Source: https://www.nationofimmigrators.com/
Timestamp: 2019-04-22 08:25:50+00:00

Document:
Much digital ink has already been spilled reporting on the phantom tide of undocumented migrants supposedly breaching our Southern border. This article will address a different, but very-real immigration flood, and suggest ways U.S. employers, noncitizens, and their lawyers ought be emboldened to add to the deluge.
Ironically, it is about a dry subject – federal district court review of what immigration grievants claim are widespread, arbitrary, capricious and otherwise unlawful work-visa petitions and employment-based green card denials under Section 702 of the Administrative Procedure Act, 5 U.S.C. § 702 (APA). The agency triggering this agita is U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), a component of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS). As immigration stakeholders are painfully aware, USCIS routinely flouts its own regulations, precedent immigration decisions, and the APA, all the while spurred on by the dog whistle of an executive order known as BAHA.
Although the focus here will be on USCIS’s rejections of employment-based immigration petitions, the same observations and strategies offered here readily apply as well to family-based requests for immigration benefits. The ideas below may also help in litigating the practices formulated in Washington by the Bureau of Consular Affairs which have resulted in growing numbers of visa refusals premised unlawfully on BAHA (notwithstanding the execrable principle of consular nonreviewability).
The reasoning of the denials has regularly relied upon a “jurisprudence” alien to our Anglo-American legal heritage – MSU (Make Stuff Up) law. The most egregious and recurrent refusals have involved the H-1B visa category for workers in specialty occupations. (USCIS recently offered its own analysis of why it often demands additional evidence when it is poised to deny H-1B visa petitions: “Understanding Requests for Evidence (RFEs): A Breakdown of Why RFEs Were Issued for H-1B Petitions in Fiscal Year 2018 USCIS”). As will be shown below, some of the most go-to grounds for H-1B petition denials are unanchored to statutory text, agency regulations and long-standing interpretive guidance can be found among the gamut of immigrant and nonimmigrant work visa classifications.
Old litigation wine in new bottles.
With mounting outrage, rebuked employers and noncitizen workers are channeling Howard Beale from the venerable film Network, and screaming, “We’re as mad as hell, and we’re not going to take this anymore!” Just like the film, it is an old story with modern resonance – old, because the APA has been around since 1946, and foreign workers, American employers, and their immigration lawyers have been suing USCIS since its inception in 2003, and long before that, the APA defendant of choice was the legacy agency, Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS).
An OILy solution slip-sliding away.
No one likes to be sued, and fewer still relish losing. The INS — then an agency in the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) — was no different. INS commissioners of yore found that when APA actions challenging their agency’s immigration decisions were brought in the various federal district courts, the local Assistant U.S. Attorney (AUSAs) assigned to the case often pressured INS to surrender and settle by issuing to the plaintiff the approval notices they failed to secure through the usual immigration petition and application process. AUSAs, INS perceived, much like most lawyers practicing in disparate legal fields, seemed genetically indisposed (pardon the imminent seafood puns) to pry open grimy immigration mollusks because they had more delectable fish to fry. Why fuss and suss complicated immigration law issues when there were “sexier” antitrust, intellectual property, organized crime, and other more intellectually-stimulating, and career-enhancing cases to pursue or defend? — or so INS reasoned.
The result: INS and DOJ built what they thought would be a better mousetrap in the hope that litigants in civil immigration suits would beat a path of retreat from the APA’s door. Thus was born in DOJ the Office of Immigration Litigation (OIL), a cadre of federal lawyers steeped, nerdlike, in the immigration-law dark arts of benefits-denials and deportation. Often, and sadly, the OILy strategy has worked. The Feds could deploy overpowering resources that few immigration litigators of employment-based APA cases could muster.
Fast forward to 2019: OIL attorneys simply cannot keep up quite as easily as before with the flood of immigration class actions and suits seeking to enjoin Executive Branch decisions to terminate Temporary Protected Status, DACA, and employment authorization for F-1 foreign students, and institute family-separation and child-imprisonment not to mention DOJ lawsuits asking federal courts to allow withholding of grant funds to sanctuary cities and states. OIL’s docket will likely be overwhelmed still more with the anticipated onslaught of suits opposing the “national-emergency” border funding and property-confiscation orders issued last month. As of August, 2017, OIL employed a comparatively small team, comprised of approximately 250 attorneys and 60 support staff.
