COVID-19
Note: Policies are rapidly changing, so please verify information on the relevant government websites and with colleagues on listservs as best you can.
EOIR Status Overview & EOIR Court Status Map/List: Hearings in non-detained cases at courts without an announced date are postponed through, and including, October 30, 2020. [Note: Despite the standing order about practices upon reopening, an opening date has not been announced for NYC non-detained at this time.]
TOP NEWS
ICE Is Planning To Fast-Track Deportations Across The Country
Buzzfeed: Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials have started to implement a policy that allows officers to arrest and rapidly deport undocumented immigrants who have been in the US for less than two years, according to internal emails and documents obtained by BuzzFeed News.
Amid pandemic, sharply increased U.S. detention times put migrants at risk
Reuters: Detention centers now house fewer than half as many people as before the pandemic – less than 20,000 as of early October – in part because emergency health measures established in March have allowed authorities to expel nearly 150,000 migrants at the border. At the same time, the ICE data show, the average amount of time immigrants spent in U.S. detention almost tripled to three months this September compared to September 2016, before President Donald Trump took office. Detainees in September 2020 were being held nearly double the amount of time as in September 2019.
San Diego judge upholds state ban on private immigration detention centers
LA Times: Under the ruling, at least four immigration detention centers with the capacity to house about 5,000 people would be phased out over the coming years.
Justice Department cancels diversity training, including for immigration judges
SF Chron: The U.S. Justice Department has suspended all diversity and inclusion training and events for its employees, according to a memo obtained by The Chronicle, which would include judges in San Francisco and elsewhere hearing cases of immigrants seeking to avoid deportation.
How the Immigration Courts Malfunctioned: What We Saw
DocumentedNY: A prosecuting attorney for ICE losing a detainee´s file, immigrants spending more time in jail because the video teleconferencing system malfunctioned, a judge deporting children because they failed to show up to court. The following are some of the negligences we saw after we spent three months in the immigration courts.
Supreme Court Reopens Local Leader’s Immigration Case
DocumentedNY: Ravi Ragbir, an immigrant advocate who runs the New Sanctuary Coalition, has been fighting his deportation with a First Amendment claim
‘We Need to Take Away Children,’ No Matter How Young, Justice Dept. Officials Said
NYT: Top department officials were “a driving force” behind President Trump’s child separation policy, a draft investigation report said.
ICE Arrested More Than 100 Immigrants In California Weeks Before The Presidential Election
Buzzfeed: The arrests were the latest effort by ICE to target the state and its policies that reduce the cooperation between local police and federal agents when it comes to immigration enforcement.
LatinoUSA: In 2018, a young Guatemalan man named Reynaldo Castro Tum was ordered deported even though no one in the U.S. government knew where he was, or how to find him. Now, more than two years later, his unusual journey through the United States’ immigration system has sucked another man back into a legal quagmire he thought that he’d escaped. This episode follows both of their stories and the fateful moment they collided.
LITIGATION/CASELAW/RULES/MEMOS
EOIR: The EOIR Payment Portal is available to pay BIA Filing Fees associated with the form EOIR-26 and related BIA Motions. Filing fees for the Form EOIR-29 and related motions should continue to be paid in accordance with Department of Homeland Security (DHS) instructions. Payments for immigration court fees must follow current processes (See 8 C.F.R. 1103.7).
EOIR Announces 20 New Immigration Judges
EOIR announced the investiture of 20 new immigration judges, including three assistant chief immigration judges. Per the notice, EOIR’s immigration judge corps has increased nearly 70 percent since January 2017. Notice includes the judges’ biographical information and courts of appointment. AILA Doc. No. 20101200
Oral Argument This Week in Pereida v. Barr
ImmProf: Oral argument in the case is scheduled for this Wednesday morning, October 14, 2020 at 11:00 a.m. Eastern. The argument may be listened to live. In Pereida, the Supreme Court will decide whether a criminal conviction bars a noncitizen from applying for relief from removal when the record of conviction is merely ambiguous as to whether it corresponds to an offense listed in the Immigration and Nationality Act.
Petitions of the week: Sanchez v. Wolf
SCOTUSblog: The case asks whether a grant of Temporary Protected Status authorizes eligible noncitizens to obtain lawful-permanent-resident status if those noncitizens originally entered the United States without being “inspected and admitted” – a term of art referring to lawful entry and authorization by an immigration officer.
