In Ramirez v. Dougherty, the district court for the Western District of Washington, in the Ninth Circuit, held that there was a path to citizenship for an alien from El Salvador who entered the U.S. without having been inspected and admitted or paroled, thus illegally in 1999. The plaintiff had lived in the U.S. for […]
Immigrants, both authorized and unauthorized, contribute greatly to the economies of the District of Columbia, Virginia, and Maryland. With close to 1.8 million immigrants in the DC-VA-MD[1] area, immigrants are helping to revitalize the economy through entrepreneurship, consumer spending, and by contributing to the tax base. Economic activity, consumer spending, and job creation are extremely […]
On February 11, the State Department released the March 2011 Visa Bulletin. The Worldwide Employment-Based (EB) preference categories remain current for EB-1, EB-2, EB-4 and EB-5. In the Worldwide EB-3 category (professionals and skilled workers), the dates advance by three months. For Mexico EB-3, the dates move forward by six months. However, for persons born […]
ICE’s ‘Secure Communities’ program is NOT voluntary. A voluntary program to run all criminal suspects’ fingerprints through an immigration database was only voluntary until cities refused to participate, thousands of recently released documents show. The Obama administration then tightened the rules so that U.S. cities had no choice but to have the fingerprints checked. The […]
The poverty guidelines for the year 2011 are significantly higher than those of 2010. Poverty guidelines are established by the Department of Health and Human Services and affect those who are sponsoring an immigrant. In most cases, when someone is applying for a green card, they will need a sponsor. This sponsor will be financially […]
by Liz Veit, L.L.M. Candidate George Washington University, J.D. Hamlin School of Law The citizens of Egypt have spoken, “Leave, Leave, Leave!” Their message is heard around the international community. Their call is for the removal of President Hosni Mubarak. Their hope is for a new Egypt where freedom and democracy replace the current regime […]
The Department of State has redesigned the Consular Report of Birth Abroad (CRBA) to make the documents more secure and highly difficult to forge. CRBA is an official system of recording overseas births of children to a US citizen parent. These children automatically get US citizenship. CRBAs were first introduced in 1919 and have […]
The United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has implemented the Help HAITI Act of 2010 in order to give legal permanent resident status to Haitian orphans who were paroled into the US under the Haitian Orphan Parole Program after January 12, 2010. A special humanitarian parole policy was implemented on December 9, for […]
According to Citizen Protection Minister Christos Papoutsis, Greece is planning to build a fence to keep out illegal immigrants coming across from Turkey. In the past six months over 33, 000 illegal immigrants have been detected crossing the Greek-Turkish border. These illegals are mostly from Afghanistan, Algeria, Pakistan, Somalia and Iraq. This 206 kilometer fence […]
U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) announced today a pilot program at El Paso port of entry/Ysleta international crossing for travelers with approved Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative (WHTI) Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology-enabled travel documents. The pilot program will start Sunday, December 19 and run for 90 days. The “Ready Lane” will be open to […]
