USCIS Forms Update Notice

Update to Form I-924, Application For Regional Center Designation Under the Immigrant Investor Program. New Edition Dated 11/21/19.

Manhani v. Barr

The frivolous asylum application bar in 8 U.S.C. §1158(d)(6) precludes an applicant from receiving all benefits under the Immigration and Nationality Act.

Manhani v. Barr - filed Nov. 25 2019

Cite as 2019 S.O.S. 17-72231

For more information, go to: http://www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com/

Fares v. Barr

A noncitizen who seeks a 8 U.S.C. §237(a)(1)(H) waiver is otherwise admissible even though he failed to return to his country of origin for at least two years, as required by 8 U.S.C. §1182(e).

Fares v. Barr - filed Nov. 25, 2019

Cite as 2019 S.O.S. 13-71916

For more information, go to: http://www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com/

Church Support

Nearly four months after the largest immigration raid in the last decade, which resulted in 680 arrests, churches in central Mississippi are still supporting the families who were impacted, reports Egan Millard in Episcopal News Service. “Initially, legal assistance was the resource they needed most. But now, with wage-earning parents either detained or unable to work, many of those families simply need food to put on the table. … Other churches have launched their own efforts, like the Morton United Methodist Church, which has collected over $100,000 to pay bills for people affected by the raid, NPR reported, and a Presbyterian church is collecting Christmas presents for the children.”

For more information, go to: 

http://www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com/

THE FIRST

Nebraska has become the first state to agree to share its state driver’s license record data with the U.S. Census Bureau. Starting in December and through 2021, “the state's DMV will share monthly data about license and ID card holders' citizenship status, plus names, addresses, dates of birth, sex, race and eye color,” reports Hansi Lo Wang in NPR.  Nebraska also only provides drivers licenses to people who can prove they are legally residing in the United States. Meanwhile, civil rights organizations “are suing the Trump administration to try to block the bureau from producing citizenship data.”

For more information, go to: http://www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com/

USCIS Reaches H-2B Cap for First Half of FY 2020

WASHINGTON—U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services has reached the congressionally mandated cap on H-2B visas for temporary nonagricultural workers for the first half of fiscal year 2020.

Nov. 15 was the final receipt date for new cap-subject H-2B worker petitions requesting an employment start date before April 1, 2020. USCIS will reject new cap-subject H-2B petitions received after Nov. 15 that request an employment start date before April 1, 2020.

USCIS continues to accept H-2B petitions that are exempt from the congressionally mandated cap. This includes the following types of petitions:

Current H-2B workers in the U.S. petitioning to extend their stay and, if applicable, change the terms of their employment or change their employers;

Fish roe processors, fish roe technicians, and/or supervisors of fish roe processing; and

Workers performing labor or services in the Commonwealth of Northern Mariana Islands and/or Guam from Nov. 28, 2009, until Dec. 31, 2029.

U.S. businesses use the H-2B program to employ foreign workers for temporary nonagricultural jobs. Currently, Congress has set the H-2B cap at 66,000 per fiscal year, with 33,000 for workers who begin employment in the first half of the fiscal year (Oct.1 - March 31) and 33,000 (plus any unused numbers from the first half of the fiscal year) for workers who begin employment in the second half of the fiscal year (April 1 - Sept. 30).

For more information, go to: http://www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com/

Vega-Anguiano v. Bar

A federal appellate court has jurisdiction to review a reinstatement order, and some collateral attack is permitted on an underlying removal order during review of a reinstatement order if the petitioner can show that he suffered a gross miscarriage of justice in the initial deportation proceeding; a gross miscarriage of justice occurs when a deportation or removal order had no legal basis at the time of its issuance or at the time of its execution; the gross miscarriage of justice standard does not include a diligence component that bars a collateral challenge to a prior order when a reinstatement order is timely challenged on the ground that the prior order, on which the new order is based, is invalid. An order of removal in 8 U.S.C. §1252(b)(1) covers both removal and reinstatement orders such that, in cases where the petitioner seeks review of a reinstatement order, §1252(b)(1) requires only that the reinstatement order be challenged within 30 days of becoming final.

Vega-Anguiano v. Barr - filed Nov. 19, 2019

Cite as 2019 S.O.S. 15-72999

For more information, go to: http://www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com/

USCIS Issues Further Guidance on Special Immigrant Juvenile Classification

On Oct. 11, USCIS issued three adopted Administrative Appeals Office decisions to clarify requirements for Special Immigrant Juvenile (SIJ) classification. USCIS is now updating the USCIS Policy Manual to reflect those clarifications.

