January 29, 2024

Prof. Stephen I. Vladeck on the Border, the Constitution, and Gov. Abbott

Essential reading for con law and border buffs: 1. Federalism at the Border : "...My goal in this post is to provide a bit of a broader overview of what the Supreme Court has said about the relative roles and responsibilities of state and federal governments when it comes to immigration policy (and federal law enforcement, more generally)—with an eye toward explaining (1) the difference between states supplementing...

January 26, 2024

Expert: Lack of Work Permits, Legal Avenues Stymie Migrants

Carine Hajjar, Boston Globe, Jan. 26, 2024 "[C]urrent policies at the border funnel migrants into a system where their long-term legal claim to "the American dream" is uncertain, and for many, unlikely. ... In the end, many migrants "will lose [their case for] asylum, either because they don't have an attorney to represent them or they don't have a strong case on the merits," says Stephen...

January 25, 2024

Migration at the U.S.-Mexico Border: A Challenge Decades in the Making: MPI Report

Alan D. Bersin, Nate Bruggeman and Ben Rohrbaugh, MPI, Jan. 2024 "U.S.-Mexico border security has been a central policy matter and divisive political issue in the United States for decades. The U.S. border control enterprise has faced two distinctly different eras of unauthorized migration: The first, from the 1980s through the early 2010s, was addressing overwhelmingly Mexican seasonal adult flows. The current...

January 25, 2024

Shelby Park Showdown Update (Jan. 25, 2024)

On Jan. 23, 2024 DHS sent this letter to TX A.G. Paxton. On Jan. 24, 2024 TX Gov. Abbott replied here . Federal courts expert Prof. Steve Vladeck posted this on Twitter (a.k.a. "X"): "Article I, Section 10, Clause 3 of the U.S. Constitution prevents states from doing exactly what Abbott is proposing (responding to claimed invasions on their own) “without the consent of Congress.” By this...

January 24, 2024

Expert: Supreme Court's Chevron Decision Could Affect International Student Policy

Karin Fischer, Chronicle of Higher Education, Jan. 24, 2024 "A pair of U.S. Supreme Court cases about whether commercial fishermen can be forced to pay the cost of federal monitors could have far-reaching implications for regulations affecting international students, including those that govern Optional Practical Training, the popular work program for foreign graduates of American colleges. “Colleges and...

January 24, 2024

TRAC: Too Few Immigration Attorneys; EOIR Bars Access to Vital Data

TRAC, Jan. 24, 2024 "There is widespread agreement that the Immigration Court has far too few judges and support staff to handle newly arriving cases let alone process their backlog of cases which has been piling up for decades. While 1,490,480 cases were filed last year, the Court backlog at the end of December 2023 has grown to 3,287,058 cases. More judges alone won’t be sufficient. There is another serious...

January 24, 2024

Lexis + AI: Transform Your Legal Work

LexisNexis "Using the fastest legal generative AI with conversational search, drafting, summarization, document analysis, and linked hallucination-free legal citations."

January 24, 2024

Free Webinar: AI Goes to Law School

LexisNexis University "Date 02/21/2024 Time 1:00pm - 2:00pm Eastern Time (US & Canada) Presenters: Kristen Baginski, Celeste Pometto DiNicola The November 2022 public release of ChatGPT ushered in a new AI era. ChatGPT gained 100 million active users by January 2023 and set off a race among tech giants to jump in with similar technologies, including Bard, Bing, X.AI, Claude, Llama 2 and Lexis! Understanding...

January 24, 2024

Expert: Be Wary of Immigration Guarantees

Claire Fahy, New York Times, Jan. 22, 2024 "A Bronx lawyer and his son were arrested on Monday and charged with orchestrating a seven-year immigration scheme that defrauded hundreds of immigrants and caused some of them to be deported, federal prosecutors said. The lawyer, Kofi Amankwaa, 69, and his son, Kofi Amankwaa Jr., 37, advised clients seeking green cards to sign petitions under the Violence Against Women...

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 .