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The Golden Door

News and views on immigration law

Archive for the ‘Visas and consular issues’ Category

Perspective from a State Department officer

Thursday, February 2nd, 2017

In my last blog post, “Trump’s deliberate precipitation of an immigration crisis,” I made the case that the “extreme vetting” called for in President Trump’s Executive Order of January 27, 2017, banning immigrants from seven countries, was already in place.  I based this on my experience as an immigration attorney working with visa applicants.

Now, we have the perspective of Natasha Hall, a former Department of Homeland Security immigration officer, providing much more detail about what refugees must go through in order to be let in through our “golden door.”  Please give it a read.

For those who think that this Executive Order is the right move, think about if you were one of these refugees, what should you expect from America?  Think about having lost your home, your livelihood, maybe your family members, all your belongings, and your sense of security.  Think about not being able to go to school or to learn as a child.  Think about your entire childhood spent in crowded, desperate, dangerous refugee camps.  Think about the violence you have witnessed and experienced.  Think about not having enough food to eat, or clean clothes to wear, or clean water to drink or wash with.  Think about needing the kindness of strangers to survive, and knowing that so many times such kindness is not forthcoming.

I understand the justification given for this Executive Order, that we may inadvertently admit a terrorist posing as a refugee, but this is not the way to address that fear, for so many reasons.  In fact, many have argued, and I concur, that this order makes things worse.

If you are ever in need yourself, I would hope that others would hold out a helping hand to you, rather than remember this Executive Order and turn away as we now are in danger of doing to so many.  This order makes it this much harder to be an American in the world.  We reap what we sow.

Trump’s deliberate precipitation of an immigration crisis

Monday, January 30th, 2017

Since President Trump was inaugurated on January 20, 2017, his actions have turned U.S. immigration into a nightmare for countless numbers of lawful immigrants and visa holders and arriving refugees, and even for naturalized U.S. citizens from certain countries targeted by President Trump.  This does not even take into account those currently being processed for visa applications.

He issued three Executive Orders directly addressing immigration.  He did so without consulting the departments and agencies tasked with carrying out his orders.  CNN reported that “A Border Patrol agent, confronted with arriving refugees, referred questions only to the President himself, according to court filings.”  It reads like a line from a future movie.  The three Executive Orders were first issued on January 25, 2017.  The Executive Order addressing the admission of refugees and other non-U.S. citizens from “countries of particular concern” with regard to terrorism was re-issued on January 27, 2017, with a revised title.  I haven’t even had time to read  the two versions side-by-side to see what if anything has changed between the first and the second version.  This detail is telling in that it clearly shows that this administration cares little for getting things right in its rush to roll out its version of government.

This Executive Order, originally titled “Protecting the Nation from Terrorist Attack by Foreign Nationals” in its January 25, 2017, version, is now titled “Protecting the Nation from Foreign Terrorist Entry into the United States,” in its January 27, 2017, version.

Like President Trump’s inaugural speech, this Executive Order presumes a nation under imminent attack by sinister forces that must be immediately repelled, at all costs.  This “emergency” mindset attempts to steamroll us to blindly surrender our rights and the rule of law in return for a false sense of security that the Trump administration has shown no ability to deliver.  This Executive Order halts the admission of all foreign nationals from certain countries, and then we had to hunt down which countries the President meant, because it was not provided with the Executive Order, not even as a handy addendum.  By “all foreign nationals,” this Executive Order included lawful permanent residents, as it only specifically exempted certain diplomatic visa holders.  So, if you happened to be a lawful permanent resident on, say, vacation outside of the United States when this came down initially it appeared that you too would be banned from returning to the United States for a period of at least 90 days.  The new Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security has taken it upon himself to except this category of foreign national, but until that point the Executive Order itself did not.  Can you imagine the havoc this would have wreaked on families and businesses when their lawful permanent resident family members and employees were stuck without warning out of the country for a period of at least three months?

From an immigration attorney’s perspective, let me tell you that the directives of “extreme vetting” in this Executive Order are either in place already, in terms of background checks and confirming that the applicant actually has the proper basis for immigration or admission to the United States, or are so extreme as to be unlawful or impossible to implement and still keep our system of immigration operative.  I have had clients denied visas who from my perspective clearly merited them.  I have had an Afghan interpreter who worked with U.S. Special Forces and who was cleared for that work and had a letter of support from every officer with whom he worked denied a visa, without explanation as to why for over a year and then ultimately denied on a BS reason.  Believe me, the “extreme vetting” already exists and it is a particular nightmare for visa applicants.  It is known by the banal name of “administrative processing.”  Once a visa case is stuck in “administrative processing” the chances of getting an approval or even a cogent reason for a denial shrink to almost nothing.