This update reaffirms and clarifies that:

The petitioner must have been a juvenile under relevant state law when the juvenile court order was issued;

USCIS requires evidence of a court’s intervention to provide relief from abuse, neglect, or abandonment beyond a statement that the juvenile is dependent on the court; and

USCIS will no longer require evidence that a state court had the authority to place a petitioner in the custody of an unfit parent in order to make a qualifying determination regarding parental reunification for purposes of SIJ classification.

Public Event Announcement USCIS District 43 Stakeholders Forum Quarterly Engagement Meeting December 10, 2019

United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) is announcing the District 43 Stakeholders Forum. This meeting will address USCIS topics for the following District 43 offices:

Los Angeles County Field Office (LAC)

Los Angeles Field Office (LOS)

San Fernando Valley Field Office (SFV)

The purpose of this meeting is to promote open and transparent communication between District 43 and external stakeholders, as well as to disseminate public messaging to the broadest extent possible.

USCIS is pleased to extend an invitation for you to join us for our quarterly District 43 Stakeholders Forum.

Tuesday, December 10, 2019

9:30 AM to 11:00 AM *

300 North Los Angeles St, Rm. 1001

(* Please allow sufficient time to process through the security screening, as this will be a busy day.)

Agenda Topics/Discussion Issues:

As the agenda will be based on your interests, your questions/topics must be submitted by email to ceflosangeles@uscis.dhs.gov by 5:00 PM on December 3rd, 2019.  Please note, the purpose of this meeting is to discuss USCIS topics related to the Los Angeles District. Topics that are national in scope or involve other DHS or government entities should be directed to USCIS HQ or the specific agency.

To Register:

Please send your RSVP to ceflosangeles@uscis.dhs.gov by 5:00 PM December 3rd, 2019.  Include the following information:

1.     The first and last name of the attendee(s)
2.     Position/title of the attendee(s)
3.     Organization/agency name

Please note that due to limited space, it would be appreciated if each entity could limit the attendees to two representatives, if possible. We kindly suggest early registration as seating will be limited. Once capacity is reached, additional RSVPs will not be accepted. Therefore, you are encouraged to register early.

We look forward to your participation!

THIRD SAFE NEGOTIATIONS

As part of the Trump administration’s new migration accords with Central American countries, it was reported that asylum seekers rejected by the U.S. could be sent to a remote airport in a jungle in Guatemala. However, on Saturday the administration said it had no plans to do this, Sofia Menchu and Ted Hesson report in Reuters. “Incoming [Guatemalan] president [Alejandro] Giammattei criticized the lack of transparency around how the deal is being finalized and told reporters at a press conference on Saturday that his government would evaluate any agreement that was struck by his predecessor.”

For more information, go to: http://www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com/

50 YEARS LATER

A former U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officer has lived in the U.S. for nearly 50 years and has served in five separate U.S. Navy deployments — but he now faces deportation, Kat Tenbarge reports at Insider. While Raul Rodriguez was helping his brother immigrate to the U.S., Raul discovered something he didn’t know: He was born in Mexico. “Rodriguez said had never seen the birth certificate before, but once the OIG began a criminal investigation into whether his brother's immigration application had been falsified on Rodriguez's part, his father admitted that he actually had been born in Mexico.” Now, facing deportation, Rodriguez has lost his job — and “is on the watch for Border Patrol agents — the same people he used to work with.”

For more information, go to: http://www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com/

25 YEARS LATER

For the 25th anniversary of Proposition 187 — the ballot measure targeting undocumented immigrants in California which sought to deny public services to those without legal status, and is often credited with the GOP’s decline in California — Gustavo Arellano reflects on his recent interview with former California Governor Pete Wilson in the Los Angeles Times. “After our initial exchange, Wilson walked the same well-worn road he’s carved out over the last quarter-century when reporters have asked him about Proposition 187. His campaign against illegal immigration wasn’t racist. Allegations that he was a bigot were ‘evil’ and a ‘lie.’”

For more information, go to: http://www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com/

USCIS Releases Report on Arrest Histories of Illegal Aliens who Request DACA

WASHINGTON—Today, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) updated data on arrests and apprehensions of illegal aliens who requested Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA).  

The release of this report reflects the agency’s ongoing focus on transparency. The report provides updated information on known arrests and apprehensions of DACA requestors. The data may include arrests that did not result in convictions or where the charges were dropped or otherwise dismissed. 

Among the findings of the release are the following:  

-Nearly 110,000 DACA requestors out of nearly 889,000 (12%) had arrest records. Offenses in these arrest records include assault, battery, rape, murder and driving under the influence. 

-Of approved DACA requestors with an arrest, 85% (67,861) of them were arrested or apprehended before their most recent DACA approval.

-Of approved DACA requestors with an arrest, more than 31% (24,898) of them had more than one arrest.  

