In the spirit of May being Mental Health Awareness Month, I thought a short missive on the connection between immigration and mental health would be appropriate. And when I refer to mental health, I’m speaking to both attorneys and their clients. Many years ago, I...
Immigration
Despite Delays and Other Issues, USCIS Wants to Increase its Fees!!!
Sometimes I just need to get up on my soapbox and speak loudly. Having said that, I write this piece with a little trepidation. Why? I’ve been working in the immigration world for a long-time now, either on Capitol Hill or in private practice. Thirty-five years to...
President Biden, What Have You Done for Me Lately?
It’s March 2023. We’re a little over two years into the Biden administration, and for two of those years, the Democrats “controlled” two branches of the federal government. I put quotes around “controlled” because it feels like a misnomer to say that given that...
The H-1B Lottery Registration Process
It’s that time of year again, and I do feel like I write about this annually, but given the emails that I’ve seen come across my desk over the past month or so, with attorneys having difficulty setting up their own accounts on U.S. Citizenship and Immigration...
The I-9 and COVID
The Form I-9, Employment Eligibility Verification (“Form I-9”), is three (3) pages long. The basic instructions are fifteen (15) pages long. The Handbook for Employers (M-274), which is the Department of Homeland Security’s (“DHS”) guidance for completing this...
Title 42. What Exactly Is It?
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...
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...