It is hard to even know how to begin to point out all the things that are wrong with this Executive Order.

It discriminates based on national origin, with no showing of how such discrimination is necessary to serve a compelling governmental interest, pursuant to the strict scrutiny standard of review.  Such national origin discrimination has been banned in our Immigration and Nationality Act since 1965.  There are arguments that the president has the authority to ban foreign nationals on an as-needed basis.  We are about to find out how extensive that power reaches.  Trump is like a two-year-old child here, testing how far he can push presidential authority before we push back.  What is missing, though, is how this Executive Order promotes the interests of our nation as a whole.  Where are the considered arguments for these extreme actions, the effort to persuade the nation that such actions are needed?  Instead, all we have is a a wink and a nod, asking us to, “Trust me!  I alone can and will protect you.”  Well, in a democracy we need to understand why actions are taken, and to judge for ourselves the justification for those actions, not a meaningless reassurance that everything will be fine.  We are not children to be ignored while the “adults” sink our ship.  (And another thing, under this worldview what happens if Trump becomes incapacitated?  If only he and he alone can save us then this must mean that we are all doomed without his most excellent leadership.  He is after all, in his own opinion, irreplaceable.  Next on the agenda will be a life-term presidency.  It’s the only way for us to be safe.)

The Executive Order also bars the admission of Syrian refugees who have been already been subject to the best vetting processes that our Department of State could devise.  By directing that “extreme vetting” be employed, Trump’s Executive Order implies that the vetting conducted by our Department of State personnel was unsatisfactory, without any proof.  Do you really think that any State Department officer involved in vetting refugee applications would really cut any corners or fail to follow up on any indication of fraud or criminal or terrorist involvement?  What have State Department officers been doing all this time in vetting refugees, if not performing “extreme vetting”?  What State Department officer wants to be the one who let through a Trojan horse refugee?  According to a Time magazine article published in November 2015, it takes an average of 18 to 24 months for a Syrian refugee applicant to be approved for asylum in the United States, after being referred by the United Nations.  That is up to two years of life in limbo waiting for sanctuary, in addition to the time you spent escaping from an unlivable situation.

As a nation that works in cooperation with other nations to promote peace and prosperity globally, we are subject to human rights laws and under these laws we have a responsibility to take in refugees, the most vulnerable immigrants who have lost their homes and many other valuable things on their journey to seek a safe place to re-start their lives.  To turn away refugees is to turn our back on the founding principles of America, that we are a nation of immigrants and refugees and out of that foundation we have forged one of the most vibrant and diverse societies ever known.  Immigrants are disproportionately the most active entrepreneurs in America.  They create businesses and jobs and bring new thinking and new ideas to play.  As with any group, there are immigrants who are dangerous criminals who should be punished and deported, but the rate of criminality among immigrants, even unauthorized immigrants, is lower than that of the native-born American population.  If the goal is to reduce crime rates, we need to take a good look in the mirror before demonizing immigrants if we are serious about fighting crime.

It discriminates on the basis of religion, prioritizing Christian applicants over others.  Barring discrimination on the basis of religion is a founding tenet of America.  This Executive Order treats that tenet as disposable.  It is not, and our courts will be the proving ground for this.

On a more prosaic note, this Executive Order thrusts a mammoth amount of work on to the departments that handle immigration processes, piling the requirement of report upon report on top of an already full workload.  (Do not get me started on current immigration processing times).  Complying with these reporting requirements will derail the regular workload of these departments for an unknown amount of time.  And where is the money coming from for all this extra work?  Is Congress going to funnel our tax money to the compilation of these reports so that they get done by the unreasonable deadlines in the Executive Order?  Is this the best use of our taxes?  This is what President Trump chose to do as one of his first actions in office?

Let us not forget that President Trump has been busy in other ways, ways that have been roundly criticized by experienced and respected intelligence professionals.  But that is a different topic.

