9th Circuit Court of Appeals Rules that minor children are protected from deportation for crimes committed under the age of 18.
Posted on | February 20, 2012 | No Comments
The BIA, Board of Immigration Appeals, had ordered a juvenile deported for a criminal conviction even though the child was under 18 at the time. The 9th Circuit reversed the child’s removal from the U.S. 2/13/2012 holding a child who is not prosecuted in adult court is entitled to cancel his removal and remain in the U.S.
A conviction in either State or Federal Adult Court is a crime for which one can be deported, even if the defendant is under 18 years of age. www.nevadaimmigrationservices.com
Tags: 9th Circuit Court of Appeals > BIA reversed > crime while under 18 years old > criminal convictions > Juvenile offenders > removal and deportation
U.S. Supreme Court Misled by Justice Dept Lawyers?
Posted on | February 14, 2012 | No Comments
Immigration Regulations and Case Law make it more difficult for Immigrants to obtain adjustment of status in court through marriage, particularly when the immigrant entered illegally. In that case there are three ways to adjust: 245 i eligibility, proving exceptional and extremely unusual hardship, or I 601 waiver at the U.S. Consulate abroad. www.nevadaimmigrationservices.com
And this issue does come up in Deportation Proceedings often. DHS lawyers argue that one should nt be granted cancellation of removal in immigration court if one can go to their home country and apply for a waiver.
In a related matter, lawyers attempting to get their client’s re admitted to the U.S. after being deported have been thwarted by a U.S. Supreme Court Decision of 2009, in which the Court stated it was not irreparable injury and therefore no relief would be granted based upon what now appears to be misleading statements by DHS lawyers. (see below)
Washington D.C.
The government may have misled the Supreme Court about its policies on helping improperly deported immigrants return to the U.S., possibly influencing a decision to make it easier to deport thousands of aliens, according to a ruling by U.S. District Judge Jed Rakoff in New York.The judge’s opinion requires the government to disclose by Monday internal emails in which Justice Department lawyers developed the claim they made to the Supreme Court.
In a 2009 Supreme Court case, the Justice Department told the justices that when appellate courts ruled in favor of deported immigrants, the government’s policy was to facilitate their return to the U.S. and restore their status. Chief Justice John Roberts cited the claim in his April 2009 opinion, finding that immigrants deported erroneously wouldn’t suffer “irreparable injury” because the government would help them return if they later won their appeals.
But immigration lawyers said they’d never heard of the policy, and in a response to Freedom of Information Act requests the Homeland Security and State departments said they had no information on such a policy. The Justice Department said it had four pages of emails among officials on the policy but refused to release them. The Immigrant Rights Clinic at New York University School of Law sued to get access to the emails. Rakoff, in siding with the clinic, wrote in a 20-page opinion that there is “substantial evidence that the judicial process may have been impugned if the Supreme Court relied upon what may well have been inaccurate or distorted factual representation” by the solicitor general’s office. ”
“‘Trust everybody, but cut the cards,’ as the old saying goes,” Rakoff wrote. So what happens if Supremes were misled?
Deborah Rhode, director of the Center on the Legal Profession at Stanford Law School, said the implications could be serious.“Lawyers for the solicitor general’s office carry special responsibilities to present a full and fair record,” she told Bravin. She said that either the solicitor general’s office should confess the error “or the policy should be revised to be what the government said it was.”The Justice Department did not respond to requests for comment. The emails are unlikely to come on Monday. According to Bravin, the government plans to ask Judge Rakoff for a stay, and he plans to hold a hearing on the request Tuesday.
Tags: 245 1 adjustments > 9th Circuit > deportation appeals > Extreme Hardship > I-601 waivers > U.S. Supreme Court
USCIS New Policy on I 601 Waivers
Posted on | January 30, 2012 | No Comments
The recently announced change in I 601 Waivers of inadmissibility has instilled more confusion than clarity.
Yes, the program would allow an illegal alien to file the Pardon in the U.S.
