Immigration Reform – How Will it Happen?

On April 12, 2013, a bipartisan group of eight Senators unveiled legislation that offers the most radical change of the nation's immigration laws in nearly thirty years. Here is what they propose: At present, there are approximately 11 million illegal immigrants in this country. Most of them are hard-working people of good moral character, who have never been in trouble with the law. Such people could apply for a green card after 10 years of maintaining their good moral character, while in a provisional status, and then they will be able to file for naturalization (citizenship) in three years. Young people, who have benefited under the Dream Act provisions will be able to obtain green cards in five years, and be naturalized immediately thereafter.

It is proposed that such applicants will have to pay a $1,000 fine, have their income taxes paid for all of the years of their presence in the USA, learn English, maintain their employment and pass a criminal background check.

The proposed reform will cover all immigrants, who have arrived in the USA before January 1, 2012.
At the same time, the Border Security of the country will be improved by additional and improved fencing, hiring of 3,500 additional customs agents and new and improved surveillance drones. These efforts will primarily be directed at the southwest border with Mexico, where most of the illegal border crossings occur each year.The program will provide for additional funding to the DHS, if necessary, to ensure the most stringent measures of prevention of illegal border crossings into the USA. Also, a system will be put in place, to better monitor timely departures of all temporary foreign visitors or workers, so they would be prevented from overstaying their visas.

Within five years, all of the U.S. employers will be obligated to use the “E-verify” tracking system to make sure that all the workers they employ are legal residents. All legal resident non-citizen workers will be issued proper biometric documentation, to enable them to comply with the “E-verify” requirements.

It is planned, that employers who have large numbers of highly skilled engineers and computer programmers, working on H1B Visas will have to pay higher salaries, and higher government filing fees. At the same time, the Visa cap for highly skilled professionals would rise from 65,000 to 110,000, and then as high as 180,000 in future years.

A new visa program for low-skilled foreigners is planned to begin in 2015. At the start, only 20,000 visas per year will be available, but by 2019 the number of visas is proposed to increase to 75,000 per year. It is possible that the number of such visas will increase to 200,000 per year after the year of 2020. A new federal bureau will be created to analyze foreign guest-worker employment data. This program also allows for a “Safety-valve” for additional visas for workers, whose employers will pay higher wages. Agricultural workers will be limited to 337,000 visas over a three year period.

Family visa programs will undergo a tremendous overhaul. U.S. citizens and legal permanent residents will be equaled under the new law, and an unlimited number of visas will be immediately available to their foreign children, parents and spouses. Complete elimination of certain categories of visas eighteen months after the proposed law takes effect: those for foreign siblings of U.S. citizens and for married children over 30 years of age.

Instead of the Diversity Lottery system, employed at this time, a new merit-based point system is proposed for implementation. This system will do away with the randomness of the lottery, focusing instead on family ties and work skills of the applicants.

View the Gang of eight proposal.

Please visit the nyc immigration lawyers website for further information. The Law Offices of Grinberg & Segal, PLLC focuses vast segment of its practice on immigration law. This steadfast dedication has resulted in thousands of immigrants throughout the United States.

Lawyer website: http://myattorneyusa.com

Agreement Reached in National Class Action Lawsuit

Work Authorization for Asylum Seekers

The Department of Homeland Security is notoriously slow. Often times, asylum seekers have to wait for six months or more for a decision in their applications. What makes matters worse for these applicants, is that their employment authorization applications were frequently denied. These asylum seekers were unlawfully prevented from obtaining legal employment and providing support for themselves and their families, while waiting for the adjudication of their claims.

In December of 2011, a nationwide class action lawsuit was filed on behalf of the many deserving asylum applicants, challenging the issues of the “asylum clock”. The “clock” is the system the government uses to ascertain when asylum applicants may obtain their lawful employment authorization documents.

The advocates, representing the countrywide group of immigrants, asserted that the current system unlawfully denies asylum seekers the opportunity to be issued employment authorization documents, if the decisions in their asylum applications have been pending for six months or more. Many applicants end up waiting for months on end, or even for up to ten years for a decision to be made on their asylum application. Such situation was intolerable, because most asylum applicants have fled their home countries in fear for their lives, and without any financial resources, and have no means to support themselves and their families.

Ms. Mary Kenney, Senior Staff Attorney with the Legal Action Center of the American Immigration Lawyers Association said the following: “The settlement agreement includes significant changes to ensure that vulnerable asylum-seekers are no longer arbitrarily deprived of the ability to work while the government decides their cases,”

The settlement agreement, filed April 12, 2013 in a federal district court in Washington State, is awaiting a final approval of the judge overseeing the case. American Immigration Lawyers Association has made an this announcement yesterday, April 15, 2013.

View Press Release

Please visit the nyc immigration lawyers website for further information. The Law Offices of Grinberg & Segal, PLLC focuses vast segment of its practice on immigration law. This steadfast dedication has resulted in thousands of immigrants throughout the United States.

Lawyer website: http://myattorneyusa.com

Where to File Hardship Waiver Applications

Creation of the two separate regulatory systems for hardship waiver applications established recently by the Administration’s promulgation of the Provisional Waiver regulations rendered many people confused as to where to file waiver applications for individuals who are NOT eligible for Provisional Waiver and intent to navigate the ordinary, well-established waiver rout.  People are especially confused because they are routinely told now that the U.S. consulate posts do not accept waiver applications any longer. As recently as yesterday, I received a call from a person from Georgia who, sounding very frustrated, complained of this confusion.

