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

“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.

US 1965 Stamp Celebrating the 750-Year Anniversary

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

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

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

“It’s tough to make predictions, especially about the future.”

~ Yogi Berra

fortune tellerThe 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

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

international entrepreneurThe 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

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

DeadlineTwo 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