Attorney, NY Legal Assistance Group
Publisher of “The Gibson Report”
COVID-19
Note: Policies are rapidly changing, so please verify the latest information on the relevant government websites and with colleagues on listservs as best you can.
New
- Opening dates for some non-detained courts: Hearings in non-detained cases at courts without an announced date are postponed through, and including, September 11, 2020. [Note: Despite the standing order about practices upon reopening for Federal Plaza, an opening date has not been announced for NYC non-detained at this time.]
Closures
- EOIR Operational Status & Standing Orders
- EOIR Case Status
- ICE Updates (Including ERO and Detention)
- USCIS Updates
- Consular Updates
- NY Courts Updates
Guidance:
- IJ Email Filings
- BIA Email Filings
- EOIR Standing Orders
- EOIR Electronic Signature Guidance
- EOIR Update Regarding EOIR Practices Related to the COVID-19 Outbreak
- USCIS Visitor Policy
- USCIS Announces Flexibility for Requests for Evidence, Notices of Intent to Deny
- Electronic database of COVID-19 related materials
- NY Notary Guidance
TOP NEWS
Who gets asylum? Even before Trump, system was riddled with bias and disparities
SD Trib: A San Diego Union-Tribune analysis of 10 years of court outcomes uncovered many symptoms of the system’s biases — shortcomings that date to the system’s creation.
House Passes Emergency Funding to Stop USCIS Furloughs
DocumentedNY: The House on Saturday passed a bill to provide emergency funding to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, which is set to furlough almost 70% of its staff on Aug. 31. The Senate won’t return until September to vote on the bill, though any senator can bring it up and ask for it to be passed through unanimous consent.
Immigration Court Completions Remain at Historic Lows Through July 2020
TRAC: Monthly case completions before the March shutdown were running over 40,000. During January 2020, for example, they were 42,045 and in February completions were 41,793. During the period from April to July they fell precipitously to around 6,000. In July 2020, only 5,960 cases were completed.
GAO denied DHS’s request to rescind decision on the legality of the service of Acting DHS Secretary and Senior Official Performing the Duties of DHS Deputy Secretary because DHS did not show GAO’s decision contained material errors of fact or law or provided information that warranted reversal. AILA Doc. No. 20082101
GAO Says ICE Should Enhance Its Use of Facility Oversight Data and Management of Detainee Complaints
GAO examined what ICE does with oversight inspection data and information from detainee complaints and found that ICE doesn’t comprehensively analyze inspection or complaint information to identify trends in deficiencies, and that ICE doesn’t have reasonable assurance that complaints are addressed.
DACA Advocates Seek Contempt Ruling On Trump Admin.
Law360: A nonprofit coalition is asking a Maryland federal court to sanction the Trump administration, saying the government is intentionally misleading the public and disobeying multiple court orders after the U.S. Supreme instructed it to reinstate the Delayed Action for Childhood Arrivals program.
Steve Bannon Charged With Misusing Donations For Trump’s Border Wall
NPR: Steve Bannon, President Trump’s former political adviser, has pleaded not guilty through his counsel to wire-fraud and money-laundering charges related to an online scheme that federal prosecutors said was responsible for defrauding hundreds of thousands of people.
NBC: In early May 2018, after weeks of phone calls and private meetings, 11 of the president’s most senior advisers were called to the White House Situation Room, where they were asked, by a show-of-hands vote, to decide the fate of thousands of migrant parents and their children, according to two officials who were there.
New Jersey Lets Immigrants Obtain Professional Licenses
DocumentedNY: Some states have lifted immigration employment restrictions in certain industries, but New Jersey will be the first do so across the board.
