In 1996, Congress passed a law giving the federal government the power to declare an emergency relating to a “mass influx” of migrants. When that is enacted, the government can disburse funding to states and municipalities to deal with this influx. What does this mean in practice? Local police officers around the country could be […]
There have been a number of executive orders from President Trump since he took office on January 20, 2025. What do these orders say and what do they mean for immigrants? First, President Trump issued an executive order to rescind some of the Biden Administration policies including the establishment of a taskforce to revise civil […]
On January 20, 2025, President Donald Trump signed an executive order called “Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government.” The order says that transgender people and their allies “deny the biological reality of sex” and a claim that the falsehood of transgender people “permit men to self-identify as […]
On September 15, 2023, a young man from Honduras came to consult with our office about a criminal citation. He has a court date on October 4, 2023, and he was worried about his future; would immigration arrest and deport him; how can he fight his case? During the consultation, we determined that he would […]
On March 28, 2023, the State Department announced a new interpretation for the Visa Bulletin. Under this new rule, the counting mechanism for Permanent Residency applications for Special Immigrants would change, effective April 2023. All Special Immigrant visas will be pulled together, instead of the previous practice of segregating religious workers from other special immigrants. […]
EAGLE Act of 2022 does little to address the underlying problem in employment-based immigration. Many immigrants to the United States face multi-year delays in receiving employment-based green cards due to “per country caps” on the number of visas allocated each year. A proposed law, known as the EAGLE Act of 2022, aims to reduce these […]
As immigration attorneys, we sometimes take for granted the impact we can have on people’s lives and the changes we can bring to people realizing their American dreams. Sometimes, working under the radar, we make things happen for our clients without taking the time to reflect on how impactful the work truly is. Last week, […]
Right now, immigration courts’ dockets total over 1.5 million cases nationwide. DHS and their representatives, Office of Principal Legal Advisor (OPLA) attorneys, are thus facing a reckoning of how to best apply the government’s finite resources in prosecuting these cases and fairly enforce civil immigration laws. An April 3, 2022, memorandum for OPLA attorneys provided […]
At the one-year mark of the President Biden administration, it has become clear that no fundamental immigration law changes are going take place. A new report by American Immigration Lawyers Association provides a detailed evaluation of Biden Administration’s accomplishments and shortcomings. From the legislative perspective, nothing has happened, and it is very unlikely anything will. […]
In the last year, we have met with several businesses anxious about finding workers to fill their open positions, especially with current U.S. low unemployment rates. For most businesses with job openings that do not require a bachelor’s degree or U.S. licensures, looking overseas for workers is a realistic avenue to meet their needs as […]