Do I Need an Immigration Attorney?

Many people ask themselves this question when considering applying for work visas, Green Cards, or other immigration benefits. At first glance the immigration forms and instructions on the US Citizenship and Immigration Services’ (USCIS) website seem relatively straightforward. Some even may have heard stories from friends or colleagues who successfully applied without hiring a lawyer. In this post, we consider different kinds of immigration benefits (along with more complicated deportation cases) and the reasons why one may wish to hire an attorney to assist them in the process.

Of course, as a lawyer working for a boutique immigration law firm, I’m biased; however, I also write from the perspective of a lawyer who has seen what happens when applicants attempt to apply pro se (without legal representation) for cases that are far from as simple as they seem. In a separate future post, we will discuss the dangers of hiring an “Immigration Consultant” or “Notario” and also the unique ethical obligations of attorneys.

First, let’s be clear: There is no legal requirement to be represented by a lawyer in immigration petitions and applications. A petition or application filed pro se will not automatically be rejected by a USCIS Service Center simply because it was not prepared by an attorney. Such petitions or applications will be subject to the same review and adjudication process that others filed by attorneys go through.

Read more

An Irishman in New York (sort of)

St. Patrick’s Day. The feast day of the patron saint of Ireland. A day to honor Irish culture and heritage. As an Irishman (sort of, well, Irish last name), this year I decided to check out a few ways that New York City celebrates.

The big one, of course, is the parade. The first march was on March 17, 1762, fourteen years before the Declaration of Independence, and is what organizers claim the “country’s oldest and proudest Irish tradition.” I arrive on Fifth Avenue across from the Metropolitan Museum a little after 11am last Monday. It’s mostly deserted, except for a few police officers on the corners, a young couple with dyed green hair holding each other, and a few other bystanders trying to keep warm. The parade is coming north from downtown, but I have time. I should have stopped for a Guinness (not a sponsor).

Read more

Seattle Times: "Guest: What’s behind the hunger strike at Northwest Detention Center"

Dan Berger, who teaches ethnic studies at the University of Washington Bothell, and Angélica Cházaro, an immigrant-rights attorney, examine the hunger strike at the Northwest Detention Center involving more than 700 people:

In a public statement, the hunger strikers demanded an end to deportations and the separation of families. They also demanded better food, medical care and wages for work inside the facility (they currently receive just $1 a day for their labor), and an end to exorbitant commissary prices. Detainees pay $8.95 for a bottle of shampoo and $1 for a single plastic plate.

The hunger strike, which has spread to a Texas center, began on March 7 and as of yesterday reportedly has two participants left. It has resulted in a planned visit by US Rep. Adam Smith, who said in a statement he was "very concerned with the reported hunger strike" and is continuing to push for "answers and closely monitor the situation," though detainees released recently said "nothing had changed."

Department of Homeland Security spokesman Andrew Munoz said that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) "respected the right of detainees to register their opinions about their treatment." He went on:

'While we continue to work with Congress to enact commonsense immigration reform, ICE remains committed to sensible, effective immigration enforcement that focuses on its priorities, including convicted criminals and those apprehended at the border while attempting to unlawfully enter the United States[.]'

The hunger strike comes at a time when President Obama has ordered a review of deportation policies.

The Northwest Detention Center as well as the facility in Texas are run by the GEO Group, who claim to be the "world's leading provider of correctional and detention management and community reentry services" and whose "political-action committee has given more than $100,000 to state, local and federal candidates so far in the 2014 cycle, according to the Center for Responsive Politics."

No information on the hunger strike is on the GEO Group website as far as we can tell, but they did have a quarterly cash dividend of $0.57 per share.

UPDATE: Hunger strike reportedly resumed at the Northwest Detention Center.