-Of all DACA requestors, 218 had more than 10 arrests. Of those, 54 had a DACA case status of “approved” as of October 2019. 

“As DACA continues to be the subject of both public discourse and ongoing litigation, USCIS remains committed to ensuring transparency and that the American people are informed about those receiving DACA,” said USCIS Acting Director Ken Cuccinelli. “This agency is obligated to continue accepting DACA requests from illegal aliens as a direct result of the previous administration’s decision to circumvent the laws as passed by Congress. We hope this data provides a better sense of the reality of those granted the privilege of a temporary deferral of removal action and work authorization under DACA.”   

Under current DACA guidelines, illegal aliens may be considered for DACA if they have not been convicted of a felony, significant misdemeanor, or three or more “non-significant” misdemeanors not arising out of the same act, omission or scheme of misconduct, and they do not otherwise pose a threat to national security or public safety. The number of arrests illegal aliens have do not necessarily disqualify them from receiving DACA as a matter of discretion.   

For more information, go to: http://www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com/

Modernizing Recruitment Requirements for the Temporary Employment of H-2B Foreign Workers in the United States

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Department of Labor (DOL) (collectively, the Departments), are jointly issuing this final rule to amend the regulations governing DOL's certification of nonagricultural labor or services to be performed by temporary foreign workers in H-2B nonimmigrant status (H-2B workers). Pursuant to Section 214(c)(1) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), this certification serves as DHS's consultation with DOL regarding whether a qualified United States (U.S.) worker is available to fill the petitioning H-2B employer's job opportunity, and whether a foreign worker's employment in the job opportunity will adversely affect the wages or working conditions of similarly employed U.S. workers. This final rule modernizes and improves the labor market test that DOL uses to assess whether qualified U.S. workers are available by: Rescinding the requirement that an employer advertise its job opportunity in a print newspaper of general circulation in the area of intended employment, and expanding and enhancing DOL's electronic job registry to disseminate available job opportunities to the widest audience possible.

For more information, go to: http://www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com/

USCIS announced a proposed rule to deny some asylum seekers work authorization

On Wednesday, USCIS announced a proposed rule that would deny work authorization to asylum seekers who entered the U.S. outside of a port of entry. The proposed rule also seeks to automatically end work authorization for asylum seekers whose application is denied and administratively final. Additionally, all asylum seekers who did not file asylum applications within 1 year of their last entry into the U.S. are ineligible for work authorization. The rule also clarifies that if an asylum seeker fails to appear for their appointment, their asylum application or work authorization can be denied. Last, any asylum seeker who was convicted of a felony or certain public safety offenses is ineligible for work authorization. The rule also gives discretion to officers to deny employment authorization for “unresolved arrests or pending charges.” The proposed rule has been published in the Federal Register and is open for comment until January 13, 2020.

For more information, go to: http://www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com/

Reuters: U.S. Judge Rules Suspicionless Searches of Travelers' Digital Devices Unconstitutional

Reuters reports that yesterday, a federal judge ruled that U.S. border agents need "reasonable suspicion" but not a warrant to search travelers' smartphones and laptops at airports and other U.S. ports of entry. The ruling sets a higher standard than the one CBP and ICE agents must apply to conduct routine searches of electronic devices under current policies. The number of electronic device searches at the border has ballooned during the Trump administration, rising from about 8,500 in FY2015 to more than 30,000 in FY2018.

For more information, go to: http://www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com/

Call for Examples: Asylum Offices' Failure to Contact Counsel with G‑28s on File for Credible and/or Reasonable Fear Interviews

Various practitioners have reported that asylum offices across the country are failing to contact counsel with G‑28s on file for credible or reasonable fear interviews for detained clients where counsel cannot attend in person. If you have attempted to represent a client in a credible or reasonable fear interview and the asylum office has interviewed your client without attempting to contact you so that you can be present by phone for representation, please submit your case example to AILA.

For more information, go to: http://www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com/

Cuenca v. Barr

The language of 8 U.S.C. §1231(a)(5) unambiguously and permanently bars reopening a reinstated prior removal order; §1231(a)(5) also provides that an alien forfeits the right to file a motion to reopen by reentering the country illegally.

Cuenca v. Barr - filed Nov. 13, 2019

Cite as 2019 S.O.S. 16-72378

For more information, go to: http://www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com/

NEW FEES

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced Friday that it will impose significant new fees on immigrants seeking to stay and work in the United States — including asylum seekers, Camilo Montoya-Galvez reports for CBS News. “The proposal would impose a $50 application fee for affirmative asylum applications and a $490 work permit fee for all asylum seekers. Fees for citizenship petitions would also increase from $750 to $1,170, and the amount could be higher for some immigrants.” The U.S. will join just three other countries — Iran, Fiji and Australia — that charge fees to asylum seekers.

