On April 7, 2017, the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced that it had reached the congressionally mandated 65,000 visa H1B cap for fiscal year (FY) 2018. The USCIS also announced that it had received a sufficient number of H1B petitions to meet the 20,000 visa U.S. advanced degree exception.
On April 7, 2017, the United States Senate voted to confirm Judge Neil Gorsuch to the United States Supreme Court by a vote of 54-45. Judge Gorsuch will be sworn in as the 113th Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States on Monday, April 10, 2017. For reasons that I discussed in detail, Judge Gorsuch was an excellent pick by President Donald Trump, and promises to serve with distinction on the Supreme Court for years to come.
On April 5, 2017, the Secretary of Homeland Security, John F. Kelly, issued written testimony for a Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental affairs hearing titled “Improving Border Security and Public Safety.” In his written testimony, Secretary Kelly explains that the United States Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has seen a sharp decline in apprehensions along the Southwest Border since the beginning of the year. In this post, I will focus exclusively on an interesting section of Secretary Kelly’s testimony regarding promising signs related to immigration enforcement at the border.
On September 8, 2016, the Department of State (DOS) published in the Federal Register a notice of proposed rulemaking regarding amendments to DOS regulations implementing the 1993 Hague Convention on Protection of Children and Co-operation in Respect of Intracountry Adoption and the Intracountry Adoption Act of 2000. However, on April 4, 2017, the DOS published a notice in the Federal Register withdrawing the proposed rule.
In a post dated April 3, 2017, the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced that beginning on April 17, 2017, the Potomac Service Center will begin handling corrections to Employment Authorization Documents (EADs) that were issued by the Potomac Service Center and that may have incorrect information due to error on the part of the USCIS. Previously, individuals who received EADs from the Potomac Processing Center with incorrect information due to USCIS error had to send their EADs to the Nebraska Service Center to procure corrections.
In this post, we will examine an exchange of letters between the Chief Justice of California (State courts), the Attorney General. and the Secretary of Homeland Security. The exchange regards reported immigration enforcement activities in California State courts. It highlights the myriad issues that are likely to arise as the administration of President Donald Trump pursues more aggressive immigration enforcement tactics, especially in local jurisdictions that decline to cooperate with Federal immigration enforcement.
On March 31, 2017, the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA) reported that “AILA members have reported delays in receiving emails from the Nebraska Service Center’s (NSC) premium processing unit (PPU) acknowledging receipt of I-129/H-1B petitions.”
Back in February, I wrote a post on the case of the Russian opposition politician, Vladimir Kara-Murza. At the time I wrote that post, Kara-Murza had been placed in an artificial coma due to multiple organ failure. The symptoms shown by Kara-Murza were similar to those he had when he became gravely ill due to the mysterious presence of heavy metals in his body. In both cases, Kara-Murza suspected – quite reasonably – that he had been poisoned by persons connected to the government of Vladimir Putin. Fortunately, Kara-Murza has again recovered from a near-death poisoning experience. In the April 2017 edition of the National Review, he gave an interesting interview to Jay Nordligner that I would like you share with you.
On March 30, 2017, Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced that the Department of Justice (DOJ) would move to expand and modernize the Institutional Hearing Program (IHP).