Yes, the program requires the U.S. citizen spouse or parent to prove extreme hardship to themself: medical, emotional and economic.
Yes, the applicant must be a person of good moral character. www.norhternnevadalawyer.com
And most importantly yes, the illegal immigrant must finally return to their home country to obtain final approval of the waiver and thus incur the 10 year bar of inadmissibility. This bar would be waived in the event the U.S. citizen spouse is able to prove extreme hardship. www.nevadaimmigrationservices.com
It is our estimate it will take 6 months to 1 year to adopt this policy and for us to test if it actually does what is says it will. So now is the best time to start the waiver process, which will take three steps and about 8 months to get ready for presentation of the Waiver application.
We can help (415) 513-4533, (702) 836-9003, (775) 826-2099 and by e-mail: attyconsult@yahoo.com
Tags: Family Petition > Family Unity > Good Moral Character > immigrants crimes > USCIS I 601 waivers
Illegal Alien Granted Permanent Resident via I 601 Waiver of Inadmissibility
Posted on | January 27, 2012 | No Comments
Maria a Mexican National, married to a U.S. citizen, David for over 5 years was able to prove extreme hardship to her U.S. citizen spouse and return to the U.S. The visa and Waiver was approved in Mexico in 4 months. Daniel was born in Mexico and he and his entire family immigrated to the U.S.in 2003 and have resided in the United States ever since. David later became a naturalized U.S. citizen.
Maria graduated from high school and is attemding college to become a school teacher. David is going to trade school for mechanics. Our lawyer thought this was an approvable waiver being she is a person of good moral character. only made on illegal entry and both she and her spouse are bettering their work abilities by attending school.
(415) 513-4533, (775) 836-9003, (702) 836-9003 or attyconsult@yahoo.com
Tags: Adjustment of Status > Family Petition > I-601 Waiver > multiple entries denial of waiver > Naturalization
Nevada Immigrant Cancellation of Removal Permanent Residence
Posted on | January 26, 2012 | No Comments
When Hector was picked up on a bench warrant for unpaid tickets, he was detained by ICE and placed in deportation proceedings. He has been in the U.S. since 1986 on a visitor’s visa, which expired in 1998 and has a spouse who is here without a visa since 1998 and two children ages 14 and 16. He had one DUI conviction, but no one was injured as a result of his driving. www.northernnevadalawyer.com
Notwithstanding the age of his children, his chances of winning in court and being allowed to file for permanent residence on his own was not very good. The children had no medical issues which is the usual criteria for establishing exceptional and extremely unusual hardship.
We were able to demonstrate to the Court that he had another way to file a petition for permanent residence thru his 21 year old step daughter who is now eligible for apply for citizenship by way of naturalization. A visa is immediately available for the parent of a U.S. Citizen. One of the issues in court was the step daughter’s age at the time of Hector’s marriage to her mother which must be entered into prior to the child turning 18.
DHS counsel and the Immigration Judge allowed Hector to continue his Court Hearings until his step daughter’s petition for him is approved by USCIS. www.sanfranciscoimmigrationservices.com
(415) 513-4533 , (702) 836-9003, (775) 826-2099 and email: attyconsult@yahoo.com
Tags: Deportation Immigration Court > DUI Conviction > exceptional extremely unusual hardship > family petition USCIS > ICE detention > medical hardship > Naturalization > Removal Crimes
I 601 Waiver Approved prior to Obama’s Family Unity Announcement
Posted on | January 20, 2012 | No Comments
There has been much discussion with our clients regarding the recently announced proposals to allow illegal aliens to apply for the I 601 Waiver of Inadmissibility here in the U.S. rather than return to their home country. While this provides some comfort for those waiting to leave, what has not been clearly articulated by the Dept of Homeland Security is that to be approved and to obtain a green card the alien will still have to return to their home country. Right now the wait is 5 to 6 months in the home country and perhaps less time if the country is Mexico. www.lasvegasfamilyimmigration.com
We are still urging our clients to return home now since we believe the wait time will be less since many folks are uncertain whether to leave now or wait until DHS comes up with new guidelines later in 2012. Here is an example of one of our recent approvals:
This letter is in support of the 1-601 Application Waiver for unlawful presence by Eva and her U.S. citizen spouse Manuel.
