I have co-authored the J-1 Visa Guidebook published by LexisNexis which has been published in annual editions since the 1990s and is the main treatise on the subject. So I'm pretty familiar with the rules for J-1 visa holders including at the time Musk attended Stanford. The moment he dropped out and was no longer in good academic standing, he was out of J-1 status (e.g. illegal) and unauthorized to work. If he successfully transitioned to H-1B status, it was because he either left the country and reentered in that status or he lied to USCIS (then the INS) about his status. They didn't track J-1 students all that closely until after 9/11 when they created SEVIS. So it was a lot easier to get away with things. I have no idea if it was the former or the latter, but it doesn't look like Elon is claiming he was still attending Stanford when he got the H-1B and the emails published with the story certainly seem to show otherwise. Musk would have needed to be engaged in a full course of study (at least 12 academic hours a semester) in order to qualify for work while being a J-1 student. And Stanford would have had to have approved the work. The Washington Post's reporting is that he was not a student anymore when he was working in his startup.

780K! We sued @USCIS 2 years ago to call out gaming of the H-1B lottery that's happening in the IT staffing industry where applicants are filing 10+ lottery applications by getting multiple employer sponsors. @USCIS told the judge they were addressing the problem. Crickets since. @USCIS @ckuck @immlawACHall @blesjm1

Yesterday, @USCISDirector Ur Jaddou noted that the agency was looking outside the box to find ways to make the immigration system run better. Here's one - scrap the advance parole requirement for adjustment applicants. It's not actually mandated by the statute. 1x @USCISDirector The whole advance parole system is a creature of USCIS-created regulations based on the idea that people who depart the US while an adjustment application is pending have abandoned their applications. 2x

Watching @USCISDirector answer questions at the @AILANational spring conference. Will report on anything newsy. 1 @USCISDirector @AILANational Starting out by noting agency's new mission statement. She's citing milestones.

1. Naturalization queue reduced 20% (natz cases are one area of decent performance). 2x

Important thread coming.

I’ve just learned from a very reliable lawyer of a disturbing incident involving a US Army soldier seeking to enter the US with humanitarian parole issued by USCIS (& stamped by State) who was entering the US to attend his naturalization interview. 1x The soldier was flying from Qatar to Dallas (DFW). A CBP officer (I have his name but am not publishing it at this point) refused to honor the parole document, put him on a flight back to Qatar and seized his military ID. 2x

This Memphis woman is the victim here. This needs to be rectified immediately. Outrageous!

The Black woman sentenced to six years in prison over a voting error theguardian.com/us-news/2022/f… And if you needed another reason to vote against prosecutor Amy Weirich, look no further. One more reason we need someone like @SteveMulroy901 in the job.

I'm listening to @USCIS leadership doing a Teams call on what they're doing to address their many problems. No breaking news at this point. 1 @USCIS Dan Renaud - @USCIS will be initiating cycle time goals. They believe these goals alone will help them provide better service. 2

URGENT for journalist followers - @uscis is now expected to DENY most Afghan humanitarian parole cases - more than 30K pending - because they are applying standards most applications won't meet. Here's why - 1x @USCIS Most applications are expected to be denied because the standard is so high (basically, if the applicant doesn’t have evidence that specifically names the individual as a target it won’t get approved). 2x

Here is the Parliamentarian's decision. politico.com/f/?id=0000017c… This paragraph is particularly galling. She's worried an anti-immigrant Congress could use a future reconciliation bill to undo these changes. WHICH WOULD TAKE A MAJORITY VOTE. You could argue this for any policy ever voted on post-filibuster repeal. She needs to go.

FYI - The House Judiciary Committee markup of the immigration language has been going on today and numerous amendments have been introduced. All have been defeated. The amendments have. Not the 18 pages the Democrats have proposed.

VERY enthusiastic about legislative language. Here are a few key points. 1 Forget Title I of the US Citizenship Act. This language is simpler, broader and much more generous. 2

Judge - Any statutory requirements on sequencing?

Renaud - Dozens of types of applications. Looking at who is harmed the most from delays in processing. E.g., Family cases in backlogs get low priority because working faster won't matter.

EADs are the opposite (seriously?) 27 They do their best to comply with court orders, but it means resources moved from another category. Of course, reserving numbers will avoid that problem so a reason to settle with us, @uscis. 28

Sushi is our good luck mascot. 7

https://twitter.com/LilySAxelrod/status/1433080819917246465

Reminder. Our case is Chakrabarti v. Mayorkas. We're suing to force USCIS to speed up adjustments for backlogged green card holders to ensure 100K green cards aren't wasted on September 30th. The alternative request is to reserve the green card numbers for after 9/30. 8

Now up, Joseph Edlow, a former USCIS official in the Trump Administration who is now in private law practice. He's talking about illegal border crossings (I thought the wall stopped all of that). 7 Now talking about how Biden has ruined everything. Hoards are pouring in and destroying everything that is wholesome about America. 8

The Senate Judiciary Committee is having a hearing now on H.R. 6, the American Dream and Promise Act of 2021. I will comment from time to time. judiciary.senate.gov/meetings/hr6-a…. 1 First witness up, Dr. Manuel Bernal Mejia, an undocumented emergency medicine doctor in Chicago. He makes a point of saying hello to Marsha Blackburn from his home state of Tennessee. 2

The hearing for Ur Jaddou, President Biden's nominee for @uscis Director, as well as several other agency heads is beginning. I'm multitasking this am, but am listening in and will try to tweet anything interesting. 1 @USCIS The nominee for head of the ATF is also up today and given he's in charge of guns, I'm guessing he'll get a lot of today's questions. 2

I'll be tweeting during @JoeBiden's speech on anything immigration related I think is worth noting. 1 @JoeBiden As @JoeBiden is talking about the amazing accomplishment of getting 230M vaccine shots administered in 100 days, worth remembering that those vaccines are due in part to immigrant scientists who worked on these miraculous discoveries.

@David_J_Bier is up now. Immigrants don't get in line because they cannot legally do so. Question should be Only spouses, minor children and parents of US citizens can come without massive obstacles. @David_J_Bier: 84 years is the length of the wait for bachelors level Indians to get green cards because of crazy low country caps.

Title II addresses issues the southern border. While there is not an enforcement section in the bill (like past comprehensive bills), there are enforcement provisions in this section. The title has a lot of programs designed to address the root causes of the problem. 5 Title III focuses on reforming legal immigration - family, employment and DV. Lots of really interesting reforms here which I'll get into. 6

Here's my section by section summary of the US Citizenship Act (the "Biden Immigration Bill"). - visalaw.com/siskind-summar… 1 Here's the Dropbox link to the PDF. It's 32 pages, about half the size of the Hill staff written summary and I've tried to make it a little less technical. - bit.ly/37zoucZ 2

Some people deported under Trump may be able to get back and apply for the legalization benefit. 17 This one makes me smile. The word "alien" is being deleted from the law. If the bill passes, the term "noncitizen" will be used. 18