 

Consult Your Immigration Attorney For Motions To Reopen/Reconsider

Monday, December 30th, 2013

The law is a codification of what is right and fair. It may not seem that way sometimes, but that is what it is and should be.Philadelphia Immigration Attorney City Hall Image - Tran Law Associates

Part of being a lawyer is keeping sight of this basic truth. As an immigration attorney, I deal with U.S. government agencies on a daily basis. Sometimes my interactions with agencies are adversarial, such as when Immigration and Customs Enforcement is trying to deport my client because of lack of government permission to be present in this country, and I am trying to point out exceptions in the law that allow my client to stay and to become a lawful resident (or to prove that my client is already a citizen and therefore not deportable). Other times my interactions are cordial, in that I am applying for a benefit that my client qualifies for, and my job is to know what the qualifications for the benefit are (all of them) and to clearly demonstrate that my client possesses these qualifications. The government agency’s staffers’ job is to verify that my client does indeed qualify for the benefit sought and, once verified, approve that application in a timely manner. The benefit, after all, is one that the United States Congress has pronounced is a desirable result, such as family reunification or providing foreign workers for U.S. businesses that cannot otherwise find qualified U.S. workers.

Not infrequently, applicants for immigration benefits (especially those not represented by an immigration attorney) make mistakes in their forms or fail to submit all necessary documents, despite being as diligent as possible in following the instructions provided by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (“USCIS”) or other U.S. immigration agencies. Even experienced immigration attorneys will occasionally make mistakes, being only human. And, sometimes (or a lot of times, depending on who you talk to) USCIS makes mistakes, being only run by humans. That’s when an I-290B Motion to Reopen or Motion to Reconsider comes in.

The I-290B Motion to Reopen and/or Reconsider codifies what should be common-sense fairness. When an applicant believes that USCIS has made a mistake there must be some way to communicate this to USCIS and hold USCIS accountable for its mistakes.

This is what happened in one of my change of status cases, where my client entered the country on a B1/B2 tourist visa to visit with family and sightsee, and then decided she wanted to continue her education here. Rather than going home and applying for an F-1 student visa she opted, as permitted by law, to apply for a change of nonimmigrant status. As her immigration attorney, I helped her navigate this change of status. We researched schools for her in Philadelphia, and she chose one that fit her budget and career goals. She applied for attendance and was accepted by the school, paid her first semester’s tuition fees, and was issued an I-20 by the school. She had to prove she had the financial means to pay her tuition fees and cover her living costs here in the United States, and a good friend of the family generously agreed to be her financial sponsor.

My client’s situation was one that was explicitly contemplated and approved of by immigration law, and it was just a matter of proving the relevant factors: nonimmigrant intent upon admission; acceptance at a SEVIS-approved school and issuance of an I-20; and financial ability to pay for school and living costs. We submitted her application for change of status along with all needed documents. USCIS received her application but somehow lost most of the accompanying documentation. In fact, USCIS informed me that although it had received my cover letter, which listed all enclosed documents, the documents themselves were not received.

Now, let me pause for a moment to reflect. USCIS was telling me that I had submitted a cover letter with no enclosed documents. For an experienced immigration attorney, that’s ridiculous. No lawyer would send just a cover letter and not include the 80+ pages of documents that the letter references. I can understand forgetting a particular document among several documents, especially in a voluminous submission, but to just send a cover letter – what experienced and reputable attorney, or what applicant for that matter, would do that!?

In this particular case, USCIS misplaced voluminous document submissions three separate times. In the same case. Can you image how infuriating it was for me to receive the second and third notice that USCIS had not received documents that I took such care to deliver to it — especially after being told that the first submission had documents that went missing? I could prove that I mailed a substantial packet of documents to USCIS in the matter, and I did so, sending along copies of the prior submissions to prove timely and complete submission of required information.

I notified USCIS of the fact that the relevant facts had been delivered, and I delivered copies. The application was then still denied for failure to submit required evidence. I wrote a strongly worded letter basically telling USCIS you can’t deny this application for losing documents I already submitted to you! I also complained to my bar association and asked for liaison assistance. The case was reopened by Service motion and then again denied, again citing failure to submit documents I had by this time submitted twice. It was like the Service never read my letter in which I had so carefully proven that my client had met all her obligations, and again delivered the relevant evidence. I wrote another strongly worded letter, sent another full copy of all prior submissions (several hundred pages by now), which got no response. I also filed an I-290B Motion to Reopen and/or Reconsider, the formal protocol for complaints (which carries a hefty filing fee). When no response was forthcoming within 90 days, however, I sought assistance from the USCIS Ombudsman’s office, reciting the litany of lost documents and resubmissions. They saw the error and the Motion was ultimately granted, and fairness in the case was preserved, although it took one and a half years rather than the two to three months it normally does for an application like this.

The moral of this story: don’t forget that the law should result in what is right and fair. Oh, and be a pain in the ass if that’s what’s needed to get things done.

