January 04, 2022

An Asylum-Seeker's Lucky Break

Tyche Hendricks, KQED, Jan. 4, 2022 "Rosa Díaz vividly remembers the summer day in 2019 when she showed up for an appointment at the Sacramento office of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. “The surprise I got on July 12 was that I was going to be deported,” she said, speaking in Spanish. An ICE officer told her that a judge had ordered her removed from the country after she missed an immigration court hearing...

January 04, 2022

"Remain in Mexico" Reboots

Kate Morrissey, San Diego Union Tribune, Jan. 3, 2022 "San Diego on Monday became the second U.S. border city where federal officials restarted the “Remain in Mexico” program. No asylum seekers were immediately returned to Tijuana to wait for their U.S. immigration court hearings, according to senior officials with the Biden administration speaking on background. The first returns from San Diego to Mexican soil...

January 04, 2022

Student Visa Changes Ahead

Karin Fischer, Jan. 3, 2022 "Student-visa fees could increase under a proposed rule, the State Department gives consular officers greater discretion to assess students’ ties to their home countries, and a guilty verdict in a China Initiative trial."

January 04, 2022

DHS OIG: USCIS' Use of Paper Files Exacerbates Backlog

DHS OIG, Dec. 28, 2021 "USCIS’ primary operational challenge ... was its continued reliance on paper files to process and deliver benefits. USCIS had limited capability to electronically process more than 80 types of benefits, which still required some manual workflows and paper files to complete cases. Recurring technology performance issues and equipment limitations further constrained USCIS employees’ productivity...

January 03, 2022

"I Hope a Lawyer Will Answer"

Tyche Hendricks, KQED, Jan. 3, 2022 "Pablo López sat on the small balcony of an apartment in a Walnut Creek housing complex, dialing phone numbers for legal aid groups across the Bay Area. Just above his head, the freshly washed Chick-fil-A uniforms of his housemates were hanging to dry. He was focused on a printed list of nonprofit legal service groups and private immigration attorneys, hoping that one of them...

December 31, 2021

Americans Seeking Expatriation File Suit

Ed Pilkington, The Guardian, Dec. 31, 2021 "For almost two years, since the pandemic struck in March 2020, most US consular missions around the world have suspended their expatriation services for those wishing to give up US citizenship. The US embassy in London, the largest of its sort in western Europe,  announces on its website  that it is “currently unable to accept appointments for loss of nationality applications...

December 28, 2021

Biden Revokes PP 10315; DOS Travel Restriction Update (Dec. 28, 2021)

White House, Dec. 28, 2021 - A Proclamation on Revoking Proclamation 10315 DOS, Dec. 28, 2021 - Rescission of Travel Restrictions on Botswana, Eswatini, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, and Zimbabwe

December 27, 2021

Holiday Gifts from DOS: Expanded Interview Waivers and Lenient View on Student Nonimmigrant Intent

Cyrus Mehta, Dec. 25, 2021 "The State Department has given much needed holiday gifts to ease delays in visa processing brought about by the evisceration of consular operations due to Covid-19. According to a  December 22, 2021  article  in Roll Call, visa applicants in London, Paris and Mexico City, for instance,  must wait about two months for a nonimmigrant visa appointment. In Toronto, the wait for such an...

December 22, 2021

A Mounting Asylum Backlog and Growing Wait Times: TRAC

TRAC, Dec. 22, 2021 "Over four out of every ten Immigration Court cases in which asylum applications have been filed since October 2000 are still pending. That means that of the 1.6 million Court cases in which asylum applications were filed, two-thirds of a million asylum seekers (667,229) are still waiting for hearings to resolve their cases. ... "

December 22, 2021

Texas National Guard Filmed Trespassing During Border Operations

Melissa del Bosque, Type Investigations, Dec. 17, 2021 "It was early November when Marianna Treviño Wright saw a convoy of National Guard members in Humvees speed past the National Butterfly Center in Mission, Texas. Shortly thereafter, Treviño Wright, the center’s director, began to see soldiers with assault rifles patrolling nearby and along the banks of the Rio Grande. A wildlife camera at the National Butterfly...

December 22, 2021

Expert: Additional H-2B Visas "Not a Lot"

Kristin Schwab, Marketplace, Dec. 21, 2021 "For the first time, the federal government is expanding the cap on H-2B visas available for the winter season — by 60%. For employers looking to hire seasonal workers on or before March 31, some 20,000 extra visas are up for grabs. Is this the quick labor market fix some industries need? ... Steve Yale-Loehr, a professor of immigration law practice at Cornell , said that...

December 21, 2021

Rooted in Racism: The Human Impact of Migrant Prosecutions

NIPNLG, Dec. 21, 2021 "Over the past two decades, unauthorized entry and re-entry prosecutions have become the most commonly prosecuted federal crimes. Passed into law over a century ago with overtly white supremacist goals and rhetoric, their current impact continues to be directed disproportionately at Latinx people. In keeping with their racist origins and application, these laws cruelly punish immigrants and...

