Sometimes it’s hard to believe, but I’ve been in immigration law for 25 years. With every new President or Congress, there are always those that think “this one will be different.” When it comes to immigration law, “different” is variable. No matter who is POTUS, immigration law is very challenging. I’ve been through five presidential administrations, and the roller coaster ride never stops. There is always change in the laws, frequently making it harder, or occasional “dreams” like DACA that seem too good to be true, only to be stopped and started again.

Hundreds of thousands of young immigrants can breathe a sigh of relief. The Supreme Court has blocked an attempt by the Trump administration to end DACA. Moreover, a federal judge has ordered USCIS to start accepting new DACA applications.

USCIS published its new fee schedule – with some significant or even dramatic increases – on August 2 of this year, to go into effect on October 2. USCIS conducted a comprehensive biennial fee review and determined that current fees do not recover the full cost of providing adjudication and naturalization services.

Obviously it’s an understatement to say that the new Trump order stinks. Temporarily suspending the H1B visa, and other work visas makes no sense, by ignoring the US need for workers in healthcare, schools, camps, technology, and so many other industries especially during Covid. The mythological argument that immigrants steal jobs is older than America itself.

For many people, staying in the US can be a matter of life and death. Being deported could mean persecution in their own countries, torture, and/or death. But for many immigrants, extreme hardship means being forced to live without  your family, children, spouse, or simply losing your access to financial stability for yourself or family.

I’ve been an immigration lawyer for 23 yrs, and in that time I’ve seen many different approaches to our “border crisis”. Border crossings by immigrants without visas have occurred for decades, and for the longest time border crossers were treated fairly loosely by a system that knew we were a better landing place for many people in other parts of the world – particularly for our neighbours in the South.

President Trump has spent a great deal of time railing against immigrants, and working hard to stem the flow of immigration to the US. But when did anyone start to believe that immigration is a bad thing? From an economic perspective, immigrants bring so much to their host countries…

Over the weekend Fox news published an article entitled: White House releases ‘explosive’ tally of green cards issued in ‘chain migration’. In this “Exclusive” about chain migration, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Director Lee Cissna is quoted as saying: “For years, we’ve known that large numbers of immigrants have been coming based on petitions from previous immigrants, but this is the first time we really kind of see the whole scope of the problem…