January 22, 2024

Supreme Court (5-4) Says OK for DHS to Cut TX Razor Wire at Border

DHS v. Texas, Jan. 22, 2024 "The application to vacate injunction presented to Justice Alito and by him referred to the Court is granted. The December 19, 2023 order of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, case No. 23-50869, is vacated. Justice Thomas, Justice Alito, Justice Gorsuch, and Justice Kavanaugh would deny the application to vacate injunction."

January 22, 2024

Free Webinar: Immigration Slavery in America - A True Story of Forced Labor and Liberation

Tuesday, February 06, 2024, 2pm EST - REGISTER HERE "This webinar features a discussion of author Saket Soni’s The Great Escape , which tells the astonishing true story of a group of immigrants trapped in the largest human trafficking scheme in modern American history. Weaving a deeply personal journey with a riveting tale of modern-day forced labor, The Great Escape — named a 2023 best book of the...

January 19, 2024

Organizations Urge Federal Clemency for Military Veterans Vulnerable to Deportation

ACLU So. Cal., Jan. 18, 2024 "Organizations representing noncitizen military veterans whose federal criminal convictions make them vulnerable to deportation are urging President Biden to use his pardon power to ensure people who have served our nation are not exiled from the only country they have ever known as home. In a letter sent to Elizabeth Oyer, the Justice Department’s pardon attorney, the American...

January 19, 2024

Biden at the Three-Year Mark: The Most Active Immigration Presidency Yet

MPI Policy Beat, Jan. 19, 2024 "This article reviews the major immigration actions during the Biden administration’s first three years, focusing on border enforcement, interior enforcement and impacts on U.S. cities, humanitarian protection, the immigration courts, and legal admissions."

January 18, 2024

Most Trump-Era Immigration Policies Still In Effect

According to the Immigration Policy Tracking Project, as of Dec. 25, 2023 , of the 1,027 Trump actions, 684 are fully in effect, 57 are partially in effect, and 294 are not in effect. 333 were acted upon by the Biden administration, 108 were acted on by the courts, and 21 were allowed to expire.

January 18, 2024

Expert: Every Branch of Government is to Blame for Immigration Problems

Maria Ramirez Uribe, PolitiFact, Jan. 17, 2024 "As members from separate branches of government point fingers at one another, the persistent situation at the border leaves voters with plenty of questions. "What branch of government is ‘really’ responsible for the crisis at the border?" a reader asked PolitiFact in an email. Is it the president or Congress? ... "Each of the three branches...

January 18, 2024

Shelby Park Standoff Update (Jan. 18, 2024)

On Jan. 15, 2024 the U.S. Solicitor General filed this pleading at the Supreme Court. On Jan. 17, 2024 Texas A.G. Paxton replied, here and here .

January 15, 2024

DHS Sets Deadline for Abbott re Shelby Park

Jan. 14, 2024 letter from DHS to Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton " ... Texas’s actions are clearly unconstitutional and are actively disrupting the federal government’s operations. We demand that Texas cease and desist its efforts to block Border Patrol’s access in and around the Shelby Park area and remove all barriers to access in the Shelby Park area. If you have not confirmed by the end...

January 14, 2024

Straight Talk About Immigration

"The increased arrivals at the U.S. southern border, and the dysfunction of an immigration system that has not been reformed by Congress for more than 30 years, have fueled arguments that the United States should turn away immigrants at the border. While newly arriving migrants may need short term services, the overwhelming evidence shows that immigrants provide enormous benefits to the United States. They are a...

January 14, 2024

New Appellate Immigration Law Clinic Steps Up

Rachel Konieczny, Maryland Daily Record, January 12, 2024 "With the backlog of immigration cases in U.S. immigration court recently exceeding 3 million , immigration practitioners and professors hope to expand access to legal services for noncitizens. One Maryland law school is aiming to close the legal representation gap. The University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law’s federal appellate immigration...

January 14, 2024

Standoff at Shelby Park: Three Dead

On Friday, Jan. 12, 2024, U.S. Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar filed this SUPPLEMENTAL MEMORANDUM REGARDING EMERGENCY APPLICATION TO VACATE THE INJUNCTION PENDING APPEAL with the U.S. Supreme Court. Texas fired back on Saturday, filing this reply. Meanwhile, as reported here , here , here , here and here , three migrants drowned. "The Texas military officials "physically barred" U.S. border agents...

January 12, 2024

TX Gov. Abbott Takes Border Fight With Feds To New Level

James Farrell, Forbes, Jan. 12, 2024 "The Texas National Guard seized control of a park in Eagle Pass, Texas, this week and is denying access to Border Patrol agents as the state continues to try and wrestle border enforcement away from the Biden Administration, whose immigration policies have been a frequent target of Gov. Greg Abbott. ... In a Friday filing with the Supreme Court, the Department of Justice alleged...

January 12, 2024

USCIS to Launch Organizational Accounts, Enabling Online Collaboration and Submission of H-1B Registrations

USCIS, Jan. 12, 2024 "U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services today announced the upcoming launch of a package of customer experience improvements for H-1B cap season. The measures are expected to increase efficiency and ease collaboration for organizations and their legal representatives. USCIS will launch organizational accounts for non-cap filings and the fiscal year (FY) 2025 H-1B cap season. The introduction...

