The American Civil Liberties Union and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services announced  that a settlement has been reached in a lawsuit, Alfaro Garcia v. Johnson, filed by the ACLU seeking to compel USCIS to conduct reasonable fear interviews for aliens detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement who are prior deportees who are found in the United States and make Asylum claims. Under the settlement, USCIS will conduct these interviews within ten days of the alien’s being referred to USCIS for such…

Sometimes I am kind of naive. Having just returned from a conference of immigration lawyers, I expected lots of discussion and commentary on some recent 9th Circuit cases. Instead, I heard nothing. I will address them here. Today, Corro-Barragan v. Holder,  decided on June 10, 2013. The case concerns voluntary departure. Voluntary departure is a common relief in removal proceedings. If one is granted voluntary departure, the person is allowed to leave the United States in lieu of being removed….

There’s a tale that Abraham Lincoln was asked, “If you call a horse’s tail a leg, how many legs does a horse have?” His evocative answer was, “Four.” Evocative because we learn so much about Lincoln from the answer. At least this is what I taught in school as a child. No one ever taught me what it taught about Lincoln or even why it was the right answer. I, in my “not going to become President” manner, am partial to…

In this posting I would like to discuss an arcane issue – 212(c) and Cancellation of Removal relief. Cancellation of Removal came about on April 1, 1997, after the passage of the Illegal Immigration Reform and Alien Responsibility Act of 1996 (IIRIRA). Because IIRIRA came into effect such a long time ago, by this time most people facing deportation are in post-IIRIRA removal proceedings rather than pre-IIRIRA exclusion or deportation proceedings . In exclusion and deportation proceedings, aliens could seek 212(c)…