I have posted twice about a friend and client, Abdulrahim Kewan, who is stuck in Egypt despite having an approved petition to come to the United States. The background of the case was laid out in a posting on October 17, 2010.

To summarize very briefly, Mr. Kewan was applying for permanent residence in the San Diego Immigration Court based on an approved visa petition as a battered spouse. In October 2002, he stopped at a gate at the U.S. Marine Corps’ Camp Pendleton to ask for directions. He was arrested two weeks later. He was held until he was deported in early 2004. The story was reported in the media. Reporters had promised to follow up. I invite them to now.

Since Mr. Kewan was deported in 2004, we have been working to get him back. All papers were filed and waivers approved and an interview was held at the U.S. Consulate in Cairo in May 2010. At the interview, the Consulate said everything looked good and a visa they would soon deliver Mr. Kewan his visa. They kept his passport to affix the visa. Then more delays started occurring, discussed in a posting on February 6, 2011. These delays amount to a great unfairness and injustice.

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I present a dramatization of a dialogue I call Some skepticism about the New Immigration Policy regarding the new prosecutorial discretion policy announced by the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, Janet Napolitano,  and the White House. The new policy is designed to implement a policy memorandum of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Director, John Morton, dated June 17, 2011, and concerns concentrating resources on removing criminal aliens and aliens who pose national security threats while treating run of the mill undocumented aliens more generously. Fire up the Beta here.  Posted August 20, 2011.

On August 11, 2011, the 9^th Circuit Court of Appeals published another en banc blockbuster, U.S. v. Aguila-Montes de Oca authored by Judge Jay Bybee. The case addresses the modified categorical approach of statutory analysis. The use of the approach arises when a court needs to figure out if a state criminal conviction fits a federal definition of say, a crime of violence or a burglary or a crime of domestic violence or sexual abuse of a minor or a drug trafficking offense, etc., but the state criminal statute includes elements that fit the definition and elements that do not, commonly referred to as a divisble statute. (more…)

Widespread are complaints about customer service. People talk and write about insufferable time put on hold when calling for help, being transferred from customer service representative to customer service representative, and long waits until someone who can make a decision is located and a decision is made. As bad as any customer service complaint you may have about your credit card company, utility company, mortgage company, or bank, compared to USCIS, they are head and shoulders above the service USCIS often provides through its Infopass customer service program.

A little empirical data. I have been tracking five similar cases. All involve people applying for permanent residence. The cases were in immigration court. Following agreement by the attorney for the immigration service bureau that represents the government in immigration court, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, an immigration judge terminated the cases so USCIS could handle them. The goal of this process is to unburden the immigration court of cases that can be “quickly” handled by USCIS. (more…)