Respect For Marriage Act Signed Into Law!!

It’s been awhile since we’ve posted an update, but the historic Respect for Marriage Act certainly is worthy of a new post!

Yesterday, President Biden signed the Respect for Marriage Act, which protects the marriages of same-sex couples. The Respect for Marriage Act also officially ended the Defense of Marriage Act, which was the law that prevented same-sex couples from petitioning for immigration benefits (among other terrible consequences of that law).

After the Supreme Court overruled Roe v. Wade, many of our clients were concerned that same-sex marriage was next on the Supreme Court’s radar. The Respect for Marriage Act will protect same-sex marriages from the Supreme Court’s right wing justices, and protect our clients and their loved ones and their abilities to live their lives freely and happily.

Here’s a bit more information if you’d like to read more about the Respect for Marriage Act. And please feel free to reach out if you have any questions!

Now's a great time to apply for citizenship!

Have you ever thought about applying for citizenship? Well, if you’ve been a lawful permanent resident (green card holder) for 5 years — or 3 years if you’ve been married to a U.S. citizen the whole time — you may now be eligible!

Here are a few reasons why applying for naturalization is a great idea:

— Voting: U.S. citizens can vote in all federal, state, and local elections. So if you’re interested in helping to stop Trump from returning to office in the 2024 election, now’s the time to get started with becoming a citizen!

— U.S. Passport: Wouldn’t it be more fun to travel with a U.S. passport? Lots of countries allow U.S. citizens to enter without visas.

— Ability to Petition for Parents: If you’re interested in helping a parent or parents immigrate to the United States from abroad, you can do so as a U.S. citizen. (Of course, your parents might want to come over for dinner all the time, so keep that in mind).

— Security of Immigration Status: Did you know that as a lawful permanent resident, you can be put into removal proceedings if you commit certain crimes? For instance, my childhood friend sadly had an older brother deported after a conviction, even though he had been a permanent resident since age 2! If you are a U.S. citizen, you can’t be deported, even if you go on a crime spree.

It also makes sense to become a citizen now, while there’s an immigrant-friendlier president in office. Under the Trump administration, they tried to make the citizenship test very difficult. Biden ripped up the new test and threw it in the garbage.

If you’d like to talk to one of our attorneys about applying for citizenship, please feel free to contact us by clicking the button below!

COVID-19 Update: Operations of different immigration agencies

Things are developing very quickly in immigration with regard to the operations of the different immigration agencies. Here’s a current summary as of March 20, 2020:

• USCIS Field Offices: Closed to the general public through at least April 1, 2020. This means that all USCIS interviews are being postponed and rescheduled. This includes USCIS Asylum Offices.

• USCIS National Service Centers: There hasn’t been clear guidance, but from our recent experience, USCIS is still answering its phones (800-375-5283), and the national service centers are still accepting and processing applications. The USCIS self-service links are still up and running as well. However, given the shelter-at-home orders that are going into place in many states, we expect that there will at least be a significant slowdown in national USCIS operations.

• EOIR (Immigration Courts): No hearings are currently being held for non-detained immigrants. Some immigration courts, such as New York and Newark, are completely closed. Some immigration courts that operate in detention centers are still open. If you are concerned about an upcoming hearing, you can check on your next hearing date by calling 1-800-898-7180 and entering your alien registration number (“A-number”). Or better yet, contact an attorney!

• Consulates: All United States consulates have suspended routine visa services, such as spousal visas, fiance(e) visas, student visas, and tourist visas. Different consulates have posted different updates — you can look up your closest consulate here.

We are working from home, but still returning calls and e-mails and still filing applications on behalf of our clients. If we can be of any assistance, please do not hesitate to contact us.

Also, please keep in mind that this situation is evolving very rapidly. This information is accurate as of today, March 20, 2020. We will try to update it as there are further developments.

Please do everything you can to stay safe and healthy.

Thinking of naturalizing? Don't wait -- USCIS "updating" naturalization (citizenship) test

USCIS has announced that it is updating the naturalization test to “create a meaningful, uniform, and efficient test that will assess applicants’ knowledge and understanding of U.S. history, government and values.”

https://www.uscis.gov/news/news-releases/uscis-announces-plan-improve-naturalization-test

We are going to make a not-so-bold prediction here, given the nature of the current administration: this test will be more challenging than the current test.

Fortunately, it will not be implemented until late 2020/early 2021, so there’s still time to naturalize using the existing test.

Please contact us if you want to explore whether you are eligible for naturalization, or to inquire about our representation in the naturalization process:

https://lgbtimmigrationlaw.com/connectwithus

Article: USCIS Processing Delays Soared While Application Rates Fell

This article puts statistics behind the dynamic we’ve been seeing lately, and suggests strongly that Trump administration policies have been the culprit behind increased processing times at USCIS.

