Last week a longstanding client of mine came to the office with one of his siblings and her six children. They had recently been paroled into the United State at our southern border, and they were seeking assistance from our office so they could apply for asylum in...
Immigration
The Supreme Court Weighs in on Prosecutorial Discretion
I’ve written about this before. Prosecutorial Discretion (or “PD” for short) is the authority of, for our purposes, a federal agency charged with enforcing the immigration law to decide where it should focus its resources and whether or how to enforce, or more often...
What Do the Midterm Elections Mean for U.S. Immigration Policy?
Each election cycle obviously has political implications, and for my purposes, it will no doubt have implications on U.S. immigration policy. Once this midterm election cycle comes to a close (as of this writing, the Georgia senate race is still up in the air), it...
Biden Decriminalizes Thousands of Federal Marijuana Convictions. So What?
On March 29, 1992, then candidate Bill Clinton admitted that he had tried smoking marijuana when he was in his 20’s while studying at the University of Oxford. “I’ve never broken a state law,” he said, “But when I was in England, I experimented with marijuana a time...
What’s a Public Charge?
The term “charge” can be used in many ways. In basketball, a “charge” is when an offensive player with the ball runs over, or rushes into, a (supposedly) stationary defensive player. In baseball, a batter may “charge” the mound when he’s hit by a pitch (or nearly...
Immigration Opportunities in the Era of COVID
I recently came across a great article on how COVID impacted our immigration system and its various processes, and it got me thinking about what some of my own clients were doing. It also occurred to me that for some of these clients, COVID has had an unintended...
What is humanitarian parole for potential immigrants?
To say that the last couple of years have been interesting would be an understatement, on so many levels. COVID, the presidency, foreign affairs and wars. The list goes on. We’ve all been impacted by the events of the last few years on some level. In my...
Does your “American Dream” involve starting a business?
Unbelievable as it feels to type this, but July 4 is closer than you think. With that, perhaps a little conversation about the “American Dream” is in order. People come to the United States for a variety of reasons including to unite with their family members, to get...
The E Nonimmigrant Treaty Trader / Investor Visa
Several months ago I wrote that I would start offering up some options to the almighty H-1B specialty occupation visa because not every employer will be able to sponsor a foreign national in that category for any number of reasons, not the least of which is because...
We Have (Not) Taken an Action on Your Case. What About The H-1B Cap Exemption?
I added the “not” into the title of this piece. I was sitting at home over the weekend when I received an email from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (“USCIS”) indicating that they had taken action on at least one of my cases. At this time of year,...