The Obama Administrative has used executive action to expand the use of parole to assist members of the armed forces, individuals in the reserves, and veterans. Parole is typically used to permit an alien who is outside the United States to enter the United States, but the Department of Homeland Security has recognized that parole may granted to an alien who is physically present in the United States without inspection or admission.
On November 9, 2015, by a 2-1 majority, a three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, in a decision written by Judge Jerry Smith, upheld a District Court's preliminary injunction against the implementation of the Deferred Action for Parents and Lawful Permanent Residents (DAPA) program, and against the expansion of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. The Fifth Circuit’s decision is sound, and strikes me as quite right on all of the key points. I will use this blog to first explain why the majority on the Fifth Circuit decided to uphold the preliminary injunction, the next steps in the litigation over DAPA and DACA, and my thoughts on why both the Fifth Circuit majority and Judge Hanen are spot on with their reasoning and decisions on these important issues.
Three significant immigration programs are slated to expire on December 11, 2015. These three programs are the: EB-5 Regional Center Program; Conrad 30 J Waiver Program; Special Immigrant Non-Minister Religious Worker Programs. This blog will discuss the programs' prospects for reauthorization before they are set to expire.
In Matter of Garcia-Ramirez, the BIA addressed whether an alien had his continuous physical presence (for cancellation of removal purposes) severed when he was picked up near the Mexican border and briefly detained before voluntarily returning to Mexico. The key question was whether that was sufficient to constitute a break in continuous physical presence.
On October 28, 2015, the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit decided Lora v. Shanahan, an important case concerning mandatory detention for pending removal proceedings found in section 236(c) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) for aliens who were inadmissible or deportable for certain offenses listed in sections 212(a) and 237(a) of the INA.
On October 28, 2015, the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) decided an important case titled Matter of Castrejon-Colino, pertaining to the requisite 10-year continuous physical present requirement in order to be eligible for regular non-LPR cancellation of removal that is found in section 240A(b)(1)(A) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA).
In response to a District Court decision court decision invalidating the STEM OPT program, the Department of Homeland Security proposed a new rule proposal on October 19, 2015. In addition to seeking to maintain the STEM OPT program in compliance with the court ruling, the new rule would make several key changes to the STEM OPT program. We will review the rule proposal and what it means going forward in this article.
The Social Security Administration (SSA) has updated the evidentiary requirements for demonstrating “statelessness” in RS 02640.040 of its Program Operations Manual System (POMS). The SSA will use information from the Department of State about an individual to determine whether he or she is stateless. The definition that POMS uses for “statelessness is “the lack of nationality, or the absence of a recognized link between an individual and any state.” The POMS explains how an individual may be found to be de jure (by law) stateless and de facto (as a matter of fact) stateless.
Section 207 of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) gives the President the authority to allocate a limited number of refugee numbers for each fiscal year (subject to consultation with Congress and certain other concerns). This effectively sets the limits for how many refugees may be admitted in the fiscal year. On September 29, 2015, the President announced the allocation of refugee numbers for fiscal year (FY) 2016.
