January 03, 2023

Employment Authorization for Yemeni F–1 Nonimmigrant Students Experiencing Severe Economic Hardship as a Direct Result of the Crisis in Yemen

Federal Register / Vol. 88, No. 1 / Tuesday, January 3, 2023 "This notice announces that the Secretary of Homeland Security (Secretary) is suspending certain regulatory requirements for F–1 nonimmigrant students whose country of citizenship is Yemen, regardless of country of birth (or individuals having no nationality who last habitually resided in Yemen), and who are experiencing severe economic hardship...

December 31, 2022

CA9 on Notice, In Absentia, Motion to Reopen, Abuse of Discretion: Perez-Portillo v. Garland

Perez-Portillo v. Garland "Petitioners Idania Yamileth Perez-Portillo and her minor daughter, Stefani Abigail Arevalo-Perez, 1 seek review of the Board of Immigration Appeals’ (BIA) dismissal of Perez-Portillo’s appeal from an Immigration Judge’s (IJ) denial of her motion to reopen her immigration proceedings. Perez-Portillo failed to appear at her hearing, which had been moved up two months from its original date...

December 30, 2022

Practice Advisory: Nightingale v. USCIS and FOIA Requests for Immigration Case Files (A-Files)

Trina Realmuto, Mary Kenney, Emily Creighton, Matt Adams, and Stacy Tolchin, Dec. 16, 2022 "... This practice advisory explains the ways to submit a FOIA request for a client’s A-File, provides suggestions for avoiding agency rejections of the requests, and identifies issues related to the Nightingale injunction that class counsel are monitoring. ..." Copyright (c) 2022 National Immigration Litigation Alliance...

December 29, 2022

DOS on Interview Waivers for Certain NIVs (Dec. 23, 2022)

DOS, Dec. 23, 2022 "The Secretary of State, with the concurrence of the Department of Homeland Security, has extended until December 31, 2023, previously approved authorities allowing consular officers to waive the in-person interview for certain H-2 (temporary agricultural and non-agricultural workers) applicants; certain students, professors, research scholars, short-term scholars, or specialists (F, M, and academic...

December 28, 2022

CA8 (2-1) Slaps BIA for Clear Error Violation: Alvarez-Gomez v. Garland

Alvarez-Gomez v. Garland "Gustavo Alexis Alvarez-Gomez, a citizen of El Salvador, petitions this court for review of the denial of his application for withholding of removal under the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) and reversal of withholding of removal under the Convention Against Torture (CAT). Alvarez-Gomez has serious cognitive impairments, and while living in El Salvador he was recruited by gang members...

December 28, 2022

Biden Signs Immigration-Related Legislation

S.2991 - Countering Human Trafficking Act of 2021 S.7 - VAWA Technical Amendment Act of 2022 H.R.7181 - Human Trafficking Prevention Act of 2022

December 27, 2022

Supreme Court: Arizona v. Mayorkas, 5-4

Supreme Court, Dec. 27, 2022 "The application for stay pending certiorari presented to THE CHIEF JUSTICE and by him referred to the Court is granted. The November 15, 2022 order of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, case No. 1:21– cv–00100, is hereby stayed. Applicants suggested this Court treat the application as a petition for a writ of certiorari; doing so, the petition is granted...

December 27, 2022

"Red Notice" Victory in Portland

Superlitigator Margaret D. Stock won this waiver / "Red Notice" victory in the Portland Immigration Court.  ICE did not appeal.

December 27, 2022

Security Bars and Processing IFR; Delay of Effective Date - Advance Copy

This document is scheduled to be published in the Federal Register on 12/28/2022. "On December 23, 2020, the Department of Homeland Security (“DHS”) and the Department of Justice (“DOJ”) (collectively, “the Departments”) published a final rule (“Security Bars rule”), to clarify that the “danger to the security of the United States” standard in the statutory bar to eligibility for asylum and withholding of removal...

December 23, 2022

NIPNLG 2022 Crim-Imm Case Law Updates

NIPNLG, Dec. 21, 2022 "This resource is designed to help immigration practitioners stay up to date on case law developments over the past year in the area of immigration law and crimes. It initially lists notable case law developments before the BIA and the United States Courts of Appeals. This is followed by case summaries of all published Board of Immigration Appeals decisions that address this area of law in...

December 23, 2022

NIPNLG Practice Advisory: Video Hearings in Immigration Court: “Knotty” Issues of Venue and Choice of Law

NIPNLG, Dec. 21, 2022 "This Practice Advisory will explain the different choices available for which circuit court should have venue over VTC removal hearings, and accordingly which circuit’s law applies. It will then discuss significant agency and federal court decisions addressing these issues. Finally, it will provide recommendations to practitioners on how to navigate these complex issues and advocate to best...

December 23, 2022

EOIR OGC Job Opening (Deadline Jan. 9, 2023) - Supervisory Attorney Advisor

Supervisory Attorney Advisor "This position is located in the Office of the General Counsel, Executive Office for Immigration Review, U. S. Department of Justice. Incumbent serves as Supervisory Attorney Advisor, over either OGC's Immigration Law Unit or Programs Unit. This position may be eligible for remote work as determined by agency policy. As the federal agency whose mission is to...

