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DHS / Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS)

14 11, 2019

DACA Argued Before The U.S. Supreme Court

By |2020-05-01T14:01:47-05:00November 14th, 2019|Categories: Amnesty for Immigrants in the U.S., Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), DHS / Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), DHS / Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), Employment Authorization / Work Cards in the U.S., immigration reform, Lawful Permanent Residence in the U.S., U.S. Immigration Law and Legislation, Undocumented Immigrants and Workers in the U.S.|

Published November 14, 2019 In 2012, President Obama issued an executive order allowing undocumented foreign nationals who arrived in the U.S. under the age of 16 to be shielded from deportation and issued an employment authorization document.  Eligibility for coverage under the Executive Order – Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) depended on a number of factors, including whether the applicant had a serious criminal background and was physically present in the U.S. for the requisite period. DACA has been a huge success, allowing some 700,000 undocumented young immigrants to come out of the shadows, attend universities, assume jobs and otherwise [...]

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29 10, 2019

Federal Court Injunctions Put a Halt to New Public Charge Rules

By |2020-05-01T14:05:24-05:00October 29th, 2019|Categories: Conditional Permanent Residence Based on Marriage, DHS / Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), Family-Based Immigration Law, Green Cards, Immigrant Visas for Spouse / Fiancee / Child Visas|

Published October 29, 2019 Conversations involving the hot topics of public benefits and immigration have turned scary these days.  That is because these are two of the biggest go-to issues for the Trump administration when it comes to political messaging and rousing up supporters.  However, in just the past week 5 federal judges, presiding over 5 separate legal challenges, have ruled against the Trump administration.  The rulings put a halt to the Administration’s initiative to greatly expand upon bases to deny green cards to prospective applicants due to suspicions they may become a public charge. To be sure, concerns about new [...]

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22 09, 2019

Appeals Filing Fee May Skyrocket; Processing Times for Chicago Area Applicants

By |2020-05-01T14:13:41-05:00September 22nd, 2019|Categories: Citizenship / Naturalization and the N-400 Application, Conditional Permanent Residence Based on Marriage, DHS / Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), Employment Authorization / Work Cards in the U.S., Employment-Based Immigration Law, Family-Based Immigration Law, Green Cards, Immigrant Visas for Spouse / Fiancee / Child Visas, Immigration and Criminal Law / Detainees, Lawful Permanent Residence in the U.S., Removal / Deportation Proceedings and Court Hearings|

Published September 22, 2019   Administration Aims to Dramatically Increase Filing Fees for Appeals In an effort that will effectively deter appeals of certain immigration decisions within the deportation court system, the Trump administration is reportedly advancing a regulation to dramatically increase the filing fees associated with such appeals. The regulatory proposal being considered would increase the current filing fee of $110.00 by 900% to a total of $975.00 in most cases. If imposed, the new filing fee will create a severe financial obstacle for a significant portion of the impacted population, a mostly vulnerable population seeking to advance their right [...]

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22 09, 2019

Deferred Action Comes to an End

By |2020-05-01T14:15:33-05:00September 22nd, 2019|Categories: Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), DHS / Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), DHS / Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), Employment Authorization / Work Cards in the U.S., General, Removal / Deportation Proceedings and Court Hearings, U.S. Immigration Law and Legislation, Undocumented Immigrants and Workers in the U.S.|

Published September 22, 2019 In an abrupt, yet not surprising policy decision, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security announced it is putting a halt to a Deferred Action program that has been a part of the immigration law and prosecutorial discretion landscape for more than 4 decades.  The political reasons for this announcement are obvious, but there exists no real practical reason for the program’s termination since it’s been employed so sparingly during its life. What is Deferred Action?   It is a formal statement by the Executive Branch of our government via U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services that it will not [...]

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31 08, 2019

The New, Sharper Teeth of Existing Public Charge Provisions

By |2020-05-01T14:18:49-05:00August 31st, 2019|Categories: DHS / Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), Family-Based Immigration Law, Green Cards, Immigrant Visas for Spouse / Fiancee / Child Visas, Lawful Permanent Residence in the U.S., U.S. Immigration Law and Legislation, Undocumented Immigrants and Workers in the U.S., United States Embassies Abroad|

Published August 31, 2019 Concerns about new immigrants becoming a “public charge” and dependent on U.S. government resources, have pretty much always been a part of our immigration related legal landscape.  Form I-864 Affidavit of Support – a document required for the final stages of nearly all family based immigration filings - is the most well known representation of this concern.  Typically U.S. based petitioning family members are required to personally guarantee that their incoming immigrant family member will not become dependent on government aid.  Notwithstanding the extent to which immigrants becoming burdens on U.S. society is an actual problem, the [...]