Unsurprisingly, the immigration-litigation DeLorean is already headed back to the future on an OIL-slicked road. Immigration lawyers across the country report recently that USCIS is often caving on newly-filed APA suits, often even before DOJ provides an answer to the complaint, as Bloomberg Law’s Laura Francis reports (“Businesses Challenging Visa Denials Seeing Early Successes”).
To be sure, some white flags of surrender may be waived strategically. USCIS has proposed (and is overdue) to issue BAHA-friendly H-1B regulations in the future. Perhaps some court victories may be due to the agency’s desire to avoid federal court rulings that might restrict the agency from doing a full-BAHA rule in the near-term regulatory future.
Still, math is math, and resources are finite. Just as DOJ cannot mint new immigration judges fast enough for the tsunami of respondents in removal proceedings, the likelihood is that OIL faces a recruiting challenge of its own, since experienced immigration litigators willing to side with the government and defend restrictionist immigration policies are perhaps as rare as the chance of finding a snowball in Congress.
What you can learn there (or through self-study, or affiliation with an experienced immigration litigator) is that APA litigation challenging USCIS actions is often less taxing than the bet-the-company suits that capture headlines. The Immigration and Nationality Act does not require exhaustion of administrative remedies before filing an APA action in Federal District Court. As a result, the usual problems with appeals to the USCIS Administrative Appeals Office – delay, de novo review and the finding of new or additional grounds to affirm the denial – can be avoided. Moreover, except in rare circumstances, the APA does not allow the usual civil discovery methods of interrogatories, requests for admissions, and depositions; rather, the case is adjudicated on the administrative record of proceedings. Better still, cases are resolved more quickly, by cross-motions for summary decision, or, by settlement (meaning your client gets its work visa or green card).
Even sweeter than causing the government to cave quickly, and issue an approval notice soon after the Federal District Court receives your APA lawsuit, is the act of instilling sufficient fear in the immigration adjudicator that he or she will be overturned or look bad for having issued an MSU denial in the first place.
Instilling fear requires effort. The visa petition or green card application (and any response to a USCIS request for additional evidence) must be accompanied by compelling evidence and be prepared so thoroughly and persuasively as to cause the USCIS adjudicator to believe that – if s/he denies the case – the next stop would be an APA challenge in Federal District Court where the adjudicator will be overturned, chided, embarrassed or otherwise placed in a bad light. While this does not mean that the employer or foreign worker must decide at the case preparation stage to sue USCIS, it should signify at least that the immigration lawyer will be well-positioned to persuade them that the suit should be filed. In other words, shooting blanks too often, and signaling head fakes insincerely may reap diminishing returns over time.
Discrediting the opinions of experts. USCIS boilerplate text often cites Matter of V-K-, 24 I&N Dec. 500, n. 2 (BIA 2008) for the proposition that expert opinion testimony offering predictions of the anticipated contributions that noncitizens might make to the U.S. national interests or U.S. economy “does not purport to be evidence as to ‘fact’”), although the Board of immigration Appeals overruled that case in Matter of Z-Z-O-, 26 I&N Dec. 586, n. 2 (BIA 2015) with respect to the standard of review for predictive factual findings. USCIS also is wont to cite Kazarian v. USCIS, 596 F.3d 1115, 1122 (9th Cir. 2010) to support “the USCIS’s conclusion that the ‘letters from physics professors attesting to [the petitioner’s] contributions in the field’ were insufficient was ‘consistent with the relevant regulatory language.’” The citation to Kazarian, however, is meaningless because the physics professors’ letters are not described or included in that case, thereby precluding meaningful analysis of the quoted sentence.
Miscellaneous Matters. The Department has also made minor changes to the regulations . . . [Several] places (e.g., §§ 655.700, 655.705, 655.715), have been revised to reflect the amendments made by the ACWIA and the October 2000 Amendments, and to reflect the current Departmental organizational structure. (65 Fed. Reg. 80110, 80202 (Dec. 20, 2000), Supplementary Information; bolding added).