USCIS Updates Policy Guidance on TPS and Eligibility for Adjustment of Status Under INA §245(a)
USCIS is updating policy guidance in the Policy Manual confirming that a grant of TPS is not admission for INA §245(a) adjustment purposes; clarifying that the applicability of decisions in the sixth and ninth circuits is limited to those jurisdictions; and incorporating Matter of Z-R-Z-C. AILA Doc. No. 20100635
Second District Court Grants Motion for Preliminary Injunction of USCIS Fee Rule
A district court granted the plaintiffs’ motion for a preliminary injunction and stayed the effective date of the USCIS Final Rule (except for those fees set by statute) pending resolution of the matter or further order of the court. (NWIRP et al., v. USCIS, et al., 10/8/20) AILA Doc. No. 20100909
District Court Declares Unlawful 2018 SIJ Policy Imposing Reunification Requirement on State Courts
A federal district court in Washington State declared unlawful a 2018 policy requiring state courts to have jurisdiction to order reunification, if warranted, before making the relevant Special Immigrant Juvenile (SIJ) findings. (Moreno Galvez, et al. v. Cuccinelli, et al., 10/5/20) AILA Doc. No. 20100842
The BIA ruled that if a criminal conviction was charged as a ground of removability when cancellation of removal was granted, that conviction cannot serve as the sole factual predicate for a charge of removability in subsequent removal proceedings. Matter of Voss, 28 I&N Dec. 107 (BIA 2020) AILA Doc. No. 20100840
CA1 Finds “Wealthy Immigrants Returning to Jamaica” Is Not a Cognizable Particular Social Group
The court held that the petitioner’s withholding of removal claim failed, because it found that “wealthy immigrants returning to the country of Jamaica” did not form a cognizable particular social group. (Lee v. Barr, 9/22/20) AILA Doc. No. 20100535
CA1 Upholds Asylum Denial to Kenyan Petitioner Who Opposed Al-Shabaab
The court upheld the BIA’s denial of asylum, finding that terror attacks in Kenya by Al-Shabaab constituted generalized violence, and rejecting the petitioner’s proposed social group of westernized and Americanized Christian Kenyans who oppose Al-Shabaab. (Zhakira v. Barr, 10/2/20) AILA Doc. No. 20100901
Where petitioner, who had been convicted of an aggravated felony, argued that the BIA erred in upholding the IJ’s denial of his motion for a continuance, the court dismissed the petition, finding he had failed to state a constitutional claim or question of law. (Mirambeaux v. Barr, 10/2/20) AILA Doc. No. 20100903
CA3 Rejects Due Process Claims of Mexican Petitioner Who Sought Cancellation of Removal
Where BIA had dismissed petitioner’s appeal on the ground that his removal would not cause his daughters “exceptional and extremely unusual hardship,” the court rejected his two due process challenges, finding that neither was a constitutional claim. (Hernandez-Morales v. Att’y Gen., 9/2/20) AILA Doc. No. 20100902
The court upheld the BIA’s denial of asylum to the Chinese petitioner, finding that the evidence did not compel a reasonable factfinder to conclude that the petitioner had been persecuted for his political opinion rather than for personal reasons. (Du v. Barr, 9/14/20) AILA Doc. No. 20100540
The court upheld the BIA’s denial of the petitioner’s motion to reopen, finding that the petitioner had not substantially complied with the requirements in Matter of Lozada for reopening removal proceedings based on alleged ineffective assistance of counsel. (Avitso v. Barr, 9/22/20) AILA Doc. No. 20100537
The court denied the government’s motion for a stay of the district court’s order precluding DHS from placing minors detained under a Title 42 public health order in hotels for more than three days in the process of expelling them from the United States. (Flores v. Barr, et al., 10/4/20) AILA Doc. No. 20100906
Upholding the denial of asylum to the petitioner, who had been abused by her ex-boyfriend, the court held that substantial evidence supported the conclusion that the Guatemalan government could have protected the petitioner had she reported her abuse. (Velasquez-Gaspar v. Barr, 9/30/20) AILA Doc. No. 20100904
The court held that the termination of petitioner’s grant of asylum by reopening his asylum-only proceedings was not error, and that the IJ did not have jurisdiction to consider his request for adjustment of status because of the limited scope of such proceedings. (Bare v. Barr, 9/16/20) AILA Doc. No. 20100630
The court held that Oregon Revised Statute §475.992(1)(a) is divisible as between its “manufacture” and “delivery” terms, and that the petitioner’s conviction under that statute for manufacturing marijuana was thus an aggravated felony. (Dominguez v. Barr, 7/21/20, amended 9/18/20) AILA Doc. No. 20081036
Deferring to the BIA’s decision in Matter of Wu, the court held that a conviction under California Penal Code §245(a)(1), which proscribes certain aggravated forms of assault, is categorically a crime involving moral turpitude (CIMT). (Safaryan v. Barr, 9/17/20) AILA Doc. No. 20100631
The en banc court overruled Minto v. Sessions, holding that the petitioner, who was present in the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI) when the INA became applicable there, was not removable under INA §212(a)(7)(a)(i). (Torres v. Barr, 9/24/20) AILA Doc. No. 20100538
DOS Issues Update on Court Order Regarding Presidential Proclamation 10052
DOS announced that due to the injunction in NAM v. DHS, any J-1, H-1B, H-2B, or L-1 applicant who is either sponsored (as an exchange visitor) by, petitioned by, or whose petitioner is a member of, one of the plaintiffs in the suit is no longer subject to PP 10052’s entry restrictions. AILA Doc. No. 20100536
RESOURCES
- National Bail Fund Network 2nd round of bailouts across the country, as part of an action on 10/21 called Fall Freedom Day 2020. Referrals by sending us an email at constanza.nbfn@gmail.com and including the following information: Name and link to your practice or organization, Detention center where person is detained, and their bond amount.
