Do I Need a Lawyer to Apply for Deferred Action?
It is not required to have a lawyer to apply for deferred action.
It is not required to have a lawyer to apply for deferred action.
Today, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) released new forms and instructions to allow individuals to request consideration of deferred action for childhood arrivals from USCIS. USCIS will begin accepting completed forms tomorrow, August 15, 2012.
Immigration attorney Karen-Lee Pollak thinks that even this provision may come before the court again. "The supreme court in its wording has left the door open to further challenges of this show me your papers law", Pollak said.
Pollak says today's ruling is a warning to other states of what not to do when crafting immigration laws. "I think that the Supreme Court has sent across a very strong message that says states cannot pre-empt federal law", she said.
Today, June 25, 2012, the Supreme Court threw out key provisions of Arizona's crackdown on illegal immigrants but said a much-debated portion could go forward - that police must check the status of people stopped for various reasons who might appear to be in the U.S. illegally.
On June 15, 2012, U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano and President Obama announced that effective immediately certain undocumented youth who were brought to the United States as young children, who do not present a risk to national security or public safety, and meet several key criteria will be considered for relief from removal from the country or from entering into removal proceedings.
Have you heard the HUGE news???
Fareed Zakaria looks at how the immigration systems work - and don't work - in Japan, Europe, Canada and the U.S. in a prime-time special: "Global Lessons: The GPS Roadmap for Making Immigration Work" on CNN at 8 p.m. ET on Sunday, June 10
"On May 31, 2012, in an effort to improve access to counsel before CBP, ICE and USCIS, the LAC and Penn State Law’s Center for Immigrants’ Rights released the report, Behind Closed Doors: An Overview of DHS Restrictions on Access to Counsel (docs/Behind_Closed_Doors_5-31-12.pdf). The report describes restrictions on access to legal representation before DHS, provides a legal landscape, and offers recommendations designed to combat DHS’s harmful practices. It also addresses recent changes to USCIS guidance that are intended to expand access to legal representation. The report includes anecdotes from immigration attorneys across the country indicating that CBP, ICE and USCIS often interfere with noncitizens’ access to counsel in benefits interviews, interrogations, and other types of administrative proceedings outside of immigration court. Depending on the context, immigration officers completely bar attorney participation, impose unwarranted restrictions on access to legal counsel, or strongly discourage noncitizens from seeking legal representation at their own expense." IAC Legal Action Center, May 31, 2012.
A Pulitzer Prize winning journalist, Jose Antonio Vargas, has just announced that he is an undocumented immigrant in a major article that just went up on the New York Times website. Tomorrow evening ABC News will be devoting its Nightline program to the story. Here are the links:
Osama bin Laden’s death has earned some political capital for President Obama- and now, it looks like he’s going to spend a little bit of it on immigration reform.
“President Obama heads to El Paso Texas to speak out on what the White House calls the nation’s ‘broken immigration system.’
