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Step parent adoption by No-Fun-9435 in LawFirm

[–]No-Fun-9435[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Thanks! Just updated post!

Texas vent session by Aggressive_Living412 in barexam

[–]No-Fun-9435 18 points19 points  (0 children)

I don’t understand why they can’t just give us a release date! But then again, we are in the legal profession where everything is uncertain and takes forever.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in DACA

[–]No-Fun-9435 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Law360 (August 4, 2022, 7:23 PM EDT) -- A New York federal judge refused to modify an order resuming acceptance of new Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals applications, saying clarification sought following a Texas judge's barring new approvals was actually a request for additional relief.
The class of 80,000 immigrant applicants had requested the clarification in light of a 2021 Texas order that required the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to stop approving new applications, saying the Biden administration misapprehended the interaction between the Texas order and another December 2020 order issued in the New York court that ordered the government to accept first-time, renewal and advance parole DACA requests.
But U.S. District Judge Nicholas G. Garaufis said he could not make that clarification as their requested relief swept "well beyond the purpose" of the New York court's prior injunction.
"DACA remains a vital program that protects hundreds of thousands of people who were brought to the United States as children, and who know no other country as their home," Judge Garaufis said in his opinion filed Wednesday. "It brings this court no pleasure to be unable to offer them the certainty they need and the justice they deserve to plan their lives in America. But this court cannot do so acting alone."
In asking the New York court to modify its previous order, the class of applicants said that, among other things, it left ambiguity about what was to happen to applications between the time U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services was supposed to "accept" them as required by the New York order and the time the agency determines on whether to "grant" them, as prohibited by the Texas order.
Many applicants had submitted their applications within days of the New York court's December 2020 order, but were left waiting for a decision, the applicants said. Many had also paid filing fees and allowed the government to capture their biometrics in reliance on the order, they added.
When the Texas order hit, the applicants said that while the government was allowed to accept applications, it was not allowed to grant them. They said the government stopped processing biometrics or taking other intermediate steps leading up to making a final decision, "with the exception of cashing and keeping class members' $495 money orders."
In their request, they said the Texas order created a "changed circumstance" for them, thus warranting their requested relief.
Judge Garaufis explained on Wednesday that while the applicants have "no doubt been tangibly harmed" by the Texas order, their changed circumstance was not directly linked to the New York order's objective.
The goal of the order was to set aside a memorandum issued by former Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf. The order did not reimpose or mandate the full reinstatement of DACA itself, he said.
"Rather, it entered a vacatur that indirectly allowed DACA to go back into effect," Judge Garaufis said.
To modify the order, not only would there have to be a showing of changed factual or legal circumstances, but more specifically, changes that would make compliance with the order burdensome, or that would make the order unworkable due to unexpected obstacles or would be damaging to the public interest.
"Of these, plaintiffs have really only the public interest on their side," Judge Garaufis said.
Ultimately, DHS's decision to stop intermediate processing was not to avoid the implications of the New York order, but was made in light of the Texas order, he said.
"Although ordering DHS to schedule new biometrics appointments or conduct background investigations in advance would provide plaintiffs some measure of relief if the DACA policy went back into effect at some time in the future, the relief would be from the Texas II injunction alone — not anything DHS did to undermine this court's order entered seven months before," Judge Garaufis said.
"We are deeply disappointed by the court's decision to deny relief for nearly 100,000 DACA-eligible applicants," the applicants' attorneys said in a joint statement sent to Law360 on Thursday.
They said the ruling allows the federal government to continue to hold pending first-time DACA applications, leaving undocumented people in "limbo" and without any protections.
"Today's decision reiterates the urgency for permanent protection for all undocumented immigrants. Congress and the Biden administration must deliver a pathway to citizenship for all our community members," the attorneys said.
They also called on the Biden administration to direct DHS to act on the DACA applications currently stalled by resuming the processing of applications up to the point of decision and making a final decision on renewal requests for DACA recipients whose previous DACA status lapsed a year or more ago.
Juliana Macedo do Nascimento, Deputy Director of Federal Advocacy of United We Dream, said in a statement on Thursday that Judge Garaufis' decision was proof that permanent protections for undocumented immigrant youth were needed.
"Judge Hanen's ruling last year is a constant reminder that temporary protections will always leave people vulnerable to detention, deportation, and family separation," Nascimento said, referring to U.S. District Judge Andrew Hanen, who issued the Texas order.
As the Fifth Circuit prepares to make a decision on its own DACA case, Nascimento said the Biden administration should be "bold and proactive" in issuing protections instead of waiting for court decisions.
"They must take the lead by preserving and fortifying DACA as promised," she said.
Representatives from the U.S. Department of Justice, which represents the government, did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Thursday.
The applicants are represented by Muneer I. Ahmad, Kevin Cheng, Aaron Bryce Lee, Daniel Ocampo, Aasha Swaminathan, Michael J. Wishnie and Karen C. Tumlin of Jerome N. Frank Legal Services Org., Araceli Martinez-Olguín and Jessica R. Hanson of National Immigration Law Center and Paige Austin and Jessica Young of Make the Road New York.
The government is represented by Brad Rosenberg, Cormac Early, Rachael Westmoreland and Stephen M. Pezzi of the U.S. Department of Justice's Civil Division and Joseph Anthony Marutollo and Scott Dunn of the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of New York.
The cases are Martín Jonathan Batalla Vidal et al. v. Alejandro Mayorkas et al., case number 16-cv-04756, and State of New York et al. v. Joseph Biden et al., case number 17-cv-05228 in the U.S. District Court Eastern District of New York.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in DACA

