California Immigration Lawyer Blog

As I have mentioned before on my blog, I am a big fan of the virtual world of Second Life and am active in the Second Life Bar Association. A terrific opportunity is coming up this weekend to earn free continuing legal education credit (California, 2.0 hours) and to learn about web 2.0 tools for lawyers. Kate Fitz will be presenting a seminar on Second Life about web 2.0 tools on Saturday, May 2, 2009 at 12:00 p.m. I was fortunate to attend the first seminar Kate did and learned a great deal. This seminar is an expansion of the first.

"Web 2.0" tools include: blogs, vlogs (video blogs), social networks, wikis, Flickr, YouTube, Twitter, RSS feeds, and much more. Many of these tools are free. This seminar will show you how to use these tools to keep up-to-date, enhance your research and collaborative work, network with colleagues and clients, and market your practice. Participants will receive handouts including links to the featured web tools.

Ms. Fitz (JD, MLIS) is a reference librarian with the Sacramento County Public Law Library. She is also the founder of the Lawspot Virtual Worlds Law Library in Second Life. Ms. Fitz practiced law in California for several years before changing focus to law librarianship. She teaches Internet legal research as well as courses on Westlaw, other subscription databases, and forms and pleadings; she also co-teaches a course for self-represented litigants on basic court procedure.

For more information on how to register for the seminar, you may check the SL Bar Association's registration page. If you would more information about the SL Bar Association in general, please visit our website.

If you have any questions that are not answered on those web pages (or even if they are answered there), about the Second Life Bar Association, please feel free to contact me.

Requesting continuances of cases in Immigration Court can be tricky. You never know if it will be granted because it most often depends on the judge's discretion. There is very little case law on when continuances should be granted. Fortunately, a few days ago, the Board of Immigration Appeals ("BIA" or "Board") decided a case in which it has provided some guidance on when a continuance may be granted.

In Matter of Hashmi, 24 I&N Dec.785 (BIA 2009), the respondent (Mr. Hashmi) was married to an American citizen who had filed a visa petition (Form I-130) on his behalf. The Immigration Judge permitted several continuances in the proceedings to allow time for USCIS to adjudicate the visa petition. If the visa petition would have been approved, Mr. Hashmi would have been immediately eligible for adjustment of status (green card). Mr. Hashmi managed to obtain four continuances but the Judge denied the fifth request. The Judge denied it because he stated that he was forced to meet case completion goals and he needed to make a decision because the case had already been pending for 18 months in the Immigration Court. Mr. Hashmi appealed and after the Board of Immigration Appeals initially denied it, he was finally was successful at the Third Circuit. The Third Circuit reversed and remanded back to the Board of Immigration Appeals.

Upon the case's return to the Board, the BIA considered what factors would constitute good cause for the grant of a continuance in a situation in which the person in removal proceedings (known as the "respondent") has a visa petition pending and would be immediately eligible for adjustment of status (green card) but is waiting for USCIS to adjudicate the visa petition. The BIA decided that there are five factors that a Judge must consider before ruling on a Motion to Continue in this situation. These factors are:

1. the Department of Homeland Security's response to the Motion to Continue;


2. whether the visa petition is prima facie approvable;


3. the respondent's statutory eligibility for adjustment of status;


4. whether the respondent's application for adjustment of status merits a favorable exercise of discretion;


5. the reason for the continuance and any other relevant procedural factors.

The Board stressed that these factors were "illustrative, not exhaustive." (Id., at 790)

Finally, the BIA found that a judge's "case completion goals" "is not a proper factor in deciding a continuance request." (Id. at 794)

Overall this is a very helpful case because it provides us with some guidance in a situation in which we had none before. It will now hopefully be easier to obtain continuances in cases when, through no fault of their own, respondents have been waiting for USICS to adjudicate their petitions.

There is a question on the N-400, Application for Naturalization, that asks:

Between March 23, 1933, and May 8, 1945, did you work for or associate in any way (either directly or indirectly) with:

a. The Nazi government of Germany?
b. Any government in any area (1) occupied by, (2) allied with,or (3) established with the help of the Nazi government of Germany?
c. Any German, Nazi, or S.S. military unit, paramilitary unit, self-defense unit, vigilante unit, citizen unit, police unit, government agency, or office, extermination camp, concentration camp, prisoner of war camp, prison, labor camp, or transit camp?

Every time I assist in citizenship preparation, my clients ask me why that question is still on the form. I answer that it will not be taken off until every person who it could possibly apply to is dead.

Once in a while, we still hear about people involved in Nazi persecution and our government's efforts to de-naturalize and deport such people. One of these people is John Demjanjuk. The U.S. government has spent many years trying to deport Mr. Demjanjuk. Mr. Demjanjuk was originally from Ukraine and had served as a concentration camp guard under Nazi rule. He had failed to disclose his past when he entered the United States in 1952. (For an excellent summary of the immigration proceedings, have a look at the Wikipedia site on John Demjanjuk).

On December 28, 2005, an Immigration Judge ordered Mr.Demanjuk deported. He appealed that decision to the Board of Immigration Appeals and the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals. He lost. Unfortunately no country would take him back so the U.S. Government could not deport him. That is, until now. Recently the German government has requested that Mr. Demjanuk be extradited to Germany to stand trial on 29,000 charges of accessory to murder.