For more information, go to: http://www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com/

CATHOLIC LEADERSHIP

Los Angeles Archbishop Jose Gomez, an immigrant from Mexico, is poised to make history as the first Hispanic president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, reports David Crary at the Associated Press. “In terms of doctrine, Gomez is considered a practical-minded conservative, but he is an outspoken advocate of a welcoming immigration policy that would include a path to citizenship for many immigrants living in the U.S. illegally.”

For more information, go to: http://www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com/

FORGOTTEN FILIPINO VETERANS

Stef Kight at Axios outlines the administration’s treatment of foreign-born service members and veterans, pointing out that 17.3% of immigrant veterans were born in the Philippines — second only to Mexico at 17.5%. Meanwhile, Tony Taguba, a retired U.S. Army major general and chairman of the Filipino Veterans Recognition and Education Project, calls on the White House to halt its plans to eliminate the Filipino World War II Veterans Parole Program in an op-ed for The Hill. “The policy enabled elderly Filipino World War II veterans to have their family members join them in the United States to provide care and support, and it has had a profound impact on the veterans and their families who are now together and able to care for one another and provide support on a daily basis.”

For more information, go to: http://www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com/

USCIS Proposes to Adjust Fees to Meet Operational Needs

WASHINGTON – The Department of Homeland Security will publish a notice of proposed rulemaking in the Federal Register to adjust the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Immigration Examinations Fee Account fee schedule.

Fees collected and deposited into the IEFA fund nearly 96% of USCIS’ budget. Unlike most government agencies, USCIS is fee-funded. Federal law requires USCIS to conduct biennial fee reviews and recommend necessary fee adjustments to ensure recovery of the full cost of administering the nation’s immigration laws, adjudicating applications and petitions, and providing the necessary infrastructure to support those activities.

“USCIS is required to examine incoming and outgoing expenditures, just like a business, and make adjustments based on that analysis. This proposed adjustment in fees would ensure more applicants cover the true cost of their applications and minimizes subsidies from an already over-extended system,” said Ken Cuccinelli, acting director of USCIS. “Furthermore, the adjudication of immigration applications and petitions requires in-depth screening, incurring costs that must be covered by the agency, and this proposal accounts for our operational needs and better aligns our fee schedule with the costs of processing each request.”    

The rule proposes adjusting USCIS IEFA fee schedules by a weighted average increase of 21% to ensure full cost recovery. Current fees would leave the agency underfunded by approximately $1.3 billion per year.

The proposed fee rule accounts for increased costs to adjudicate immigration benefit requests, detect and deter immigration fraud, and thoroughly vet applicants, petitioners, and beneficiaries.

USCIS last updated its fee structure in FY 2017, by a weighted average increase of 21%.

For more information, go to: http://www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com/

STEPS TOWARDS HEALTH

A federal judge ruled Tuesday that the government “must provide mental health services to thousands of migrant parents and children who experienced psychological harm as a result of the Trump administration’s practice of separating families,” Miriam Jordan reports for The New York Times. The decision is a rare instance of the administration being held legally accountable for its policies – “in this case, border security measures that locked thousands of migrant parents in detention while their children were placed in government shelters or foster homes.”

For more information, go to: http://www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com/

REMAIN REMAINS PROBLEMATIC

There are roughly 55,000 migrants seeking asylum in the U.S. who are waiting in Mexico as a result of the Trump administration’s “Remain in Mexico” policy – and they continue to face violence, Elliot Spagat writes for the Associated Press. One Salvadoran woman seeking asylum was beaten by two men “after she spent four months in captivity in Mexico, kidnapped into prostitution during her journey toward the U.S.” While the Trump administration insists the program is safe, critics argue that “the administration’s policy denies asylum seekers like the Salvadoran woman fair and humane treatment, forcing them to wait in a country plagued by drug-fueled violence — illustrated this week by the slaughter near the U.S. border of six children and three women.”

For more information, go to: http://www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com/

DACA AND HEALTHCARE

With the Supreme Court hearing oral arguments on DACA next week, Dr. David J. Skorton writes in an op-ed for The Washington Post that as “a physician, I’m deeply concerned about the impact this decision will have on the health of the nation.” DACA recipients, Skorton argues, play a key role in America’s healthcare system – and excluding these people from the workforce makes it harder for other Americans to access quality health care. “Today there are approximately 27,000 doctors, nurses, dentists, physician assistants and other health-care workers whose DACA status allows them to work and contribute to patient care. The program also is enabling nearly 200 current medical students and medical residents to pursue careers in medicine.”

