On July 6, 2016, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals released its decision in Flores v. Lynch, a lawsuit brought by the Center for Human Rights and Constitutional Law to decide about a difference in interpretation of a Settlement agreement the government entered into in 1997 regarding the detention of alien minors. Based on litigation back then regarding the detention and treatment of minors in detention, the government settled the lawsuits by agreeing to hold minors in facilities that are…

When you encounter a non-citizen of the United States on an American street, the usual understanding is that he could be one of six things: 1. A person who was admitted to the United States after inspection at a port of entry (border or air or seaport) and is maintaining proper status; 2. A person who was admitted and then overstayed his period of admission or violated his status; 3. A person who was paroled into the United States. Parole…

I recently read a New Yorker article  by Adam Gopnik where he started the article and ended the article quoting Alexander Pope. Good article, but why quote a guy I did not even know was Pope? My article will quote someone a little more approachable, Billy Joel. Here goes, “Honesty is such a lonely word / Everyone is so untrue.” Who am I referring to? Our government and its treatment of Middle Eastern asylum seekers. The problem – though the…

When I first started practicing immigration law, I would advise clients who were not U.S. citizens or permanent residents not to fly into the United States at Detroit. The officers, I was told, were treating people unfairly though I had no first-hand knowledge of problems there. Then, one day, I got a call from a gentleman who had come to see me about an investor visa, an E-2, to invest in an enterprise in La Jolla, California. He told me…