Archive for 2018

Make ‘em wait in foreign contiguous territory.

Sunday, December 23rd, 2018

This is yet another week where the huge news overshadows the big news. With a government shutdown, Syria and Afghanistan withdrawal, a stay of new credible fear rules, the stock market tanking, Mattis quitting, and criminal justice reform, you may have overlooked the story of a new policy of applicants for admission to the United States waiting in Mexico until their cases are resolved. By way of background, people who come to a border inspection station, airport, or seaport, to…

Ninth Circuit finds part of the alien smuggling criminal statute unconstitutional. What does that mean for removability?

Sunday, December 9th, 2018

In a case filed December 4, 2018, a Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals panel decided in USA v. Sineneng-Smith that the criminal statute, INA § 274(a)(1)(A)(iv), is unconstitutionally over-broad in violation of the First Amendment because it criminalizes a substantial amount of protected expression in relation to its narrow band of legitimately prohibited conduct and unprotected expression. The statute states: Any alien who encourages or induces an alien to come to, enter, or reside in the United States, knowing or…

America looks for better legal ways keep migrants out. Will the migrants care?

Sunday, November 25th, 2018

What an amazing story for Thanksgiving, a missionary killed by a bow and arrow on the Indian island of North Sentinel in the Andaman Sea by a hunter-gatherer society untouched by outside culture. Untouched because India is enforcing the USS Enterprise’s primary directive – not to interfere with the internal and natural development of alien civilizations. See, Starfleet General Order 1. This Thanksgiving, while we celebrated indigenous American Indians’ friendship with European settlers, a story unfolded of an indigenous people…

Presidential authority to invoke emergency powers without an emergency cannot be part of our laws anymore.

Sunday, November 11th, 2018

When Congress writes laws, especially in the national security/national affairs context, broad authority is often given to the President. Anyone litigating immigration law issues in the federal court is used to seeing the government presenting its litany of cases that give to the executive the least restricted authority when it comes to immigration because of its relation to issues of U.S. foreign affairs and foreign policy. Americans may marvel that the President has the authority to order attacks, even nuclear…