Carl Shusterman Immigration Lawyer Blog

Immigration Blog

Former INS Attorney Carl Shusterman has been writing an immigration blog on a regular basis since 1996.

Latinos Must Show Their Muscle in November

When the economy is in the tank, voters look for a scapegoat.  Back in 2005, when the economy was flourishing (Remember?), the McCain-Kennedy Comprehensive Immigration Reform (CIR) bill was co-sponsored by a bipartisan coalition of Senators including Republicans like Lindsay Graham of South Carolina, Sam Brownback of Kansas, Mel Martinez of Florida, and Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island, not […]

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Private Bill Saves Family from Deportation

Sometimes a private bill is the only thing which can save a family from deportation. Jessica Duran and her family had a big immigration problem when they visited me in my office a couple of months ago. The U.S. Court of the Appeals had dismissed their appeal, and they were under a final order of deportation. The […]

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Thai CDC Combats Human Trafficking and Modern Day Slavery

The Thai Community Development Center (Thai CDC) was founded in 1994 by leading human rights activist, Chanchanit Martorell, on the idea that all peoples have a basic right to a decent standard of living and quality of life. Yet, in the Thai and other disadvantaged communities, people are living in substandard housing and lack access to […]

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USCIS H-1B CAP 2010 Update

What a difference a year makes! Last year, employers submitted over 163,000 H-1B “cap-subject” H-1B petitions during the first week of April, forcing the USCIS to conduct a lottery to select 85,000 lucky winners. This year, the agency received only 63,000 petitions during the first two weeks of April, 43,000 for the general H-1B category, […]

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Asylum Denials at an All Time Low

Back in 1986, Immigration Judges denied almost 90% of all asylum requests. Now, during the past 9 months, the Judges granted 50% of asylum requests. What’s more, the disparities among various Immigration Judges have narrowed somewhat. This information is contained in a new report issued by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC) of the University of Syracuse. […]

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Let Avvo Help You Choose an Excellent Attorney

The most frequent question that we receive is “How do I choose a good immigration attorney?” Our response is “Why settle for ‘good’?”  Have you ever heard of Avvo? There are websites for finding excellent hotels, wonderful restaurants, and great physicians. How about a site for choosing an attorney? See: http://www.avvo.com During the past year, Avvo has […]

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Does Arizona Really Want Tough Immigration Enforcement?

After many months of calling on the Federal Government to more vigorously enforce our immigration laws, it turns out that some of the biggest immigration law violators are government officials in the State of Arizona. And as soon as the Justice Department charged them with breaking the law, their attitude suddenly became “enforce the laws against them, not against us!” Let me explain. Back […]

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Time for ICE Memo Critics to Chill

On August 20, John Morton, the Assistant Secretary of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), released a memorandum entitled “Guidance Regarding the Handling of Removal Proceedings of Aliens with Pending or Approved Application or Petitions”.   The ICE memo applies to persons in removal proceedings who meet the following criteria: The alien must be the subject […]

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The Family 2A Category Rocks!

Many of our clients have been crying tears of joy because of the September Visa Bulletin. The best news is the advance in the family-based 2A category. Just one year ago, the wait exceeded five years.  Now, the wait is down to just 8 months! This is very important to persons who were granted green cards […]

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Why Matter of Wang Got It Wrong – Four Fallacies

From its passage in 2002 until now, the USCIS has never issued so much as a memo explaining how to interpret the “automatic conversion” clause of the Child Status Protection Act (CSPA). They left it to the Board of Immigation Appeals (BIA) to explain this in Matter of Wang in 2009. The USCIS argued that the clause be […]

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