USA TODAY: "Study: Work visas being denied at a higher rate"

US Citizenship & Immigration Services is denying L-1B specialized knowledge petitions at a higher rate, increasing nearly five-fold in the past six years, according to a report (here in PDF) by the National Foundation for American Policy, a non-partisan organization dedicated to public policy research on trade, immigration, and education. The report notes:

While as recently as FY 2006 the denial rate for L-1B petitions was 6 percent, the denial rate for L-1B petitions rose to 34 percent in FY 2013, after rising to 30 percent in FY 2012 – a more than five-fold increase in the rate of denials despite no new regulation changing the adjudication standard...Time consuming Requests for Evidence (RFE) from adjudicators for L-1B petitions also continued at a high level – 46 percent in FY 2013. That means in 2013 about half of petitions to transfer in employees with specialized knowledge were either denied or delayed by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services adjudicators.

USA Today reports that Stuart Anderson, the executive director of the foundation and former head of policy and counselor to the Commissioner of the INS (now USCIS), said the denial increase lines up with the country's recession, noting: "'Some people may have had the impression that by keeping companies from transferring in employees that that somehow was going to promote American jobs[.]'"

Steven Camarota, director of research for the Center for Immigration Studies, which supports lower levels of immigration ("low-immigration, pro-immigrant," they state), notes that L-1A approvals for international managers and executives has increased which "'is a clear indication that getting them is not very hard,'" and that as a consequence "'more and more companies are trying to take advantage of the program at a time of record rates of joblessness and stagnate wages for U.S.-born workers and legal immigrants already here.'"

Elizabeth Brettschneider: The DLG-Proust-Actors Studio Questionnaire*

Born and raised in the tiny town of Columbia, Connecticut (next to where Ashley Emerson grew up. Their mothers also go to the same gym, they discovered at the holiday party two years ago), Elizabeth Brettschneider comes from a long line of Connecticutters. She knows they’re called Connecticutters because one summer she worked for the State of Connecticut’s Department of Travel and Tourism (“All day I asked for people’s addresses so they could be sent a travel brochure about Connecticut,” she says). She had a “happy and relatively uneventful” childhood, which might partly explain her bubbly and persistently optimistic personality (seriously, I’ve never seen her in a bad mood).

Read more

NYT: Travel Bans for Certain Russians and Ukrainians

As the Parliament in Crimea is set to vote on regional secession, the Obama administration has issued sanctions including travel bans and visa revocations:

The sanctions Mr. Obama approved Thursday imposed visa bans on officials and other individuals deemed responsible for undermining Ukrainian sovereignty and territorial integrity. The administration would not disclose the names or number of people penalized, but a senior official said privately that it would affect just under a dozen people, mostly Russians but some Ukrainians.

Among those targeted were political figures, policy advisers, security officials and military officers who played a direct role in the Crimean crisis, the official said. Any of them seeking to travel to the United States would be barred, and a few who currently hold American visas will have them revoked.

Republican Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen said that while these sanctions were a step in the right direction "we must name and shame these persons[.]" This comes after a report in February that the State Department had imposed a visa ban on twenty senior Ukrainian officials, whom had allegedly played a role in the violent crackdown of protestors by the government of ousted President Yanukovych. UK Prime Minister David Cameron has also backed travel bans for senior Russian politicians, and European Union member states in coordination with the US, Switzerland, Turkey, Japan, and Canada have reportedly agreed on travel restrictions as well.

F/W 2014 London, Milan, and Paris

British Vogue captures London Fashion Week's "excitement, colour and fabulous style" in a six minute film featuring Tom Ford, Erdem, and Alice Temperley, among many others. Fashionista looks at the ten top trends from London, including a "new crop of London collections that were so unapologetically good at being bad, we couldn’t help but take notice. Oil-slick finishes, cobwebby crochets, and hardcore studs were totally unstoppable." Plus "the season’s breakout must-have, the slip dress[.]"

In Milan "Roberto Cavalli transformed the Cavalli woman into a scorching goddess of strength and fantasy" which means of course that the models walked around a ring of fire. Dazed has the other highlights: drones over the Fendi catwalk, Miuccia Prada's sensual layers, and a magical forest created by Dolce & Gabbana. 

Valentino in Paris was "calf-length skirts, handkerchief hems, knee-length boots, Little Red Riding Hood capes, crazy coats, skirts’n’sweaters, polo-necks, blanket coats, sensible handbags." Also Rihanna. Lots of Rihanna.