During the last few years, many federal courts have set their sites on Florida statutes that regulate controlled substances. The U.S. Supreme Court, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit and Board of Immigration Appeals have all handed down decisions that have a direct effect on the immigration consequences…
A criminal defense attorney who does not know immigration law can end up getting their non-U.S. citizen clients deported. But that is just the beginning. Having a former criminal client who gets deported and blames the defense attorney leads to bar complaints, bad online reviews, bad word of mouth and…
In the past couple of weeks, multiple courts, including the Board of Immigration Appeals, the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals and even the U.S. Supreme Court have issued decisions which will have an effect on thousands of non-U.S. citizens facing criminal prosecutions in Florida. Non-citizens in criminal court face not…
In a long-awaiting ruling, the U.S. Supreme Court this week issued its decision in the case of Mellouli v. Lynch, 575 U.S. ____ (2015). This is the infamous case I blogged about months ago asking “When can a sock get you deported?” https://www.floridaimmigrationlawyerblog.com/2015/02/when_can_a_sock_get_your_depor.html The Supreme Court decided that the Board…
Recent Published AAO Decisions: Matter of Leacheng International, INC., 26 I&N Dec. 532 (AAO 2015); In the context of an I-140 Petition for a multinational manager or executive, there is no requirement that the beneficiary has been “doing business” with an outside third party pursuant to 8 C.F.R. § 204.5(j()2)…
Recent Published AG Decision: Matter of Silva-Trevino, 26 I&N Dec. 550 (AG 2015); Attorney General Holder (now former) completely vacated former AG Mukasey’s decision in 2008’s landmark decision, Matter of Silva-Trevino, 24 I&N Dec. 687 (AG 2008)-please hold your applause to the end. AG Holder recognized that five of the…
A Federal Court Judge recently banned the U.S. Government from using deterrence as a basis for denying the release of women and children from immigration detention facilities. Article about the Decision: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/02/20/immigration-detention-injunction_n_6724662.html Copy of the Judge’s Opinion: http://ecf.dcd.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/show_public_doc?2015cv0011-33 District Court Judge James E. Boasberg, from the U.S. District Court for…
People who are not United States citizens very often have the burden of proof in many aspects of immigration law. This is true whether you are applying for admission to the United States at a consulate overseas or at a port of entry, or trying to obtain your green card…
Whatever you call the Islamic State, ISIL, IS, or ISIS, everyone can agree that they commit horrible atrocities and brutal terroristic acts in multiple countries across the Middle East and North Africa. Their beheadings of Western and Asian Journalists on video were bad enough. Then they burned a Jordanian pilot…
The Board of Immigration Appeals recently published two new cases. Matter of Chairez discusses how Immigration Judges and the Board will employ the modified categorical approach as it applies to whether criminal statutes are divisible. Matter of Cross discusses who is considered a legitimated child for the purposes of deriving…