For more information, go to: http://www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com/

Last Chance to Comment on USCIS Proposed Rule Removing the 30-Day Processing Provision for Asylum EADs

Tomorrow, November 8, is the last day to submit comments on USCIS's proposed rule removing the 30-day processing provision for initial employment authorization applications for those with pending asylum applications. Read more about the mounting opposition to the rule in this Immigration Impact blog post, and use the template and sample arguments offered by members of the Immigration Clinic at the University of Washington School of Law to submit your comment today.

For more information, go to: http://www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com/

USCIS Implements $10 Fee for H-1B Visa Registration

WASHINGTON—U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services today announced a final rule that will require a $10 non-refundable fee for each H-1B registration submitted by petitioning employers, once it implements the electronic registration system. The registration fee is part of an agency-wide effort to modernize and more efficiently process applications to live or work in the United States.

The H-1B program allows companies in the United States to temporarily employ foreign workers in occupations that require the application of a body of highly specialized knowledge and a bachelor’s degree or higher in the specific specialty, or its equivalent.

Upon implementation of the electronic registration system, petitioners seeking to file H-1B cap-subject petitions, including those eligible for the advanced degree exemption, will first have to electronically register with USCIS during a designated registration period, unless the requirement is suspended.

“This effort will help implement a more efficient and effective H-1B cap selection process,” said USCIS Acting Director Ken Cuccinelli. “The electronic registration system is part of an agency-wide initiative to modernize our immigration system while deterring fraud, improving vetting procedures and strengthening program integrity.”

The final rule, Registration Fee Requirement for Petitioners Seeking to File H-1B Petitions on Behalf of Cap-Subject Aliens, is effective Dec. 9, 2019, and the fee will be required when registrations are submitted. USCIS is fee-funded, and this non-refundable fee will support the new electronic registration system to make the H-1B cap selection process more efficient for both petitioners and the agency.

USCIS is slated to implement the registration process for the fiscal year 2021 H-1B cap selection process, pending completed testing of the system. The agency will announce the implementation timeframe and initial registration period in the Federal Register once a formal decision has been made, and USCIS will offer ample notice to the public in advance of implementing the registration requirement.

USCIS published a notice of proposed rulemaking highlighting a registration fee on Sept. 4, 2019, which included a 30-day public comment period. USCIS received only 22 comments during that time, and has considered all submissions and offered public responses ahead of announcing the final rule, which is effective on Dec. 9.

For more information, go to: http://www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com/

Policy Update Notice on EB-5 Modernization Final Rule

USCIS is revising its policy guidance in the USCIS Policy Manual to align with the EB-5 Immigrant Investor Program Modernization Final Rule, published on July 24, 2019, and effective Nov. 21, 2019.

We are updating the USCIS Policy Manual to conform with the final rule’s provisions, which include:

Priority date retention for certain EB-5 immigrants;

An increase in minimum investment amounts;

Reforms to targeted employment area designations; and

Clarification of USCIS procedures for the removal of conditions on permanent residence.

For more information, go to: http://www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com/

Family Says Suspect in Acid Attack Is Veteran, Suffered PTSD

MILWAUKEE — Milwaukee police arrested a man suspected of throwing battery acid on a Hispanic man who says his attacker asked him, "Why did you come here and invade my country?"

Police said Monday they arrested a 61-year-old white man suspected in Friday night's attack and were investigating the case as a hate crime. They refused to release his name pending charges, but the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel identified him as Clifton A. Blackwell, a military veteran whose mother said had struggled with post-traumatic stress.

Mahud Villalaz suffered second-degree burns to his face. He said the attack happened after a man confronted him about how he had parked his car and accused him of being in the U.S. illegally. Villalaz, 42, is a U.S. citizen who immigrated from Peru.

The attack comes amid a spike in hate crimes directed at immigrants that researchers and experts on extremism say is tied to mainstream political rhetoric.

Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett expressed shock at the attack and blamed President Donald Trump for inciting hatred against minorities. The president has repeatedly referred to migrants attempting to cross the U.S.-Mexico border as an "invasion."

"To single out someone because they're from a Hispanic origin is simply wrong. And we know what's happening," Barrett, a Democrat, said. "Everybody knows what's happening. It's because the president is talking about it on a daily basis that people feel they have license to go after Hispanic people. And it's wrong."

White House spokesman Judd Deere said the Trump administration has "repeatedly condemned racism, bigotry and violence."

"The only person responsible for this heinous act is the person who committed it, and it's disgusting the mayor of Milwaukee would rather point the finger at the president of the United States for political reasons instead (of) responsibly confronting the violence in his own community," Deere said in a statement.

Jacqueline P. Blackwell, of California, told the Journal Sentinel that her son had moved to Milwaukee seeking to get help. She said she had not been in touch with him recently and had not heard of his arrest.

