Hey #immigrationtwitter, quick question live from USCIS Lawrence: what is a "reasonable period of time"? 5 mins? 25? We're going on 30
Interviewer has refused to interview my client on the actual subject of the interview we are here for, relying on absurdly bad prior findings without giving us a chance to (1) see the report they were based on or (2) offer any testimony to address USCIS's hearsay summary of them
Interviewer is also using entirely the wrong legal standard, shifting the burden to someone who has nothing to do with the allegations--but that hardly even seems like the point anymore after watching my clients being treated the way they just were
(tbc no surprises here other than the legal and professional errors, we knew exactly what was in here--other than the actual "evidence" we have been denied any chance to see--and came in ready to talk about it. If only we could have!)
The government has a significant burden of proof in any case like this, but extra in one that denies the chance for a mother to remain here with young US citizen children and a USC spouse *forever.* We should get as much time as we need in the room for a decision that important
40 minutes
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1/ The current 10+ month delay to process and issue basic 1-yr immigrant work permits (EADs) suggests a part of the system which should be not reformed or made more efficient, but abolished. Your EAD should come stapled to a qualifying application's filing receipt, full stop.
2/ An EAD currently issues when applicants have demonstrated (1) ID + (2) that they have a qualifying application (eg permanent residency) pending which meets the basic eligibility requirements for that application. What if #2 were "has paid the filing fee for that application"?
3/ sure you'd get some frivolous filers totally unqualified for the application they are filing desperate to score a 1-yr EAD + the rights to work/drive which come with it. But there are ways to screen for totally bogus filings w/out the totally unacceptable backlogs we now have
the fake German heiress from the Netflix show also tried to seek #asylum in the US from an EU member state based on the inconvenience that might result from ppl knowing she was a fake German heiress, which feels like it should have been more of a story all around
Inventing Anna('s Particular Social Group)
(just a little asylum humor there, don't mind me)
Anyway if you agree with Jeff Sessions that my clients fleeing torture and death at the hands of Central American gangs are abusing the system when they apply for asylum, pls accept this as a helpful example of what abusing the system looks like
how were we ever supposed to know that the woman who spent months siding with an abusive mother in lying about her child's suicide while publicly fundraising off of accusing another child of her murder was a shameless grifter?
Sorry for the hyperlocal subtweet, but IYKYK. I didn't have much of an opinion about her before that, but just beyond all accepted norms of decency, humanity, and what I understand to be activism--and if we were still doing journalism around here you'd already know that
When all you've got is "only a right-wing "citizen journalist" troll was covering this!" all I'm hearing is an indictment of our Boston media class. Not the troll.
This is what happens when we put people over causes, and personalities over principle.
RT if you're old enough to remember when a morally compromised superpower could illegally invade a struggling sovereign nation over made-up nonsense on orders of a ruthless petro oligarch *without* the considerable inconvenience of our victims livestreaming our crimes in realtime
twenty years later it's astonishing to me now that the world's largest military openly bragged about slaughtering an almost entirely-defenseless army via "shock and awe," like as an actual strategy
Putin & Bush are both war criminals, full stop. But I've been wondering all day if the largest mass anti-war protest movement in history might actually gotten somewhere if the world had seen in realtime the stories & images from Iraq in its newsfeed the way now can from #Ukraine
(sincere thanks as always to the actual wizards at @NIPNLG & @immcounsel for getting this advisory out on the latest effort from the Board of Immigration Appeals to ignore the Supreme Court's affirmation of Congress's extremely basic notice requirements)
"immigration law? isn't that mostly just filling out forms?"
I sincerely love 99% of my clients, but at least once a week the other 1% are starting to make me want to give up my law license and everything I've worked to build and make a new life for myself at sea. I can't today. I hope you can.
pre-pandemic my judge of client character was whether they could respect the week I take in July during which I am unavailable for anything other than a genuine emergency. This month it is whether they understand what it means to operate severely understaffed due to COVID
as it has everywhere else, the virus finally made it to our office in waves after all our precautions. it feels like managing a busy diner on a Friday night with one person in the kitchen and one waiter. For three weeks. I am so tired. I can't sleep.