Manuel, age 27, a U.S. citizen is married to Eva, age 30, a Mexican national who entered the U.S. in April 2004. Manuel was born in Mexico, he and his family immigrated to the U.S after a long awaited petition through his father. His father had resided in the U.S. since the 1980’s. Manuel later became a naturalized U.S. citizen. His immediate family reside in the U.S. and are either permanent residents or U.S. Citizens.
Eva entered the United States in April 2004 at the age of 23 and has not returned to Mexico. She has been in the United States for seven years now. She is a person of good moral character. Manuel is the primary provider and is employed full time. He owns the family home. Eva had also previously worked in housekeeping but had to stop work to care for their small children. They have medical insurance for their children. Health care is very important for his children who have been under the care of doctors for asthma and chronic rhinitis.
For more information of I 601 Waiver approvals and the new Obama policy on return to country of origin please call our lawyer 415 513 4533, 775 826 2099, 702 836 9003 or email attyconsult@yahoo.com
Tags: I-601 Waiver > Immigrants' Rights > Immigration Reform > Legal Permanent Resident
Opinion: Should non documented workers be allowed to be pardoned from illegal entry while remaining in the U.S.?
Posted on | January 11, 2012 | No Comments
The President has proposed a change in USCIS Regulations to allow those eligible for
I 601 waivers or pardons to file their waiver petitions in the U.S. rather than travel to their home country and risk the 10 year ban of reentry. Many of our current waiver appllicants are asking us if this is true.
Yes and No
The policy will take several months to be put into affect. It does not apply to anyone allready outside the U.S. It only applies to parents or spouses of U.S. citizens who would suffer extreme hardship were the illegal alien not allowed back into the U.S. when they apply for their permanent residence. Yes, the green card will only be awarded with a return to the home country. The applicant must be a person of good moral character.
Applying for the waiver under these circumstances, if and when the new Regulations are adopted, still carries the risk of denial and being placed in Immigration Court Proceedings for Removal or Deportation.
For information on how this newly announced Policy may affect you or your family you may contact us as follows: 415-513- 4533, 775, 826-2099, 702-836-9003 or by email: attyconsult@yahoo.com
January 6, 2012
A Common-Sense Immigration Move
The Obama administration is taking a major step toward bolstering legal immigration and protecting families — while removing some of the arbitrary cruelty from the workings of the immigration bureaucracy. It announced on Friday that it would change a notorious process to avoid separating families when immigrants apply to become legal permanent residents.
Under current law, an illegal immigrant who has an American citizen for a spouse or parent is generally allowed to apply for a green card to become a legal permanent resident. But the application has to be made in an immigrant’s home country — and any illegal immigrant who leaves the country is automatically barred from returning for at least three years, sometimes 10.
If such a separation would cause “extreme hardship” to an American citizen, an immigrant can apply for a waiver. But he or she has to make that application — and await the decision — in his or her home country. Because waivers are notoriously time consuming and hard to get, an applicant would typically wait months abroad for a waiver to be approved and risk being stranded from his or her family for years if it is not approved.
Not surprising, many immigrants who are eligible for visas — possibly hundreds of thousands — choose to stay in the shadows instead.
The new rule proposed by Alejandro Mayorkas, the director of the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services, would allow immigrants to obtain provisional waivers in the United States before they left to pick up their visas. This means they won’t have to be separated from their families for long, uncertain periods and will go to their consular appointments knowing that they will be able to quickly come home. The agency also said it was also planning to streamline procedures to cut down the wait times for visas to a few weeks at most.
Mr. Mayorkas’s announcement was a rare appearance of common sense and compassion on immigration in Washington. It was particularly welcomed by Mexicans, many of whom use the consulate south of El Paso, in Ciudad Juárez, a city with a horrific murder rate. Waiting months there for visa processing and interviews involves not just bureaucratic risks, but risks to life and limb.