LITIGATION/CASELAW/RULES/MEMOS
USCIS Says Employees Can Use Form I-797 for Form I-9 Verification During EAD Production Delays
USCIS announced that due to EAD production delays, employees may use Form I-797, Notice of Action, with a notice date on or after 12/1/19 through 8/20/20 informing approval of an Application for Employment Authorization (Form I-765) as a list C #7 document for Form I-9 compliance until 12/1/20. AILA Doc. No. 20081936
The District Court for the Western District of Washington has scheduled a hearing for 11/4/20 for consideration of a proposed settlement in Mendez Rojas v. Wolf, a suit involving individuals who have filed, or will be filing, an asylum application more than one year after arriving in the U.S. AILA Doc. No. 20082430
USCIS issued policy guidance in the USCIS Policy Manual to update and clarify the procedures USCIS officers follow when termination of asylum status is considered in relation to adjudicating an asylum-based adjustment of status application. The policy is effective 8/21/20; comments are due 9/22/20. AILA Doc. No. 20082132
Advance copy of EOIR notice of proposed rulemaking proposing multiple changes to the processing of immigration appeals, as well as amending the regulations regarding administrative closure. The proposed rule will be published in the Federal Register on 8/26/20 with a 30-day comment period. AILA Doc. No. 20082161
USCIS Issues Guidance on Implementing DHS Acting Secretary’s July 28, 2020, Memorandum on DACA
USCIS provided guidance on how it will implement DHS Acting Secretary’s 7/28/20 DACA memo. Among other things, USCIS will reject all initial DACA requests from individuals who have never received DACA and will limit grants of deferred action and employment authorization to no more than one year. AILA Doc. No. 20082431
The coalition will be seeking an emergency nationwide injunction of the rule to prevent it from going into effect on October 2, 2020. AILA Doc. No. 20082133
DHS Releases Fact Sheet on Measures on the Border to Limit the Further Spread of Coronavirus
On August 14, 2020, DHS updated its fact sheet on measures to limit non-essential travel across the U.S.-Canada and U.S.-Mexico borders and to limit the spread of the coronavirus. The measures have been extended until September 21, 2020. AILA Doc. No. 20032336
RESOURCES
- Practice Pointer: Navigating the USCIS Contact Center
- Practice Alert: ICE Provides List of Duty Attorney Email Addresses for ICE OPLA’s Field Locations
- Second Opinions Are Perfectly Acceptable: Ethics Check
- Six Fundamentals to More Productive Meetings, Whether Virtual or In-Person
- Bite-Sized Ethics: Choosing Between Loyalty and Lying
- Use of Non-Engagement and Disengagement Letters
- Death Flights – Week Of 17 August
- CGRS Factsheet in Spanish on Proposed Asylum Regulation
- CGRS Factsheet in Spanish on Proposed Public Health/National Security Regulation
EVENTS
Note: Check with organizers regarding cancellations/changes
- 8/25/20 Emerging Public Charge Issues Related to COVID-19
- 8/26/20 Immigration Legal Services in Rural America
- 8/27/20 Crafting a Winning Particular Social Group for an Asylum Case
- 9/1/20 Virtual Briefing: The U.S.-Canada Safe Third Country Agreement And The Future Of Asylum In The United States
- 9/8/20-9/29/20 Webinar Series: All About Public Charge Inadmissibility (Fall)
- 9/9/20 DACA: Beyond the U.S. Supreme Court Decision
- 9/10/20 Preparing and Filing the New USCIS Public Charge Form I-944
- 9/10/20 Country Conditions in El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras for Asylum Claims Based on Harm to Children
- 9/10/20-9/17/20 2-Part Introduction to Asylum Law and Procedure
- 9/11/20-10/2/20 Webinar Series: Dealing With Denials
- 9/14/20 Working with Domestic Violence Immigrant Survivors: The Intersection of Basic Family Law, Immigration, Benefits, and Housing Issues in California 2020
- 9/15/20 How Criminal Defense Counsel Can Challenge ICE Detainers
- 9/16/20 Preparing for the Expansion of Expedited Removal
- 9/16/20 Advanced FOIA with DHS
- 9/22/20 Defenses to Denaturalization
- 9/23/20-10/7/20 3-Part Webinar Series: Integrating Technology to Improve Your Immigration Legal Services
