So, here are some interesting tidbits from today's hearing in the Mahmoud Khalil case, courtesy of .@innercitypress- the best court coverage reporter in the biz by far!

The small Good news first: the docket will be made public! Huray for 1st amendment right to access to court records!

The not so good news -- a 🧵 As I said before, this is an immigration habeas corpus petition and those are very squirrely.

This is not a deportation case and the judge cannot and has not blocked Mr. Khalil's deportation on the merit -- the judge blocked his removal temporarily only to preserve jurisdictional issues. He really does not need to do so, because Mr. Khalil is a LPR and until there is a final order of removal, he remains so and cannot be removed.

The dreaded #immigrationFriday is upon us again: the 5th Circuit again found the DACA program unlawful but limited the injunctive relief to Texas and stayed the ruling pending cert review. It is an awful ending of a
good program that should had long ago been replaced by a Congressional Act providing a path to citizenship for Dreamers. A depressing thread ... here is a link to decision: ca5.uscourts.gov/opinions/pub/2…

Hah! I missed this one: Bernie Sanders has introduced an #H1B Amendment to the Laken Riley Act, which

* eliminates the concept of "prevailing wage" and replaces it with "the higher of the median local wage level or the actual wage of similarly employed
workers". (More on that later in the thread)

* introduces the concept of "employer at common law" which is going after the outsourcing model in H1B and if passed, would pretty much end it.

* mandates more rigorous lay-off certifications from both the petitioning employer and the "employer at common law", i.e. the H1B chop shops

* if a petitioning employer or the chop shop is required by law to provide a notice of a mass layoff and has H1B on payroll "the status of such nonimmigrants shall
expire on the date that is 120 days after the date on which such notice is provided."

* expands the grace period from 60 days to 120 days for a laid-off H-1B to switch employers

* codifies stateside visa processing. Here is the link to the full amendment: congress.gov/amendment/119t…

The whole H1B MAGA "civil war" as the @thehill called it, is fake as hell and it "erupted" because of xenophobia and racism & coz certain people do not want to address the real issue about "legal" immigration: It has nothing to do with the inability to get and retain the 0.01% of any profession!

The conversation should not be about H1B visas (this should have been reformed line a decade ago to remove the caps). It is and should be about REMOVING the COUNTRY CAPS preventing talented and hard-working people from getting their green cards and having the certainty and security they need to help America prosper.

Another H1B 🧵no one needs but heck, I'll do it. If you want to read another useless and disingenuous article here it is: thehill.com/homenews/house…

BREAKING AND HORRIBLE IMMIGRATION LEGAL NEWS:

Biden Admin and Class counsel in the long-running Roman case (Adelanto COVID-19 closure and intake restriction order) have reached a settlement, subject to Court's approval, to lift the intake order (meaning the largest for-profit immigration detention facility [~2000 beds] will reopen) with pretty meaningless concessions from Def & Geo in the form of continuing COVID-19 compliance and protections from re-arrest to class members and over $2Mil in attorney fees.

Well F*ck, what can I say, Biden Admin and DOJ are rolling the red carpet for Trump's deportation machine. This case started in April 2020 and Judge H ordered the release of most people who were trapped in this hell hole at the start of the pandemic via this class action and many individual habes that were consolidated w it.

Most ppl were released and ultimately Judge H set a maximum capacity for Adelanto at <500.

For the last year it has operated at holding 3 yes THREE non-citizens but of course Geo received its guaranteed minimum of $200 per day per head in the liquidated numbers provision of the contract.

America has handed Trump a dark mandate on immigration; there is no way to escape the conclusion.

If you are a non-citizen without a green card in hand and are still thinking there are sunny days ahead, well, think again!

Buckle up, it will be a depressing 🧵 I'll try to cover 3 things the way I see it:

A. the real-life immediate impact to admissions, adjudications, and removal proceedings that will start to trickle down on day one of Trump 2.0

B. the likely long-term efforts to bring to life his campaign promises

C. what undocumented people, and especially mixed status families and people in removal proceedings, could do to protect their rights under the INA (for as long as they are on the books)

Nothing in this thread is intended or constitutes legal advice. These are my musings and way to blow off steam this morning.

