I would like to share with you an important decision rendered by Judge Harry Leinenweber of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois on August 31, 2015.
New York attorneys have a duty to preserve documents related to current and former clients. But what happens when client files are destroyed by a disaster or accident? Does the attorney have an ethical obligation to notify his/her current or former client when client files have been inadvertently destroyed?
We have added an article about administrative removal for aggravated felonies. The article is about a removal procedure where a non-lawful permanent resident who has been convicted of an aggravated felony can be removed administratively, that is, without a hearing before an immigration judge.
We have just posted an a detailed overview of reinstatement of removal. If an alien is found to have reentered the United States illegally after having been previously removed or having left under a grant of voluntary departure under a removal order, the alien may be subject to reinstatement of removal. Reinstatement of removal allows the Department of Homeland Security to reinstate the previous removal order. Aliens subject to reinstatement are not entitled to have the reinstatement reviewed by an immigration judge. However, there are limited manners in which an alien may seek relief from reinstatement of removal.
USCIS has posted the Affirmative Asylum Scheduling Bulletin for September of 2015. This bulletin displays which asylum applicants have had their interviews scheduled the past few months. The bulletin may give certain affirmative asylum applicants an idea of when an interview may be expected based upon their filing dates.
United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) and the Department of State (DOS) announced on September 10, 2015, new procedures for calculating the monthly Visa Bulletin which lists when family-sponsored and employment-based immigrant visa and adjustment of status applicants may file the Form I-485, Application to Register Permanent Residence and Adjust Status. These revised procedures derive from the 2014 executive actions on immigration announced by President Obama and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Jeh Johnson.
The Board of Immigration Appeals issued a precedent decision in Matter of R-K-K- 26 I&N Dec. 658 (BIA 2015), which instructed Immigration Judges on how they should evaluate inter-proceeding similarities in different asylum applications with regard to the applicant's credibility.
The Secretary of Homeland Security has announced his decision to designate Yemen for Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for 18 months. He has made this decision due to the ongoing conflict and resulting humanitarian emergency in Yemen that renders Yemen unable to safety handle the return of its nationals. Provided that they meet the eligibility requirements for TPS and apply within the registration period for Yemen, nationals of Yemen and aliens without nationality who last habitually resided in Yemen may be eligible for TPS.
An alien who has been placed in removal proceedings and has been living in the United States without legal status for a long time may be eligible for Non-LPR Cancellation of Removal pursuant to Immigration & Nationality Act (the “INA”) § 240A(b)(1). See INA § 240A(b)(1). To be eligible for Non-LPR Cancellation of Removal, the alien must establish, among other things, he/sheAnchor has been physically present in the U.S. for a continuous period of at least ten years immediately prior to filing an EOIR-42B, Application for Cancellation of Removal and Adjustment of Status for Certain Nonpermanent Residents with the Immigration Court.
Thanks in large part to the ongoing debates in the Republican Presidential primary, the concept of “birthright citizenship,” specifically that any person born on U.S. soil is a U.S. citizen from birth, has become a subject of much public debate. For my part, I think that the way the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution has been interpreted for the past 150 years is correct, and furthermore, I am unequivocally opposed to any attempts to change the way that birthright citizenship functions.