President Obama, like President George W. Bush before him, has been utterly stymied by members of Congress, mostly Republicans, who oppose any and all reforms of outdated, unjust immigration laws. Even actions that promote legality in the immigration system meet diehard resistance. Advocates have long urged Mr. Obama to take the lead with administrative actions that balance humane policies with the rule of law. This is one.
Tags: criminal conduct and illegal entries > EWI and green card > extreme hardhsip spouse or child > Family Unity > Good Moral Character > I 601 waiver of inadmissibilty > immigration courts > New rules waivers I 601 > Obama Immigration Policy > removal and deportation > Waivers and pardons
ICE detaining U.S. citizens in sweep looking for Illegal Aliens
Posted on | January 6, 2012 | No Comments
As ICE seeks to detain more undocumented workers and seeks their deportation or removal from the U.S. those efforts are resulting in a growing number of U.S citizens who are being detained. The enclosed article states over 400,000 U.S. citizens have been questioned and in some cases detained by ICE. And the Obama admisistratin has deported over 1,000,000 aliens and immigrants since the President took office.
What we see here is a pattern on the part of politicians, who run for office seeking the support of the Hispanic Community and then fail to pass any new laws in support of them. They announced that high school graduates who will be eligible to adjust status when the DREAM Act is passed and then sit idly by while ICE agents pick up high school graduates who are in the U.S. without a visa and DHS counsel fails and refuses to allow them out of Immigration Court proceedings seeking their deportation.
This sad state of affairs occurred during the Presidential election of 2008 and the Congressional elections of 2010. We have notified Senators in Nevada and California of this problem. To date we have had no response.
Please contact us if you hear of other situations like this so we can bring it to the attention of elected officials. (415 )513-4533, (775) 826-9003, (702) 836 -9003 or email attyconsult@yahoo.com
December 13, 2011
Immigration Crackdown Also Snares Americans
By JULIA PRESTON
A growing number of United States citizens have been detained under Obama administration programs intended to detect illegal immigrants who are arrested by local police officers.
In a spate of recent cases across the country, American citizens have been confined in local jails after federal immigration agents, acting on flawed information from Department of Homeland Security databases, instructed the police to hold them for investigation and possible deportation.
Americans said their vehement protests that they were citizens went unheard by local police officers and jailers for days, with no communication with federal immigration agents to clarify the situation. Any case where an American is held, even briefly, for immigration investigation is a potential wrongful arrest because immigration agents lack legal authority to detain citizens.
“I told every officer I was in front of that I’m an American citizen, and they didn’t believe me,” said Antonio Montejano, who was arrested on a shoplifting charge last month and found himself held on an immigration order for two nights in a police station in Santa Monica, Calif., and two more nights in a teeming Los Angeles county jail cell, on suspicion that he was an illegal immigrant. Mr. Montejano was born in Los Angeles.
This year the immigration agency has been rapidly extending its leading deportation program, known as Secure Communities, with a goal of covering the whole country by 2013. Under that program, fingerprints of every person booked at local jails are checked against Department of Homeland Security immigration databases. If the check results in a match, federal immigration agents can issue detainers, asking local law enforcement authorities to hold a suspect for up to 48 hours.
Detentions of citizens are part of the widening impact on Americans, as well as on immigrants, of President Obama’s enforcement strategies, which have led to more than 1.1 million deportations since the beginning of his term, the highest numbers in six decades.
John Morton, the director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said the agency gave “immediate and close attention” to anyone who claimed to be a citizen.
“We don’t have the power to detain citizens,” Mr. Morton said in an interview on Tuesday. “We obviously take any allegation that someone is a citizen very seriously.”
Later this month, Mr. Morton said, the immigration agency will publish new forms for its detainers. The forms, in several languages, will require the police to notify suspects who are being held on federal immigration authority, he said. They will also provide a hot line where detainees can call the immigration agency directly.
