The U.S. has agreed to pay $350,000 to settle a civil rights lawsuit filed by eleven immigrants as a result of their arrests after ICE conducted a series of immigration raids in their houses in 2007. The immigrants involved will not be deported. This is the largest settlement ever paid by the United States and immigration lawyers are touting the court settlement as a landmark victory [...]

A Chinese national in the custody of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) since Feb. 14 passed away on Feb. 23 at the Lock Haven Hospital in Lock Haven, Pa., of an apparent suicide. On Feb. 11, Qi Gen Guo, was encountered by ICE after his arrest by Pennsylvania State Police (PSP). On Feb. 14, [...]

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 [...]

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.  [...]

The Orlando Sentinel reported today that the Florida Senate Judiciary Committee has invited speakers for a hearing scheduled for later today to provide information about immigration reform and its impact on the State of Florida. Both Florida’s Governor and Attorney General who began their terms in office just last week, support an Arizona style immigration related legislation. We at Pappas Law Group [...]

The New York Times reported today that state legislators from Arizona, Georgia, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania and South Carolina came together and began a national campaign yesterday to end the automatic granting of American citizenship to children born in the U.S. of undocumented immigrant parents. The 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution guarantees the right to U.S. citizenship for for everyone born or [...]

The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) reported earlier this week that it will implement the Help Haiti Act of 2010 that was signed by the President on December 9, 2010.  The law authorizes USCIS to grant lawful permanent resident (green card) status to certain Haitian children who are orphaned and were also paroled into the United States pursuant to the Haitian [...]