This expansive restatement constitutes clear legal error. USCIS may not arrogate to itself the exclusive authority and justly-earned expertise of the DOL by pretending that the “Corresponds with” sentence somehow empowers an Immigration Officer to wade, without a lifesaver or any appreciable swimming ability, into the deep water of DOL prevailing-wage-determination procedures. Congress has conferred upon the DOL Secretary the exclusive authority and duty to certify an LCA unless it is incomplete or obviously inaccurate. See INA § 212(n)(1)(G)(final paragraph)(providing that an employer may not be prohibited from using “legitimate selection criteria” in a nondiscriminatory fashion if they are “relevant to the job,” and “normal or customary to the type of job involved”).
204.5 Petitions for employment-based immigrants.
Unfortunately for immigration adjudicators, INS and USCIS never incorporated the proposal into a final regulation. Tellingly, however, USCIS adopted the “comparable-evidence” text in the foregoing 1995 proposed rule when it promulgated a final rule. See 8 CFR § 204.5(h)(4)(“If the above standards do not readily apply to the beneficiary’s occupation, the petitioner may submit comparable evidence to establish the beneficiary’s eligibility”).
Even if the [USCIS adjudicator] has some doubt as to the truth, if the petitioner submits relevant, probative, and credible evidence that leads the director to believe that the claim is more likely than not” or “probably” true, the applicant or petitioner has satisfied the standard of proof. See INS v. Cardoza-Fonseca, 480 U.S. 421, 431 (1987) (discussing “more likely than not” as a greater than 50% chance of an occurrence taking place).
The Ho ploy of many a USCIS adjudicator also ignores the fact that every petitioner must sign an acknowledgement confirming that all evidence is submitted under penalty of perjury, and thus carries with it the real potential for criminal prosecution under a host of federal criminal penalties including 18 U.S.C. § 1001, making it unlawful for any person to knowingly make a false statement which is material and is made with regard to any matter within the jurisdiction of any department or agency of United States, and 18 U.S.C. § 1546(a), making it unlawful and punishing any person who under penalty of perjury knowingly subscribes as true, any false statement with respect to a material fact in any application, affidavit, or other document required by the immigration laws or regulations prescribed thereunder, or knowingly presents any such application, affidavit, or other document which contains any such false statement or which fails to contain any reasonable basis in law or fact.
In our increasingly complex and specialized world, we all seek out experts — be they plumbers, arborists, fertility specialists, immigration lawyers, or other categories of seasoned practitioners. Why? Because getting the right result is important. True or not, experts are usually seen as having more than ordinary knowledge because they are credentialed through education, training, skill, long experience, or a mélange of these attributes.
Reliance on experts — most people generally assume — is preferable to taking a chance on an amateur. This assumption underlies a venerable judge-crafted principle of administrative law known as the deference principle, i.e., if the words in a statute are ambiguous, courts will ordinarily defer to an administrative agency’s interpretations of its own regulations administering the law.
But what if a plumber, after merely skimming Arboriculture for Dummies, were to offer expert advice on how to cure diseased trees ? For a homeowner to defer to the plumber’s advice would be sheer folly. Equally absurd would be if a seemingly infertile couple were to rely upon the guidance of an immigration lawyer expounding on advanced techniques of in vitro fertilization.
Unfortunately, however, ultracrepidarianism happens every business day at USCIS (the agency within the Department of Homeland Security charged with determining eligibility for such immigration benefits as work visas, travel permits, green cards, and naturalization). USCIS’s Immigration Service Officers (ISOs or simply, adjudicators) routinely offer ill-informed proclamations about immigration issues which Congress has rightly tasked the DOL to address and resolve.
Sadly, this has been going on for decades, not only in USCIS but also at its agency predecessor, Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS), where the former INS General Counsel cautioned INS that it had no authority to interfere with decisions by Department of Labor (DOL) that an employer had violated DOL H-1B (specialty-occupation visa) regulations, and therefore must be debarred by INS from sponsoring employment-based requests for immigration benefits. See, INS GENCO Opinion, CO 212(n)P (April 12, 1994).
For years now, USCIS’s ISOs have blindly and lazily “borrowed” from the hard work, expertise, data repositories, research materials, and regulations of the DOL, a distinct federal department with specialized immigration-related domain knowledge, experience and training over such employment-related matters as job requirements, wages, and working conditions.
