By Cyrus D. Mehta* and Myriam Jaidi** On February 2, 2010, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) published an interim rule, (available at http://tiny.cc/GvK9A), which adopts the Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR) rule at 8 Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) § 1003.102 that provides grounds to discipline practitioners for ethical violations. One specific […]
Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has extraordinary power under Section 235 of the Immigration and Nationality Act to summarily remove a nonimmigrant from the U.S. at a port of entry if they find him or her inadmissible either for fraud or for failure to possess the proper visa. Generally, there is no further hearing or […]
In the aftermath of the most devastating earthquake in Haiti, we lawyers are all trying to find ways to help. Assisting Haitians legalize their status in the United States is a good start, and there are pro bono clinics lined up already in New York. Haitians who can work legally can send more remittances to […]
The Requests For Evidence hurled against IT consulting firms after they filed H-1B visa, then the raves and rants of Senator Grassley against allegedly abusive IT firms, followed by the BusinessWeek article on job shops giving prime time to the rabidly anti-immigrant Programmers Guild, along with attacks on the H-1B program by even our own […]
We have personally heard of H-1B workers from India employed by IT consulting firms being subject to expedited removal orders at Newark airport in New Jersey. The grounds seem to be rather spurious. Some H-1Bs have been removed because they were working at client work sites, and the position of the Customs and Border Protection […]
It has now become acceptable wisdom that the State Department should have revoked the visa of the Nigerian, Mr. Abdulmutallab, who attempted to detonate a bomb on the flight to Detroit on Christmas Day. Here is an extract from a New York Times editorial, The System Failed (http://tiny.cc/FwCPz), dated December 29, 2009: “What makes this […]
This post is about a small bore issue. It is about a quibble that I have about a footnote in a decision of the Board of Alien Labor Certification Appeals (BALCA) in Matter of Pa’Lante, 2008 PER 00209 . But I think it is worth pointing out so that a future appellant can remind BALCA […]
In preparing for the ethics panel for the AILA 2009 New York Chapter Immigration Symposium on December 1, 2009, I came across an interesting connundrum with my co-panelists. Are the offices within the Department of Homeland Security, such as United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), or other governmental agencies that deal with immigration matters, […]
So USCIS has at long last heard and understood about the hardships that the new iCERT system of DOL was causing H-1B workers. Normally, the USCIS does not care what the DOL does and vice verse, and so this gesture comes as a pleasant surprise. The new iCERT system consistently denies Labor Condition Applications if […]
*By Poorvi Chothani, Esq. Recently, the Ministry of Commerce and Industry (the MCI), India announced (the MCI Announcement) that business visas cannot be granted to foreign nationals to work on projects or specific contracts in India. The formal announcement also requires all foreign nationals on such visas to leave India and return on employment visas. […]
