EAH Immigration Blog

On May 22, the Brennan Center for Justice released a new and scathing report, Social Media Monitoring: How the Department of Homeland Security Uses Digital Data in the Name of National Security, that analyzes DHS’s expansion and use of social media information and data collection culled from press reports, information obtained...

For the past 20 years, Congress has required a foreign national’s sponsor to sign an affidavit of support (Form I-864) pledging financial support in the event the sponsored foreign national applies for or receives means-tested public benefits. The law requires that when a foreign national receives certain forms of means-tested public...

The House of Representatives passed the American Dream and Promise Act (H.R. 6) on a bipartisan vote of 237 to 187, the first time the House has passed a bill on protection for Dreamers since 2010. The bill offers permanent legal status for “Dreamers” and thousands of Temporary Protected Status (TPS)...

It seems like every month the Administration comes up with yet another way to restrict the ability of asylum seekers to obtain protection from persecution in order to deter the flow of refugees. On April 29, President Trump issued a memorandum ordering changes to U.S. asylum policies. The memo orders the...

The following additional items may be of interest to our readers: USCIS Begins Premium Processing for H-1B Cap-Subject Petitions: On June 10, USCIS resumed premium processing for all remaining FY2020 H-1B cap-subject petitions. Petitioners may file a Request for Premium Processing Service, with the USCIS service center processing their petition on...

Senior Partner, David Harston to serve as panelist at the 2019 AILA Annual Conference on Immigration Law, on Friday, June 21, 2019.

In late 2018, USCIS issued a new policy memo that limits when officers can waive the interview requirement for Form I-751, the petition certain marriage-based green card holders must submit to remove the condition on their permanent residence. Under the previous policy guidance dated 2005, USCIS officers were advised that interviews...

USCIS has issued guidance to clarify that violation of federal controlled-substance law established by a conviction or admission, including for marijuana, remains a conditional bar to establishing good moral character (GMC) for naturalization, even where that conduct would not be a state law offense. Moreover, an applicant who is involved in...

Immigration lawyers have always encountered people who thought they were U.S. citizens only to find out they aren’t. The issue often arises when the individual goes to renew his/her driver’s license and doesn’t have a birth certificate or passport, or when the person seeks to renew his passport. Whether this issue...

The Trump administration is creating a new office within USCIS to focus on identifying immigrants who are suspected of cheating to get their green cards or citizenship and to initiate denaturalization proceedings against them. The new denaturalization office will be located in Los Angeles and will have a least a dozen...

The White House recently announced in a Presidential Memorandum that it is focusing on B-1 and B-2 visitor overstays and will begin engaging with relevant governments to identify conditions contributing to high overstay rates among their nationals, and make appropriate recommendations. Twenty countries have overstay rate of more than 10 percent,...

AILA and the American Immigration Council recently filed a lawsuit against the U.S. immigration court in El Paso, claiming that the court at the El Paso Service Processing Center (SPC) has arbitrary and unjust rules that decrease asylum-seekers’ chances of staying in the country. The complaint draws from interviews of attorneys...

The following additional items may be of interest to our readers: H-1B Cap Reached in First Week of Filing: USCIS has received enough H-1B cap-subject visa petitions to exceed the statutory limit of 65,000 visas (plus 20,000 Master’s cap visas). In fact, over 201,000 petitions were received this year, a modest...

The U.S. embassy in Israel announced that an E-2 treaty investor agreement has been signed between the United States and Israel and will become effective May 1, 2019. Accordingly, Israeli citizens will be able to apply for E-2 visas at the U.S. Embassy Branch Office in Tel Aviv. The embassy advises...

On April 16, the Attorney General (AG) issued a decision in an asylum case, ruling that asylum seekers who entered between ports of entry – even if they establish a credible fear of persecution – are no longer eligible for release on bond by an immigration judge. The decision sweeps aside...

It looks like DHS is close to publishing a regulation that will eliminate the eligibility for employment authorization of certain H-4 dependent spouses of H-1B nonimmigrants who are seeking employment-based lawful permanent resident status. Commonly known as the H-4 EAD rescission regulation, the rule was sent to the Office of Management...

How a derivative beneficiary (of an immigrant petition) should answer the question on a DS-160 nonimmigrant visa application, “Has an immigrant petition ever been filed on your behalf” is not clear and often perplexing. On its face, it appears that if the derivative beneficiary (spouse or child) was listed on an...

Recent data released by the Department of State reveal that it too is laying brick after brick of an invisible wall that is curbing legal immigration to the United States. Visa inadmissibility statistics in FY 2018 reveal an uptick in just one year of almost 10,000 visa denials on public charge...

The following additional items may be of interest to our readers: Cap-Subject H-1Bs Filed April 2018 Remain Pending; Premium Processing Now Available for H-1B Petitions Filed on or Before 12/21/2018: Inexplicably, numerous FY 2019 H-1B cap-subject petitions (filed in April 2018 for visas that became available on October 1, 2018) remain...

USCIS has updated its guidance identifying factors officers should consider when adjudicating a Form I-130 spousal petition involving a minor. Those factors include: (1) whether the marriage was lawful in the place it was celebrated; (2) if the couple resides outside the place of celebration, whether the marriage is recognized as...