An opportunity appears and you can bet someone is around to take advantage of it. USCIS acknowledged that the asylum program is hugely backlogged. It posted the filing dates of applications that are currently being processed at the Asylum Offices around the country.  The Los Angeles Asylum Office is now processing asylum cases filed in August 2011. What this means is that a person who filed an asylum interview more than four years ago will just now get his interview….

After changes in immigration law in 1995, when an alien applies for asylum, he or she can only obtain a document from USCIS authorizing him or her to work if his or her asylum case is pending more than 180 days. The immigration court maintains an “asylum clock” to calculate how long a case has been pending. Like everything else in the law, the issue becomes the definition of the words, in this case, “pending,” and like everything else in…