Reflections on 2018

Going into the holidays, and actually feeling caught up on work, I woke up this morning reflecting on the past year.

We’re still in a very fluid situation where we’re often up against an administration that arbitrarily invents new rules that potentially affect our clients — often rules that have no basis in law and are quickly struck down by federal courts. But despite these efforts, our clients’ cases fortunately keep getting approved: they just often take longer than they used to.

One group of particular need that our work has not often touched, however, is immigrants at the border, which is where I believe the administration’s most misguided policies are most acutely felt. We’d love to have the chance to be able to volunteer at the border at some point in the future, but the demands of a small busy law practice coupled with the demands of small children make it quite impossible to get away for a week, even for such important work.

But there has been plenty of important work to do for clients who are not in the volatile border region. This year, we have helped several clients obtain asylum from countries where they would almost certainly be persecuted. These countries span several different continents: for instance, we’ve recently had asylum victories on behalf of clients from Honduras, Nigeria, Russia, and Yemen. In each case, we’ve represented individuals who I would be proud to have as next door neighbors and as friends: wonderful people who I look forward to congratulating as U.S. citizens several years from now. I’d like to believe if even the most hardened anti-immigration Fox News viewer (well, maybe except one) spent a couple of hours with any of these clients, they would perhaps reassess, or at least soften, their hatred and xenophobia.

Another common development in 2018 that has been very fulfilling to us is seeing the very first clients we represented after the Defense of Marriage Act was struck down becoming United States citizens. In a few cases, we’ve been fortunate enough to represent these clients at each stage of their immigration journey. Often, these clients were undocumented or out of status for years, if not decades, in many cases simply because their marriages or life partnerships were not recognized by our federal government until 2013. While they should have been welcomed as U.S. citizens many years ago, we now congratulate them as fellow U.S. citizens.

If you’ve made it this far, thanks for reading this novella, and happy holidays to all. We are thankful for having had the opportunity to work with such a diverse, interesting, and all-around wonderful group of clients, and look forward to continuing to build relationships with you and with new clients in 2019.

Warmest regards,

Alex and Kate

DACA renewals are still available (for now)

This morning, the Supreme Court denied the Government's effort to have the Supreme Court directly review a decision from a federal district court judge requiring that USCIS continue accepting DACA renewal applications.  Instead, the Government will need to have the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals initially review the decision.  

Due to the district court's decision (and a later decision from another district court judge), the administration is temporarily blocked from its efforts to end the DACA program by not allowing DACA renewals (and then letting the status of existing DACA recipients expire).  Now, individuals with DACA can continue to renew their status until a federal court says otherwise.  However, USCIS is not accepting new DACA applications -- only renewals.

If you are a DACA recipient whose status has expired or is going to expire soon, you should still be able to apply to renew your DACA status if you otherwise qualify.  However, the Ninth Circuit (or, later, the Supreme Court) can still reverse the district court, so you should keep a close eye on legal developments.  

Great Op-ed in Los Angeles Blade on LGBT DACA Recipients

This article is spot-on regarding how while losing DACA protection is a terrifying prospect for all DACA recipients, that fear is even more pronounced for the approximately 36,000 LGBT DACA recipients in the United States, many of whom face the prospect of being sent back to countries where their lives will be at risk.  

USCIS doesn't shut down

Several clients have asked us whether the government shutdown means that USCIS is shut down as well.  Short answer:  NO.  And that's thanks to you, the immigration applicant, actually.  

Remember that large filing fee that you paid to USCIS when you filed your application?  That's where USCIS gets its money to operate -- not from Congressional appropriations.  So USCIS will keep operating almost entirely normally.  Your paperwork will still be processed (sometimes more slowly than ideal), and your interview will still take place.  USCIS asylum offices are also open for business, including holding regularly scheduled interviews.  

Immigration Court, however, will likely be shut down until the government reopens -- except for cases involving detained non-citizens.  But be sure to check with your local Immigration Court before you assume that a hearing will be postponed. 

As of now, U.S. consulates in foreign countries, as well as the National Visa Center, also appear to be operating normally.   

Big victory for Brophy & Lenahan P.C. in recent Third Circuit appeal

This was not an LGBT immigration case, but in a published opinion, we recently won a Third Circuit appeal on behalf of an individual who was seeking withholding of removal because he had been persecuted in the past in Honduras due to his political opinion.  The Third Circuit found that the case was so strong that it determined that this case deserved one of the "rare instances" where the Court would immediately grant our client's withholding of removal claim instead of remanding it to the Board of Immigration Appeals.  You can read more about it here.