Dear Readers:
When people learn that I’m an immigration lawyer, the most common response I get is some variation of “your world must be really crazy right now.” And it’s hard to argue with that. On the one hand, we have an Administration that has ratcheted up enforcement to a level we haven’t seen in years and immigrants of all varieties are nervous about what they see and hear. On the other hand, we have a strong economy so the demand for immigrant workers is also very high. And the Administration’s attack on work visa programs is causing great angst with employers as well.
This month we saw an effort in Congress to do some good for one population in the crosshairs – the DACA population. But as most of you know, that effort failed after the White House lobbied to kill any proposal that didn’t contain massive cuts to legal immigration categories and at least $25 billion dollars to build a border wall. The Democrats as whole and more than a dozen Republicans rejected this approach. So now we move with uncertainty. Republicans are now discussing a more modest plan to extend DACA for anywhere from one to five years and to approve border money from anywhere from $7 billion to $25 billion. But there are few saying they feel confident the votes will be there to include this proposal in the omnibus upcoming spending bill.
The US Supreme Court also added to the uncertainty when they rejected the White House’s request for the recent district court ruling ordering the continuing of DACA to be heard without having to go through the normal process of waiting on the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals to hear that case. So DACA recipients can continue renewing applications for now. No one new to the program can apply which will create difficulty for those too young to apply before the September 2017 announcement from the President.
In the meantime, there have been many other changes happening without Congress having to lift a finger. I was recently on a webinar with fellow immigration lawyer Cyrus Mehta regarding those changes. Here are ten we identified:
- Termination of Temporary Protected Status for several countries’ nationals
- Termination of the DACA program
- Imposing new, unwritten and unlawful requirements into the H-1B program
- Ignoring prior decisions of the agency when deciding new cases
- The continued enforcement of the Travel Ban
- The expected revocation of work cards for spouses of H-1B workers with pending green card applications
- Expected new restrictions on the ability of Immigration Judges to administratively close cases
- The new requirement to conduct in person interviews for all employment-based green card applications
- Punishing nationals of countries disfavored by the Trump Administration
- Changes to the Foreign Affairs Manual further restricting the ability to change visas within the US.
In firm news, Siskind Susser lawyers have spoken on panels and been quoted in the media several times over the last month. I spoke to the Nevada and Georgia chapters of the American Immigration Lawyers Association. James Hollis spoke on an AILA webinar on O-1s and EB-1 visas for science and business filed. Adam Cohen was quoted in an article from DecisionHealth. I was quoted in articles from Bloomberg BNA, Law360 and Mother Jones.
Finally, as always, we welcome people interested in talking with our lawyers to schedule consultations with the firm either by phone or in person. Go to www.visalaw.com/consultation to learn more.
Regards,
Greg Siskind
Disclaimer: This newsletter is provided as a public service and not intended to establish an attorney client relationship. Any reliance on information contained herein is taken at your own risk.