Legal Articles, Deportation

On May 6, 2021, the EOIR announced the swearing in of 17 new immigration judges, all of whom began their service in April 2021. The new immigration judges include several administrative immigration judges.

On May 7, 2021, the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services announced the Department of Homeland Security withdrew a proposed rule that would have expanded the biometrics collection requirements.

The EOIR has made a new searchable interactive EOIR policy manual available to the public.

On March 30, 2021, the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services announced that it had received enough electronic registrations during the initial H1B registration period to reach the fiscal year 2022 H-1B cap for both regular H-1B petitions and masters cap petitions.

The United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has reverted its policy to that which was in effect prior to October 2019 regarding certain applications being submitted with blank spaces.

The DHS declined to defend the new public charge rule of the Trump Administration and withdrew a corresponding affidavit of support rule, gradually moving back to the 1999 public charge rule.

The Second Circuit cleared the way to begin the process of requiring the Board of Immigration Appeals to make its thousands of unpublished decisions available to the public.

On February 24, 2021, President Joe Biden issued a Presidential Proclamation revoking former President Donald Trump’s April 2020 Executive Order barring the entry of certain classes of immigrants as permanent residents.

The Supreme Court will consider the public charge rule imposed by the administration of former President Donald Trump.

The whole idea of charging someone for being removed from the country is rife with problems. For one, they have already been removed, and suffered a forced change in their – and possibly their family’s – lives as a result. Secondly, charging anything assumes that they cost Canada for actions that they are culpable for. Third, the whole point of increasing the fees to such a degree – likely unaffordable to anyone removed – can only be to prevent those deported from ever returning to Canada. Fourth, it separates family from each other, which is contrary to Canada’s objectives in its immigration and refugee laws. Fifth, charging money for being forced into immigration detention should be cruel and unusual punishment. Finally, how is it fair to call these charges “fees”? Fees are administrative costs, which only make sense if they can actually be paid. They are better described as fines because they are punitive rather than administrative. They are designed to ward off those deported from the country from ever returning, akin to banishment.