Preferring words over numbers, I chose the practice of law. Preferring people over numbers, I forsook tax law and opted to practice immigration. How naïve of me to think that numbers could be so easily avoided. Everywhere they confront and torment me.

visa - in blankEllis Island, which opened as an immigration processing post on January 1st 122 years ago, symbolizes for many Americans of immigrant descent the place where would-be entrants to the U.S. learned whether they would be admitted to the country.  Perhaps the most famous and wrenching location within this hallowed landmark are the “stairs of

Voltaire 2.jpgFrench philosopher and aphorist, François-Marie Arouet, better known by his nom de plume, Voltaire, wrote in Italian that “Il meglio è l’inimico del bene [the perfect is the enemy of the good].”

The wisdom of this saying, championed by pragmatists everywhere, comes to mind upon reading a May 30, 2013 Policy Memorandum (PM)

Thumbnail image for rainbow arc.jpgAll of us at times become dispirited.  

As I’ve viewed immigration over the last 40 years, passionate advocates have come and gone, fortunate foreign citizens have been granted green cards and then naturalized; but the harshness and hard-heartedness of immigration law as a reflection of American cultural norms hasn’t really diminished.

For example, back

Puck cover of the Senate.jpg“ And there took place . . . [in the U.S. Senate] so many “extended discussions” of measures to keep them from coming to a vote that the device got a name, “filibuster,” from the Dutch word vrijbuiter, which means “freebooter” or “pirate,” and which passed into the Spanish as filibustero, because the sleek

The Democratic Convention in Charlotte ended last week. The media has now turned to measuring and marveling at President Obama’s post-convention bounce despite weak Labor Department data revealing persistent joblessness.

The inevitable comparisons of the two parties’ convention performances give the edge to the Democrats’ oratory, production values, crowd enthusiasm and diversity.  On immigration policy, the Dems

pensive youth.pngI worry a lot about the future facing America’s young adults.  Saddled with Dickensian levels of college and grad-school debt, largely unable to find opportunities in their preferred careers, our young fear that they’ll be relegated to work in low-paid, dead-end jobs. They and their parents are rightly concerned that the middle class is disappearing,

Thumbnail image for wolf_howling_rear.jpgImmigration stakeholders howled with joy this week over an announcement by Janet Napolitano, the Secretary of Homeland Security (DHS), and the DHS agency, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), about the forthcoming publication of a new immigration regulation.

Usually, the intention to publish a rule is no cause for huzzahs.  But this Notice of Intent

[Blogger’s Note:  Today’s post comes to us courtesy of my colleague, Brandon Meyer, a prolific writer whose analysis and commentary cover a wide array of immigration law topics.   Brandon offers a spirited post on a troubling aspect of the EB-5 employment-creation immigrant investor green card category. Thanks to him for having allowed me to be in top

From the first prehistoric evenings sitting around campfires, humans have been telling stories. Heroic myths, fairy-tale fables, oral histories — all have been seared into heart and memory through the power of narrative. Civil and criminal trials are merely stylized forms of storytelling.  Journalism’s hook, theatre’s Sturm und Drang, reality television’s sour and sweet confections —