In August 26, 2016, the Justice Department informed the Supreme Court through letters that it provided it with erroneous statistics that formed the basis of the government’s victory in a 2003 case, Demore v. Kim, which upheld the government’s position that the mandatory detention statute at INA § 236(c) required the detention of aliens for an unlimited period, even years, for aliens fighting their cases in immigration court and such prolonged detention was constitutional because it was rare. The department,…

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…

Some of my clients understand what is going on in their cases. Others think of what is happening as a black box. They hire me to solve some problem. We fill out papers, pay fees, they pay me, we go to meetings or hearings, I may go to meetings or hearings without them, and their problems are gone (when we win).  Despite my explaining what we are doing and why, to them it is just magic. Then they send others…

The news is full of stories about how families with children and unaccompanied minors are flooding into the United States from Latin America. It is bad times in Latin America. Families are coming to America fleeing crime, violence, and the impacts of climate change. News reports indicate that people are operating under the misconception that the laws have changed and they are welcome in the United States. Changes in administrative practice may have helped foster that opinion. Some people attribute …