Current News

Clients who have been abandoned by their attorneys may still be eligible for post-conviction relief even if they did not always meet the court’s deadlines. The Supreme Court ruled on January 19th, 2012 that it matters when an attorney abandons their client.

This is good news for prisoners pursuing postconviction relief. Preciously the Supreme Court held that a criminal defendant has no right to counsel when filing a federal post-conviction motion, but the prisoner is still expected to meet strict deadlines. Now

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Susan Berfield of Businessweek recently reported on the Mamtek EB-5 project. As detailed in our earlier post, the Mamtek project was one that unfortunately never came to fruition. There were plans to build a large scale factory to produce a sugar substitute, known as Sweet-O. At first it was just delays, but then the plan eventually unraveled as people looked deeper and realized that the head of the company had no idea how to create a large scale manufacturing

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The priority dates in the employment based 2nd preference category, also known as EB-2, moved up an entire year for China and India. Beginning on February 1st, 2012 USCIS will now accept I-485 applications for individuals in the EB-2 category from China or India with a priority date of 1/1/2010 or earlier. The January 2012 Visa Bulletin indicates that this month USCIS is working on applications filed on 1/1/2009 or earlier, which had a 9 month

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Many states passed immigration laws this past year including California, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Tennessee, and South Carolina.

The California DREAM ACT does not go into effect until 2013, when it will help an estimated 2500 undocumented college students qualify for waivers, Cal Grants and other aid.

The controversial Alabama immigration law imposed various measures. The one that recently took effect is that beginning January 1st any employer that does business with a government agency

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On August 2nd, 2011 Secretary Napolitano and USCIS Director Mayorkas made a dramatic announcement that entrepreneurs and investors could take advantage of the existing immigration system to obtain a visa and/or green card. One aspect of this memo indicated that adjudicators would view “self-petitions” by entrepreneurs for an H-1b visa more favorably.

The classic scenario is when an entrepreneur wants to start a business and sponsor him/herself for an H-1B visa. Technically it is the corporate entity,

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Rep. Chafetz’ bill (H.R. 3012) which would phase out the per-country limit for employment-based immigrants and increase the limit for family-based passed the House. It was put into the “hotline” process in the Senate, which means that the bill can be halted if any member objects. And, not surprisingly Senator Grassley put a hold on it.

To release his hold Grassley wants dramatic changes including: reducing the employment based per-country limit to 15%

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The Partnership for a New American Economy conducted a recent poll of Iowa Republicans. The results overwhelmingly indicated that they were in favor of immigration reform. In particular they were open to the following reforms:

• 72% believe foreign-born students that received a University education in the U.S. should be allowed to enter the workforce after graduation.
• 64% want to streamline the process for employers to hire needed employees when Americans are not filling vacant jobs
• 66% want more

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