If the U.S.’s dysfunctional and baffling immigration laws were a bemusement park, one of the scariest rides would be that tottering roller-coaster, “Worksite Enforcement.” The ride is rickety and showing its age (having been constructed in 1990 with the enactment of the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 [IRCA]). This law — like every good ride — was designed … Continue Reading
Category Archives: USCIS
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“Sue the miscreants!” – Challenging Unjust Work-Visa and Green-Card Denials with Flood-the-Zone and Head-Fake Immigration Strategies
Posted in Administrative Procedure Act, Courts on Immigration Law, Employment-Based Immigration, H-1B Visas, Immigration Lawyers, Immigration Regulations, Legal Representation, USCISMuch digital ink has already been spilled reporting on the phantom tide of undocumented migrants supposedly breaching our Southern border. This article will address a different, but very-real immigration flood, and suggest ways U.S. employers, noncitizens, and their lawyers ought be emboldened to add to the deluge.
Ironically, it is about a dry subject – federal district court review of … Continue Reading
What Disclaimer? ~ USCIS Ignores Labor Department Warning That the Occupational Outlook Handbook Never Be Used for Legal Purposes
Posted in DOL, Guest Columns, H-1B Visas, USCIS[Blogger’s Note: Today’s post originates from a discovery – a gem hidden in plain sight – first brought to my attention by Gabe Mozes, my immigration partner at Seyfarth Shaw, and co-author of this piece. Great immigration lawyer that he is, Gabe raised a particularly galling example of how U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) pursues extralegal, pretextual grounds, … Continue Reading
Where is the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Director?
Posted in H-1B Visas, spousal EADs, Uncategorized, USCIS
As hard to spot as a well-camouflaged Waldo or surreptitious Carmen San Diego, Francis Cissna, Director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), is almost nowhere to be found. The exception – aside from mandatory appearances at congressional oversight hearings and the occasional press interview – is among the pols he deigns to address who staunchly oppose a functioning and … Continue Reading
Revanchist Immigration: The Aftermath of “Buy American, Hire American”
Posted in Employment-Based Immigration, GOP on Immigration, Immigration Discrimination, Immigration Protectionism, Immigration Regulations, USCIS“It became necessary to destroy the town to save it.”
~ An unidentified U.S. major, referring to the February 7, 1968 bombing of the South Vietnamese town of Ben Tre that killed hundreds of noncombatants, as recounted by Associated Press reporter, Peter Arnett.
I’ll admit I foolishly allowed myself to be misled. Despite almost 40 years of practicing immigration … Continue Reading
Immigration Flippancy: USCIS Impedes Travel Abroad for No Good Reason
Posted in Advance Parole Travel Authorization, Trump Administration on Immigration, USCISDeciphering the workings of the bureaucratic mind is never easy. What seems settled practice is often anything but. Abrupt abandonment of longstanding policy can happen in a nanosecond — many times with nary a word of forewarning or explanation. Usually there’s an unstated backstory — one that can be divined by asking the forensic question first popularized by the Romans: … Continue Reading
Trump Administration Should Offer Better Immigration Options for Entrepreneurs — Don’t Throw out the Entrepreneurial Baby, with the Parole Bathwater
Posted in Immigration Regulations, International Entrepreneurs, Obama Administration on Immigration, Trump Administration on Immigration, USCISThe pattern by now is all too familiar. With the Trump Administration fully ensconced, the rollback of President Obama’s eight-year legacy continues. This time it involves the International Entrepreneur Regulation — an imperfect and burdensome rule that would have become effective last month had the Administration not imposed a delay. The Obama-era rule created a labyrinthine human steeplechase allowing a … Continue Reading
The Known and Unknown Future of the EB-5 Immigrant Investment Program at USCIS and the USCIS Ombudsman
Posted in EB-5, Fraud Detection & National Security (FDNS), USCIS, USCIS Ombudsman
Memes, apocrypha, obfuscation, head feints, hand-wringing, and supposition: These are the misleading and unreliable stuff of the Interweb. To a great extent, alas, they also infect the EB-5 ecospace. This article will avoid conjecture and look at the few hard facts we know about Trump Administration appointees and the positions they will hold, while encouraging EB-5 stakeholders momentarily to suspend … Continue Reading
Soothsayings on Changes to the EB-5 Immigrant Investment Program
Posted in Congress on Immigration, EB-5, GOP on Immigration, Investor Immigration, USCIS“It’s tough to make predictions, especially about the future.”