December 21, 2021

The Proper Test for Nexus ("On Account Of") in Asylum Law: Hon. Jeffrey S. Chase

Hon. Jeffrey S. Chase, Dec, 21, 2021 "On November 4, the Board of Immigration Appeals issued its precedent decision in Matter of M-F-O- .1,2  At first glance, the decision seems to be a correction regarding  when the accrual of continuous presence for voluntary departure ends, necessitated by a Supreme Court decision rejecting  the Board’s prior take on the question.  The headnote summarizing the decision mentions...

December 20, 2021

Latitude(s) Year-End Wrap

Karin Fischer, Dec. 20, 2021 "A pair of reports warn about research collaboration with China, higher-ed groups issue a joint statement on internationalization, and the latest from D.C."

December 20, 2021

Immigration Courts Now Face Backlog of Over 1.5 Million Cases

TRAC, Dec. 20, 2021 "According to data updated today by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC) at Syracuse University, the number of pending cases in Immigration Court has now reached 1,559,855 as of the end of November 2021. The high number of pending cases puts additional pressure on Immigration Judges who are tasked with deciding these cases. The Transactional Research Access Clearinghouse ...

December 20, 2021

Year-End Recap: This Week in Immigration (Podcast)

BPC, Dec. 20, 2021 "For this final episode of 2021, we’re looking back at the big inflection points and emerging trends from this past year. Our guests this week are Suzanne Monyak, who covers immigration and Congress at CQ Roll Call, and Dara Lind, who covers immigration policy for ProPublica and is a regular co-host of Vox’s “The Weeds” podcast. They’ll discuss big immigration headlines, the Biden administration...

December 20, 2021

Migrant Kidnappings in Nuevo Laredo During MPP and Title 42

Stephanie Leutert, Strauss Center, Dec. 2021 "Every day, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officers send individuals into Mexican border cities, including the city of Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas, across the border from Laredo, Texas. These individuals leave the United States through deportations, Title 42 expulsions via the Centers for Disease Control’s (CDC) COVID-19 order, or as part of the Migrant Protection...

December 20, 2021

Expert: H-1B Reform Is A "Political Conundrum" For Biden

Rikha Sharma Rani, Politico, Dec. 19, 2021 "[R]eform is going to prove tricky for a president who campaigned as a champion for both workers and immigrants. Because while many pro-labor groups say the program lines the pockets of the likes of Google and Facebook at the expense of American workers, immigration advocates, along with business interests, oppose measures to rein it in, saying that doing so will hurt...

December 17, 2021

Groups Ask DOJ to Use Title VI to Counter "Operation Lone Star"

Jolie McCullough, The Texas Tribune, Dec. 15, 2021 "More than 100 immigrant and civil rights advocacy groups have joined the call for the federal government to intervene in Gov.  Greg Abbott ’s border security initiative, which skirts federal jurisdiction over immigration law and locks up in Texas prisons migrants suspected of illegally crossing the border. Ten national and statewide groups, led by the American...

December 16, 2021

Essential But Excluded

Julia Preston, Ariel Goodman, The Marshall Project, Dec. 15, 2021 "Immigrants put seafood on America’s tables. But many have been shut out of pandemic aid — and so have their U.S. citizen children."

December 16, 2021

Download the Latest USCIS Data Sets (Dec. 15, 2021)

USCIS, Dec. 15, 2021   Form I-130 (Awaiting a Visa Availability) As of September, 2021  (CSV, 1.74 KB) December 15, 2021 Contains quarterly performance data on alien relative petitions. It displays the number of petitions received, approved, denied, and pending by quarter of fiscal year, office, and subtype. Form I-130 (Awaiting a Visa Availability) As of September, 2021  (PDF, 109.36 KB) ...

December 15, 2021

DHS Announces Commitment to Enhance Protections for Stateless Individuals in the United States

DHS, Dec. 15, 2021 "The Department of Homeland Security announced its commitment to adopt a definition of statelessness for immigration purposes and enhance protections for stateless individuals living in the United States.  Through the adoption of a standardized definition of statelessness, the Department will ensure it can recognize unique barriers encountered by stateless persons and better identify and protect...

December 13, 2021

The Irony of "Operation Lone Star"

Adolfo Flores, BuzzFeed News, Dec. 10, 2021 "A border operation launched by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott to arrest undocumented immigrants has inadvertently helped asylum-seekers who would have normally been turned away to stay in the US, sometimes outside of detention facilities. ... Audrey Mulholland, staff attorney and interim special project director for TRLA's Operation Lone Star Immigration Response, said:...

December 11, 2021

How the National Guard's Border Mission Fell Apart

Davis Winkie, Army Times, Dec. 8, 2021 "“We could be saving billions of dollars if we actually funded [Customs and Border Protection] instead of using the Guard as a Band-Aid,” said an officer who served at the border last year. “We’re useless and CBP treats us like we’re useless. We cost the taxpayer millions of dollars in pay, benefits, per diem, hotels, [and] vehicle rentals.” Gallego, a former Marine and a...

December 11, 2021

Expert: Congress Can Fix Visa Backlog

Prof. Stephen W. Yale-Loehr, Dec. 10, 2021 "A doctor from India came to the U.S. in 2006, completed an internal medicine residency in New York, and is now working on the frontlines of the COVID-19 pandemic in Virginia. He has risked his own life to save hundreds of lives over the past two years — yet he remains stuck on a temporary visa, waiting to receive a green card in the country he calls home. This temporary...