On June 11, 2013, I wrote about how when an attorney calls the USCIS National Customer Service Center (NCSC)  the wait is more than an hour, but when an alien calls about his or her own case, he or she gets nearly immediate help. It turns out I was not just being paranoid. Lawyers were being treated differently. The NCSC works on a two-tier system. Normal inquiries go to Tier One and “unique and complex cases,” i.e., cases you actually…

Lawyers, like children, complain when things are unfair. Children complain to their parents. Lawyers complain to appellate judges. Parents respond, “Life’s unfair,” which acknowledges the inherent unfairness in life, but does not repair the unfairness. Complaints in the legal world substitute the word “due process” for “fair.” Courts, when dealing with these due process claims, do not acknowledge unfairness and often respond, “What you are complaining about did not violate due process.” Same result. Practitioners before any adjudicative body know…