UPDATE on the #PIP (keeping families together parole program): Judge is doing his own research (or his clerk is doing a global search for "parole" in statutory text, I should say) and just issued an order inviting the parties to address "the effect" of 6 U.S.C. § 202(4)’s reference to parole as a “form[] of permission . . . to enter the United States”....

storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.usco… This is noteworthy for two reasons:
1. the parties have not yet filed their dispositive papers & arguments (due Friday the 18th) .... But considering the short schedule he set, not surprising he is trying to educate himself on the matter.
2. depending on what he focuses on in this text, it may be an indication of where he is going. On one hand, this is an unambiguous grant of gap-filling authority to DHS Sec to promulgate rules and regulations regarding parole. But what he more likely will focus on is that it refers to and bundles parole with visas & and other permissions "to enter". Remember, TX is arguing that nothing in INA allows parole in place i.e. for ppl who are already here and have effected an "entry".

Not that it is a surprise but we have the first (that I know) **official** statement from Trump that he will revoke the paroles granted under the various Biden Admin parole initiatives, including CBPOne & CHNV, and the standard 212d5 granted by CBP mostly in 2021 and early 2022. ⬇️

That could be a trully "day-one" stroke of the pen executive action and there will be no recourse for it. None! The only ones that could possibly be challenged in court would be the U4U and Afghan parole programs as these two have statutory authorisations or sorta.

NEW DEVELOPMENTS in the #PIP (keeping families together parole program) litigation.

Soooo, that excitement that we will have an initial decision soon (18 September merits hearing), well forget about it. 18 September 2024 hearing is vacated.

Why you ask?

well, you see the intervenors filed an appeal after their motion was denied and asked for a quick decision before the 18th. 5th Cir said "not so fast".

1. 5th Cir "expedited" the appeal all right but will not hear the orals until October 10th.
2. Ergo, they stayed the district court proceedings but
3. also kept the admin stay against the PIP in place.

Link to 5th order/decision: storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.usco… So what does it mean for #PIP hopeful?

It means that we are not likely to get a decision on whether PIP is able to proceed at all until after the new admin takes office.

Lemme explain.

If 5th is going to hear arguments on the 10th of October -- even if they rush the decision mandate will not be issued until probably the end of November at the earliest. Until then district court can do diddly. So until mandate nothing is done and PIP paroles cannot be granted.

Even if intervenors win, it only means that they should be allowed to participate. Ergo, district court will have to set a new briefing schedule regardless of the outcome which will place us in holidays season at best. And that is if the losing party does not appeal to SCOTUS.

🚨 BREAKING: Texas and 15 other GOP states filed a complaint in ED of Texas seeking to halt the #PIP (Keeping Families Together Parole in Place Program.

Here is the courtlistener.com/docket/6907441… The Plaintiff states are:

State of Texas;
State of Idaho;
State of Alabama;
State of Arkansas;
State of Florida;
State of Georgia
State of Iowa;
State of Kansas;
State of Louisiana;
State of Missouri;
State of North Dakota;
State of Ohio;
State of South Carolina;
State of South Dakota;
State of Tennessee;
State of Wyoming,

My first experience with Biden's new Asylum Ban and if this is anything par for the course, this is beyond Kafquesque and deliberately punitive to bona fide asylum applicants as we expected but so much worse. A thread ... Disclosure: This is not my case, and I got involved in helping a colleague who has now done the impossible. A a true rock star guerilla immigration lawyer.
I have permission to report some of the backstory but will keep all facts out for obvious reasons.

BREAKING: Biden Admin has indeed taken official action to pause asylum at whim and in violation of section 208 of the Immigration and Nationality Act: their FACT SHEET on New Actions to Secure the Border via @whitehousewhitehouse.gov/briefing-room/… Anyone has the actual executive order/proclamation or whatever they are calling this sh*t.

🚨MAJOR update for #DV2020 & #DV2021! Many thanks to @curtisatlaw for posting!!!