Exact numbers of Americans erroneously held by immigration authorities are hard to come by, since they are not systematically recorded. In one study, 82 people who were held for deportation from 2006 to 2008 at two immigration detention centers in Arizona, for periods as long as a year, were freed after immigration judges determined that they were American citizens.
“Because of the scale of enforcement, the numbers of people who are interacting with Immigration and Customs Enforcement are just enormous right now,” said Jacqueline Stevens, the study’s author and a political science professor at Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill.
Ms. Stevens has concluded that “a low but persistent” percentage of the nearly 400,000 people held for deportation each year are citizens.
One was Mr. Montejano, when a holiday shopping outing on Nov. 5 to a Los Angeles mall with his four children ended badly. After his young daughter begged for a $10 bottle of cologne, Mr. Montejano said, he inadvertently dropped it into a bag of things he had already bought. As he left the store, he was arrested.
With no prior criminal record, Mr. Montejano, 40, expected to post bond quickly at the Santa Monica police station on the misdemeanor charge and go home. He had his driver’s license and other legal identification, but because of an immigration detainer he was denied bail and held even after a criminal court judge canceled his fine and ordered the police to let him go.
Mr. Montejano was freed on Nov. 9 after American Civil Liberties Union lawyers sent Immigration and Customs Enforcement his United States passport and birth certificate.
“Just because I made one mistake,” Mr. Montejano said, “I don’t think they should have done all those things to me.”
He said he thought the police did not believe he was an American because of his appearance. “I look Mexican 100 percent,” he said.
Mr. Montejano had triggered a positive match in the Homeland Security Department databases, A.C.L.U. lawyers discovered, because immigration officials had failed once before to recognize his citizenship, mistakenly deporting him to Mexico in 1996. His records were not corrected.
An American college student, Romy Campos, was also trapped in a California jail last month for four days on an immigration detainer. After her Nov. 12 arrest in Torrance on a minor misdemeanor charge, Ms. Campos, 19, was denied bail and transferred to a Los Angeles County jail. A public defender assigned to her in state court said there was nothing he could do to lift a federal detainer.
“Can’t they see in my file or something that I’m a citizen?” Ms. Campos said she asked him. “He said: ‘I’m sorry, but this is state court. I can’t do anything about it.’ ”
After four days, Ms. Campos was released, soon after Jennie Pasquarella, an A.C.L.U. lawyer, provided her Florida birth certificate to the immigration agency.
Ms. Campos said the experience was shocking. “I felt misused completely, I felt nonimportant, I just felt violated by my own country,” she said.
Ms. Campos, a citizen of both the United States and Spain, later learned that she had a Department of Homeland Security record because she had once entered the United States on her Spanish passport.
United States citizens can also be tagged in a Secure Communities fingerprint check because of flukes in the department’s databases. Unlike the federal criminal databases administered by the F.B.I., Homeland Security records include all immigration transactions, not just violations. An immigrant who has always maintained legal status, including those who naturalized to become American citizens, can still trigger a fingerprint match.
According to Margaret Stock, an immigration lawyer in Alaska, under the nation’s complex citizenship laws, many foreign-born people become Americans automatically, through American parents or adoption. Often their citizenship is not recorded in Homeland Security databases, Ms. Stock said.
Other cases of possibly illegal detentions of citizens have been recently reported in Allentown, Pa., Indianapolis and Chicago.
ICE agents generally cancel detainers immediately when they determine that the suspect is a citizen. In no recent cases was an American placed in deportation. But Ms. Stevens cautioned: “It’s sort of like the canary in the mine. If those who have the full due process rights of U.S. citizens are being detained, it tells us a lot about potentially unlawful people who do not have those protections.”
Tags: Deportation and Removal > DHS Counsel > DREAM Act > ICE detention > immmigration courts > prosecutorial discretion > U.S. citizen detentions
Employers of Permament Residents Sanctioned for Discrimination
Posted on | January 4, 2012 | No Comments
We often hear in the news about employers being sanctioned for continuing to employ illegal aliens and immigrants who have no proof of employment authorization.