"I was comfortable that he was getting good care with the VA," she told the paper.

Blackwell's brother, 63-year-old Arthur Blackwell of Evergreen, Colorado, told The Associated Press on Monday that Blackwell "was not a confrontational person." He says his brother served nearly four years in the U.S. Marines.

State court records show Blackwell was convicted in a 2006 Rusk County case of false imprisonment and pointing a gun at a person. Details aren't available online, but the Journal Sentinel reported the case involved Blackwell confronting men who had come onto his farm property tracking a deer.

Surveillance video shows the confrontation but does not include audio.

Villalaz told reporters on Saturday that he was headed into a Mexican restaurant for dinner when a man approached him and told him, "You cannot park here. You are doing something illegal." He said the man also accused him of being in the U.S. illegally and of invading the country.

He said he ignored the man and moved his truck to another block. But when he returned to the restaurant, the man was waiting for him with an open bottle, Villalaz said.

The man again accused him of being in the U.S. illegally, Villalaz said. He then told the man that he was a citizen and that "everybody came from somewhere else here," Villalaz said.

That's when he says the man tossed acid at him. Villalaz turned his head, and the liquid hit the left side of his face.

Villalaz's sister told The Associated Press on Monday that her brother believes the man was prepared and wanted to attack someone.

"He's in shock. He says he can't conceive how someone would be intent on harming someone like that," Villalaz said in Spanish.

She said her brother is recovering. She said the doctor who treated him said it helped that he immediately washed his face several times inside a restaurant. His family created a GoFundMe page to cover his medical expenses.

A report last year by the Anti-Defamation League said extreme anti-immigrant views have become part of the political mainstream in recent years through sharp rhetoric by anti-immigration groups and politicians, including Trump.

Data collected by the FBI showed a 17% increase in hate crimes across the U.S. in 2017, the third annual increase in a row. Anti-Hispanic incidents increased 24%, from 344 in 2016 to 427 in 2017, according to the FBI data. Of crimes motivated by hatred over race, ethnicity or ancestry, nearly half involved African Americans, while about 11% were classified as anti-Hispanic bias.

Brian Levin, director of the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University-San Bernardino, released a study in July that found a 9% increase in hate crimes reported to police in major U.S. cities in 2018. Levin found a modest decrease in bias crimes against Hispanic or Latino people — from 103 in 2017 to 100 in 2018 — in 10 major cities, including New York, Chicago and Los Angeles. However, Levin has said the totals likely would have increased last year if not for an unexplained drop in anti-Hispanic bias crimes reported for Phoenix, from 25 in 2017 to 10 in 2018.

Associated Press writers Gretchen Ehlke in Milwaukee, Jeff Baenen in Minneapolis and Michael Kunzelman in College Park, Maryland, contributed to this report.

For more information, go to: http://www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com/

Inside the Trump Administration's Fight to End Nationwide Injunctions

BY TESSA BERENSON 

Over the weekend, a federal judge in Oregon temporarily blocked a Trump administration rule requiring immigrants to prove they can pay for medical care in order to get visas. White House Press Secretary Stephanie Grisham shot back with a statement: “It is wrong and unfair for a single district court judge to thwart the policies that the President determined would best protect the United States healthcare system,” she said.

But this fight is about more than just one judge and one policy. It is just the latest example of an increasingly high-stakes battleground in the war between the Trump administration and the courts: nationwide injunctions.

Members of the Trump administration have made it a mission at the highest levels of the White House and the Justice Department to put an end to nationwide injunctions. People in top positions in the government are using their platforms to publicly call for an end to the practice, and inside the Justice Department, there is a concerted effort to leverage litigation about Trump policies ranging from the transgender military ban to the asylum rule to get the issue before the Supreme Court.

“This is a priority across the board,” a senior Justice Department official tells TIME.

The potential ramifications of this argument go beyond any individual Trump administration policy. It’s another attempt to renegotiate of the balance of power between Trump’s White House and the other branches of government that check the executive, with a president at the top who has both harshly criticized the judiciary as he has stocked it with conservative judges. The results of the Trump administration’s efforts to end nationwide injunctions will tilt the scales of power either to the courts, for whom nationwide injunctions can be a last line of defense against a controversial White House, or to the executive, whose policies are being stymied across the country.

Nationwide injunctions allow judges to issue relief to parties beyond the plaintiffs in a case. Think, for example, of environmental laws— it wouldn’t make much sense for a judge to decide in favor of a single plaintiff who the judge finds is harmed by a law that fails to prevent lead in drinking water. With a nationwide injunction, the judge could grant relief to everyone harmed by this law, not just the individuals named in the case. This power is “essential to keep the government in line,” argues Amanda Frost, professor at American University’s Washington College of Law. “There will be times when the government acts at the 11th hour to affect millions of people, most of whom cannot get to court. And if the government knew the only relief would be to the handful of plaintiffs that actually managed to get to court, then the government would be much freer to violate all of our rights.”