- Instructions for Witness Declarations in Support of Asylum Applications (Spanish)
- 100+ Policy Changes that Have Devastated Immigrants and Asylum Seekers
- Debunking “Extreme Vetting”: Recommendations to Build Back the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program
- How the U Visa is Revictimizing the People It Was Created to Help
- Top 10 Ethics Issues Raised by the October Visa Bulletin
- Practice Alert: Office of Biometric Identity Management FOIA Delays
- GAO Says HHS Needs to Improve Oversight of Care Facilities for Unaccompanied Children
- Practice Alert: Important Updates Regarding Form I-765, Application for Employment Authorization
- Violence and Discrimination Against LGBT People in El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras, and Obstacles to Asylum in the United States
- Request Matter of A-B- Practice Advisory from CGRS
- Status of USCIS Fee Waiver Changes – October 2, 2020
- Asylos Research: Zimbabwe: Availability of Medication (AFR2020-18) – ENG; Nigeria: Yoruba convert to Christianity (AFR2020-20) – ENG.
- ICE Air Flights September & September 2020 YTD
- The Impact of COVID-19 on Noncitizens and Across the U.S. Immigration System
- Mapping Far-Right and Anti-Immigrant Movement Alignment with County Sheriffs
EVENTS
- 10/14/20 Immigration, Healthcare, and the Coronavirus Crisis
- 10/14/20 Understanding Retroactivity in Immigration Matters
- 10/14/20 Affordable Federal Litigation Strategies, Part II
- 10/15/20 Maintenance of Status: What You Need to Know in the Current Climate
- 10/16/20 New EAD Rules for Asylum Seekers
- 10/20/20 Immigration in the 2020 Election
- 10/20/20 Fee Rule Implementation: Effects on Survivor Relief
- 10/21/20 Advising TPS Clients in Light of Recent Developments
- 10/21/20 Rule of Law Forum – Preserving the Rule of Law in an Age of Disruption
- 10/21/20-10/23/20 Case Management Skills & Database Functions
- 10/21/20 Migrations and One Health: Human, Animal, and Environmental Interactions and Emerging Diseases
- 10/22/20 Non-LPR Cancellation: Overview of Eligibility & Proving Continuous Presence
- 10/23/20 Migration as Resistance: The Underground Railroad
- 10/27/20 Seeking Special Immigrant Juvenile Status in Removal Proceedings
- 10/27/20 Immigration, COVID-19, and the 2020 Election
- 10/28/20 Advanced U Visa Hot Topics
- 10/28/20 The Ecology of State-Building: Moving Capitals in Indonesia
- 10/29/20-10/30/20 2020 Crimes & Immigration Seminar
- 10/29/20 Presenting the Case
- 10/29/20 Marijuana: Bridging the Divide Between State and Federal Law
- 11/4/20 Program Strategies for Removal Defense Practice
- 11/10/20 Pursuing Immigration Pro Bono Opportunities in Private Practice
- 11/11/20 Climate Change and Oceanic Migrations
- 11/12/20 Defying Non-Reviewability: How to Proceed After a Consular Denial
- 11/17/20 Make the Government Pay! Attorney fees in Immigration
- 11/17/20 Employment-Based Immigration Opportunities for Immigrant Youth
- 11/18/20 Applying for Asylum and Related Relief for Clients with Convictions
- 11/24/20 VAWA Self-Petitioning Fundamentals
- 11/30/20 Perfecting a Winning Strategy for Asylum Applications
- 12/2/20 Migration, Climate Change, and Human Adaptation
- 12/2/20 An Overview of Naturalization
- 12/3/20 Representing Permanent Residents in LPR Cancellation Cases
- 12/3/20 2020 AILA Crimes and Immigration Virtual Conference
- 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
- 12/16/20 Program Strategies for Removal Defense Practice
- 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, October 12, 2020
Sunday, October 11, 2020
- Oral Argument This Week in Pereida v. Barr
- Algeria Expells Migrants Into Niger
- Holly Cooper on Family Separation: On REDIRECT: Immigration Law and Perspectives Podcast
- The Marijuana Opportunity, Reinvestment, and Expungement (MORE) Act is Important for Immigrants and Here’s Why
