Woman With Back Pain[Blogger’s Note:  This post is submitted as a necessarily-lengthy formal comment to the November 20, 2015  draft guidance of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, PM-602-0122, interpreting the phrase, “the same or [a] similar occupational classification” as used in the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

retro_grunge_triangles_background.jpgThe dictionary defines the adjective, “passive-aggressive,” as “a type of behavior or personality characterized by indirect resistance to the demands of others and an avoidance of direct confrontation.”  That is an apt characterization describing how federal bureaucrats work their will in the immigration ecosphere.  The passive-aggressive behaviors show up in efforts by federal immigration officials

Investigator.pngSamuel Herbert, Her Majesty’s Home Secretary from 1931-32 (the British equivalent of the U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security), could well have been speaking about two recent immigration-related events when he quipped that “bureaucracy” is “a difficulty for every solution.”

One is an October 30 Settlement Agreement between Indian It consulting giant, Infosys, and the

India - Americans.jpgThe drums of war are pounding.  Prominent American companies, through a variety of business associations, are urging the Obama Administration and Congress to punish the Government of India for mounting hostile actions in a brewing trade war.

For its part, the Indian government cannot be pleased with the dramatically increased filing fees and restrictions

Cabinet_of_Dr_Caligari_1920_Lobby_Card.jpgOne of the most challenging elements of comprehensive immigration reform (CIR) has long been the need for consensus on the legal, temporary entry of essential foreign workers. This plan for “future flows” of guest workers is critical if we are to reduce the incentive of unauthorized migrants to crash the border.

The lack of agreement between

dsc_5254.jpg[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

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

road closed sign.jpgAs 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

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,