~ Yogi Berra
The talk of the nation – at least that segment interested in U.S. green card benefits available to foreign investors – is about the welcome or feared changes likely to occur in the EB-5 employment-creation immigration investor visa program. Scuttlebutt and divination have yielded a wide range of … Continue Reading
Looking Back — Not Much Immigration Solace from Obama
Posted in Administrative Appeals Office - USCIS, Border Issues & CBP, Democrats on Immigration, Enforcement/USICE, H-1B Visas, L-1 Visa, Obama Administration on Immigration, Removal Proceedings, Uncategorized, USCIS
As the Obama presidency nears its twilight, let me tell you about our leader’s eight-year, largely-disappointing record on immigration.
But first a bias alert: I voted for the President twice; I like and respect him; and I marvel at how glib, cool, incisive, studious, and otherwise mostly big-hearted he’s been. With favorability ratings nearing 60 percent, he’s seen by most … Continue Reading
Venture Capitalists and Immigration Proponents Likely Disappointed by USCIS Proposed Entrepreneurial Parolee Rule
Posted in Advance Parole Travel Authorization, Employment-Based Immigration, Global Migration, I-9s, Immigration and Entrepreneurship, Immigration Regulations, USCISThe Department of Homeland Security, through its component agency, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), has issued a proposed regulation to allow a qualified foreign citizen to gain entry and be employed in the United States if he or she will engage in activities that are likely to “increase and enhance entrepreneurship, innovation, and job creation in the United States” … Continue Reading
An Immigration Opportunity Lost: USCIS Stiffens on Job Flexibility
Posted in Adjustment of Status, Congress on Immigration, Courts on Immigration Law, Employment-Based Immigration, Immigration Agency Expertise, Immigration Reform, Immigration Regulations, Letters to USCIS Ombudsman, Trade in Services, USCIS[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 comment incorporates by reference the … Continue Reading
Eyes off the Prize: White House Oblivious to Immigration Bureaucrats’ Running out the Clock
Posted in EB-5, H-1B Visas, Immigration and Entrepreneurship, Investor Immigration, L-1 Visa, Obama Administration on Immigration, State Department, USCISTwo hundred days ago President Obama stoked the hopes of immigration advocates with his announcement of wide-ranging executive actions to try — as far as his authority would carry him — to change America’s broken immigration system for the better.
Generating most of the media fanfare and Republican outrage were his plans to expand eligibility for the DACA program and … Continue Reading
Immigration Howling, Hope, Hype and Hodgepodge: USCIS’s New L-1B Memo
Posted in L-1 Visa, Obama Administration on Immigration, State Department, USCISSocial media flamed with expressions of outrage, relief and tepid optimism ever since President Obama announced on March 23, 2015 the release of long-awaited policy guidance on a key temporary worker visa category:
Today, I’m pleased to announce a new action I’m also taking to make it easier for global companies who are present here today to launch and invest … Continue Reading
Immigration on a Clean Slate: Game-Changing Proposals on Visa Modernization
Posted in Adjustment of Status, Border Issues & CBP, Border Security, Consular Officers, Courts on Immigration Law, DHS Technology Reforms, EB-5, Employment-Based Immigration, Enforcement/USICE, Fraud Detection & National Security (FDNS), Homeland Security, Immigration Courts, Immigration Reform, Immigration Regulations, Legal Representation, Obama Administration on Immigration, USCIS, VAWA - Violence against Women ActTerabytes 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 equally profound measures to improve … Continue Reading
Immigration Voices: Coming out of the Shadows with the U Visa
Posted in Administrative Appeals Office - USCIS, Family Immigration, Guest Columns, Immigration Lawyers, Legal Representation, U visa, USCIS[Blogger’s note; Probably the most gratifying element of practicing immigration law is watching clients flourish. Obtaining immigration benefits, especially lawful permanent residency, often unleashes a wave of innovation and creativity. Less often, it produces a humanitarian “pay it forward” moment. This is the story of today’s guest blogger, Protima Pandey. Many years ago, I represented a technology company that … Continue Reading
Worksite Harmony and the President’s Executive Actions: It’s All about Immigration Timing
Posted in Constitutional Law, Homeland Security, I-9s, Obama Administration on Immigration, USCIS“Politics at bottom is not all that complicated. It’s all about timing.”
