What if she was a foreigner?

Sunday, January 22nd, 2012

Etta James Blues, rhythm and blues, rock and roll, soul, gospel and jazz singer, Etta James, who died on January 20, 2012, had she been a foreigner, would not have not been welcome on American shores and would have faced removal. Reports are that she suffered throughout her life with heroin addiction. She was in the Tarzana Rehabilitation Center in Los Angeles in the early 1970’s and the Betty Ford Center in Palm Springs in the late 1980’s, this time…

The BIA reverses the Ninth Circuit and expands the reach of the stop-time rule

Sunday, December 4th, 2011

The Justice Department’s Executive Office for Immigration Review’s Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) laid one on us Friday, in what Matt Drudge might call a Friday document dump. In this case, the dump was a decision about the stop-time rule, Matter of Camarillo. The stop-time rule, found at INA § 240A(d), states, in part, that “… any period of continuous residence or continuous physical presence in the United States shall deem to end … when the alien is served a…

Yet another look at Matter of Silva-Trevino, this time through a Rosas colored glasses.

Sunday, November 6th, 2011

Today I write again on a technical matter, discussing the case, Matter of Silva-Trevino, again. As you may recall from writings  here and here  and here, in this case, the then-attorney general, Michael Mukasey, issued a decision deviating from the prevailing law regarding what an immigration judge may consider in determining whether someone committed a crime of moral turpitude. This is important because depending on the number of such crimes, when they were committed, and the severity of the sentence,…

What if he was a foreigner?

Sunday, October 9th, 2011

Mark Wahlberg Recently I stumbled upon a news item on a Boston Fox News website about a Cambodian teenager that immigration officials released because he could not be deported to his homeland. He had been convicted and punished for his crime, stabbing and beating to death of a teenage girl eleven years ago. After serving his time for the crime, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) was going to deport him, but when it could not, he was released from detention under…