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Qualifying For Sij Status In The United State

, Posted in Immigration Law

Congress passed The Immigration Act of 1990, 8 USC 1101 to provide a procedure by which certain young or minor aliens could be classified a “special immigrant affording that alien the opportunity to maintain residence in the United States.  The purpose was to protect abused, neglected, and abandoned unaccompanied minors through a process that allows them to become permanent legal residents. Under what procedure then can such minors acquire SIJ status? Unlike other immigration matters, a…

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Untangling Distinctive Definitions And Differing Age Limits

, Posted in Immigration Law

An appellate decision issued last year by the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals gave an opportunity for a young woman from Pakistan to join the rest of her family in the United States. The federal appellate court’s ruling in Akram v. Holder, 721 F. 3d 853 (7th Cir. 2013) determined that a discrepancy between the regulations set by the USCIS to govern eligibility for two different, but related, immigrant visas contravened the legislative intent underlying the purpose of…

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Filing Date For H1-b Visa Petitions Approaching On April 1, 2014

, Posted in Immigration Law

For those hoping to come to the United States for certain jobs via a H1-B visa, the date April 1 means much more than April Fools’ Day. Rather it is the date, set by the United States Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS), in which H1-B visas offered each year become available subject to a cap of 65,000.  Foreign workers in specialty occupations that require theoretical or technical expertise in specialized fields are eligible to apply for…

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Activists At Border And Latino Caucus Pressure White House Over Deportations

, Posted in Immigration Law

Last week the Congressional Hispanic Caucus (CHC) introduced a resolution in Congress demanding that the President stop all deportations of undocumented aliens who would qualify for citizenship under Senate Bill 744, the comprehensive immigration reform bill which passed that body last year. Meanwhile in Tijuana, Mexico sixty migrants were arrested in acts of civil disobedience as they attempted to cross in to the United States. The third group of protesters to attempt entry at the Otay…

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Second Circuit Orders Bia To Consider “duress As Defense For Asylum

, Posted in Immigration Law

Foreign nationals in the United States who fear that, if required to leave the United States and return to their native country, they will be persecuted have the option of seeking asylum here and also requesting withholding of removal from this country. If the Immigration Judge who hears the applicant’s case denies the petition, the applicant can appeal it to the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) which will review the lower court’s ruling. And an order…

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T Visas For Victims Of Human Trafficking

, Posted in Immigration Law

Sex trafficking occurs when people are forced or coerced into the commercial sex trade against their will. In the United States, the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000 (TVPA) defines labor trafficking as: “The recruitment, harboring, transportation, provision, or obtaining of a person for labor or services, through the use of force, fraud or coercion for the purpose of subjection to involuntary servitude, peonage, debt bondage or slavery. According to the State Department’s Trafficking in Persons…

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Removal Of Barriers For Undocumented Students To Obtain In-state Tuition

, Posted in Immigration Law

Over the last several months several states have taken steps to make it easier for undocumented noncitizen students who live in their states to go to college there. Governor Jay Inslee of Washington State announced that he expects to sign legislation that provides grants to students whose families meet income and residency guidelines.  This means that Washington will become the 5th state after California, Illinois, Texas and New Mexico to offer this kind of financial aid…

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The Bitter Political Ironies Of Comprehensive Immigration Reform

, Posted in Immigration Law

After the votes were tabulated from the 2012 Presidential election, the prospects for Congress and the President to reach an agreement on comprehensive immigration reform appeared much brighter than before. The conventional wisdom stated that Republicans would look at the poor showing their presidential candidate, Mitt Romney, had with Hispanic voters (who overwhelmingly view passage of a suitable reform package an absolute necessity at this juncture) as a wake-up call. It seemed manifestly clear after Governor…

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Special Green Cards Available For Iraqi And Afghan Translators

, Posted in Immigration Law

Recently the plight of Iraqi and Afghan interpreters who aided American troops during our wars in those countries has been highlighted in the American media. Last month NBC News ran a segment about an Afghan translator named Mohammad who has been hunted by the Taliban after he served the U.S. Marines fighting in Afghanistan. He has already paid a huge price for his assistance to the United States: the murder of his father and the abduction…

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Warnings About Potential Deportation Before Tendering Guilty Pleas

, Posted in Immigration Law

The issue of whether a criminal defendant has to be advised about the impact a criminal conviction may have on his status, as a non-citizen to be deported, has been a very salient one ever since the 1996 passage of the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996. That law expanded the number of criminal offenses which could trigger a deportation. In New Jersey, the State Supreme Court, almost five years ago, held that…

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