The legal cannabis business is spreading like weeds. As several states and foreign countries have enacted laws decriminalizing or legalizing marijuana for medicinal or recreational use, a fresh rush of reefer madness has overtaken the business world. Investments in the cannabis industry are now available as ETFs (Exchange Traded Funds), and marijuana startups are
An Immigration Opportunity Lost: USCIS Stiffens on Job Flexibility
[Blogger’s Note: This post is submitted as a necessarily-lengthy formal comment to the November 20, 2015 draft guidance of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, PM-602-0122, interpreting the phrase, “the same or [a] similar occupational classification” as used in the “increased job flexibility” provisions of Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) §§ 204(j) and 212(a)(5)(A)(iv). This
Immigration on a Clean Slate: Game-Changing Proposals on Visa Modernization
Terabytes of text have already been generated in the course of extolling or excoriating President Obama for his November 20 Executive Actions on Immigration. The prolific foaming of bloviating mouths has mostly been prompted by the promise of deferred action and work permits for undocumented immigrants under the DACA and DAPA programs. Surprisingly, however, his
The Immigration-Abandonment Ploy — Fallout from a Fiddling Congress and Bickering Allies
The times they are a-mournin’ for proponents of immigrant rights and immigration reform. While Pope Francis shows the world how to love by embracing and praying with a tumor-scarred man, immigrants-rights activists and immigration-reform pragmatists are at war among themselves over tactics in the battle to achieve just solutions to our nation’s dysfunctional immigration problems.
Immigration Progress: A Good EB-5 Policy Memo Could Still Be Better
French 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)
Dear Immigration Director: Let Our Dreamers Go!
I was escorted to the woodshed on January 15, a very public woodshed, and deservedly so. Alejandro (Ali) Mayorkas, the Director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), politely took me to task at a Public Engagement during the Q & A session when I raised two points. One involves the subject of a
A New Immigration Recipe: Specialty Chefs Need a Dream Act Too!
[Blogger’s note: Today’s guest blog is by my friend and scholarly colleague, Nathan Waxman. Nathan revisits an issue he first considered eight years ago in this space when he bemoaned the increasingly poor quality of ethnically authentic food in New York City, and laid the blame upon our immigration laws. Having suffered through several
Reforming Immigration “with Liberty and Justice for All”
As Republicans join Democrats in contemplating reform of the nation’s dysfunctional immigration system, the final line of the Pledge of Allegiance (“with liberty and justice for all”) is the best place to start.
Revitalizing our broken and outdated 20th Century immigration laws to respond to the needs of 21st Century America will turn in large
Immigration Good Behavior — a Riddle Riddled with Riddles
“[A] riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma” ~ Winston Churchill
The most quotable of British Prime Ministers could well have been talking about the American immigration system rather than describing Russia in 1939. U.S. immigration law is like stratified rock, revealing layer on layer of Congressional accretions laid down over many years
Immigration Options for DREAMers under EXISTING Law
Last week marked the end of the second annual National Coming out of the Shadows Week, a rite of passage for undocumented youth — Americans in all but the eyes of the law — who support enactment of the DREAM Act.
Publicly proclaiming one’s unauthorized immigration status is clearly a courageous act. As the