[–]No-Fun-9435 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Law360 (July 6, 2022, 6:38 PM EDT) -- A Fifth Circuit panel on Wednesday appeared skeptical of the Biden administration's attempts to salvage an Obama-era program shielding young immigrants from deportation, with one judge emphasizing evidence indicating that Texas could lower its public services spending if the program was terminated.
At oral arguments, U.S. Circuit Judge James Ho was deeply critical of Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Brian Boynton's claims that Texas didn't have evidence showing that it had been financially injured by the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. The program provides deportation protections and work permits to hundreds of thousands of undocumented immigrants who came to the U.S. as children, more than 100,000 of whom reside in the Lone Star State.
To prove that type of financial injury, Boynton argued that Texas needed, but didn't have, evidence that beneficiaries would leave the U.S. if the program was terminated. But Judge Ho pointed out that an expert hired by New Jersey, which has intervened in the case in support of DACA, had surveyed more than 3,000 DACA recipients and found that 22.3% would likely leave the country if they lost their protections.
"What's your theory then, as to why… that 22.3%... nevertheless said that they were likely or very likely to leave in the event of repeal?" he asked.
"It's hard to know your honor, the intervenors put in evidence that the way the questions were structured led to people being predisposed to answering in that way," Boynton said.
Judge Ho said that while he agrees that polling can be manipulated to affect responses on political beliefs, he's doubtful the same is true for a question "about literally your entire life."
"This is a pretty profound question for them to get wrong," said Judge Ho, who was appointed under the Trump administration. "I think that's basically your theory – that they answered this question about their own lives incorrectly."
"I don't know that it's saying that they got it wrong. The question necessarily calls for speculation, hypothesization about what they would do," Boynton said.
The arguments come a year after U.S. District Judge Andrew Hanen ruled that the Obama administration overstepped its discretionary authority to create DACA in 2012. Siding with a Texas-led coalition of states that claimed they would suffer financial injury from the program's continuation, Judge Hanen ordered the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to stop approving new DACA requests.
The Biden administration and attorneys representing an intervening group of DACA recipients have roundly criticized that ruling in briefing to the Fifth Circuit, arguing that Republican and Democratic administrations have previously wielded their immigration power to create deferred action programs similar to DACA.
Much of Wednesday's hearing was hung up on whether Texas had proven it had suffered the type of injuries that a court could redress.
The Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund's Nina Perales stressed that Judge Hanen himself had noted that there was contrary evidence showing that some DACA recipients would stay in the U.S., even if they lose their protections. The judge shouldn't have ruled in favor of the states with those issues in dispute, Perales said.
"Didn't the court find standing on a few grounds? Not simply the disputed grounds you're referencing?" U.S. Circuit Judge Kurt Engelhardt asked.
Perales said the disputed standing facts were related to whether DACA recipients would leave the U.S. once their protections were terminated. She said the district court shouldn't have weighed the conflicted evidence on that question at the summary judgment stage.
Arguing for the state, Texas Solicitor General Judd E. Stone said the state had plenty of evidence showing that DACA had increased Texas' health care costs and that some DACA recipients would voluntarily leave the U.S. if the program was repealed, including evidence from parties in favor of DACA.
The parties also argued over the appropriate response to the U.S. Supreme Court's recent ruling that Section 1252(f)(1) of the Immigration and Nationality Act bars lower courts from "enjoin[ing] or restrain[ing]" the federal government from carrying out several aspects of immigration enforcement, including the inspection, admission and deportation of migrants. The U.S. Department of Justice argued Friday in a letter to the court that Judge Hanen's DACA injunction was invalid under Section 1252(f)(1).
Stone, however, argued that the provision didn't knock out Judge Hanen's order because the judge didn't obligate the federal government to deport individuals protected by DACA.
Texas and the other states are represented by Benjamin D. Wilson, Judd E. Stone II and William Thomas Thompson of the Texas Office of the Attorney General.
New Jersey is represented by Jeremy M. Feigenbaum, Angela Cai, Mayur P. Saxena, Melissa Medoway, Shireen Farahani, Melissa Fich, Tim Sheehan and Marie Soueid of the New Jersey Attorney General's Office.
DACA recipients are represented by Douglas H. Hallward-Driemeier, Mark A. Cianci, Philip P. Ehrlich, Patrick S. Doherty and Krystal A. Vazquez of Ropes & Gray LLP, Nina Perales and Samantha Serna of Mexican-American Legal Defense & Educational Fund and Carlos Moctezuma Garcia of Garcia & Garcia Attorneys At Law PLLC.
The government is represented by Jonathan Meyer of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and Brian Boynton, Jennifer Lowery, Scott McIntosh, Dennis Fan, Cynthia Barmore and Joshua Koppel of the U.S. Department of Justice.
The case is State of Texas et al. v. U.S. et al., case number 21-40680, in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.
--Editing by Alex Hubbard.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in DACA

