On 10/30/09, President Obama announced the elimination of the HIV entry ban at the signing of the Ryan White HIV/AIDS Treatment Extension Act of 2009. The President stated that on 11/2/09 his Administration will issue a final rule to repeal the ban. The final rule is effective on 1/4/10.
EOIR’s Fraud and Abuse Program provides a systemic response to identifying and referring instances of suspected fraud and abuse by:
The Department of State will be accepting applications for the 2011 Diversity Visa Lottery program from October 2, 2009 to November 30, 2009. Each year, the Diversity Visa Lottery program makes 55,000 permanent resident visas available to people from eligible countries who meet the strict requirements. Of the 55,000 immigrant visas, 5,000 are allocated for use under the Nicaraguan Adjustment and Central American Relief Act (NACARA), thereby making only 50,000 permanent resident visas available on an annual basis.
During last year’s 2010 visa lottery process, 13.6 million visa lottery applications were received and there were 102,800 winners randomly chosen. Since not all winners submit an application and pursue visa issuance, the larger number ensures that all 50,000 visas will be issued and used. Immigrant visas under the 2010 visa lottery were issued to the following Caribbean countries: Guyana 41, Trinidad & Tobago 226, St. Lucia 19, Grenada 9, Suriname 10, Barbados 29, Antigua & Barbuda 9, St. Kitts & Nevis 6, and St. Vincent 9.
The visas are distributed among six geographic regions, with a greater number of visas going to regions with lower rates of immigration, and with no visas going to nationals of countries sending more than 50,000 immigrants to the United States over the period of the past five years. Within each region, no single country may receive more than seven percent of the available DVs in any one year.
The Department of State chooses the winners of the Diversity Visa Lottery program randomly through a computer-generated lottery drawing. Anyone selected under the Diversity Visa Lottery program will be notified directly by the U.S. Department of State through the mail. If the winner is granted permanent residency, s/he will be authorized to live and work in the United States along with their spouse and children under age 21.
There are four basic entry requirements for the Diversity Visa Lottery program.
Native of Eligible Country: Applicants must be a native of an eligible country. Natives from the following countries are not eligible to apply because they sent more than 50,000 immigrants to the United States during the past five (5) years: Brazil, Canada, China, Colombia, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, India, Jamaica, Mexico, Pakistan, Philippines, Peru, Poland, South Korea, United Kingdom, and Vietnam.
Education or Work Experience: Applicants must have either a high school education or its equivalent or two years of work experience within the past five years in an occupation requiring at least two years of training or experience to perform.
Photograph: Recent photographs of the applicant and his family must be submitted with their application. Note, a group or family photo will not be accepted. Since the application is submitted on-line, the digital photos are also required to be submitted on-line. Thereby, the photos can be produced by taking a new digital image or using a digital scanner to scan a submitted photograph. If a new digital image is submitted, it must be in JPEG format, have a maximum file size of 240KB, have a resolution of 600 pixels high by 600 pixels wide, and have color depth of 24-bit color. If a scan photo is submitted, it must be scanned at a resolution of 150 dpi, it must be in JPEG format, have a maximum file size of 240KB, have a resolution of 600 by 600 pixels, and have a color depth of 24-bit color. Note, this is the most cumbersome part of the process because if your photo does not meet these specific requirements, your application will not be accepted on-line.
Application: The Diversity Visa Lottery application is accessible only at www.dvlottery.state.gov and must be submitted on-line. Note, when your application and photo have been accepted on-line, a confirmation screen will appear and this should be printed for your records.
Until there is a legislative solution to remedy the situation commonly referred to as the “widow penalty,” USCIS is providing interim administrative relief in the form of deferred action to surviving spouses whose U.S. citizen spouses died before the second anniversary of their marriage. The “widow penalty” prevents widow(er)s of deceased U.S. citizens, who were married less than two years at the time of the U.S. citizen’s death, from becoming permanent residents based on the marriage. Under this action USCIS also will consider favorably requests for humanitarian reinstatement where previously approved petitions for widow(er)s had been revoked because of the law.
