At immigration lawyer conferences, it is not unusual to hear attorneys speaking on the arcana of immigration law to comment on the Ninth Circuit. Those from it gloat about how the law is “better” there for foreigners and those not from it bemoan that they are not there. Quite often attorneys will call me from parts of the country outside of the Ninth Circuit asking if it would be advantageous for a client to move here. It sometimes is, or…

We are all likely familiar with the concept of the “culture wars,” wherein people debate the changes in the culture including issues like guns, sexuality, homosexuality, drugs, religion, and morality. Concerns run from whether to take your hat off indoors to gay marriage. Current manifestations are clear with the Tea Party and Sarah Palin’s soccer moms versus John Stewart and Steven Colbert. Often unnoticed in the media is that immigration is a front in the culture wars.

Aliens seeking benefits from USCIS or the immigration court need to be fingerprinted by USCIS. USCIS provides the service to aliens for the immigration court as well. The immigration judges do not have access to the fingerprint result databases, so ICE must report the results to the immigration judge. An alien in removal proceedings seeking a benefit must be printed. He must arrange it through USCIS, which then places the results in a database that ICE accesses and reports the…

In this blog I have posted some surveys. Today, I post a final exam question. Here is the scenario. Fred is walking down the street in San Diego, California. His clothes are neat and clean and he stands out in no way other than perhaps an ethnic physiognomy. Immigration officers stop him and ask him where he was born. Fred asks the officers why they want to know. They answer him, “Listen, Shecky, we ask the questions here!” Fred then says,…