But the Trump administration counters that judges are leaning on nationwide injunctions more than ever before to “inject themselves directly into the political process,” says the senior Justice Department official, with an eye towards policy outcomes more than legal ones.

Some data support the administration’s complaints. There have been 42 nationwide injunctions issued under Trump so far, according to the Justice Department. Compare that to 20 issued in the entirety of President Barack Obama’s eight years in office, according to Attorney General William Barr, or an average of just 1.5 per year against residents Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, according to Assistant Attorney General Beth Williams. Members of the Trump Administration say they feel hamstrung by the increasingly muscular use of this power by federal judges.

“Nationwide injunctions undermine our entire immigration system and other systems,” Trump said in remarks before the International Association of Chiefs of Police in Chicago on Oct. 28. “It’s not the job of judges to impose their own political views.”

But advocates of nationwide injunctions under Trump argue that the increased numbers may not be because judges are getting trigger happy; that confuses cause and effect, they say, and the increasing use is instead because Trump is putting forth more extreme policies than previous presidents. “It may not be because courts are now going out of bounds and doing these things that are wild and crazy,” says Frost. “It may partly be in response to unilateral executive orders changing enormous aspects of U.S. policy.” Frost notes that President Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals policy belongs in this category too, which was temporarily blocked by a judge in Texas in 2015. “You could say, well, the court didn’t need to do that, that court was out of control,” Frost says. “Or maybe you could take a step back and say our executive branch is now— particularly in the realm of immigration— issuing sweeping executive orders changing the status and situation for millions of people in a way that lends itself to the remedy of nationwide injunctions.”

Judges have issued nationwide injunctions against numerous Trump policies, including the travel ban, the asylum rule and the transgender military ban. One judge in California, Jon Tigar, issued two nationwide injunctions on asylum rules himself, leading the Wall Street Journal’s editorial board to declare in a September headline, “President Tigar Strikes Again.” District Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson in D.C. explicitly pushed back against the Trump administration’s efforts on nationwide injunctions in a September decision blocking a Trump administration policy to fast-track deportations. “It reeks of bad faith, demonstrates contempt for the authority that the Constitution’s Framers have vested in the judicial branch, and, ultimately, deprives successful plaintiffs of the full measure of the remedy to which they are entitled,” Jackson wrote.

Which gets to another fraught dynamic in the use of nationwide injunctions: venue shopping. The Trump administration has run into trouble in courts in California and Washington, D.C., two liberal outposts that voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016. Obama’s policies, by contrast, were often blocked by courts in Texas, a Republican state. No judge would ever admit to being political in his or her decision, but there’s a strategy for lawyers in where they decide to bring cases. The senior Justice Department official describes the difficulty for the administration this way: when they enact a policy, those challenging the policy can take it to 500 judges, looking for sympathetic venues, and they only need to convince one to get it stopped in its tracks. The administration, however, needs to win all 500 for the policy to go into effect.

There have been a few small wins for the administration on this issue so far. The 9th Circuit has limited nationwide injunctions in some decisions, including in a case about a sanctuary city and another in one about exemptions from employer-covered birth control under the Affordable Care Act.

But there hasn’t been a decisive ruling on nationwide injunctions as a practice, and neither Trump nor Barr has the power to simply declare an end to them. There are three primary options for the administration to curtail this power of the third branch of government. One would be to pass legislation through Congress. Congressman Mark Meadows, a Republican from North Carolina, and Senator Tom Cotton, a Republican from Arkansas, introduced a bill in September to end nationwide injunctions and “restore the appropriate role of district court judges by prohibiting them from issuing nationwide injunctions broader than the parties to the case or the geographic boundaries of the federal district in which the judge presides,” according to a press release about the bill. But any effort to curb judges’ power under Trump would be unlikely to pass, especially as Congress remains mired in an impeachment fight.

Another avenue is for the Justice Department to raise the issue in court cases in hopes it will get elevated to the Supreme Court to make a final decision about nationwide injunctions, a strategy Vice President Mike Pence touted this spring. “In the days ahead, our administration will seek opportunities to put this very question before the Supreme Court to ensure that decisions affecting every American are made either by those elected to represent the American people or by the highest court in the land,” Pence said in a speech to the Federalist Society in May. At least one justice has already signaled openness to reining in the power: conservative Justice Clarence Thomas wrote in a concurring opinion in 2018 that nationwide injunctions “are legally and historically dubious.”