Historically, that is for the last almost a decade or so and until very recently, the procedure had been that determination of whether an immigrant visa applicant was indeed inadmissible and thus warranted a waiver, was supposed to be formally made by the U.S. consulate in that person’s country of residence. Once made, the applicant would be served with what is known as a rejection letter, stating that he or she were found inadmissible and that a waiver could be potentially available for that type of inadmissibility. The significance of this letter is hard to overstate. It is not so because it broke the bad news that the individual was found not desirable and thus could not be allowed into the United States. Instead, the letter would formally start the process of the waiver application. The waiver application would then need to be submitted at the same consulate and the fee paid there. The consulate responsibility then would be to transfer the application to the USCIS foreign post having jurisdictional power over adjudicationof the USCIS applications by residents of that country.

The situation has changed last year when USCIS announced that U.S. Department of State will no longer collect waiver applications. Instead, once rejection letter is received, the application along with the applicable fee would need to be forwarded to the USCIS designated processing facility inside there the United States. This change sparked a new procedure discussed in this blog entry and the confusion that ensured.  Currently, aliens, who are abroad of the USA and are applying for immigrant or K or V non-immigrant visas to the USA, but are found ineligible by the Consular Officers, have a new and more streamlined way of obtaining waivers of inadmissibility.  This change is not the same as the Provisional Waiver, and is distinct from it. Again, it only applies to individuals who are taking traditional rout and seeking waiver from abroad.

The waiver requests will now be sent to a Lockbox facility within the USA, and will be processed domestically.  Although the policies and standards for adjudications will remain unchanged, this change is implemented to provide a more speedy and consistent adjudication of such waivers, and it will enable the USCIS to diminish the backlog of waiver applications.  The applicants will be able to track the status of their applications online, at uscis web site  by using the website’s Case Status window.

The filings for the following forms will be affected:

I-601, Application for Waiver of Grounds of Inadmissibility

I-212. Application for Permission to Reapply for Admission in to the United States After Deportation of Removal

I-290B, Notice of Appeal or Motion, but only if referring to a denial of I-601 or I-212.

Addresses for the Lockbox facility:

For U.S. Postal Service:                                 

USCIS
P.O. Box 21600
Phoenix, AZ 85036

For Express Mail and Courier Deliveries:

USCIS
ATTN: 60½12 Foreign Filers
1820 E. Skyharbor, Circle S, Suite 100
Phoenix, AZ 85034 

Please visit the nyc immigration lawyers website for further information. The Law Offices of Grinberg & Segal, PLLC focuses vast segment of its practice on immigration law. This steadfast dedication has resulted in thousands of immigrants throughout the United States.

Lawyer website: http://myattorneyusa.com

Bankruptcy and Citizenship

COMMON MISINTERPRETATION

Way too often, I run into a client who asks whether a Legal Permanent Resident is allowed to file for bankruptcy and more importantly, whether doing so would carry negative consequences for their potential bid for the US Citizenship through Naturalization process. This question comes from a common and widespread misconception, which is addressed in this article.

APPLICABLE LAW

One would be hard-pressed finding any direct reference to bankruptcy in our statutory and regulatory immigration system. There is simply neither a law nor regulation that directly forbids filing bankruptcy by a noncitizen, or views it as an immigration violation. Unless an LPR has failed to pay taxes, which is directly addressed in Part 1- Section A, questions 4 and 5 of the N-400 Naturalization Application, at which point it would be a problem, bankruptcy simply does not come up in any of the statutory text of the INA, nor it’s implementing regulations in the context of the naturalization or citizenship. The only context in which it does come up is employer suctions. OCARO (Federal Agency adjudicating employers’ compliance) takes the position that sanctions hearings fall under an exception to the automatic stay provision in bankruptcy. The Agency construes 11 U.S.C.· §362(a) to permit the enforcement of its regulatory and police authority in collecting against the employer when sanctions are imposed.

THE REAL QUESTION

So, the real question is whether bankruptcy can indeed play a role in adjudicating naturalization applications. It is unclear whether the Agency can take the fact of bankruptcy into account when doing so. USCIS is not particularly helpful on the issue as it has produced no policy guidance on the subject. Hence, the answer to this question is not very apparent and requires some analysis. INA §. 324(b) imposes upon an applicant for naturalization a requirement to prove good moral character during the last five years immediately preceding his or her application for naturalization. The implementing regulations empower USCIS to look beyond the five years, if anything in the applicant’s record opens the door for further inquiry.  This inquiry extends forward to the point in time when the applicant is naturalized and can go back for as far as the Agency would like it to go, if the record of the last five years does indeed warrant further inquiry.

USCIS makes good moral character considerations on a case by cases basis. This evaluation is committed to the broad Agency’s discretion. In adjudicating this issue the Agency takes into account the immigration laws in effect at the time of the adjudication, while looking at the facts from the standpoint of an average citizen in the community of the LRP’s residence. 8 C.F.R. § 316.10(a)(2). When viewed from this standpoint some acts including for example, willful failure or outright refusal to pay child support, are considered by the Agency as evidences of poor moral character. 8 C.F.R. § 316.10(b)(3). Hence, depending on the circumstances the case, the Agency, in the exercise of its broad discretionary powers, may deem filing for bankruptcy as evidencing poor moral character. In other words, there could be circumstances, when the applicant’s actions and financial decisions leading up to bankruptcy, may be consider so improper, negligent or even reckless as to suggest intent to defraud, foul play or outright fraud.

Please visit the nyc immigration lawyers website for further information. The Law Offices of Grinberg & Segal, PLLC focuses vast segment of its practice on immigration law. This steadfast dedication has resulted in thousands of immigrants throughout the United States.

Lawyer website: http://myattorneyusa.com