December 20, 2022

CA9 on Forced Labor: Owino v. CoreCivic

Owino v. CoreCivic "The opinion filed June 3, 2022, Owino v. CoreCivic, Inc., 36 F.4th 839 (9th Cir. 2022) is amended and superceded by the opinion filed concurrently with this order. The full court has been advised of the petition for rehearing en banc. A judge of this Court requested a vote on the petition for rehearing en banc. A majority of the nonrecused active judges did not vote to rehear the case en banc...

December 20, 2022

United States v. Hansen: Supreme Court Once Again Agrees to Hear Constitutionality of a Smuggling Statute That Could Impact Immigration Lawyers

Cyrus Mehta, Kaitlyn Box, Dec. 20, 2022 "On December 9, 2022, the Supreme Court granted certiorari in  United States v. Helaman Hansen , a case that poses the question whether the federal criminal prohibition on encouraging or inducing unlawful immigration for commercial advantage or private financial gain in violation of  INA §274(a)(1)(A)(iv) is unconstitutionally overbroad. Helaman Hansen ran an organization...

December 20, 2022

Garland Appoints Eleven New IJs

EOIR, Dec. 20, 2022 "The Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR) today announced the appointment of 11 immigration judges to immigration courts in Georgia, Illinois, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Washington. These immigration judges are career employees, and EOIR selected them after a thorough competitive application process. Attorney General Merrick B. Garland officially...

December 19, 2022

Visa Bulletin for January 2023

Visa Bulletin for January 2023 Notes D & E: D.   VISA AVAILABILITY IN THE EMPLOYMENT FIRST CATEGORY FOR CHINA AND INDIA As readers were warned may happen in Item E of the December 2022  Visa Bulletin , it has become necessary to establish Employment First Preference final action and application filing dates for China and India, effective in January, to hold number use within the maximum allowed under the FY...

December 19, 2022

H-2B Attestation Form, Instructions (Dec. 19, 2022)

Here is the form .  Here are the instructions .  [And here is my 2017 opinion on the matter.]

December 19, 2022

USCIS Policy Alert: Public Charge Ground of Inadmissibility

USCIS, Dec. 19, 2022 "[T]his guidance, contained in Volume 8 of the Policy Manual, will be implemented beginning on December 23, 2022, and applies prospectively to applications for adjustment of status postmarked (or submitted electronically, if applicable) on or after that date. On that date, the final rule and this policy update will supersede the public charge inadmissibility guidance found in the 1999 Interim...

December 16, 2022

CA9 on Past Persecution, Cumulative-Effect Review: Salguero v. Garland

Salguero v. Garland "[W]e hold that the BIA must conduct a cumulative-effect review when assessing a petitioner’s claim of past persecution and that the agency’s purported failure to do so is a legal issue we decide de novo. ... For the foregoing reasons, the petition for review is GRANTED IN PART, DENIED IN PART, and REMANDED." [Hats off to Sylvia L. Esparza !]

December 16, 2022

MPP Stay Order from N.D. TX (Dec. 15, 2022)

Texas v. Biden, Dec. 15, 2022 "This case began as a challenge to the termination of the Migrant Protection Protocols ("MPP") program in January 2021. Although the legal instruments governing the termination evolved over time by issuance of new memoranda, this case continued. Most recently, the Supreme Court remanded the case for this Court to consider Plaintiff States of Texas and Missouri's ("Plaintiffs"...

December 15, 2022

NJ IT Recruiting Firm to Pay $26K to Resolve Immigration-Related Discrimination Claims

DOJ, Dec. 14, 2022 "The Justice Department announced today that it has secured a settlement agreement with Secureapp Technologies LLC (Secureapp), a New Jersey IT recruiting and labor staffing company. The settlement resolves the department’s determination that Secureapp violated the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) by posting discriminatory job advertisements that solicited applications only from non-U.S...

December 15, 2022

ICE Posts Wrong Numbers on Alternatives to Detention (ATD) Monitoring: TRAC

TRAC, Dec. 14, 2022 "ICE has informed TRAC that Alternatives to Detention (ATD) data previously released by the agency on several occasions between August 2022 and December 2022, as well as data previously released for FY 2022, was inaccurate. TRAC therefore urges caution in interpreting the latest numbers ICE has just posted. The data ICE has been posting for months showed that use of GPS ankle monitors had...

December 14, 2022

Trial Testing of Redesigned Naturalization Test for Naturalization Applications

This document is scheduled to be published in the Federal Register on 12/15/2022 "This notice announces that U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) will conduct a nationwide trial of planned changes to the naturalization test. The naturalization test is comprised of the civics test that evaluates a knowledge and understanding of the fundamentals of U.S. history and of the principles and form of U.S....

December 13, 2022

Matter of Fernandes: UPDATE

In Matter of Fernandes , the BIA held that "DHS may remedy the noncompliant notice to appear. The precise contours of permissible remedies are not before us at this time." Former IJ Jeffrey S. Chase wrote this analysis . Counsel for respondent report that on remand, the IJ terminated proceedings , and ICE appealed to the BIA.

December 12, 2022

CA5 Blasts BIA for "Complete Lack of Discussion of...Evidence" in Mexican CAT Case

Aguado-Cuevas v. Garland (unpub.) "Oscar Aguado-Cuevas, a Mexican national, petitions for review of the BIA’s decision affirming a denial of his application for relief under the Convention Against Torture. For the reasons below, we GRANT the petition, VACATE the BIA’s decision, and REMAND this case for further consideration of Aguado-Cuevas’s petition for CAT protection. ... Aguado-Cuevas filed...