New revocation cases answer some questions but raise new ones.

Sunday, August 26th, 2012

Sometimes an issue in immigration law lays shrouded in mystery and then suddenly courts make a series of decisions to clarify what was opaque for decades. The issue of how the government goes about revoking asylum is one of those issues. I think the reason for the sudden burst of interest is that never before has USCIS or its predecessors had the fraud investigation capacities that they have now. What the procedures are for withdrawing asylum grants was never fully…

Wouldn’t you like to be a parolee too?

Sunday, May 13th, 2012

The usual outcry from people concerned about “illegal aliens” in the United States benefitting from legislation such as a DREAM-like Act, amnesty, or comprehensive immigration reform is that those that benefit from such legislation will end up going to the head of the line to the detriment of those who played by the rules. The fallacy of the argument is that illegal aliens face severe penalties that not only force them to the end of the line but create situations…

Visa waiver adjustment – No love in the City of Brotherly Love.

Sunday, March 11th, 2012

Over the past few years I have been writing a lot  about the visa waiver program and adjustment of status. The visa waiver program is a program found at INA § 217 where citizens of certain countries can enter the United States for ninety days without a visa, similar to how United States citizens, when visiting many countries do not have to obtain a visa before traveling. A condition of the program is that a visa-waiver entrant cannot change or…

A new case finds an over-active judge violated an alien’s right to a fair hearing.

Sunday, January 1st, 2012

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…