- Video of immigration officers stopping Black jogger is ‘unacceptable in so many ways,’ Boston Mayor Marty Walsh says
Saturday, October 10, 2020
- Your Playlist: Rolling Stones, Heartbreaker (1972)
- News Outlets Catching Up With Immprofs: Trump Has Radically Changed Immigration
- Justice Department cancels diversity training, including for immigration judges
- An Asylum Decision by Judge Barrett
Friday, October 9, 2020
- Your Playlist: Maximo Park
- Humanitarian Immigration Policy Is the Backbone of a Progressive Democracy—Let US Bring It About
- It’s Been a Week Since the 9th Circuit Issued an Injunction on the USCIS Final Fee Rule… Now What?
- Courts should be a sanctuary space for T-Visa applicants to be safe from ICE & deportation
- Debunking “Extreme Vetting”: Recommendations to Build Back the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program
- Federal Court Upholds Most of California’s Private Prison Ban
Thursday, October 8, 2020
- Lindsay Harris: Trump’s War of Attrition on Women Asylum Seekers
- Report Catalogues 100+ Policy Changes by Trump Administration That Have Devastated Immigrants
- Joke of the Day (or last night)
Thursday, October 8, 2020
- New Episodes of Podcast The Other Side of the Water: Immigration and the Promise of Racial Justice
- Call for Papers: USF Symposium: Leveraging the Law For Human Trafficking Survivors
- Critical Conversations: Racial Justice and the Immigrant Rights Movement by University of Minnesota Law School’s James H. Binger Center for New America
- DHS announces ICE enforcement actions on “criminal aliens” released due to California sanctuary policies
- Vice President Pence and Senator Harris Square Off in VP Debate
Wednesday, October 7, 2020
- Biden’s Central America Plan Goes Beyond Immigration
- Inter-American Commission Hearing Charges U.S. and Mexico with Human Rights Violations at the Border
- Emerging Immigration Scholars Workshop at UCLA/UCSD
- Call for Papers: Winter 2021 Emerging Immigration Scholars Workshop
- Anti-LGBT Persecution in El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras
- Most Asylum Seekers Have No Legal Counsel. This Villanova Program Trains Non-Lawyers to Step In.
- Report alleges that former Attorney General Jeff Sessions aggressively favored separating migrant families
- Federal District Court Enjoins USCIS in SIJS Case: “defendants have engaged in a practice of delaying the adjudication of SIJ petitions”
- Eddie Van Halen Dies at 65
- Report: Flawed Design: How the U Visa is Revictimizing the People It Was Created to Help
Tuesday, October 6, 2020
- Interim Final Rule Narrowing Scope of H1-B Visa
- Immigration scholar Natalia Molina wins 2020 Macarthur Fellowship
- An Election with Consequences for Immigrants to Watch this Fall? How about the Race for District Attorney in Los Angeles?
- Immigrants on COVID America
- Flores Lives: Ninth Circuit Denies U.S. Government’s Call for Emergency Stay of Orders in Flores v. Barr
Monday, October 5, 2020
- From The Bookshelves: Letters from Cuba by Ruth Behar
- Immigration Law Professor Maureen Sweeney Lauded as Public Servant of the Year by the University of Maryland
- Breaking News: Supreme Court Vacates and Remands Court of Appeals Decision Halting Removal of Immigrant Activist
- Immigrantly, A Podcast
- PBS Documentary on Proposition 187 and Change in Latinx Voting in California
- USCIS Issues Policy Guidance Regarding Inadmissibility Based on Membership in a Totalitarian Party
- Immigration Article of the Day: A Domestic Reign of Terror by Ediberto Roman
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Only the “tip of the iceberg” in a thoroughly corrupt and totally dysfunctional system that nobody seems willing to put out of its misery and the injustices that it causes humanity and the rule of law each day that it continues to grind out gross miscarriages of justice!
PWS
10-13-20