When penning decisions denying employment-based immigration benefits, USCIS adjudicators unfortunately are wont to wax poetic about statements in the OOH as if they were spouting “thou shalt nots” from the Decalogue. For example, in response to U.S. employer visa petitions seeking the okay to employ or continue employing H-1B workers in specialty occupations, USCIS officers routinely issue Requests for Additional Evidence (RFEs) stating that the agency “routinely consults the Department of Labor’s [OOH] for information about the duties and educational requirements of particular occupations.” USCIS then uses the OOH description for a particular job, say a Management Analyst, to argue that the position does not qualify for an H-1B under the “specialty occupation” standards at 8 CFR § 214.2(h)(4)(iii)(A). This is because ISOs interpret the OOH as saying that the job cannot be a specialty occupation since some employers are willing to hire persons with a bachelor’s or master’s degree in various academic majors, or that a small percentage of employers will accept someone with less than a baccalaureate degree.
Another illustration confirming USCIS adjudicators’ purloining of OOH excerpts is found in their common practice of rigidly relying on this publication when deciding whether long-delayed green card applicants can invoke the “job flexibility” benefits granted by Congress that permit workers to change jobs or employers without being required to go back to the end of the immigrant visa queue. This “job-portability” law allows green card applicants to pursue career advancement despite USCIS or visa-quota backlogs of more than six months as long as the new job is in the “same or [a] similar occupational classification.” See, the USCIS Adjudicator’s Field Manual, Chapter 20.2(e), Note 5 (“ISOs may reference additional resources to determine whether [two] jobs are in the same or similar occupational classification(s), including, the DOL Bureau of Labor Statistics’ [OOH]”).
Unfortunately, USCIS adjudicators’ misbehavior in poaching from the DOL is not limited to the OOH. Yet another USCIS encroachment on DOL’s immigration turf involves reliance in the H-1B “Specialty Occupation” work visa category on an outdated “itinerary” requirement incorporated into agency regulations based on the immigration laws in existence in 1952, a rule intended to maintain agency oversight of the intra-U.S. meandering of athletes and entertainers (who have had their own visa categories, the O and P classifications, since 1990). Immigration litigator, Jonathan Wasden, in a tour de force complaint, ITServe Alliance v. USCIS, filed October 11, 2018 in the Federal District Court for the DC Circuit, calls out USCIS interloping in its recurrent attempts to define the H-1B “area of intended employment,” found in DOL regulations, even though USCIS only has statutory authority to determine if the job and the worker involve a specialty occupation.
Simply put, the courts or Congress should take USCIS out of the business of pilfering and impersonating DOL expertise.
Somebody could come and say 30 years ago, 25 years ago, 10 years ago, 5 years ago, he did a horrible thing to me. He did this, he did that, he did that and, honestly, it’s a very dangerous period in our country. And it’s being perpetuated by some very evil people — some of them are Democrats, I must say — because some of them know that this is just a game that they’re playing. It’s a con game. It’s at the highest level. We’re talking about the United States Supreme Court. . . .
I’ve used much worse language in my life than “con job.” That’s like probably the nicest phrase I’ve ever used. I mean con job — it is. It’s a con job. You know confidence. It’s a confidence job, but they — it’s a con job by the Democrats. They know it.
Yet immigration hearings are all too often a con job — not necessarily for any lack of effort at fairness and truth-ferreting by the actual participants, the immigration judges, and the attorneys representing the federal government and the hapless noncitizen known as the “respondent” who must appear in person and respond to one or more allegations that s/he is in the U.S. unlawfully and thus deportable. No, the unfairness is baked into the immigration court system; it’s a feature, not a bug. It was willfully designed by a long-forgotten Congress to be structurally unfair, and intentionally to omit the essential requirement of procedural due process. That is, that the fact-finder — the judge — must be independent and impartial, leaning neither in favor nor against one side or the other. In immigration courts, however, the immigration judge and the “trial attorney,” or counsel for the government, are both Executive-Branch employees. Immigration judges are Department of Justice lawyers appointed by the U.S. Attorney General. Trial attorneys – who often later become immigration judges – are employed by the Department of Homeland Security and are part of U.S. Customs and Immigration Enforcement.