- 9/24/20 Introduction to Crim/Imm
- 9/29/20 Beginner U Visa Hot Topics
- 10/1/20 Representing Children in Immigration Matters 2020: Effective Advocacy and Best Practices
- 10/6/20 Public Charge Updates
- 10/6/20-10/27/20 Webinar Series: Understanding and Preparing Waivers
- 10/21/20-10/23/20 Case Management Skills & Database Functions
- 10/22/20 Non-LPR Cancellation: Overview of Eligibility & Proving Continuous Presence
- 10/27/20 Seeking Special Immigrant Juvenile Status in Removal Proceedings
- 10/28/20 Advanced U Visa Hot Topics
- 10/29/20 Presenting the Case
- 10/29/20 Marijuana: Bridging the Divide Between State and Federal Law
- 11/17/20 Employment-Based Immigration Opportunities for Immigrant Youth
- 11/18/20 Applying for Asylum and Related Relief for Clients with Convictions
- 11/12/20 Defying Non-Reviewability: How to Proceed After a Consular Denial
- 11/17/20 Make the Government Pay! Attorney fees in Immigration
- 11/24/20 VAWA Self-Petitioning Fundamentals
- 12/2/20 An Overview of Naturalization
- 12/3/20 Representing Permanent Residents in LPR Cancellation Cases
- 12/3/20-12/4/20 53rd Annual Immigration and Naturalization Institute
- 12/8/20 Litigating Your Way Out of Delay
- 12/9/20 Public Charge in Consular Processing
- 12/15/20 Crimes Involving Moral Turpitude
- 12/16/20 LPRs and Public Charge
- 2/4/21 Basic Immigration Law 2021: Business, Family, Naturalization and Related Areas
- 2/5/21 Asylum, Special Immigrant Juvenile Status, Crime Victim, and Other Immigration Relief 2021
ImmProf
Monday, August 24, 2020
- John Oliver: The Wall, Part 2
- Where immigrants will have the most voting power in 2020
- Who Gets Asylum? New Analysis of EOIR Data from Kate Morrissey and Lauryn Schroeder of the San Diego Union-Tribune
- Trump Administration Proposed Rule Aims To Speed Up Immigration Appeals
- Terminating Asylum Status in Deciding Applications for Adjustment of Status
- Immigration Article of the Day: Reflections on the DACA Cases in the Supreme Court — The ‘Illusion of Freedom by M. Isabel Medina
Sunday, August 23, 2020
Saturday, August 22, 2020
- Philosophical Frameworks for Evaluating Immigration Law and Policy: a Video by Prof. Maureen Sweeney
- From the Bookshelves: New Immigration Book: “We Are Not Dreamers” co-edited by Leisy J. Abrego and Genevieve Negrón-Gonzales
Friday, August 21, 2020
- Immigration Court Completions Remain at Historic Lows Through July 2020
- Immigration Article of the Day: The Impact of Pretrial Detention on Immigration Case Proceedings: An Empirical Analysis by Jose Martinez
Thursday, August 20, 2020
- Trump cabinet officials voted in 2018 White House meeting to separate migrant children, say officials
- Steve Bannon, three others charged with fraud in border wall fundraising campaign
- NPR: Shadow Immigration System: Migrant Children Detained In Hotels By Private Contractors
- Death on the Border: How U.S. Policy Turned the Sonoran Desert Into a Graveyard for Migrants
- Trump’s #StudentBan Part of a Continuing Attack on International Students
- Look Who’s Hiring: Ohio State
- Immigration Prominent at Democratic National Convention
Wednesday, August 19, 2020
- From The Bookshelves: Pursuing Citizenship in the Enforcement Era by Ming Hsu Chen
- Class action challenges DoD denials of military security clearance for naturalized soldiers
- Tribal nations seeks to block border wall
- President Trump seeks boost in Arizona by focusing on immigration
Tuesday, August 18, 2020
- Trump’s immigration restrictions would have kept me and other tech founders from coming to America
- DACA Advocates Seek Contempt of Court
- Senator Charles Schumer will speak on immigration to Democratic Convention — with Statue of Liberty as backdrop
- Former Senior Trump DHS official endorses Joe Biden
Monday, August 17, 2020
- 2020 Catholic Immigrant Integration Initiative Conference
- LAT Compares Trump, Biden on Immigration
- Migrant Children and Families Held at Hotels, Investigative Reporting at the NYT Reveals
- GAO: Trump’s top DHS officials were unlawfully appointed
- Why do Americans think more immigration means more crime? (audio)
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Thanks, Elizabeth!
PWS
08-25-20