USCIS, July 16, 2024 "U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) is issuing policy guidance in the USCIS Policy Manual to address the new provisions added to the Immigration and Nationality...
DOS, July 15, 2024 " On June 18, 2024, the Biden-Harris Administration announced actions to more efficiently process employment-based nonimmigrant visas for those who have graduated from college...
Cyrus D. Mehta and Jessica Paszko, July 13, 2024 "Portability under Section 204(j) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) allows certain employment-based green card applicants to change jobs...
This document is scheduled to be published in the Federal Register on 07/12/2024 "The Department of State (the Department) publishes a final rule revising the Code of Federal Regulations to amend...
Visa Bulletin for August 2024
"In this case, we consider whether a statute written in the disjunctive is divisible in light of the Supreme Court’s decision in Descamps v. United States, 133 S. Ct. 2276 (2013). The statutory text at issue is a different portion of the same statute that the Supreme Court encountered in Descamps — California Penal Code section 459 — which states, inter alia, that “[e]very person who enters any . . . vehicle . . . , when the doors are locked, . . . with intent to commit grand or petit larceny or any felony is guilty of burglary.” Here, the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) determined that petitioner’s conviction under section 459 qualified as an attempted theft offense, an aggravated felony under 8 U.S.C. § 1101(a)(43)(U), by applying the modified categorical approach. This approach is permissible only if section 459 is divisible. We hold that the presence of an “or” between “grand or petit larceny” and “any felony” does not, in itself, render the statute divisible, and that, under Descamps, section 459 is indivisible as a matter of law. Therefore, the BIA’s use of the modified categorical approach was impermissible, and we accordingly grant the petition for review." - Rendon v. Holder, Aug. 22, 2014. [Hats off to Brigit G. Alvarez!]