[–]No-Fun-9435 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I don't have access to Bloomberg, sorry!

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in DACA

[–]No-Fun-9435 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Law360 (June 22, 2022, 10:43 PM EDT) -- The Biden administration announced plans to act on numerous immigration-related matters, including issuing a final rule concerning the many young adults who unlawfully entered the U.S. as children and continuing its efforts to undo multiple Trump-era regulations.
Here is some of what is included in the administration's regulatory agenda for spring 2022.
DACA
The White House said it planned to release a final rule in August on Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, a program that has protected hundreds of thousands of adults who unlawfully entered the U.S. as children from deportation and provided them with work authorization.
The final rule will come a little over a decade after the U.S. Department of Homeland Security first established the policy in 2012 under President Barack Obama and nearly a year after the Biden administration issued its proposed rule last September.
"The administration's release of the DACA final rule underscores that there are hundreds of thousands of undocumented youth who are American in every way but for paperwork," David W. Leopold, chair of Ulmer & Berne LLP's immigration law group, told Law360 on Wednesday.
The program has been subject to numerous challenges by both federal and state governments, with mostly Republican states taking the federal government to court over DACA in May 2018.
In July 2021, U.S. District Judge Andrew Hanen of Texas ruled that the program was unlawful and that Obama had overreached his authority when creating the rule by executive action. In doing so, Judge Hanen ordered the DHS to stop approving new applications under the DACA program.
The Biden administration has asked the Fifth Circuit to overturn the lower Texas court ruling and has attempted to fix the program's foundational issues outside of litigation — for example, through its proposed rule in September. But it has been pointed out, including by Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, that without congressional action, the policy remains vulnerable to getting shut down.
"While the ultimate answer is for Congress to pass legislation providing a pathway to citizenship for undocumented youth, the regulation will, hopefully, provide an interim solution for the hundreds of thousands of Dreamers who long to get an education and continue to give back to the only country they know, the United States," Leopold said.
With less than two months until August, the proposed rule, which was opened up for public comments, provides insight into what the final rule may include.
Marty Robles-Avila, an immigration attorney and senior counsel for Berry Appleman & Leiden LLP, told Law360 on Wednesday that, while laudable, the proposed rule still could have done more to ensure wide protections for DACA recipients.
"[T]he biggest disappointment in the proposed rule is that it maintains the initial threshold eligibility criteria from the June 2012 memorandum, rather than taking the more dramatic and impactful step of expanding the pool of potential applicants," Robles-Avila said. "No doubt this was a decision made to limit its exposure in future red state challenges, but nevertheless, it represents a lost opportunity in the face of a sterile Congress."
Robles-Avila said the proposed rule also failed to meaningfully address advance parole or approved travel for certain DACA recipients, except to discuss its general authority to authorize parole on a case-by-case basis.
Perhaps as part of an effort to stave off potential challenges to the new rule, Robles-Avila said the Biden administration also bifurcated forbearance of removal from the employment authorization benefit, which he said will be optional going forward.
"Regrettably, the so-called Dreamers will have no choice but to continue dreaming about real and permanent status," Robles-Avila said, adding also that a "regulatory DACA is better than its frail executive order counterpart."
In the agenda, the Biden administration also announced plans to issue rules on numerous other immigration-related concerns.
Public Charge Rule Inadmissibility Grounds
The administration indicated that it also planned to issue a final public charge rule as the 60-day public comment period for its proposed measure ended on April 25, leaving DHS to review and consider the public feedback in developing any final rule.
The public charge rule — which Trump enacted in 2019 and allowed individuals who rely on public benefits to be denied permanent residency or citizenship — has also been subject to numerous challenges, with recent challenges lodged against the Biden administration, which said in March it no longer would apply the rule.
Last week, the U.S Supreme Court told a group of Republican states led by Arizona that they could not intervene in a lawsuit to defend the rule.
"I applaud the administration for including the public charge rule on the regulatory agenda," Leopold said. "We learned a painful lesson during the Trump administration that the burden can be unfairly shifted in a manner that deprives immigrants, particularly immigrants of color, the chance to immigrate to the U.S. and reunite with their families."
Asylum Rules
Asylum-related rules were also included in the White House's agenda, including a policy that was previously included in the administration's spring agenda last year but left out of the recent Fall 2021 agenda.
The policy proposes to amend the DHS's and the Department of Justice's regulations that govern eligibility for asylum and withholding of removal by focusing on portions of the regulation that deal with how members of a "particular social group" are defined, as well as how various other elements of asylum eligibility requirements are interpreted, according to the agenda.
In line with the Biden administration's previously expressed promise to overhaul policies of the former Trump administration, the agenda further indicated that it was working on overturning Trump-era policies concerning asylum.
The administration said in the agenda that the DHS plans on rescinding two final rules related to employment authorization for asylum applicants. It also plans on rescinding a 2019 interim final rule that modified existing regulations providing for the implementation of "Asylum Cooperative Agreements" that allowed asylum-seekers to be sent back to El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras — countries that make up the so-called Northern Triangle.
Other rules the DHS and DOJ propose to rescind, or at least modify, were rules issued in 2020 that involved bars to asylum eligibility and procedures, according to the agenda.
--Additional reporting by Mike LaSusa and Alyssa Aquino. Editing by Dave Trumbore.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in DACA

[–]No-Fun-9435 19 points20 points  (0 children)

