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DEPORTED ARMY VETERAN BECOMES US CITIZEN AFTER PARDON

By Edward Shulman, Posted on April 16, 2018Posted in Immigration Law

A decorated former U.S. Army paratrooper serving the United States from 1995 to 2001 and whose work on behalf of deported veterans drew widespread attention to his cause became a U.S. citizen Friday, after having been deported to Mexico eight years ago. Hector Barajas, who was deported in 2010, due to a 2002 conviction, was granted a pardon by California Governor Jerry Brown due to his honorable military service, his advocacy work, and his remorseful behavior.…

TRUMP ADMINISTRATION PROPOSES A NEW QUOTA SYSTEM FOR IMMIGRATION JUDGES

By Edward Shulman, Posted on April 10, 2018Posted in Immigration Law

Instead of hiring new Immigration Judges to tackle the profound immigration backlog of approximately 685,000 cases pending or expanding the court, Attorney General Jeff Sessions and the Trump administration will now be pressuring current Immigration Judges to process cases faster by establishing a quota system tied to their annual performance reviews. In particular, starting in October, Immigration Judges will be expected to clear at least 700 cases a year to receive a “satisfactory performance rating, a standard…

TV HOST JOHN OLIVER SHINES SPOTLIGHT ON IMMIGRATION COURTS

By Edward Shulman, Posted on April 4, 2018April 4, 2018Posted in Immigration Law

TV Personality, Political Comedian, and Late Night Show Host John Oliver shines a luminous spotlight on the condition of Immigration Courts in a recent segment on his wildly popular show Last Week Tonight (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9fB0GBwJ2QA&sns=em) . While a comedic lens was employed to skewer the Immigration Court System in the United States, Oliver does successfully highlight some sobering points about why the immigration system is so dysfunctional. In particular, he presents four major flaws in the current…

Read MorePosted on April 4, 2018April 4, 2018

BILLIONAIRE KOCH BROTHERS TRY TO INFLUENCE TRUMP ON IMMIGRATION

By Edward Shulman, Posted on March 22, 2018March 22, 2018Posted in Immigration Law

Charles and David Koch, oil magnates, owners of the second largest privately owned business in the United States, and mega-donor influential supporters of the Republican party, have been vocally weighing in on immigration issues. As unlikely as it appears and contrary to what their otherwise conservative political affiliations would suggest, the Koch brothers have been adamant in their support for mass immigration and DACA in addition to announcing last month their opposition to Trump’s effort to…

Read MorePosted on March 22, 2018March 22, 2018

First Dreamer Admitted To New Jersey Law Bar

By Edward Shulman, Posted on January 30, 2018January 31, 2018Posted in DAPA/DACA

Last week, New Jersey welcomed its first DACA recipient to the New Jersey Law Bar. Parthiv Patel, a 27-year-old immigrant from India who came to New Jersey when he was five years old, became the first “DREAMer to join the cadre of lawyers in the State, sworn in by State Attorney General Grewal. Patel, who graduated from Drexel University’s Thomas R. Kline School of Law in 2016 and subsequently passed both the New Jersey and Pennsylvania…

Read MorePosted on January 30, 2018January 31, 2018

Governor Murphy To Join DACA Lawsuit

By Edward Shulman, Posted on January 25, 2018January 30, 2018Posted in DAPA/DACA

Phil Murphy, New Jersey's new Democratic Governor, announced that New Jersey intends to join a multi-state lawsuit challenging President Trump’s decision to terminate the DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) program for DREAMers. This is a noteworthy and critically important policy shift in that Murphy's Republican predecessor, Governor Christie, had joined with other GOP governors in a lawsuit that sought to have the DACA program declared void back in 2015. The lawsuit that Murphy intends to join,…

Read MorePosted on January 25, 2018January 30, 2018

Federal Court Orders Dhs To Maintain DACA Program

By Edward Shulman, Posted on January 11, 2018January 30, 2018Posted in DAPA/DACA

Following the Trump Administration's announcement that they would terminate the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program set forth by President Obama via Executive Order, the University of California filed a formal legal complaint challenging the rescission of the DACA program. A fortuitous outcome came on January 9, 2018 when Federal Judge William Alsup, in his 49-page ruling, issued an order directing the government to partially maintain the DACA program on a nationwide basis. Calling Trump's…

Read MorePosted on January 11, 2018January 30, 2018

Trump Terminates TPS For 200,000 El Salvadorans

By Edward Shulman, Posted on January 8, 2018January 30, 2018Posted in Immigration Law

A profound sense of demoralization and dread has gripped El Salvadorans, their families, their employers, and their communities across the United States today. In President Trump's latest reversal of immigration policies that seek to terminate humanitarian programming, in concert with his new Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, they officially announced that an estimated 200,000 individuals with protected status from El Salvador for more than a decade must now leave the United States. This decision arrives weeks…

Read MorePosted on January 8, 2018January 30, 2018

Governor-elect Phil Murphy’s Vision For 2018 Immigration In New Jersey

By Edward Shulman, Posted on January 2, 2018January 30, 2018Posted in Immigration Law

The political landscape for immigrants in 2017 under Trump was bleak, with widespread anticipatory anxiety regarding the fate of DREAMers, TPS recipients, individuals from Muslim backgrounds, beneficiaries of chain migration, and the undocumented currently residing in some 300 "sanctuary cities" around the United States. No doubt the apprehension has been exacerbated by statistics that include the fact that there was a 37% increase in the number of arrests of illegal immigrants in the United States last…

Read MorePosted on January 2, 2018January 30, 2018

Public Support For Immigration Increasing Paradoxically

By Edward Shulman, Posted on December 20, 2017January 30, 2018Posted in Immigration Law

The Trump administration's hard-line on immigration, from Muslim bans to the termination of the DACA program, may actually be having a paradoxical effect when it comes to public opinion. Indeed, polls are showing increasing support for giving unauthorized immigrants a path to citizenship rather than deporting them and for allowing undocumented immigrants brought to the United States as children to remain in the country and avail themselves of certain benefits. Indeed, several recent polls from the…

Read MorePosted on December 20, 2017January 30, 2018