Mr. Demanjuk has filed a Motion to Reopen with the Board of Immigration Appeals and recently on April 14, 2009, a Motion for a Stay of the removal order with the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals. He argues that he is in ill health and that traveling to Germany and standing trial would be a violation of the International Convention Against Torture.

At first I was a little sympathetic to Mr. Demanjuk. He is 89 years old and appears to be in ill health. I do not know why the German government wants to put Mr. Demanjuk on trial now. What will they do if they are successful? Will they carry out an execution? However, the more I thought about it, the more I changed my mind. Mr. Demanjuk is a lucky man, although he might not think so. He has managed to avoid deportation for many years. Even when ordered deported, our government could not carry out the order. Now Germany wants him. He should have been deported several years ago. Many people who have been living in the United States illegally are deported, and they were not concentration camp guards. They were hard working people who only committed the crime of coming to the United States illegally. Mr. Demanjuk, who lied when he came to the United States and committed multiple acts of human rights violations, does not deserve any better by being allowed to stay.

I do not see that travel and a trial in Germany constitute violations against the International Convention Against Torture. Germany will provide him with medical care while he is there. It is probably better than ours. It will be unpleasant to go there and deal with this, but not torture.

Rabbi Hier, of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, summed up the reasons for the extradition the best. "His [Mr. Demanjuk's] defenders say that at 89, he is too old to be deported. His 29,000 victims would have only wished that they would have been so fortunate to reach the age of 89." (It is worth reading his entire statement on the John Demanjuk deportation).

Continue reading " Holocaust Remembrance Day and John Demjanjuk " »

Beginning April 6, 2009, nonimmigrant visa applicants at the American consular post in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, must obtain an Application Support Center (ASC) appointment for biometrics before attending the nonimmigrant visa interview appointment at the post. The ASC for Cd. Juarez is located at the old consular post site at Avenida Lopez Mateos 924 N, Fracc. La Playa in Building C.

Right now it is not possible to do the biometrics appointment and the consular interview on the same day so you must first schedule the biometrics appointment one day and then the consular interview on a subsequent day. The appointments need not be on consecutive dates. For more information on consular procedures, you may check the U.S. Consulate's webpage.

A few days ago I saw a client from the San Francisco Bay area who had different spellings of his name on his government issued documents: one version on the green card, one on the California Driver's License and finally another on the Social Security card. In the past, the different versions of spelling did not matter so much. A person could usually explain the difference to an employer if there was a question when completing the I-9 form. Unfortunately a discrepancy between what USCIS shows and what Social Security shows may now mean that he may not get hired because if an employer uses e-verify, the system could not verify that he is the same person authorized to work in the United States.

E-verify is an internet based system operated by the Department of Homeland Security in cooperation with the Social Security Administration that permits participating employers to electronically verify the employment eligibility of their newly hired employees. (For more about e-verify, see my previous post, "To e-verify or not to e-verify, that is the question.") One of the criticisms with e-verify is that there are mistakes such as this when a person has legal status but the data used is inconsistent.

The best way to resolve the problem is to make sure that both agencies have the correct spelling of your name. Not only is it necessary to get around the problems with e-verify but later in life, you may wish to receive Social Security and you will want to make sure that you have been credited with all of your earnings.

If the problem is with USCIS and you have a green card, you can file a Form I-90 to correct the spelling of your name and obtain a new green card. If the error is the fault of USCIS, the application is free. You must send the application in with proof of the correct spelling of your name.

If you are applying for citizenship and your name has a minor spelling or translation error, you may be able to convince the officer that you do not need to make a name change, but rather the mistake is simply due to a mistake in translation. You should bring a document with you that shows the correct spelling on it to show the officer. You will then obtain a certificate of naturalization with the correct spelling of your name and your name will be correct in USCIS records.

If you wish to change your name and then change your immigration documents, you will need to obtain a court order of your name change. Once you have the court order, you may submit it with either your Form I-90 (to obtain a new green card) or with your application for citizenship so that your new name will be placed on the naturalization certificate.

Continue reading " How to inform Social Security and Immigration if my name is misspelled or it changes " »

The American Immigration Lawyers Association, northern California chapter, is sponsoring a free workshop on citizenship and will assist people in preparing their applications. The event will be held on April 18, 2009 from 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m., at the Meyer Lounge, Hastings College of the Law. Hastings is located at 198 McAllister Street in San Francisco, located near the Civic Center BART station.

You do not need to preregister to participate, just drop in. However, you must have ID to enter into the building.

For more information including on items to bring, please review the attached flyer about the citizenship workshop.

Tomorrow (Saturday), April 4, 2009, at 3:00 p.m. (pacific daylight time), I will be giving a presentation on Second Life© (www.secondlife.com) to a group of avatars on how to bring a fiance (K-1) or spouse to the United States. The group that has asked me to speak is called "crossing borders." It is comprised of people (avatars) who have met on Second Life and now wish to bring their relationships into real life.

I will be talking about the following topics:

• consular processing vs. adjustment of status;


• tips on filing a petition with USCIS;


• tips on preparing for the interview.

If you are on Second Life and are looking for the meeting, send me an IM (to my avatar "Geri Kuhn") and I will send you a landmark to the meeting. Hope to see you there.