The approval was sweet, but what would really be the icing on the cake is if USCIS refunds our filing fee. I am not holding my breath.

The pitfalls of the K-1 fiance visa: Consular nonreviewability

Friday, February 15th, 2013

Sometimes the law makes no sense. Sometimes it is unjust.

Take the case of consular processing for K-1 visas. For immigration neophytes, consular processing occurs when the intending immigrant is not physically in the United States and, thus, the individual must request a visa to lawfully enter the country. The visa application process is handled, usually, by the U.S. Department of State rather than the US. Citizenship and Immigration Services (“USCIS”), part of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

In my experience, consular processing of family based immigration is rife with opportunities for visa offices to exercise bias and apply inconsistent standards. That is because there is no system of external oversight for visa issuance decisions. The K-1 visa, where the applicant is a foreign national whose only tie to the United States is that he or she is engaged to marry a U.S. citizen, is particularly vulnerable to such abuses.

A K-1 visa case came to me, after the fiancée of the immigrant had filed the I-129F petition pro se, after the petition had been approved by USCIS, after applicant had the visa interview, and then… nothing. No news, no decision. Ten months after the visa interview in Kabul, Afghanistan, I started work on the case, requesting a decision or some direction as to what concerns were holding up the application. Unfortunately, due to a rule known as the doctrine of consular nonreviewability, there was no way to require a U.S. Department of State visa office to justify either its lack of action or rejection of a visa application. We cannot get a federal court to force a decision, because the courts will defer to the U.S. Department of State under this doctrine. The only way to get past this judicial deference to visa decisions is to prove that the visa office acted in bad faith, an impossibility in the vast majority of cases. This is because the applicant has no information from the visa office, much less information about what evidence the decision is actually based upon.

The rationale for the deference, according to visa decisions under the doctrine of consular nonreviewability, is that the United States government has broad powers to determine who it permits to enter its borders, and decisions to deny admission to foreign nationals, barring bad faith, will not be second-guessed by the courts. This sounds somewhat rational until you play out the consequences. The procedures used to evaluate applications lack transparency. While the Foreign Affairs Manual (the U.S. Department of State's operating manual) references the statutory and regulatory requirements for reviewing visa applications, it leaves broad discretion to the visa officer to make credibility determinations. In practice, denial letters never tell you why exactly the application was rejected, except to conclude that you failed to prove that you have a real relationship. In other instances, you may have failed to prove sufficiently strong ties to your home country (for tourist visas). There is no meaningful appeal process for such denials. When I have filed appeals to the U.S. Department of State visa office in the past, the result has been a pro forma affirmation, with no response to the mistakes in fact. Plus, there is no appeal of that decision, particularly no judicial appeal. The result is that applicants are denied permission to enter the United States, without the right to present additional evidence to rebut the grounds of the denial. That’s because our right of Due Process does not to apply to foreign nationals residing abroad. Apparently, it also does not matter that U.S. citizens are also deprived of due process as a consequence of the visa denial.

In my Afghan K-1 visa case, my client and her fiancée had participated in a ceremonial wedding and signed a nekah, a Muslim marriage contract, while waiting for the K-1 visa to be approved. Under Afghan law, the nekah must be registered with the family court and a marriage certificate must be issued by that court before a legal marriage is created. More than a year and a half after the visa interview, and over two years after the application was filed, my client's K-1 petition was denied because my client and her fiancée were deemed to already be married.

In my Afghan K-1 visa case, my client and her fiance had participated in a ceremonial wedding and signed a nekah, a Muslim marriage contract, while waiting for the K-1 visa to be approved.  Under Afghan law, the nekah must be registered with the family court and a marriage certificate issued by that court before a legal marriage is created.  More than a year and a half after the visa interview, and over two years after the application was filed, my client’s K-1 petition was denied because my client and her fiance were deemed to already be married.

Had my client filed an I-130 Petition for Alien Relative and attempted to bring her fiancée to the United States based on the same facts, that petition would have be denied for lack of proof of a valid, legal marriage, according to the Kabul U.S. Embassy website. Thus, this was a classic Catch-22 situation.

I had already pointed out the facts of the case and the applicable Afghan law of marriage to the Kabul visa office, pointing out that a wedding without a legal marriage had taken place and that the same standard should be applied for an I-130 petition as an I-129F petition in evaluating whether a legal marriage existed. The visa denial did not address any of my points.

