To reduce the number of fraudulent asylum applications Congress passed a law in 1996 that provided that applicants must petition the U.S. Government for asylum within 1 year of their arrival in the U.S. Exceptions to the One Year Rule There are two exceptions to the 1 year rule: Existence of changed circumstances in your home [...]

Marriage to an American citizen is the most common method foreign nationals use to obtain permanent residence or green card status in the United States. It is also the method that is most often abused. Because of the high incidence of fraud, USCIS officials carefully scrutinize all marriage applications (and their related adjustment of status applications) to ensure that the marriage [...]

Before an employer files a petition for an L-1 visa  for a prospective intra-company transferee it is important that certain rules are followed to minimize the chances of rejection by the USCIS. Here are five tips that a petitioning employer must consider when submitting an L-1 visa petition: Provide documents evidencing your corporate ownership (stock certificates, joint-venture or affiliation agreements). These documents are needed to prove that [...]

Cancellation of Removal for non-Permanent Residents is a form of relief from deportation available to foreign nationals who meet the following four requirements: Have been physically present for a continuous period of at least ten years preceding the date deportation proceedings are commenced; Has had good moral character during that ten year period; Has had no convictions for any crime(s) that can render the [...]

The Orlando Sentinel reported today that the U.S. Immigration & Customs Enforcement (USICE) deported yesterday, 26 Haitians who have criminal convictions. This was the first group of Haitians that have been deported since the U.S. government placed a hold on deportations soon after the 7.0 magnitude earthquake that ravaged that country last year. The Haitian-American community in Florida and the immigration advocates who [...]

The New York Times  reported today that the U.S. Citizenship & Immigration Services (USCIS) received over 53,000 applications from Haitians seeking Temporary Protected Status (TPS) of which, the agency approved a majority of those applications. Tuesday, January 18, 2011 was the deadline for Haitians to apply for TPS.  The program granted benefits to certain Haitians that were in the U.S. on the day of the earthquake (January 12, [...]

The Orlando Sentinel reported earlier this week that the proposal of an Arizona style immigration legislation that some say helped Florida’s current Governor Rick Scott get elected, is not well received in the Florida legislature. Critics in the Florida Legislature have said that for Arizona, a border state that has a lot of undocumented immigrants and sees ongoing violence just across the [...]

Martin Luther King Jr. Day is a U.S. federal holiday observed on the third Monday in January to remember the birthday of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.  He was born on January 15, 1929 and the holiday is observed each year around the time of his birthday. Dr. King is best known for being a leader in the advancement [...]

The Orlando Sentinel reported that today, January 12 is the one (1) year anniversary that a 7.0 magnitude earthquake that killed over 230,000 people and left about 1,000,000 homeless in Haiti, the western hemisphere’s poorest country. In an effort to help Haitian nationals both in the U.S. and in Haiti, President Obama and his administration acted quickly and extended benefits such as Humanitarian Parole  and Temporary Protected Status (TPS). TPS [...]

The American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA) reported today that Representative King, a Republican from Iowa introduced the Birthright Citizenship Act (H.R. 140) on January 5, 2011.  If the bill were to be signed into law, it would amend the immigration law and, the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which would redefine who can be deemed a U.S. citizen at birth.  [...]