1. Govt has completed the IT "updates" so they will be ready to process reserved visas in Gomez/Goh/Rai/Goodluck/Filazapovich IF APPEALS are SUCCESSFUL ....

https://twitter.com/curtisatlaw/status/1550197876277518337

2. As we all suspected the updates were minor. It appears that it involved the ability to re-upload DV cases from prior years and be able to differentiate between "active" (meaning #DV2022) and "inactive" (#DV2021 and #DV2020). Running of the script at posts will take minutes.

I got 3 DMs/emails <5 min from #DV2022 asking to "confirm that the 55K cap could be exceeded" NO it can't.

I suppose either there was some group misunderstanding on social media or some of the DV YouTube 'experts' is striking again.

A short #DV2022 🧵 The DV statutory cap is established by the statute and is 55K (minus adjustments for NACARA) per year. There are no roll-overs and no special stash @TravelGov can reach into to grant more than the 54850 (I think is the #) DV visas allowed for FY 2022.

Since DOS is trying to do everything in its power to destroy #DV2021, we will open round 2 of our "Problem Consulates" litigation to add additional plaintiffs to our Nepal v DOS pending case. If you are interested, fill the Eligibility Questionnaire: forms.office.com/Pages/Response…

https://twitter.com/NicoletteGlazer/status/1388240930327580672

Nepal v DOS is a lawsuit challenging DOS denial of meaningful participation in the #DV2021 at select over-burdened consulates [statutory claims] combined with equitable claims to preserve visa eligibility beyond 30 Sept.

BREAKING: The bad news #DV2021 Friday continues!
State Department has posted a new public-facing "explanation of prioritization of visa processing" and sure enough #DV2021 is in the last tier!

travel.state.gov/content/travel… Here are the tiers:
Tier One: IR intercountry adoption visas, age-out cases (SQ and SI for Afghan/Iraq
Tier Two: Immediate relative; fiancé(e); returning resident visas
Tier Three: Family preference immigrant visas
Tier Four: All other including employment & diversity visas

NEW: Ok! I’m mystified by the 9th Circuit’s new Appellate Case Management System (ACMS) for immigration petition for review. This will be mandatory for any PFR filed on or after 1 May 2021. What is the point?

here is the order: cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/gene… For pending PFR the filings are to continue through CM/ECF: no changes.

For post 5-1 PFR filing in ACMS is mandatory but only for (and available) for attorneys.

BREAKING: Niz-Chavez is out! “A notice to appear sufficient to trigger the IIRIRA’s stop-time rule is a single document containing all the information about an individ- ual’s removal hearing specified in §1229(a)(1).“
Boom.dot.com!

Happy filing, #immigrationtwitter! This opening by J Gursuch ...💯!

BREAKING: Ok #Noban tweeps, DOS has completed the review of the processes affected by the revocation of the #MuslimBan (PP9645 & 9983). Here is the half-a*s path forward 1/ If your immigrant visa (IV) was refused on or after 20 Jan '20 due #MuslimBan *YOU MAY* seek re-adjudication without resubmitting DS260 or paying any additional fees, provided the underlying visa petitions remain valid. You'll get priority adjudication. AWSOME news!

I have been delaying reading the #FOIA case from SCOTUS from 3-4. So nothing like spending your Sunday morning reading a decision you know is going to f*ck up a lot of your pending litigation & heck! Admin law practice as a whole, right? Well I did and shiiish a 🧵 Here is the link to the FWS v Sierra Club case supremecourt.gov/opinions/20pdf…
and yes! it is all about exemption 5 & specifically the deliberative process privilege. If you’ve done any immigration related FOIA, this is your “b5” stamped on blackouts on ~ 85% of the docs you received.

The Senate passed the $1.9 trillion #AmericanRescuePlan but with very few provisions applicable to mixed-status families and undocumented non-citizens. Yes, the appalling Ted Cruz amendment was defeated but little headway appears to have been made to provide relief to the ... ... hundreds of thousands of undocumented essential workers who since day one of the pandemic have kept us fed and provided for. This is a shameful failure.

This bill is a monster but it seems like the "premium assistance credit" for ACA bene were limited yet again to