[Blogger’s note: This article is reprinted with permission from the February 22, 2012 edition of The New York Law Journal.  ©2010 ALM Properties Inc. All rights reserved. Further duplication without permission is prohibited. The authors thank the Journal for permission to reprint this article.]  

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No More Waiting on Legal Immigration

By Angelo

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 —

skull.jpgMany dysfunctions within the immigration ecospace are disturbing, but some make my blood boil.  The conniption that brought me to this Howard Beale moment erupted after I belatedly read a Forbes online article, published last April, by Osha Gray Davis (A Death in Juarez: How U.S. Immigration Policy Is Tearing American Families Apart“). The Forbes piece reported on two

help wanted 2.jpgWith all the political hoo-ha about the need to prevent rascally businesses from employing unauthorized workers intentionally, the public ought not be faulted for assuming that the concept of “employment” under immigration law is clearly defined.  Sad to say, but the assumers give life to the maxim that when we consider facts not in evidence

cheese wedges.jpg[Bloggers Note:  Today’s offering is a Guest Post by Nici Kersey, who recounts memories as a child and their lasting impact, even on her practice of immigration law.  For a similar recollection of government handouts from my childhood, click here.]

Government Cheese

by Nici Kersey

My first memory of “the government” involves government cheese.  My

Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Tool Belt.jpgThe dog days of August are behind us, yet the economic doldrums persist.  Unemployment remains unchanged and unacceptably high at 9.1%. The White House forecasts that it will stay there through the New Year and then likely drop only a tenth of a percentage point for all of 2012. 

Congress returns this week to Washington. Vituperation

sample-visa-denial-letter.jpgI’m no fan of the U.S. Department of State’s policies and actions in the immigration space.  State’s approach, as manifested by the behavior of U.S. consular officers and the apparatchiks within the Visa Office at the Bureau of Consular Affairs, too often comes off as a mix of treacly haughtiness and callous indifference.

These Ugly American attributes

President Obama has put on a good show lately about the need for the populace to rise up and pressure the GOP to enact comprehensive immigration reform.  He urges citizens to begin “a national conversation on immigration reform that builds a bipartisan consensus to fix our broken immigration system so it works for America’s 21st century economy.”  With