Now comes word that employers can be penalized by the government for discrimination in requiring non U.S. citizens to provide proof that they are not here in the U.S. illegally. Often times this is more documentation than necessary to obtain employment. If this occurs the employer is subject to litigation by the employee who was discriminated against.
DOJ settles case against company that demanded “green card” from Latino U.S. citizen
“The Justice Department announced a settlement today with Garland Sales Inc., a Georgia rug manufacturer, resolving allegations that it engaged in discrimination by imposing unnecessary documentary requirements on individuals of Hispanic origin when establishing their eligibility to work in the United States, and that it retaliated against a worker for protesting his discriminatory treatment. According to the settlement, Garland has agreed to pay $10,000 in back pay and civil penalties, and to undergo training on proper employment eligibility verification practices. In its complaint, the department alleged that the charging party, a naturalized U.S. citizen of Hispanic descent, applied for a job with Garland in May 2009. At the time of hire, he presented his unexpired driver’s license and an unrestricted Social Security card—a combination of documents sufficient to prove his identity and his authorization to work in the United States. The complaint alleged that Garland demanded that the he provide his “green card,” even though U.S. citizens do not have green cards. After Garland made further requests for documents, the worker objected to the company’s demands, and Garland then rescinded the job offer. The worker, along with another individual who was denied employment with Garland when the company rejected the individual’s valid documentation, will receive full back pay out of the $10,000 settlement. The department’s complaint also alleged that Garland required newly hired non-U.S. citizens and foreign-born U.S. citizens to present specific and additional work authorization documents beyond those required by federal law. The Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) requires employers to treat all authorized workers in the same manner during the hiring process, regardless of their national origin or citizenship status. “Employers may not treat authorized workers differently during the hiring process based on their national origin or citizenship status,” said Thomas E. Perez, Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division. “It is also illegal when employers take action against workers for asserting their federally protected rights, and that type of behavior will be vigorously investigated and prosecuted.” The Office of Special Counsel (OSC) for Immigration Related Unfair Employment Practices is responsible for enforcing the anti-discrimination provision of the INA, which protects work authorized individuals from employment discrimination on the basis of citizenship status or national origin discrimination, including discrimination in hiring and the employment eligibility verification.
Tags: California Immigrants > Deportation and Removal > Employment Authorization > I 9 employer sanctions > San Francisco Courts > Work Permit
Permanent Resident Cannot Waiver Criminal Conduct; Faces Deportation
Posted on | December 7, 2011 | No Comments
When a lawful permanent resident is served with an NTA (notice to appear), the cut off time of length of permanent residence in the United States stops, even where there is no date of trial set on the NTA. Had the BIA ruled that the time stops only when the immigrant is provided with an actual court date, this person would have been able to apply for a waiver of criminal conduct based upon the 7 year rule. (She was served with the original NTA in 2005 prior to her 7 years residence but was not sent notice of a court date until 2007.)
The immigration judge ruled the 2007 date would apply. DHS appealed and the BIA ruled against the permanent resident. She is not eligible for the waiver. For information on these issues contact our lawyer at 415-513-4533 or email attyconsult@yahoo.com
BIA on ‘stop-time rule’ – Matter of Camarillo, ID 3734
Under the stop-time rule at section 240A(d)(1) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, 8 U.S.C. 1229b(d)(1) (2006), any period of continuous residence or continuous physical presence of an alien applying for cancellation of removal under section 240A is deemed to end upon the service of a notice to appear on the alien, even if the notice to appear does not include the date and time of the initial hearing. – Matter of Camarillo, 25 I&N Dec. 644 (BIA 2011) Interim Decision #3734, December 2, 2011.
Tags: 212 (h) Waiver > BIA appeal > BIA denial > criminal conduct of LPR > DHS lawyer > Immigration Judge > notice to appear immigration court > top time rule