Month: March 2009

According to an article on TheStar.com:  “A British Columbian man has learned the hard way that you don’t ask a U.S. border guard to be polite when he asks you to turn off your vehicle’s engine.”

Not the best PR for the CBP or the US as a whole, but it seems that our reputation to the outside world has become a very low priority for immigration-related government agencies.  This is just a sampling of the incidents that are occurring regularly at the nation’s airports and border crossings.

If you are abused or wrongly detained at a border crossing, get through the incident without instigating the officer.  When you are released, either file a formal complaint with the CBP and, if the story is interesting enough, use the press to publicize it – as this alleged victim did.  The Obama administration and Secretary Napolitano need to get to work on not only changing our immigration laws, but amending the policies and not allowing officers to abuse their power or mistreat foreign-nationals with impunity.

The Canadian in this story was wrong, but so was the CBP officer.  The Canadian more than suffered the consequence of his action, let us hope that the officer in question is investigated and disciplined appropriately so that other CBP officers learn that this behavior unacceptable.        

According to an article on stanford.edu:  “Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said she regrets the Bush administration’s failure to push major immigration changes through Congress, and she warned that keeping newcomers out of America would hurt the country.”

What we need is leadership to improve our nation’s immigration laws and policies from those who have the power, while they are in power.  Let’s hope that President Obama and Secretary Clinton don’t have the same “regret” four years from now.

Accordimg to a USCIS Press Release:  “U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced today that the Immigrant Investor Pilot Program has been extended through September 30, 2009 due to yesterday’s signing of the “Fiscal 2009 Omnibus Appropriations Bill,” H.R. 1105.”

There is a related Fact Sheet that is also available.

According to a USCIS Fact Sheet:  “Through the Consolidated Security, Disaster Assistance and Continuing Appropriations Act of 2009 (Public Law 110-329), Congress created the Fiscal Year 2009 Citizenship Grant Program.  This competitive grant program provides approximately $1.2 million of federal funding—in the form of 12 $100,000 individual awards—to support citizenship preparation programs for legal permanent residents (LPRs).”

The DOS has released its Visa Bulletin for April 2009.

Thanks to one of our clients for bringing this article to our attention.  According to the article on cnnmoney.com:  “Immigration experts expect H-1B applications for 2009 to be at their lowest levels in years. Some even suggest that after April 1, the first day on which applications may be filed, it could take a week or more to fill the quota of 85,000 visas. (65,000 visa spots are open to all applicants, while an additional 20,000 are earmarked for those with graduate degrees from U.S. universities.) In past years, it’s taken as little as 48 hours for the queue to fill up.”

This means that if you want an H-1B this year and you apply on April 1, 2009, your case will probably be accepted for processing.  Of course, if you wait until June to file, it will probably still be too late.  In other words, getting your case adjudicated will be less of a gamble than in years past.  Immigration lawyers across the country are reporting a sharp decrease in demand for H-1B visas this year.

According to an article on projo.com:  “Federal investigators are looking into allegations that a former medical technician at the Donald W. Wyatt Detention Facility, in Central Falls, sexually assaulted two prisoners in the jail’s infirmary last year.”

When I chose to practice family and business-based immigration law almost a decade ago, it was an area of the law where lawyers counseled clients.  There was a high level of predictability with how cases would be adjudicated and the benefit of the doubt in legitimately questionable cases often went to the applicant or the beneficiary.  If a case was wrongly denied, a simple Motion to Reopen with an explanation usually resulted in a fairly fast reversal of the decision.  Unless a lawyer was practicing in the Immigration Courts or suing the Federal Government, the role of the immigration lawyer was to make arguments pursuant to the applicable law and wait for the expected result. 

How times have changed.  Most agencies involved with immigration have made it much more difficult for lawyers to accurately predct the outcomes for their clients cases.  From the DOL to US ICE to the USCIS, there are issues that urgently need to be addressed by the Obama Administration. 

The focus has shifted from a welcoming policy of giving immigrants and their employers the benefit of the doubt, to one where those asking for immigration benefits are faced with technical, often incorrect denials or in the case of ICE, removal from the country arguably without Due Process. 

When issues occur, the beneficiary’s options are limited.  For instance, a denial of a nonimmigrant petition can result in a beneficiary accruing unlawful presence even if the denial was in error.  It can be appealed or reconsidered, but that could take years.  By the time the time the decision comes down, the employer may no longer want to hire the beneficiary and the worker has understandably moved on with her life.

In the current climate, immigration lawyers have an important role to play however it now has more to do with:  (1) taking an aggressive stance and citing applicable laws, regs and precedent – even in initial petitions or applications, and (2) appealing incorrect decisions and making precedent than it does with preparing a petition or application and expecting a predictable (yet never guaranteed) result.

The shift from counselor to warrior is a frustrating one for many immigration lawyers but is a necessary reaction to the decision-makers’ actions.  The only better option would be for the government to effect a change in policy, provide better training to new officers and adjudicators, or pass immigration reforms that makes the laws clearer so that employers, foreign-nationals, and their lawyers know what to expect.

According to an article on nytimes.com:  “A government report questions the effectiveness of a federal program, long criticized by immigrant advocacy groups, that deputizes police officers as immigration agents.”

Critics of the program argue that spending scarce resources to have local police working to deport smll fish takes away from time that could be better spent apprhending dangerous criminals.  Another problem with such a program is the distrust of police it creates within the immigrant population.  The concept of community policing is an extremely effective tool for law enforcement.  It essentially means that community members trust, help and participate with the police in protecting the community.  If undocumented workers fear being detained and deported when in contact with police officers – their trust turns to fear and they are much less likely to testify as witnesses or report crimes.

According to a USCIS Press Release:  “Last month, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) incorporated Department of State passport data into the E-Verify employment authorization program. This enhancement is already reducing the incidences of mismatches among foreign-born citizens.”