There’s a catch-22 in this court-based approach for the administration. In any case in which an administration policy has been halted by a nationwide injunction, if the court were to rule in favor of the underlying policy, they wouldn’t get to answer the question of the injunction. In other words, to get a win on nationwide injunctions, the administration would need to lose the case on the merits.

Still, the Justice Department is pressing forward trying to find the right cases to present the issue, though for now there isn’t currently a case pending before the Supreme Court with a clean shot at curbing nationwide injunctions.

The final leverage the administration has on this issue is publicity. Barr has only published one op-ed since he was confirmed to be attorney general, and it was a call in the Wall Street Journal to curb nationwide injunctions, which he calls “a practice that embitters the political life of the nation, flouts constitutional principles, and stultifies sound judicial administration, all at the cost of public confidence in our institutions.” Solicitor General Noel Francisco, the government’s lawyer in charge of arguing cases before the Supreme Court, joked at a speech in 2018 that “the lower courts have issued decisions on a number of significant issues that could come before the [Supreme] Court, including… my favorite topic, the propriety of nationwide injunctions.”

And the president continues to weigh in himself, telling reporters on September 9 that one judge issuing a nationwide injunction is “very unfair. “I don’t think it should be allowed,” Trump said.

Now the rest of his administration is figuring out how to make that a reality.

For more information, go to: http://www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com/

USCIS to Permanently Close Frankfurt Field Office

USCIS announced that it will permanently close its field office in Frankfurt, Germany, on January 31, 2020. Track USCIS international field office closures, and see AILA's practice alert for information on how these closures will impact applications, petitions, and forms typically processed by USCIS field offices overseas.

For more information, go to: http://www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com/

“Deleting Records”

Immigration court data released by the Justice Department contains “‘gross irregularities’ and the agency appears to have ‘silently but systematically’ deleted nearly a million records,” according to the nonpartisan Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC) at Syracuse University. Claire Hansen in U.S. News & World Report writes that TRAC – which is well-respected among policymakers and researchers – “determined that it appeared the agency was both unintentionally and intentionally deleting records from the data releases.”

For more information, go to: http://www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com

Cause For Concern

The mental health crisis is more acute among U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officers, who have a rate of suicide almost 28% higher than at any other law enforcement agency – 115 CBP employees have died by suicide since 2007, Justin Rohrlich reports for Quartz. And yet, despite this serious and real problem, “sources with knowledge of CBP’s efforts to address mental health told Quartz that the agency isn’t doing enough and, in fact, has fostered a culture where seeking help is not only discouraged but punished.” There’s a sensible solution: Christian Penichet-Paul, the Forum’s policy and advocacy manager, “called on the Trump administration—which is spending somewhere between $25 million and $1 billion for each mile of border wall—to redirect some of that money toward proper counseling and other psychological support services for border officers.”

For more information, go to: http://www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com

“We're Not Well”

In August, more than 600 U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents across seven Mississippi cities conducted “the largest single-state immigration-enforcement operation” in American history. One of those cities was Morton, Mississippi, which Charles Bethea profiles in a powerful New Yorker piece. On one hand, the First United Methodist Church in Morton has “helped disburse more than a hundred thousand dollars for more than two hundred local families” to pay utility bills. On the other hand, Cristina, a small business owner from Nicaragua who has lived in Mississippi for 18 years, told Bethea: “Look at how they come to kill Hispanics. I’m afraid to go to Walmart. I’m afraid to go to the mall. To the movies. We’re not well. Not well. This has affected us so much. We can’t work. Every day, every day, I pray to God that my husband comes home. Because immigration is everywhere.”

For more information, go to: http://www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com

DHS Extends TPS Documentation for Six Countries

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) today announced a Federal Register notice extending the validity of TPS-related documentation for beneficiaries under the Temporary Protected Status (TPS) designations for El Salvador, Haiti, Honduras, Nepal, Nicaragua and Sudan through Jan. 4, 2021. 

The notice automatically extends the validity of Employment Authorization Documents; Forms I-797, Notice of Action; and Forms I-94, Arrival/Departure Record (collectively, TPS-related documentation). 

DHS is extending the TPS documentation in compliance with the preliminary injunctions of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California in Ramos, et al. v. Nielsen, et. al. and the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York in Saget, et. al., v. Trump, et. al., and with the order of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California to stay proceedings in Bhattarai v. Nielsen.

Should the government prevail in its challenge to the Ramos preliminary injunction, the secretary’s determination to terminate TPS for Nicaragua and Sudan will take effect no earlier than 120 days from the issuance of any appellate mandate to the district court. The secretary’s determination to terminate TPS for El Salvador will take effect no earlier than 365 days from the issuance of any appellate mandate to the Ramos district court to allow for an orderly transition for affected TPS beneficiaries. 

For more information, go to: http://www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com