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 long ago through the enactment of the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 [IRCA]). This law — like every
“Sue the miscreants!” – Challenging Unjust Work-Visa and Green-Card Denials with Flood-the-Zone and Head-Fake Immigration Strategies
Much 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 –…
What Disclaimer? ~ USCIS Ignores Labor Department Warning That the Occupational Outlook Handbook Never Be Used for Legal Purposes
[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…
Where is the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Director?
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…
Revanchist Immigration: The Aftermath of “Buy American, Hire American”
“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.
Immigration Flippancy: USCIS Impedes Travel Abroad for No Good Reason
Deciphering 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…
Trump Administration Should Offer Better Immigration Options for Entrepreneurs — Don’t Throw out the Entrepreneurial Baby, with the Parole Bathwater
The 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…
The Known and Unknown Future of the EB-5 Immigrant Investment Program at USCIS and the 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…
Soothsayings on Changes to the EB-5 Immigrant Investment Program
“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…
Looking Back — Not Much Immigration Solace from Obama
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…