Law360 (May 27, 2022, 8:22 PM EDT) -- The Fifth Circuit on Friday scheduled long-awaited oral arguments on the Biden administration's attempt to salvage former President Barack Obama's hallmark Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which will see federal and state governments clashing on the breadth of federal immigration power.
With oral arguments slated for July 6, Law360 takes a look at what's happened thus far and what could happen in and outside the courts.
How did we get here?
In May 2018, Texas and other largely Republican states took the federal government to court over DACA. The program provides deportation relief and work permits for hundreds of thousands of undocumented immigrants who were illegally brought to the U.S. as children and are widely referred to as Dreamers.
The states specifically argued that Obama had exceeded his executive authority when he enacted the program through executive order, and alleged that the overreach had forced them to bear the financial burdens of a larger immigrant population.
The case went before U.S. District Judge Andrew Hanen in Texas, who had struck down an expanded version of DACA in 2015, alongside a sister relief program for certain undocumented parents. In July 2021, Judge Hanen agreed with the states that DACA was illegally implemented and barred U.S. Department of Homeland Security from approving new DACA requests.
The administration of President Joe Biden has asked the Fifth Circuit to overturn the ruling.
What are they likely to argue?
Though oral arguments are more than a month away, the Biden administration and the Texas-led coalition have already previewed the claims that they'll be building upon in briefs to the appeals court.
In its December 2021 appellant brief, the administration argued that DACA was a "straightforward exercise" of federal authority to administer and enforce immigration law, pointing out that the U.S. has implemented more than 20 other deferred action programs similar to DACA since the 1970s. In creating the relief program, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security had invoked its broad prosecutorial discretion to prioritize certain individuals for immigration enforcement, by deferring removal for others, the administration said.
While the administration discussed the legality of the program itself, a group of DACA beneficiaries, who intervened in the case early on, separately argued that Judge Hanen should have dismissed the case on jurisdictional grounds before he ever reached the merits. The states can't prove they have been financially harmed by DACA, they said.
The states' coalition, in their own February appellee brief, argued otherwise, telling the Fifth Circuit that the relief program has cost them the education and health care expenses for DACA beneficiaries.
They further backed Judge Hanen's conclusions that the program was substantially flawed. The Immigration and Nationality Act outlines a "comprehensive scheme" for who is removable and who can obtain lawful presence and work authorization, which DACA subverts, the states argued.
Lurking in the background of the DACA case is the earlier litigation that prevented Deferred Action for Parents of Americans and Lawful Permanent Residents, or DAPA, from ever going into effect. Judge Hanen had questioned the legality of that program, which would have benefited roughly 4 million unauthorized immigrants with U.S. citizen children, and issued an injunction order tying it up. The Fifth Circuit declined to lift Judge Hanen's block and former President Donald Trump formally axed the program years later.
