Immigration Law

TRUMP ADMINISTRATION PROPOSES A NEW QUOTA SYSTEM FOR IMMIGRATION JUDGES

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…

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TV HOST JOHN OLIVER SHINES SPOTLIGHT ON IMMIGRATION COURTS

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…

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BILLIONAIRE KOCH BROTHERS TRY TO INFLUENCE TRUMP ON IMMIGRATION

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…

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Trump Terminates TPS For 200,000 El Salvadorans

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…

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

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…

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Public Support For Immigration Increasing Paradoxically

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…

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Some New Jersey Immigration Cases Being Heard In Puerto Rico

Despite the fact that many regions within Puerto Rico remain without power post-hurricane, the devastated island still continues to run a live video stream between an immigration court in Guaynabo, and the Elizabeth Detention Center in New Jersey due to a significant backlog in the U.S. Immigration system.  Indeed, for many immigration detainees, they will "meet" their adjudicating Judge who will decide their fate via video hookup on a television monitor. When interviewed about the situation,…

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Trump Ends TPS For Nicaraguans

The Trump Administration formally announced its plan to put an end to the Temporary Protected Status (TPS) program that has allowed certain Nicaraguans to live and work in the United States.  TPS status is granted to eligible nationals of certain countries who are already in the United States due to conditions in their home country that temporarily prevent them from returning safely, or in certain circumstances, where the country is unable to handle the return of…

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Senate Republicans Propose The “Succeed Act”: DACA Replacement Bill

In response to President Trump's disbanding of the DACA program, two Republican Senators, James Lankford of Oklahoma and Tom Tillis of North Carolina, unveiled a proposed bill this week which is being touted as a "conservative" approach to protecting young undocumented immigrants brought to the United States as children.  The two Senators understand that children should not be accountable and punished for the actions of their parents.  A spokesman for Senator Tillis described the bill, referred…

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Multi-state DACA Lawsuit Against Trump Administration

New York Attorney General, Eric Schneiderman, along with 15 other Attorneys General from around the country and the District of Columbia formally filed a lawsuit against the Trump Administration yesterday due to the termination of the DACA program.  Schneiderman appeared on the Rachel Maddow Show on MSNBC last night to discuss the reasons for the lawsuit.  In addition to explaining how their state economies will be hurt if DACA grantees would lose their status, he explained…

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