For over a decade, filing an extension of nonimmigrant status has been fairly routine in most cases. On Monday, October 23, 2017, US Citizenship & Immigration Services (USCIS) issued a new policy memorandum that instructs its officers to apply the “same level of scrutiny to both initial petitions and extension requests for certain nonimmigrant visa categories.”
Read morePolitico: “Trump targets 11 nations in refugee order”
President Trump signed an executive order on Tuesday to restart the refugee resettlement program, after it was suspended for 120 days as part of the president’s travel ban issued earlier this year. The order will resume refugee admissions but will initiate a new 90-day review period for officials to conduct an “in-depth threat assessment” of eleven countries. While neither the executive order nor the White House named these eleven countries, Politico says that based on statements from senior administration officials these countries appear to include: Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Libya, Mali, North Korea, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Syria and Yemen—all majority-Muslim countries except for North Korea and South Sudan.
Read moreDoD: “Policy Changes to Lawful Permanent Residents and the Military Accessions Vital to the National Interest (MAVNI) Pilot Program”
Earlier this month the Department of Defense (DoD) announced key changes to its policies regarding screening of Lawful Permanent Residents (LPRs) and qualifying service for the purposes of military naturalization. The DoD states that they made the changes after “lessons learned” from the Military Accessions Vital to the National Interest (MAVNI) Pilot Program—a program devised as a way for legal noncitizens to obtain expedited citizenship when they join the US military and provide critical and in-demand skills, including medical and language skills. After criticism of the security screening for MAVNI recruits, along with threats that the program would be discontinued, the DoD says that, while expedited US citizenship achieved through military service can be valuable, it is in the “national interest to ensure that all current and prospective service members complete security and suitability screening prior to naturalization.”
Read moreThe Unspoken Dialogue We Share
Good Fences Make Good Neighbors
Good Fences Make Good Neighbors in Washington Square Park.
Famed artist and activist Ai Weiwei has a new multi-site exhibit in New York City. Good Fences Make Good Neighbors is a multi-media exhibition for public spaces, monuments, buildings, and transportation sites and is a "passionate response to the global migration crisis and a reflection on the profound social and political impulse to divide people from each other."
The exhibit is spread out over the five boroughs. In Washington Square Park (pictured above), where Ai Weiwei often visited in the 1980s when he lived nearby, his thirty-seven-foot-tall steel cage titled "Arch" seems at first only an impenetrable barrier, but the opening, cut in the silhouette of two united figures, allows passage. In Central Park, "Gilded Cage" evokes the "luxury of Fifth Avenue and the privations of confinement." At Flushing Meadows in Queens, his 1,000-foot-long "Circle Fence" uses metal frames with netting to surround the Unisphere, making a "global border that can be seen as both playful and sobering." Ai Wewei has also created 200 banners to appear on lampposts across all five boroughs that feature images from his new documentary Human Flow, which was made after he traveled to twenty-three countries and more than forty refugee camps in 2016.
The exhibit title references a folksy proverb cited in poet Robert Frost’s Mending Wall, and Ai Weiwei chose this title with "an ironic smile and a keen sense of how populist notions often stir up fear and prejudice." Visitors to the exhibition will find that "good fences" do not just keep people out but, more importantly, let people in. Ai Weiwei says: “Think about 65 million refugees who stay in the cold and the rain and the horror with no hope...Fortunately, and also fortunately, we’re spoiled by contemporary life; we forget other people still in suffering and in pain and who need help. We have to protect the people just like we have to protect ourselves. Otherwise, anyone can be refugees.”
Visa Options for Study in the US
The United States is one of the most popular places for foreign nationals to come to study. In the 2015 to 2016 academic year, over one million international students came to the US! Although numbers have dropped since President Trump was elected, and there are reports of foreign nationals reconsidering higher education in the US in light of the anti-immigrant rhetoric and atmosphere, many foreign nationals will still come to the US to study at our highly respected educational institutions. As I’ve written before, it’s not uncommon for certain foreign students to move onto work visas once they have completed their studies. In this post, however, we wanted to examine how exactly foreign nationals come to the US as students, and some general issues that foreign students face, including employment while in school and visas for their dependents. It may surprise some readers that there is not just one visa option for students. In fact, there are three different routes for students: F-1, M-1, and J-1. Each visa has its own set of rules concerning how it can be used and what benefits (and potential detriments) may follow.
Read moreThe Washington Post: “Immigration judges say proposed quotas from Justice Dept. threaten independence”
The Trump administration is attempting to impose “numeric performance standards” on federal immigration judges in order to reduce the immense backlog of cases, a move that many fear will threaten judicial independence. In a proposal made by the White House earlier this month as part of negotiations regarding the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, the Trump administration says that their intention is to “establish performance metrics for immigration judges.” More specifically, documents obtained by the Washington Post show that the Justice Department "intends to implement numeric performance standards to evaluate Judge performance." Dana Leigh Marks, the spokeswoman and former president of the National Association of Immigration Judges, says this is alarming. “That is a huge, huge, huge encroachment on judicial independence. It’s trying to turn immigration judges into assembly-line workers.”
Read moreAn Act of Faith
USCIS: “Changes to Direct Filing Addresses for Form I-129 Petitions”
Effective October 12, 2017, US Citizenship & Immigration Services (USCIS) has changed the direct filing addresses for certain petitioners submitting Form I-129, Petition for a Nonimmigrant Worker. Petitioners must now file Form I-129 according to the “state where the company or organization’s primary office is located.” Petitioners previously filed Form I-129 based on where the beneficiary’s temporary employment or training was located. Additionally, petitioners located in Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, and Texas will now file Form I-129 at the California Service Center.
UCCIS publishes the list of direct filing addresses for Form I-129, Petition for a Nonimmigrant Worker, on their website. Beginning November 11, 2017, USCIS may reject Form I-129s that are filed at the incorrect service center, so it’s recommended to verify (and double-check) the correct address before submitting.
Under One Roof
The living room of Ramonita Saez and her two children. (Photo courtesy of the Tenement Museum.)
Under One Roof is a new exhibit at the Tenement Museum exploring post-WWII immigration in the Lower East Side. The Tenement Museum is comprised of two historic tenement buildings, 97 Orchard Street, which tells the stories of immigrant families between 1863 and 1935, and 103 Orchard, which now houses its first exhibit to feature modern immigration stories. This week I attended a preview tour of Under One Roof, and learned about residents at 103 Orchard, including Bella Epstein, whose parents survived the Holocaust; Jose and Andy Velez, whose seamstress mother, Ramonita Saez, left Puerto Rico and worked for many years in the garment industry; and the Wong siblings, whose mother sewed in Chinatown garment shops. Under One Roof takes visitors into the homes of these three families from the 1950s through the 1970s and uses an astonishing attention to decorative details (notice the plastic furniture slipcovers above) as well as audio, visual, and in-person storytelling by the tour guide to convey their immigrant experience. The exhibit is open for preview tours now, and is scheduled to officially open later this fall.