On May 17, 2019, the U.S. State Department announced that the family 2A category (spouses and unmarried children of lawful permanent residents) will become current for the first time in many years. The State Department’s Charlie Oppenheim who is responsible for the monthly Visa Bulletin announced this momentous development at the Immigration Conference of the […]
On April 29, 2019, President Trump issued a Memorandum on Additional steps needed to be taken to render the Asylum System more efficient and enhance its integrity. He stressed on the unprecedented Immigration Crisis our nation is facing which has turned into a humanitarian crisis mainly due to the mass arrival of asylum seekers in […]
The Supreme Court remains split on the issue of whether or not to allow the controversial citizenship question on the 2020 Census. The Court is expected to deliver its decision in late June. If the citizenship questions is allow on the 2020 census, there will be an estimated 6/5 million people not counted due to […]
It is now common knowledge that there is a staggering backlog in the Immigration Courts. As of now, there are over 850,000 cases pending in the Immigration Courts nationwide with trials scheduled in 2022. Although many have demanded more immigration judges be hired to combat the massive backlog, Congress has routinely denied the requests, deeming it too […]
Judge Marsha Pechman , federal judge in Seattle, Washington, ordered that the government to provide bona fide asylum seekers a bond hearing before an immigration judge within seven days of their request or immediately release them from detention. Judge Pechman additionally ordered that the government must justify continued detentions, record all hearings, and produce the […]
On April 1st, 2019 the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Kirsten Nielsen rang the alarm bells about impending humanitarian disaster at the US Mexico border with the recent mass arrival of Central American immigrants. Secretary Nielsen stressed the need to undertake emergency surge operations to respond to the crisis. Therefore, the US Customs Border […]
Back in 2010, the American Bar Association Commission on Immigration put together a voluminous report to tackle the reforms needed to improve the Immigration System and make it fairer and more efficient. At the time, they recommended a number of changes in policy, regulation, and law that would enhance due process mechanisms and fairness in […]
The Trump administration has implemented a number of immigration policies thought to be controversial. One of them is the ‘Zero-tolerance policy’. Its purpose is to enable officials to prosecute all migrants who did not enter the United States through a Port-Of-Entry and want to seek asylum. As a result of that disastrous policy, families have […]
The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has become the first federal appeals court to declare that asylum seekers who are not afforded the opportunity of a federal review are in violation of the Constitution. This decision came out of the Thuraissigaim v. U.S. Department of Homeland Security case where Vijayakumar Thuraissigiam filed a habeas petition […]
Immigration judges, law makers and legislators, among other advocates are calling to Congress to shield immigration courts from political influence. Unlike other judges, immigration judges have more restrictions in their decision making power. Immigration judges are not part of the judicial branch, they report to the Department of Justice (DOJ). Additionally, immigration judges are bound […]