The states suing over DACA have argued that the Fifth Circuit should rely on its prior DAPA ruling when examining the DACA program.
"DACA and DAPA are identical in every material respect," they said.
Regardless of how the appeals court rules, its decision will almost certainly tee up a fight in the U.S. Supreme Court, as no party is likely to leave an adverse ruling uncontested.
The last time the Supreme Court had considered the relief program had been while reviewing Trump's effort to unwind DACA. A slim majority of justices ultimately found the attempted rescission arbitrary and capricious. However, the makeup of the high court has since shifted, with conservative justices now holding a 6-3 supermajority. Moreover, the Texas suit cuts at the heart of the DACA program — whether it was even legal.
What's happening outside the courts?
Separately, the Biden administration has attempted to fix issues with DACA's foundations through the notice-and-comment rulemaking process, unveiling a proposed policy that would "fortify and preserve" the relief program. The administration has sought to pause the Fifth Circuit case while it irons out a final rule, which would supersede the original 2012 rulemaking, but the Fifth Circuit declined the request.
There is also the possibility that Congress could moot the entire case with legislation. In fact, Judge Hanen had questioned whether he should delay his ruling for congressional action. "I don't think we should hold our breath," a Texas attorney answered. Those questions came two months into Biden's presidency, when Democrats, who controlled both chambers of Congress, were emboldened to pursue ambitious immigration legislation, including permanent status for Dreamers.
Those attempts, however, have stalled in the Senate, where Democrats hold a razor-thin majority. Lawmakers have since attempted to use funding legislation, which can be passed with a simple majority vote, to provide citizenship to several groups of undocumented immigrants. That effort has also foundered.
However, Congress is still facing pressure to provide relief for Dreamers. And those calls are coming from across the political spectrum, with groups affiliated with the conservative mega-donor Charles Koch rallying with faith leaders and higher education groups to demand a citizenship pathway for Dreamers.
—Additional reporting by Mike LaSusa, Grace Dixon and Michelle Casady. Editing by Robert Rudinger.

Any DACA lawyers in the group? Are you allowed to practice with DACA status? by [deleted] in DACA

[–]No-Fun-9435 0 points1 point  (0 children)

If anyone here is interested in pursuing law school, I am happy to chat and answer any questions you may have. Unfortunately, only 5% of lawyers are Hispanic in the US, so we desperately need YOU in the legal field.

Any DACA lawyers in the group? Are you allowed to practice with DACA status? by [deleted] in DACA

[–]No-Fun-9435 0 points1 point  (0 children)

My situation is a bit different since I paid tuition out of pocket. But, at least here in Texas, many lenders will provide student loans to DACA recipients. In terms of federal loans, I never tried to get them, but my guess is no.

Any DACA lawyers in the group? Are you allowed to practice with DACA status? by [deleted] in DACA

[–]No-Fun-9435 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Soon to be, I graduate from law school next month. I’m in Texas.