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11 08, 2019

H-1B Visas Make News in the Courts

By |2020-05-01T14:22:38-05:00August 11th, 2019|Categories: DHS / Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), DHS / Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), Employment Authorization / Work Cards in the U.S., Employment-Based Immigration Law, Foreign Exchange Student Visas to the U.S., Immigration and Criminal Law / Detainees, Non-Immigrant Visas for Temporary Workers / H-1B, U.S. Immigration Law and Legislation|

Published August 24, 2019 D.C. Federal Court Reverses H-1B Visa Petition Denial In the past week, a federal judge in Washington D.C. ruled that the U.S. Department of Homeland Security/Citizenship and Immigration Services (US CIS) must reverse its decision denying an H-1B visa petition filed on behalf of a data analyst by Lexis Nexis, a legal publishing company.  The court concluded that the petitioning employer, Lexis Nexis USA, presented sufficient evidence to demonstrate that the position qualified as a “specialty occupation” and thus was approvable for classification for H-1B visa status. U.S. District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan ruled that US CIS [...]

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11 07, 2019

DACA’s Future Hangs in the Balance At the U.S. Supreme Court

By |2020-05-01T14:31:00-05:00July 11th, 2019|Categories: Amnesty for Immigrants in the U.S., Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), DHS / Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), DHS / Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), Employment Authorization / Work Cards in the U.S., Green Cards, immigration reform, Lawful Permanent Residence in the U.S., Removal / Deportation Proceedings and Court Hearings, U.S. Immigration Law and Legislation, Uncategorized, Undocumented Immigrants and Workers in the U.S.|

Published July 11, 2019 In recent weeks, the U.S. Supreme Court announced that it has accepted several consolidated DACA related cases for consideration and in October will hear arguments about DACA’s future. Obama Giveth, Trump Seeks to Taketh Away: To review, the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program was instituted in 2012 by way of then President Obama’s Executive Order.  Through the DACA program, individuals who arrived in the U.S. while under the age of 16, completed high school here (or equivalent), are without any serious criminal convictions and met other requirements, became eligible to obtain a version of legal [...]

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20 06, 2019

As Expected – Expanded Supply of H-2B Temporary Workers Visas Is Quickly Exhausted

By |2020-05-01T14:37:52-05:00June 20th, 2019|Categories: DHS / Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), Employment Authorization / Work Cards in the U.S., immigration reform, Non-Immigrant Visas for Temporary Workers / H-1B, U.S. Immigration Law and Legislation, Undocumented Immigrants and Workers in the U.S.|

Published June 20, 2019   Ask anyone who works as a manager in the manufacturing or service industries and they will tell you that it is next to impossible to find U.S. workers to fill positions, both skilled and unskilled, and even at a competitive wage.   This speaks volumes about many societal issues, including that our economy appears to be robust, and there is a shortage of workers ready, willing and able to fill positions at companies.  The latest barometer of this state of affairs is that the expanded supply of an additional 30,000 just released visas for H-2B Temporary Foreign [...]

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30 05, 2019

Social Security Administration Issues More Than 500,000 “No Match” Letters To Employers

By |2020-05-01T14:54:17-05:00May 30th, 2019|Categories: General, Amnesty for Immigrants in the U.S., DHS / Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), DHS / Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), Employment Authorization / Work Cards in the U.S., Employment-Based Immigration Law, Green Cards, Immigrant Health Care Workers in the U.S., immigration reform, Non-Immigrant Visas for Temporary Workers / H-1B, U.S. Immigration Law and Legislation, Uncategorized, Undocumented Immigrants and Workers in the U.S.|

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Published May 30, 2019   When a company lists an employee on their payroll, pays payroll taxes and issues them a Form W-2, the federal government is officially notified of that individual's status as a U.S. worker.    For an estimated 8 million workers though, this process is an avenue through which the federal government is UNofficially notified of the employment of undocumented workers.  That is because many of these workers are either providing fake names, fake social security numbers or another person’s identification – all necessary means for the employer to offer them a job and for the worker to take [...]

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2 05, 2019

Smoking Marijuana May Be Hazardous to Your Immigration Health

By |2020-05-01T15:35:05-05:00May 2nd, 2019|Categories: Citizenship / Naturalization and the N-400 Application, Customs and Border Patrol / Travel to and from the U.S., DHS / Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), DHS / Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), Employment-Based Immigration Law, Family-Based Immigration Law, Green Cards, Immigration and Criminal Law / Detainees, Lawful Permanent Residence in the U.S., Removal / Deportation Proceedings and Court Hearings, U.S. Immigration Law and Legislation|

Published May 2, 2019     A lawful permanent resident (green card holder) seeking to become a U.S. citizen must fulfill a number of requirements when submitting their Application for Naturalization and in order to be approved to take the oath of U.S. citizenship.   In addition to a requisite number of years of permanent residence and physical presence in the U.S., an applicant for naturalization must demonstrate that he/she is of “good moral character” and for a specified period leading up to their application.  Now, according to a new policy memo issued by the Department of Homeland Security/Citizenship and Immigration Services [...]

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