By Cyrus D. Mehta & Sophia Genovese Despite the President’s most recent comments, individuals that immigrate to the United States via the Diversity Visa program and family-based petitions are not chosen out of a bin and are certainly not the “worst of the worst.” To the contrary, individuals who come to the United States through […]
Companies like Avvo are using their marketing platform to provide more opportunities for younger and solo lawyers to gain clients and thus level the playing field. Avvo Legal Services seeks to disrupt the traditional legal model where a client seeks out a lawyer based on his or her reputation rather than on a web-based network, […]
Kate Steinle’s death was a senseless tragedy. On July 1, 2015, as she was walking along San Francisco’s Pier 14, a gun goes off and cuts her life short. She died in her father’s arms. The accused, Jose Ines Garcia Zarate, is an undocumented Mexican immigrant who had been deported five times before, and each […]
The law generally recognizes that petitioners control their visa petitions. See 8 CFR 103.2(a)(3). A beneficiary cannot force a petitioner to pursue or maintain a visa petition. Therefore, USCIS communicates only with petitioners, not the beneficiaries, with respect to notifications such as Requests for Evidence, approvals, and even a Notice of Intent to Revoke (NOIR) […]
By: Cyrus D. Mehta and Sophia Genovese The Administrative Appeals Office (AAO) recently adopted a decision, Matter of G- Inc., Adopted Decision 2017-05 (AAO Nov. 8, 2017), providing important guidance to U.S. employers who transfer function managers under the L-1 intracompany visa. The L-1 visa allows a U.S. employer to transfer an executive or manager (L-1A) […]
By Cyrus D. Mehta and Sophia Genovese-Halvorson On November 7, 2017, voters in New York will get an opportunity to decide whether to hold a Constitutional Convention in order to improve New York’s Constitution. The next opportunity to engage in this unique democratic experiment will arise in 2037. The latest polls have shown that large […]
The Trump administration is deriving great pleasure in causing pain to people who wish to lawfully come to the United States and remain here lawfully. It has caused H-1B carnage as more H-1B visa petitions are being denied than ever before on legally baseless grounds. Continuing to rub salt in the wound, the USCIS issued […]
In his inaugural address, President Trump pledged to end what he referred to as “American carnage,” depicting the United States bleakly—as a “land of abandoned factories, economic angst, rising crime”—while pledging “a new era in American politics.” To reverse what Trump sees as American carnage, his administration has unleashed carnage on the H-1B visa program. […]
Attorney General Sessions who has been hostile towards increased immigration and views the asylum system as a loophole for unauthorized entry into the US said in recent remarks that “over the years, smart attorneys have exploited loopholes in the law, court rulings, and lack of resources to substantially undermine the intent of Congress.” He got […]
RFE is the acronym for Request for Evidence. It is dreaded by immigration lawyers who file H-1B visa petitions and other applications for immigration benefits. The RFE is essentially a challenge by the immigration agency, United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), asserting that the applicant does not appear to be qualified for the visa […]