The Attorney General has the power to fire and remove immigration judges, or, on his unexplained whimsy, to punitively relocate them to hear cases at remote detention facilities in the U.S. hinterlands. As seen in recent months by the incumbent Attorney General Jeff Sessions, the AG has approved the imposition of work load production quotas on immigration judges, which inevitably will lead to even more abbreviated hearings, rushed oral and written decisions by immigration judges, and – all too often – reversible errors that must be rectified by the Board of Immigration Appeals and the federal appellate courts, including the Supreme Court.
The present AG has gone even further in advancing his activist agenda, e.g., on August 16 in Matter of L-A-B-R- et al., 27 I&N Dec. 405 (A.G. 2018), by limiting the authority of immigration judges to find good cause to grant continuances, and on June 11, in Matter of A- B, 27 I&N Dec. 316 (A.G. 2018), by taking away the power of immigration judges to find female victims of domestic violence abroad whom the foreign police will not or cannot protect as a social group deserving of protection under the asylum laws of the United States.
Alice in Wonderland, by Lewis Carroll (Ch. 6)(italics in the original).
The Attorney General shall be charged with the administration and enforcement of this Act and all other laws relating to the immigration and naturalization of aliens, except insofar as this Act or such laws relate to the powers, functions, and duties conferred upon the President, the Secretary of State, the officers of the Department of State, or diplomatic or consular officers: Provided, however, That determination and ruling by the Attorney General with respect to all questions of law shall be controlling (emphasis added).
Many respected commissions, organizations and individuals have long assailed the systemic deficiencies that make our nation’s administrative system for procedural fairness in deportation proceedings unfair and ineffective (including, Kip T. Bollins, The President of the Federal Bar Association which has proposed model legislation, the Board of Governors of the American Immigration Lawyers Association, the Alliance of Business Immigration Lawyers, the National Immigrant Justice Center, and Ashley Tabaddor, President of the National Association of Immigration Judges, in recent congressional testimony) – a broken and unjust process that by now can only be seen as a con job.
The Select Commission is convinced of the need for a more equitable and efficient method of processing exclusion and deportation cases. Some Commissioners believe that the answer lies in the creation of a U.S. Immigration Board, with statutory independence from INS [Immigration and Naturalization Service] and the Attorney General, subject to the requirements of the Administrative Procedures Act. Such a mechanism, the Commission members argue, would also be an ideal body for adjudicating noncriminal actions taken against employers under an employer sanctions system. A majority of Commissioners, however, is of the view that such a solution would still suffer from many of the current administrative inadequacies. The institution of an Immigration Court under Article I of the U.S. Constitution, they believe, would result in more efficient and uniform processing of cases. . . .
The Immigration Court recommended by the Commission will include a trial division to hear and decide exclusion and deportation cases and an appellate division to correct hearing errors and permit definitive, nationally binding resolutions of exclusion and deportation cases.* The new court also offers the potential for introducing judicial uniformity into the review of denials of applications and petitions — matters that now occupy the attention of district courts around the country. The elimination of potential disparate rulings by courts of appeals should discourage further litigation. The Commission majority is also of the view that an Article I Immigration Court is more likely to attract outstanding adjudicators. Improvements in the caliber of personnel will enhance the quality of decisions and generally: eliminate any need for further review. Some Commissioners believe that if the Article I Court cannot be instituted for several years, interim measures should be taken to improve the competency of the existing INS.
*The remedy of Supreme Court review by petition for certiorari would remain available for the rare immigration case of great national importance; review of immigration decisions, by U.S. Courts of Appeals would be eliminated.
Congress should of course consider and debate the merits of the Commission’s sub-recommendations. (I would not eliminate the right of petition to the federal appeals courts for the very reason that many immigration rulings are of great national importance and the U.S. Supreme Court’s docket cannot accommodate them.) Still, the fundamental proposition urged by the Select Commission – to remove the immigration courts from the oversight of the Attorney General, and instead structure it as an Article I court – is supported by a multitude of contemporary stakeholders.
[The ABA] determined that the Article I model presented the best option for meeting the goals and needs of the system. The Article I model is likely to be viewed as more independent than an agency because it would be a true judicial body; is likely as such to engender the greatest level of confidence in its results; can use its greater prestige to attract the best candidates for judgeships; and offers the best balance between independence and accountability to the political branches of the federal government. Given these advantages, in our view, the Article I court model is the preferred option.
