Today, May 23, 2023, a Florida Republican, Maria Elvira Salazar, and a Texas Democrat, Veronica Escobar, are introducing legislation in Congress addressing immigration concerns of both Democrats and Republicans. The proposal includes increased border security, protection for Dreamers, green card backlogs, revised agricultural visas, more border patrol and asylum officers, asylum processing centers on the border and in countries south of the border.
Stay tuned for more news.
The Original DACA program (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) is still running and recently a federal court ordered the government to accept new first time applications. The Murphy Law Firm, located in West Chester, Pennsylvania, has been handling DACA applications since the program began in 2012. The firm has represented numerous families and students in Chester County and all over the mid-Atlantic region since 2008.
If any of your students are interested or think they may be eligible for DACA, the firm’s founding attorney, Mr. Murphy, and Attorney Kaley Miller-Schaeffer are offering free legal consultations to help students determine eligibility for DACA and other new programs that become available over the next several months. All they have to do is provide us with a student ID to qualify for a free consultation.
Call 610-436-7555 and ask for a DACA consultation.
On December 4, 2020, a Federal Judge required the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to begin accepting new applications for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), as well as remedying the recent one-year grants of DACA. Effective December 7, 2020, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) is:
• Accepting first-time applications for consideration of DACA;
• Accepting DACA renewal requests based on the terms of the DACA policy in effect prior to September 5, 2017;
• Accepting applications for advance parole documents based on the terms of the DACA policy prior to September 5, 2017; and
• Extending one-year grants of deferred action and employment authorization under DACA to two years.
For more information to see if you are eligible to apply for DACA, see Deferred Action, or contact our office for a consultation, 610-436-7555.
On July 29, 2016, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced a final rule which expands the current provisional waiver process. When the provisional waiver process was established in 2013, only immediate relatives of U.S. citizens were eligible to seek a stateside provisional waiver before departing the United States for the processing of their immigrant visas. Otherwise, the waiver was applied for and processed while the applicant was outside of the U.S. The new rule, which goes into effect on Aug. 29, 2016, will now include certain individuals who are family members of lawful permanent residents (LPRs), and who are statutorily eligible for immigrant visas, to apply for an unlawful presence waiver before leaving the U.S.
The provisional waiver process is intended to promote family unity by reducing the time that individuals are separated from their family members while they complete immigration processing abroad. To qualify for a provisional waiver, applicants must have an approved family petition and establish that their U.S. citizen or lawful permanent resident spouses or parents would experience “extreme hardship” if the applicants are not allowed to return to the United States.
USCIS also announced it expects to update its Policy Manual to provide guidance on how USCIS makes “extreme hardship” determinations. This information should be available in the coming weeks.
