The Board of Immigration Appeals and the many other immigration-involved agencies in the federal government sometimes remind me of the movie, the Bridge on the River Kwai. A recent decision, Singh v. Holder,  highlighted this. If you recall, in the Bridge on the River Kwai Alec Guinness engages in a battle of wills with the evil Colonel Saito about who is in charge of building a bride over the River Kwai. Colonel Nicholson, Guinness, forgets that his role in the…

It has finally happened. The Ninth Circuit ruled in the case of Almanza-Arenas v. Holder. The case at the Ninth Circuit was on review from the Board of Immigration Appeals. It stood for the proposition that when a record of conviction is ambiguous as to whether a crime makes one ineligible for relief, then the person seeking relief fails to meet the burden of eligibility, which is on the applicant, and therefore cannot be granted the relief. The issue arises…

Saying something is “political” is not necessarily pejorative as the making of government policy is a political act. Nonetheless, when you see the actual political biases in actions, it is hard to be sanguine about the hypocrisy. A recent example is the matter of Cubans surging  to America’s shores. This flood is not much smaller than the flood of Central Americans  in the news earlier in the year, which has been largely stemmed despite the rampant gang violence, domestic violence,…

A couple of weeks someone was talking to me about how she wanted an accommodation from someone within a big bureaucracy. She did not get it and was perplexed and slightly angry that she got know. As she saw it, a little accommodation would have been more efficient not only for her but for the big bureacracy. Ever the contrarian, I explained that if certain things need to be accomplished by tens of thousands of people, part of the large…