The current state of the law accords deference to visa decisions under the doctrine of consular nonreviewability. Due to this long-standing doctrine, courts refuse to demand any sort of accounting in visa decisions. It is past time to scrap this outdated rule that allows bias and abuse to occur under the guise of protecting our borders. While I agree that the United States should have broad authority to decide who is eligible to enter the country, once the statutory and regulatory rules are enacted that define the limits of this authority, these rules should be followed. There should be a mechanism to evaluate that the statutes and regulations are, indeed, followed by visa offices. Under the doctrine of consular nonreviewability, there is no way to require visa offices to identify the evidence relied upon in issuing a denial. Thus, applicants are left stranded without any avenue for appeal or external review. In my Afghan visa case, my client is left without the ability to live with her fiancée in the United States. She is forced to confront the choice of moving to Afghanistan or some other country that will accept both her and her fiancée as residents with the right to work.

The elusive tourist visa

Friday, March 16th, 2012

I am repeatedly surprised by stories of denials of B-2 tourist visas.

In one case I came across, the reasoning of the consular officers who repeatedly denied this application confounds me.

I heard about this case from my friend, a U.S. citizen originally from El Salvador.  She has invited her elderly father to come visit her and her family here in the United States.  He has applied for his tourist visa twice, and be denied twice, and the only reason given is “lack of sufficient ties to home country.”

Her father was turning 75, and for his 75th birthday my friend and her brother, also a U.S. citizen, wanted to take him on vacation in the U.S.  My friend’s father has been retired for several years now, and before that had been an assistant principal at a junior high school.  He was married and lived with his wife, my friend’s stepmother.  He had retired to the countryside and lived in what sounded like an idyllic little cottage.  His income was his pension; rental income from his house in the city, which he had rented out; and a little extra income from the produce that he and his wife grew in their orchards.  He is not wealthy, but he was comfortable.  All this information was presented at his second visa interview, along with a letter from my friend saying that she had invited him to come visit her, and she would be looking after him and, incidentally, she could petition for him if he wished but he did not wish it.

It is true.  If my friend, or her brother, wanted to, they could petition for this gentleman to immigrate to the United States as the father of a U.S. citizen and, barring any issues in his background such as certain criminal conduct, he could be here as a legal permanent resident in  six months to a year.  But this gentleman has no interest in living in the United States.  He is happy where he is and, at this late stage in his life, he is not interested in uprooting his comfortable situation to relocate to a new country.  He would like to visit his children and grandchildren in their homes, however.  Unfortunately, he has been denied the ability to do so.

Consular officers deciding tourist visa requests are tasked to keep in mind — through the guidance provided by the U.S. Department of State’s Foreign Affairs Manual — that the general policy of the United States is to encourage tourism and the building of cultural and economic ties with people from other countries.  So, the default position, when evaluating an application, should be:  Let this person come to the U.S. to see their friends and family, visit tourist destinations, and spend money on our economy.  It is only when the applicant fails to show strong ties to their home country, and thus by implication is more likely to want to stay in the U.S. rather than return home, that the possibility of denying the visa should be contemplated.

However, from my experience with contesting denials of B-2 visas, the default premise often seems to be opposite to that propounded by the Foreign Affairs Manual.  The thinking of too many consular officers seems to be:  “Prove to me why I should let you be a tourist in America,” rather than, “You should be a tourist unless there’s a good reason not to be.”

In this particular case, the denial of this gentleman’s tourist visa application was even more surprising because of his age, as most tourist visa denials seem to be to people who are young, single, not too well off, and who don’t yet have spouses or children to tie them to their home country.  The rationale for most denials seems to be that this young (or relatively young) single person without family obligations and/or a good job and/or very comfortable home to come back to will most likely overstay their visa and maybe marry a U.S. citizen as well.  Sometimes it seems like you have to be at least two out of the three:  older and married, older and wealthy, or maybe just wealthy, to pass the visa issuance test.

Even under this rubric, my friend’s father doesn’t fit in the mold because, although he is not wealthy, he is older and married.  The most reasonable explanation I can think of for the denial is that the consular officers both must have separately concluded that he is desperate to move to the United States, despite his age, comfortable retirement, happily married status, and the fact that he could legally move here without being put on a waiting list if he wanted to.  Why they could have reached such a conclusion is beyond me.  The end result, whatever the reasoning, is that my friend cannot host her father in return for all the times that her father and hosted her and her family in his home.  It saddens her, but she can always go and visit him, and spend her tourist dollars in El Salvador rather than have her father spend his tourist dollars here. The efforts of a qualified El Salvadoran immigration attorney may shed new light on the situation, but for now they’ll simply have to work with this arrangement.