Government agencies. There are lots of them. Their functions overlap. People uninvolved from day to day with the interaction of government agencies and learn about them from the media are probably most aware of the interactivity of the intelligence agencies. A fault found after 9-11 was the failure of the many intelligence agencies and law enforcement agencies with intelligence functions to interact. Immigration law execution and enforcement are controlled by several agencies in different departments. There is the Department of…

While immigration is often in the news, the nitty gritty of immigration law, which I write about in this blog, is not. Now, the nitty gritty is in the news with the raging debate about VAWA (Violence Against Women Act). The Republican House of Representatives seeks to modify the current version of VAWA, or the package of laws and amendments that make up the protections for battered people (VAWA does not just apply to women, but to all battered spouses…

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….

I wrote before about my Egyptian friend, Abdulrahim Kewan, on October 17, 2010, “The Never-Ending Wait for a Visa.”  I recounted the legal travails of Mr. Kewan whose efforts to become a permanent resident of the Unite States, which he came to in 1996, turned sour when he made the fateful decision to ask for directions from gate guards at Camp Pendleton when we got lost driving in October 2002. As the old posting and newspaper reports discuss, he was…