All Posts

Yes. Under a new Board of Immigration Appeals decision issued on September 29, 2026, an immigration judge can deny, or "pretermit," an asylum application without ever holding a hearing and without the Department of Homeland Security asking for it. The ruling means the written application itself, not a courtroom hearing, can decide an asylum case. What the Board Decided in Matter of G-R-B- The case is Matter of G-R-B-, 30 I&N Dec. 102 (BIA 2026), a precedent decision from the

Family-based green card waits can stretch anywhere from a couple of years to more than two decades because Congress allows only a limited number of family preference visas each year, and no single country can receive more than seven percent of them. The October 2026 Visa Bulletin shows just how wide that range has become, with some categories moving forward only months at a time while others remain stuck more than twenty years behind. How the Family Preference Visa System Wor

A T visa lets certain survivors of human trafficking remain in the United States legally, receive work authorization, and eventually apply for a green card, but only if the application meets several specific legal requirements. In most cases that includes cooperating with a law enforcement investigation into the trafficking, though real exceptions exist for minors and trauma survivors. Here is how the process actually works, from eligibility through the path to permanent resi

A federal appeals court has ruled that some immigrants held in mandatory immigration detention without a bond hearing may pursue a constitutional challenge to that detention. The decision does not hand anyone an automatic bond hearing, but it keeps a legal door open that a string of earlier rulings had appeared to close. On September 21, 2026, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals issued a published decision in Padilla v. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement holding that cer

For many people who need a waiver of the three-year or ten-year unlawful presence bar, getting the family petition approved is the easy part of the case. Proving "extreme hardship" to a qualifying U.S. citizen or permanent resident spouse or parent is usually what actually decides whether the green card case succeeds. Families are often surprised by this. An approved I-130 petition feels like the hard-won milestone, and in many cases it is straightforward once the marriage or

A new executive order signed on September 18, 2026 directs federal agencies to weigh an H-1B sponsoring employer's recent or planned layoffs of U.S. workers when reviewing that employer's H-1B petitions and labor condition applications, and it separately extends the $100,000 supplemental H-1B fee requirement through September 2027, although that fee remains blocked in federal court and is not currently being collected. If your employer sponsors your H-1B status, or if your co

An approved Special Immigrant Juvenile petition does not by itself give an immigration judge the power to release someone from immigration detention, according to a Board of Immigration Appeals decision issued this year, and that gap matters most for young people who age out of childhood while their case is still pending. What Special Immigrant Juvenile Status Is Meant to Do Special Immigrant Juvenile Status, often called SIJS, is a humanitarian classification for children in

Finishing the alcohol education class, drug counseling, or probation-ordered testing that a criminal court required is usually just the legal minimum, and immigration judges and USCIS officers generally treat it as exactly that: the minimum, not proof that someone has changed. If a DUI, a drug offense, or another alcohol or substance-related conviction is part of an immigration case, the record needed to overcome it is often much larger than a certificate of completion, and i

If you work for a foreign embassy, consulate, or an international organization in the United States and your child was born here on or after September 4, 2026, that child may not be a U.S. citizen even though they were born on U.S. soil, but a new Department of Homeland Security rule now gives many of these children a direct path to a green card. What the New DHS Rule Actually Does On September 9, 2026, DHS published an interim final rule in the Federal Register (a follow-up

If you have a green card, a visa, or any other status that lets you live and work in the United States, and you also have any kind of criminal history, even something old, minor, or already resolved, a Supreme Court decision issued this summer changes how much you can safely assume about coming back after a trip abroad. On June 23, 2026, the Supreme Court ruled in Blanche v. Lau, No. 25-429, that border officers do not need clear and convincing evidence of a disqualifying off

PERM labor certification is usually the first stage of an employer-sponsored EB-2 or EB-3 green card case. The employer defines the permanent position, obtains a prevailing wage, recruits U.S. workers, and files ETA Form 9089 with the U.S. Department of Labor. If the Department of Labor certifies the application, the employer may proceed with an I-140 immigrant petition. PERM is not a visa or green card application. A pending or approved labor certification does not give the

Updated July 26, 2026 Photographed by Salah Darwish A federal court has temporarily blocked USCIS from rejecting a pending asylum application, terminating asylum-based employment authorization, or initiating removal proceedings solely because an asylum applicant failed to pay the annual asylum fee. The July 21, 2026, order in Venezuelan Association of Massachusetts v. USCIS provides important protection for asylum applicants who missed a USCIS payment deadline. However, it do

Beginning September 18, 2026, the federal government will apply a substantially broader and less predictable public charge standard to certain people applying for permanent residence or admission to the United States. The new rule does not make the receipt of public benefits an automatic reason to deny a green card. It does, however, allow immigration officers to consider a wider range of public benefits and financial circumstances when deciding whether an applicant is “likel

Beginning September 15, 2026, a new federal rule will change how unlawful presence is calculated for many people who entered the United States with F, J, or M visas. The most serious consequence is not simply that students and exchange visitors will have new expiration dates or additional applications to file. The rule may prevent people who are already out of status from using employment-based or family-based immigration options that remain available to them today. Many form

If you have a case pending before the Immigration Court, you may have noticed that removal proceedings do not operate the way they did even a few years ago. Across many Immigration Courts, attorneys are seeing shorter timelines between hearings, greater scrutiny of continuance requests, evolving courtroom procedures, and increased efforts to move cases toward completion. While every Immigration Court and every Immigration Judge manages cases differently, these changes are aff

If you have plans to travel internationally this summer, you may be wondering whether recent developments in immigration law affect your ability to return to the United States. It is a reasonable question. Recently, the United States Supreme Court issued an important decision involving a lawful permanent resident who returned from international travel and was treated as an applicant for admission based on alleged criminal conduct. Although the Court's decision addressed a spe

One of the most common misconceptions in immigration law is that if a person cannot produce a visa stamp, an I-94 record, or a passport showing their entry into the United States, they were never legally admitted. While that may sometimes be true, immigration law is far more complicated than many people realize. In fact, whether someone was legally admitted to the United States is often one of the most important questions in an immigration case. The answer can determine wheth

This week, USCIS issued a new memorandum regarding adjustment of status adjudications, and almost immediately social media filled with claims that adjustment of status is effectively over. That is not true. The memo attempts to frame adjustment of status as relief that should only be granted in “extraordinary circumstances.” The legal problem is that Congress never wrote the statute that way. Adjustment of status exists because Congress created it under INA § 245(a), codified

Something has changed at USCIS. Immigration filings have always required attention to detail. That is not new. Forms have to be signed correctly, filing fees have to match, and supporting evidence has always mattered. But what we are seeing right now is different from normal scrutiny. Recently, USCIS has started rejecting filings over issues that often have little to do with whether the person actually qualifies for the immigration benefit being requested. The agency has roll

Most people think immigration outcomes are binary. A case is either approved or denied. In reality, there is a third category that receives far less attention and causes far more frustration: cases that simply do not move. No decision. No clear explanation. Just ongoing review, repeated status checks, and months or years of uncertainty. These cases are not stuck by accident. They are often the result of something more deliberate. Immigration officers are not required to rush