January 09, 2024

Legal Pathways: A Humane and Effective Option

NFAP, Jan. 9, 2024 "Expanding legal pathways reduces illegal entry more effectively than traditional enforcement-only approaches. Border Patrol data show work visas and the Biden administration’s humanitarian parole programs have been far more effective against illegal immigration than the Trump administration’s enforcement-only policies, according to a National Foundation for American Policy (NFAP...

January 09, 2024

John Lennon's Immigration Lawyer, Leon Wildes (1933-2024)

We've lost another immigration law titan: Leon K. Wildes . Read Careen Shannon's post here . Read Paul Schmidt's post here . Read John Lennon's immigration file here . Buy and read the book "John Lennon vs. the USA" here . Above all, imagine .

January 07, 2024

Straight Talk About the Southern Border

Veteran immigration attorney and policy advisor to insiders of both parties, Charles Foster keeps his cool responding to some ill-informed questions and comments during this 45-minute C-SPAN segment from Jan. 6, 2024 .

January 05, 2024

Children’s Immigration Law Academy’s 2023 Written Resources

ABA Children’s Immigration Law Academy, Jan. 2024 - "The ABA Children’s Immigration Law Academy (CILA) wishes you a Happy New Year and looks forward to continuing to support all the work that you do to help immigrant youth and children in 2024. We wanted to provide a summary of key resources we updated and developed in 2023! As a reminder, the following written resources are available for free on our...

January 04, 2024

Green Card Holder Denied Citizenship for Working in Legal Cannabis

Kaylee Tornay, Politico, Dec. 23, 2023 "As an immigrant, Maria Reimers tried to do everything by the book. She entered the U.S. legally, married an American citizen and secured a green card to work. Together, she and her husband managed to open a small storefront in Ephrata, a dot of a town in Washington state. But when Reimers tried to become a U.S. citizen in 2017, she was denied for lack of “good moral...

January 04, 2024

Fed Sue Texas Regarding Unconstitutional SB 4 Immigration Law

DOJ, Jan. 3, 2024 "The Justice Department today filed suit against the State of Texas to challenge Senate Bill 4 (SB 4) under the U.S. Constitution’s Supremacy Clause and Foreign Commerce Clause. The Constitution assigns the federal government the authority to regulate immigration and manage our international borders. Pursuant to this authority, Congress has established a comprehensive framework governing...

January 04, 2024

Expert: Texas Immigration Bill Unconstitutional

Maria Recio, Austin American-Statesman, Jan. 3, 2023 "The U.S. Constitution's supremacy clause states that federal laws, rules and regulations trump conflicting state laws, as was upheld in a 2010 Supreme Court case on illegal immigration in Arizona. Will the Democratic Biden administration strike back? “They did it in Arizona,” said Cornell Law School immigration professor Stephen Yale-Loehr ,...

January 03, 2024

"They Treat Us Like Garbage"

Daniella Silva, NBC News, Dec. 22, 2023 "Dozens of migrants have recently been transferred to a federal detention center in Louisiana that has been the subject of years of complaints about filthy conditions and inadequate medical care, advocates for immigrants and asylum-seekers said. Authorities with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement transferred around 100 detainees this month from the Pine Prairie processing...

January 02, 2024

Stuart Anderson's 2024 Outlook

Stuart Anderson, the executive director of the National Foundation for American Policy , is always a must-read when he posts on Forbes. Here is his latest , including prognostications about H-1B visas, USCIS fee increases, domestic visa renewal, Schedule A, other regulatory actions, DACA, Chevron, legal challenges, border/Ukraine funding and more.

December 29, 2023

Immigration Clinic Law Students Win Prestigious Award

YU News, Dec. 29, 2023 "Frances Grail-Bingham ’24 and Cara Hernandez ’24, students in the Kathryn O. Greenberg Immigration Justice Clinic, received the CLEA Outstanding Clinic Team Award for successfully representing an elderly, long-term U.S. resident in his merits (trial-type) hearing before the New York Immigration Court. (l-r) Cara Hernandez and Frances Grail-Bingham For the client and his...

December 29, 2023

2023 in Perspective

Cyrus D. Mehta & Jessica Paszko, Dec. 29, 2023 "Though we finally said goodbye to the COVID-19 public health emergency in the spring, Title 42, which was instituted due to the pandemic, still hung around for part of the year and effectively prevented migrants from applying for asylum at the border. With Title 42 still in place during the first four months of the year, we argued that President Biden’s...

December 29, 2023

DOJ to TX Gov. Abbott: Stand Down or We Will Sue

Dec. 28, 2023 letter from DOJ to Texas Governor Greg Abbott "Texas recently enacted Senate Bill 4 (SB 4), which will become effective on March 5, 2024. The law purports to create new state crimes tied to federal prohibitions on unlawful entry and reentry by noncitizens into the United States, and it would authorize state judges to order the removal of certain noncitizens from the country. SB 4 is preempted and...