. . . Removing the adjudication system from the Department of Justice, whose primary function is a law enforcement agency, is vital to assuaging concerns about fairness and the perception of fairness. As a wholly judicial body, an Article I court is likely to engender the greatest level of confidence in the results of adjudication.
An Article I court also should attract highly-qualified judicial candidates and help to further professionalize the immigration judiciary. History has shown the potential for the politicization of the hiring process and an inherent bias toward the hiring of current or former government employees. Removing the hiring function from the Department of Justice also may increase the diversity of the candidate pool. Providing for a set term of sufficient length, along with protections against removal without cause, will similarly protect decisional independence and make Article I judgeships more attractive. By attracting and selecting the highest quality lawyers as judges, an Article I court is more likely to produce well-reasoned decisions. Such decisions, as well as the handling of the proceedings in a professional manner, should improve the perception of the fairness and accuracy of the result. Perceived fairness, in turn, should lead to greater acceptance of the decision without the need to appeal to a higher tribunal. When appeals are taken, more articulate decisions should enable the reviewing body at each level to be more efficient in its review and decision-making and should result in fewer remands requesting additional explanations or fact-finding.
Good lawyers, using all of their talents and skill, work every day – like water seeping through an earthen dam – to get around the plain words of the INA to advance their clients’ interests. Theirs is not the duty to uphold the integrity of the [INA]. That is our most serious duty.
This last provision gives me responsibility to ensure that our immigration system operates in an effective and efficient manner consistent with law enacted by Congress. Many in this country take a different view. They object to any enforcement that works. They evidence an open borders philosophy. . . .
Your role requires great legal skill. Many of the cases present complex legal issues, but like anyone acting as a judge, you must manage your docket and support staff well.Cases must be moved to conclusion.
To be sure, the world — indeed, the American people — should know what our rules are. They should also know Lord that their ability to make the arduous journey to settle in America pursuing their opportunity under the facts in their case and our immigration laws to live out the American Dream will be decided by an impartial jurist in an independent tribunal. This is not our fathers’ immigration system. It cannot be learned by a three-year-old. Its laws should not be declared by any Attorney General. Congress must end this con job.
As hard to spot as a well-camouflaged Waldo or surreptitious Carmen San Diego, Francis Cissna, Director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), is almost nowhere to be found. The exception – aside from mandatory appearances at congressional oversight hearings and the occasional press interview – is among the pols he deigns to address who staunchly oppose a functioning and welcoming legal immigration system, or who are sure there’s fraud in every request for immigration benefits. In gatherings of that sort, he’s as ubiquitous as Zelig.
Regrettably, no Cissna sightings have been reported among immigration stakeholders who yearn for a just immigration system founded on due process, one that is simply functional, albeit with tolerable case processing backlogs that people and businesses can anticipate and act upon. Their importunings that he speak at their national conferences or meet with them in liaison discussions have been spurned or ignored (including my own).
Despite his public absences from all but his fawning admirers, Mr. Cissna has been busy. He’s occupied himself with the task of dismantling the legal immigration system. His machinations make omnipresent the fears, tears and dashed American dreams that this director and his antifraud minions engender every business day.
Unlike his many predecessors who rightly viewed themselves as leading and inspiring the primary federal agency tasked with deciding eligibility for legal immigration benefits and charged with protecting our country’s hallowed tradition as a nation of immigrants, Mr. Cissna has a new mission, one which — as the passing months confirm — demonstrates that he is apparently oblivious to the benefits that a reasonably functioning immigration system have long conferred on American citizens and the U.S. economy.
At a time when willing U.S. workers are few and jobs go begging, Mr. Cissna sees a zero-sum game where a job filled by an immigrant worker means one stolen from an American. Apparently, he is blind to the virtuous law of abundance, widely reported in scholarly research, where productive noncitizens create more and better jobs and higher standards of living in the homeland.
Mr. Cissna has been in situ long enough now to cause law-abiding noncitizens and their sponsors — American employers and close relatives — to tremble with understandable foreboding as they try to play by the rules and work within a heretofore roughly functioning system that he has caused to devolve into chaos and dystopia.