Facing a recalcitrant House of Representatives controlled by Republicans, President Obama made an historic announcement on November 20th outlining an array of executive actions he would take to fix as much as he could of our broken immigration system.
Understandably, public and media attention since then … Continue Reading
Immigration “Fire on the Ground” — What’s Next for the L-1B Visa?
Posted in Administrative Appeals Office - USCIS, Courts on Immigration Law, Employment-Based Immigration, L-1 Visa, Requests for Evidence (RFEs), USCISSince 2008 American employers have been burning mad about how U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has gone from fairly reasonable to highly restrictive in its interpretation of the L-1B “specialized knowledge” visa category. This statutory visa category allows certain “intracompany transferees” to enter and work in the U.S. for a qualifying employer if he or she “has a special … Continue Reading
Immigration Voices: Dr. No vs. the League of Extraordinary Aliens
Posted in Extraordinary Ability, Guest Columns, O-1 Visas, Requests for Evidence (RFEs), USCIS, USCIS Ombudsman
[Blogger’s note: An anonymous immigration lawyer offers this lament on the woeful quality of adjudications at U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS). For related wailing, see: “ ‘I Hate [Bleep]ing Immigration Law’ — Whenever I Get an Unjust Request for Evidence,” “End the Tyranny of Immigration Insubordination,” and “Immigration Indifference – The Adjudicator’s Curse.”]… Continue Reading
USCIS Gets an EB-5 Earful at Immigration Listening Session
Posted in EB-5, Investor Immigration, USCIS[Blogger’s note: For EB-5 stakeholders interested in learning more about the USCIS Listening Session, you can register for “EB-5 Immigrant Investor Update,” a webinar presented by members of Seyfarth Shaw LLP’s EB-5 Immigrant Investment Team on May 13, 2014. Topics include:
• The April 23, 2014 USCIS’s stakeholders listening session
• FINRA’s recent notices and how to spot … Continue Reading
Waiting in the Wings: A New Leader at the Immigration Helm
Posted in Congress on Immigration, Democrats on Immigration, EB-5, GOP on Immigration, Immigration Law Complexity, Immigration Reform, Immigration Regulations, L-1 Visa, Obama Administration on Immigration, USCISThe dysfunctional immigration world continues to spin dangerously out of control.
Do-nothing House Republicans (and five pusillanimous Democrats) commit political seppuku with the passage of the ENFORCE Act — a going-nowhere bill which would authorize civil suits against the President to dissuade him from doing something to husband scarce prosecutorial resources and ameliorate the harsh consequences of deportation for noncriminal … Continue Reading
Immigration Voices: “What the ‘L’ is Going on with USCIS?”
Posted in Employment-Based Immigration, L-1 Visa, USCIS[Bloggers Note: Today’s guest column comes from noted Atlanta-based business immigration lawyer, Eileen M.G. Scofield, who addresses a subject covered often before on NationOfImmigrators, the business-critical L-1 Intracompany Transferee visa category. (See, e.g., “The L-1 Intracompany Transferee Visa Facing Attack — from All Branches of the Federal Government, Part I and Part II. Eileen and I, together with Miami … Continue Reading
The 2013 Nation of Immigrators Awards – The IMMIs Are Announced
Posted in Congress on Immigration, Consular Officers, EB-5, Foreign policy, Homeland Security, IMMI Awards, Immigration Humor, Immigration Reform, Investor Immigration, USCISHindsight, the armchair pundits say, is 20-20. The year 2013 has proven them wrong.
The end-of-year’s rear-view mirror onto the world of U.S. immigration shows impenetrable fog. Unsurprisingly, as filmgoers know, vapory views of the recent past tend to diminish the apparent significance of events occurring early in the year (“never has a film released in July won an … Continue Reading
Immigration Triangulation — Another Dysfunctional Government Policy
Posted in Congress on Immigration, Consular Officers, DOL, E-Verify, Employment-Based Immigration, Enforcement/DOL, General Immigration, H-1B Visas, I-9s, Immigration Discrimination, Immigration Reform, Labor Unions, Obama Administration on Immigration, State Department, State Immigration Laws, Trade in Services, USCISThe 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 to enlist and “deputize” third … Continue Reading