Q. What is deferred action?
A. Deferred action is an exercise of prosecutorial discretion not to pursue removal from the United States of a particular foreigner for a specific period. Deferred action is not intended to be a permanent remedy for this situation; rather it is a temporary discretionary solution. The grant of deferred action by USCIS does not confer or alter any immigration status. It does not affect any period of prior unlawful presence. The grant of deferred action does not convey or imply any waivers of inadmissibility that may exist, regardless of whether or not that inadmissibility is known to DHS at the time of the request for deferred action. Likewise, deferred action cannot be used to establish eligibility for any immigration benefit that requires maintenance of lawful status. Periods of time in deferred action do, however, qualify as periods of stay authorized by the Secretary for purposes of sections 212(a)(9)(B) and (C) of the Immigration and Nationality Act [INA]. Aliens with deferred action may apply for an Employment Authorization Document (EAD) if they can establish an economic necessity for employment.
Q. Who is covered under this program?
A. Surviving spouses (and their qualifying children), whose U.S. citizen spouses died before the second anniversary of marriage, who have not remarried since the death of the spouse, and are currently residing in the United States. Such surviving spouses are covered without restrictions on how long the U.S. citizen spouse has been deceased as long as the surviving spouse has not remarried.
Q. Who is not covered under this program?
A. This program does not cover surviving spouses or qualifying children of deceased U.S. citizens who are residing outside the United States or surviving spouses and children of a lawful permanent resident or other non-U.S. citizen. This program also does not cover surviving spouses or qualifying children of deceased U.S. citizens if the surviving spouse remarried at any time after the U.S. citizen’s death (regardless of whether or not the subsequent marriage has been terminated). The program does not cover any beneficiary who was legally separated from his or her U.S. citizen spouse at the time of the citizen’s death, or such beneficiary’s children.
A new report from the Cardozo Immigration Justice Clinic entitled, “Constitution on ICE: A Report on Immigration Home Raid Operations,” is an analysis of the available evidence regarding the prevalence of constitutional violations occurring during ICE home raids. Through two Freedom of information Act lawsuits, the authors of this report obtained significant samples of ICE arrest records from home raid operations in New York and New Jersey. According to the author’s analysis of these records, together with other publicly available documents, there is an established pattern of misconduct by ICE agents in the New York and New Jersey Field offices. Further, the report shows that such pattern may be a widespread national phenomenon reaching beyond these local offices. The pattern of misconduct involves ICE agents illegally:
• entering homes without legal authority – for example, physically pushing or breaking their way into private residences;
• seizing non-target individuals during home raid operations– for example, seizing innocent people in their bedrooms without any basis;
• searching homes without legal authority – for example, breaking down locked doors inside homes; and
• seizing individuals based solely on racial or ethnic appearance or on limited English proficiency.
Follow link to report: http://www.cardozo.yu.edu/uploadedFiles/Cardozo/Profiles/immigrationlaw-741/IJC_ICE-Home-Raid-Report%20Updated.pdf
Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for nationals of Somalia has been extended from its current expiration date of Sept. 17, 2009 through March 17, 2011. During the past year, DHS and the Department of State have continued to review conditions in Somalia. Based on this review, Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano has determined that an 18-month extension is warranted because the armed conflict is ongoing, and the extraordinary and temporary conditions that prompted the last TPS designation of Somalia on Sept. 4, 2001 persist.
With these reforms, ICE will move away from our present decentralized, jail-oriented approach to a system wholly designed for and based on ICE’s civil detention authorities. The system will no longer rely primarily on excess capacity in penal institutions. In the next three to five years, ICE will design facilities located and operated for immigration detention purposes. These same reforms will bring improved medical care, custodial conditions, fiscal prudence, and ICE oversight.
An April 3, 2009 Memo from Donald Neufeld, Acting Associate Director, USCIS, provides guidance on the adjudication of an I-751 petition if the conditional permanent resident and petitioning spouse are legally separated or have initiated divorce or annulment proceedings, but the marriage has not been terminated. Memo.