Immigration Law

Repeat offender who met with clients at bar association law library gets time for posing as attorney

A nonlawyer who brazenly offered his services as an immigration attorney and met with clients in the Brooklyn Bar Association’s law library, which he called his office, has been sentenced to a 2- to 4-year prison term. Howard Seidler, 70, pleaded guilty last month to grand larceny and immigrant services…

Mar 10, 2016 10:40 AM CST

Gambler’s fallacy affects immigration judges, study says

Immigration judges succumb to gambler’s fallacy in their decision-making, a study has found. Gambler’s fallacy is the belief that an outcome will change after a string of the same outcomes. As applied to coin flips, the gambler’s fallacy is that the odds of a flip coming up heads will change…

Mar 10, 2016 9:12 AM CST

Immigration judge said some 4-year-olds don’t need lawyers in deportation cases, ACLU lawyer claims

It might seem obvious that a 3- or 4-year-old child needs a lawyer at a deportation hearing. But children as young as 3 or 4 years old can represent themselves, an immigration judge reportedly stated or implied in a deposition in a federal civil rights case last year, so long…

Mar 4, 2016 2:50 PM CST

Inadequate medical care in immigration detention facilities leads to deaths, report says

Inadequate medical care in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facilities has led to in-custody deaths, according to a study by three watchdog groups, the Associated Press reports. Reports on deaths in detention from 2010 to 2012, filed by an ICE review board investigating deaths in detention centers, were examined…

Feb 26, 2016 1:25 PM CST

Rapid DNA devices provide results in less than two hours; how are they being used?

Law enforcement and immigration officials are showing interest in new microwave-sized devices that test DNA and return results in less than two hours. Some police departments are using rapid DNA results to search state databases to solve crimes, the New Republic reports in a story co-published with Al Jazeera America.…

Feb 26, 2016 6:15 AM CST

Once living in US illegally, immigrant now looks forward to paying $50K in taxes on law practice

After many years of living in the United States without legal permission, a California attorney admitted in 2014 after state lawmakers passed a bill allowing him to join the state bar is looking forward to paying U.S. taxes on his new law practice. The tally: Not quite $42,000 in federal…

Feb 25, 2016 2:50 PM CST

How Scalia’s death could affect pending high-profile cases

The death of Justice Antonin Scalia on Saturday leaves the U.S. Supreme Court without a conservative majority and has the potential to affect several high-profile cases. Scalia’s absence has the potential to affect six big cases on the court’s docket, report the New York Times and USA Today. If there…

Feb 16, 2016 12:30 PM CST

Immigration lawyer gets 21 months for trying to help client disobey court order, flee US

A California immigration lawyer was sentenced Monday to 21 months in federal prison for trying to help a client who was a material witness in a “birth tourism” case leave the country. Prosecutors said Ken Zhiyi Liang, 39, accepted $6,000 from the Chinese woman to help her get out of…

Feb 9, 2016 1:50 PM CST

Federal court refuses to ‘stick its judicial nose into this political morass’ involving refugees

A federal judge in Dallas has refused to grant a preliminary injunction that would block the federal government from resettling Syrian refuges in Texas. In his Feb. 8 order (PDF) denying the injunction, U.S. District Judge David Godbey said the case presents political questions that should not be resolved by…

Feb 9, 2016 9:28 AM CST

Lawyers get a peek at the struggles in life and law on the Mexican border

In the high desert east of San Diego, the international border between the United States and Mexico is sometimes a fence, sometimes a wall and sometimes no more than an imaginary line. Enrique Morones knows where those weak places are, and so do U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers. On…

Feb 6, 2016 1:48 PM CST

After years of legal battle, Mexican immigrant becomes a New York lawyer

Cesar Vargas, brought to this country from Mexico as a 5-year-old, has lived in the U.S. without documentation for most of his life. Nonetheless, he graduated from college and law school and, in 2011, passed the New York bar exam. And, on Wednesday, after years of legal battle, largely because…

Feb 3, 2016 2:05 PM CST

Meet the father of the landmark lawsuit that secured basic rights for immigrant minors

At first, Carlos Holguín was skeptical. A well-known actor in Hollywood called seeking help for his housekeeper's daughter after immigration authorities arrested and detained the girl for being in the country illegally.

Feb 1, 2016 5:00 AM CST

Supreme Court to review Obama’s executive action on immigration

The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday agreed to review President Obama’s deferred deportation program. The court will likely decide the case before its summer recess. A favorable ruling for the administration would give Obama a chance to implement the program before he leaves office, the Washington Post reports. The New…

Jan 19, 2016 8:42 AM CST

Federal push for deportation includes 7,700 minors who never went to court, advocates say

Immigrant advocates say minor immigrants are facing a “due process crisis” sparked by the Obama administration’s latest push to deport people ordered removed. The Los Angeles Times reported Monday that more than 7,700 immigrant minors have been ordered deported without ever having appeared in court. That number comes from federal…

Jan 6, 2016 11:20 AM CST

Breyer: Country’s ‘stronger tradition of civil liberties’ makes another mass internment unlikely

Justice Stephen G. Breyer on Sunday refused to say what he thinks of Donald Trump’s call to temporarily ban Muslim immigration, but the justice did say he thinks mass internment is an unlikely prospect in the United States. In an interview with ABC News, Breyer said the issue of Muslim…

Dec 28, 2015 9:38 AM CST