The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has agreed to an en banc rehearing in Ramos v. Mayorkas, potentially further extending Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for tens of thousands of individuals with current status from El Salvador, Haiti, Honduras, Nepal, Nicaragua, and Sudan who have been in limbo waiting on a final ruling in the this
Immigration Litigation
Coalition of States Files Motion to Shutter DACA Program
The Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) policy continues to be under attack. In Judge Andrew Hanen’s court in the Southern District of Texas, a coalition of Republican states filed a motion for summary judgment in a long-pending case alleging that the Biden Administration’s new DACA rule is no more valid than the original DACA…
Temporary Protected Status Extended for Haiti
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has announced that Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Haiti will be extended and redesignated for 18 months from February 4, 2023, until August 3, 2024.
TPS for Haiti had been extended five times, until January 22, 2018, due to economic, security, political, health care, and humanitarian crises. DHS announced…
USCIS Returns to Concurrent Processing of Nonimmigrant Primary and Dependent Applicants’ Forms
In a settlement agreement signed on January 19, 2023, USCIS agreed to “bundle” the adjudication of dependent applicants’ Form I-539 (Application to Extend/Change Nonimmigrant Status) and Form I-765 (Application for Employment Authorization) with the primary applicant’s Form I-129 (Petition for Nonimmigrant Worker) if the forms are filed together as one package.
Stemming from a settlement…
New DACA Rule Reflects Court’s Limitations
The new Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) final rule is in effect – to the extent permitted by court orders.
DACA allows temporary protection from deportation for undocumented immigrants who came to the United States under the age of 16. There are approximately 600,000 immigrants, known as “Dreamers,” who are protected by DACA.
The…
Temporary Protected Status Extended for El Salvador, Haiti, Honduras, Nepal, Nicaragua, Sudan
The Department of Homeland Security announced that Temporary Protected Status (TPS) and employment authorization are automatically extended until June 30, 2024, for beneficiaries from El Salvador, Honduras, Nepal, and Nicaragua who are subject to the Ramos and Bhattarai TPS litigations. The same extension applies to beneficiaries from Haiti and Sudan who are also subject to…
Optional Practical Training Programs for F-1 Students Are Valid, Federal Appeals Court Held
In Washington Alliance of Technical Workers v. DHS (WashTech), the D.C. Circuit held that optional practical training programs (OPT) that allow students on the nonimmigrant F-1 visa to work in the United States for up to three years following their graduation are valid. This decision comes after eight years of litigation.
In 2014, WashTech…
DHS Publishes Final Rule Restoring Asylum Regulations
Announcing a new final rule, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is officially reinstating the 2020 asylum rules in light of the court decision that said they were invalid.
In February 2022, the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia vacated two 2020 Trump-era rules that for two years had made it more…
Officially Returning to Pre-2019 Public Charge Rule to Determine Admissibility
After years of litigation followed by uncertainty, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has taken the official action of issuing a new final rule that “restores the historical understanding of a ‘public charge’ that had been in place for decades . . . .” The new rule, which goes into effect on December 23, 2022,…
DACA to Become Regulation
Responding to the history of legal challenges, the Biden Administration is trying to give the DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) program more heft by changing it from a policy to a regulation. On October 31, 2022, a new final rule will become effective.
To the dismay of many advocates for the “Dreamers,” however, the…