Immigration and Firm News

The primary trend for family immigration is a slow down in processing of all petition and application types at USCIS, at the National Visa Center, and at US consulates abroad. And, interviews are taking longer as part of the "extreme vetting" campaign.  I mentioned in an earlier post that mandatory interviews for employment based adjustment of status applicants is impacting processing times for family based adjustment of status and naturalization interviews. Here in Seattle, where once upon a … [Read more...]

President Obama is scheduled to announce his plan for Executive Action on immigration tonight at 5pm PST. Most of the networks will NOT be carrying his speech. However, CNN, MSNBC, Telemundo and Univision among others will, although this could change later today. If you miss it, the White House will have a recording here. Most of the controversy between the Democrats and Republicans is over what to do with the millions of people living in the US without legal papers. However, Executive Action … [Read more...]

I previously posted two articles about the American immigration Lawyers Association's (AILA) letter to President Obama recommending administrative or Executive Action to fix the nation's immigration laws due to inaction by Congress. Here, I want to add some more ideas that could be accomplished by Executive Action that do not require an Act of Congress. By way of review, in my prior post, Executive Action - Business Immigration Fixes Needed, I discussed the recommendations made by AILA … [Read more...]

This blog posts follows up to an earlier post, Executive Action - Business Immigration Fixes Needed, discussing the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA) letter to President Obama of August 6, 2014 requesting Executive Action. AILA recommended additional fixes to family immigration, prosecutorial discretion and enforcement related issues that could be achieved administratively in the face of Congressional inaction on statutory changes. AILA states that "the guiding principle for … [Read more...]

March 31, 2014 is the deadline to reopen I-130 visa petitions that were denied by USCIS prior to the US Supreme Court's ruling in the United States v. Windsor case in June 2013. Specifically, the petition must have been denied based on Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) that the US Supreme Court held to be unconstitutional. Many of these cases were reopened by USCIS on its own. But, if you haven't heard directly from them already, it is important to make contact with the agency … [Read more...]

On January 14, 2014, the US State Department (DOS) announced a new policy change (that will also be followed by the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS)) regarding immigration status of children born abroad through Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART). This is an important change for family immigration benefits that reflects the government's acknowledgment - finally - that families are created in more high-tech and socially different ways in the 21st century. In addition, ART affects … [Read more...]

USCIS has announced that it will provide certain relief for Filipino victims of Typhoon Hiyan that struck the Philippines on November 8, 2013. Many people were hoping that the Attorney General would declare the Philippines eligible for Temporary Protected Status (TPS) treatment authorizing those Filipinos in the US as of November 8, 2013 to apply for a special status and work authorization as has been done historically for other countries such as Somalia, El Salvador, Haiti and Syria, among … [Read more...]

USCIS has finally released a long awaited policy memo about "Parole in Place" or PIP. PIP is a procedure that permits qualifying family members who entered the U.S. without inspection (EWI), who ordinarily would need to leave the US to process a family based green card abroad, to be able to apply for green cards (adjustment of status) in the U.S., provided USCIS agrees to "parole" the individual. At this Seattle immigration law firm, we have worked on these cases before, and have found the … [Read more...]

This blog post discusses my personal reflections about the impact of the fall of DOMA on same sex couples from an immigration lawyer's perspective. I have interviewed and represented numerous same sex couples in the first quarter since the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in June 2013 that section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) impermissibly violated the equal protection clause of the U.S. Constitution. In U.S. v. Windsor, the Court required the federal government to recognize same-sex … [Read more...]

The US State Department has announced the start of registration for the DV-2015 Visa Lottery program. Visas will be available for processing between October 1, 2014 through September 30, 2015. This means that all selected applicants must receive their visas no later than September 30, 2015. This Diversity Visa Lottery allocates up to 50,000 visas to individuals and their dependents from countries with low immigration rates to the US. The registration process will begin October 1, 2013 at noon … [Read more...]