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
"Lawyers negotiating the future of the Obama administration's family detention program agreed late Friday to extend talks until June 12.
The Department of Justice is fighting to keep three family detention centers open after a California judge concluded in a preliminary ruling that detaining mothers with their children violates a 1997 agreement on child migration.
The case has large implications on the Obama administration's increased use of family detention centers. U.S. District Judge Dolly Gee previously refused the government’s request to modify the decades-old agreement, but had given the two sides until May 24 to come up with a new agreement that addressed the violations she found.
Three family detention centers in Berks County, Pa., and Karnes City and Dilley, Texas, currently house more than 750 mothers and children. The expanded use of family detention was in response to last year’s surge of unaccompanied children and families crossing the border.
More than 68,000 migrant families were apprehended. Many requested asylum, saying they were fleeing violence and poverty in Central America.
Lawyers for the mothers want the facilities closed and the detention of mothers and children banned. But administration attorneys argue they need greater flexibility to respond to unexpected surges of illegal migration.
In addition to the extension, the two sides requested seven extra days to file a joint status report with the court. That means an agreement is unlikely to be finalized until June 19." - FRANCO ORDOÑEZ, McClatchy Washington Bureau, May 22, 2015.
[The case is Flores v. Holder, Case No. CV 85-4544-DMG (AGRx), C.D. Cal.]