilty” before they are diverted to a drug education program. If they successfully complete this and other requirements within 12 – 18 months (or more, if they request and are granted more time), then the drug charge/s will be dropped and they will have no conviction from the incident for immigration purposes or any other purpose.

9/13/18 It’s difficult to know where the crackdown fits into the Trump administration’s broader efforts to reduce legal and illegal immigration. Over the past year, it has thrown legal permanent residents out of the military and formed a denaturalization task force that tries to identify people who might have lied on decades-old citizenship applications.
Now, the administration appears to be taking aim at a broad group of Americans along the stretch of the border where Trump has promised to build his wall, where he directed the deployment of National Guardsmen, and where the majority of cases in which children were separated from their parents during the administration’s “zero tolerance” policy occurred.
The State Department would not say how many passports it has denied to people along the border because of concerns about fraudulent birth certificates. The government has also refused to provide a list of midwives whom it considers to be suspicious.

8/27/18 There was a simple explanation in October 2017 when a DHS official was asked why a memo justifying ending immigrant protections for Central Americans made conditions in those countries sound so bad.
“The basic problem is that it IS bad there,” the official wrote. Nevertheless, he agreed to go back and see what he could do to better bolster the administration’s decision to end the protections regardless.
The revelation comes in a collection of internal emails and documents made public Friday as part of an ongoing lawsuit over the decision to end temporary protected status for hundreds of thousands of immigrants who live in the US, most of whom have been here for well over a decade.

9/4/18 The Trump administration, in a policy shaped by senior adviser Stephen Miller, has reinterpreted a 2008 agreement reached with Vietnam by the George W. Bush administration ” that Vietnamese citizens who arrived before the two countries established diplomatic relations in 1995 would not be “subject to return.” Now, the White House says, there is no such immunity to deportation for any non-citizen found guilty of a crime. Key Words: Asian, API

9/5/18 The Trump administration has consistently sought to exaggerate the potential security threat posed by refugees and dismissed an intelligence assessment last year that showed refugees did not present a significant threat to the U.S., three former senior officials told NBC News.
Hard-liners in the administration then issued their own report this year that several former officials and rights groups say misstates the evidence and inflates the threat posed by people born outside the U.S.

7/18/18 A new “denaturalization task force” raises questions about who really counts as American. The administration’s denaturalization push is working on two levels. As a policy matter, it’s relatively aggressive but not unprecedented – and constrained by law from getting too arbitrary. But for many immigrants, those legal constraints provide little comfort. The sense of vulnerability and fear the administration has been able to inspire among immigrants tends to ripple far beyond those who are directly in its sights, and this is no exception.

7/8/18 The 1-year-old boy in a green button-up shirt drank milk from a bottle, played with a small purple ball that lit up when it hit the ground and occasionally asked for “agua.”
Then it was the child’s turn for his court appearance before a Phoenix immigration judge, who could hardly contain his unease with the situation during the portion of the hearing where he asks immigrant defendants whether they understand the proceedings.
“I’m embarrassed to ask it, because I don’t know who you would explain it to, unless you think that a 1-year-old could learn immigration law,” Judge John W. Richardson told the lawyer representing the child.

2/1/16 American Immigration Council Report – Why They Are Fleeing and How U.S. Policies are Failing to Deter Them.
Faced with the increase of Central Americans presenting themselves at the US’ southwest border seeking asylum, President Obama and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), specifically, implemented an “aggressive deterrence strategy.” A media campaign was launched in Central America highlighting the risks involved with migration and the consequences of illegal immigration.
Survey findings suggest is that crime victims are unlikely to be deterred by the Administration’s efforts. Further, we may infer from this analysis of migration intentions that those individuals who do decide to migrate and successfully arrive at the US border are far more likely to fit the profile of refugees than that of economic migrants. Upon arrival, however, they are still subject to the “send a message’ policies and practices that are designed to deter others rather than identify and ensure the protection of those fleeing war-like levels of violence.