Beyond the psychological and physical costs, taking away [the right of H-4 spouses on the path to a green card] to work is likely to reduce the economic returns of the H-1B programme itself. . . . [Researchers] found that restrictions on spousal employment were associated with financial concerns, lower satisfaction at work and lower overall life satisfaction—in turn significant factors in both worker employment and retention. . . . If it is reversed, the most skilled migrant workers may go to jurisdictions with more generous policies. Reversing the programme will also directly remove skilled employees from the workforce. [Other researchers found that H-4 spouses] were employed at similar levels to immigrants with the same demographic and educational characteristics but who already have the legal right to a job, . . . 46% of the spouses would be working. In aggregate, they would be earning about $2.1 [billion].
[Allow] the federal government to take into account use of health, nutrition, and other non-cash programs when making public charge determinations, . . . [Thus,] use of these programs, including Medicaid, CHIP [the Children’s Health Insurance Program], and subsidies for [Affordable Care Act] Marketplace coverage, by an individual or family member, including a citizen child, could result in the federal government denying an individual a “green card” or adjustment to lawful permanent status or entry into the U.S. These changes would likely result in reduced participation in Medicaid, CHIP, Marketplace coverage, and other programs by immigrant families, including citizen children, even though they would remain eligible. . . .
Reviving A Formal Denaturalization Program. According to Columbia University History Professor, Mae Ngai, not since the McCarthy Era, some 75 years ago, has the federal government systematically tried to denaturalize citizens (other than alleged Nazi war criminals). The sense of permanence and acceptance that comes with naturalization is now replaced by a sense of vulnerability as Mr. Cissna has established a newly hired USCIS cadre of several dozen lawyers and immigration officers to examine circumstances warranting referral to the Justice Department to initiate proceedings to yank U.S. citizenship. It’s cold comfort to grizzled observers of bureaucracy that the first targets are individuals who naturalized despite having received prior orders of deportation, for once a program is authorized and financed, its mission and scope will inevitably expand.
Rescinding the Deference policy. For all prior administrations, immigration stakeholders could reasonably expect – based on a well-reasoned “Deference Memorandum” – that a time-limited grant of immigration benefits, once conferred by USCIS, would endure and be approved again if the employer, the job duties, and the work location remained the same. The Deference Memorandum was appropriately based on a long-established “presumption of regularity” of official government actions, as reaffirmed by the U.S. Supreme Court in Citizens to Preserve Overton Park, Inc. v. Volpe, 401 US 402, 415 (1971) (decision of the Secretary of Transportation comes with a “presumption of regularity” concerning “the official acts of public officers and, in the absence of clear evidence to the contrary, courts presume that they have properly discharged their official duties”), and United States v. Chemical Foundation, 272 U. S. 1, 14-15 (1926)(“The presumption of regularity supports the official acts of public officers and, in the absence of clear evidence to the contrary, courts presume that they have properly discharged their official duties”). Resting on a thatch-work of nonsense, Mr. Cissna caused USCIS to repudiate this reliance interest ostensibly because accessing the agency’s own prior case files is just too hard. No more deference, he announces, despite the presumption of regularity and correctness of official acts that the U.S. Supreme Court has conferred on an agency’s prior decisions. Instead, backlogs clog the constipated system by virtue of the Cissna-induced presumption of irregularity. His adjudicators now take as a foregone conclusion the insulting notion that virtually all prior USCIS adjudicators were too incompetent, oblivious or gulled to have made the correct call on an immigration-benefits request.
Start-Stop, Assembly-Line Injustice. Although USCIS regulations at 8 CFR § 103.2(b)(8)(iii) allow applicants and petitioners who’ve submitted cases to be given the chance to provide additional, preexisting evidence of legal eligibility, Mr. Cissna has okayed a policy that allows no second-chances in America, the land of second chances. Rather, his adjudicators have recently been instructed to deny cases if the initial evidence submitted seems unconvincing, and issue a Notice to Appear (NTA) which summons the unfortunate “beneficiary” to come before an immigration judge for a removal (deportation) hearing. Fortunately, that policy has been suspended, perhaps, as many prophesied, because USCIS’s draconian leaders belatedly realized that it had not yet devised a process to issue NTAs in volumes apace with their denial rates, and even if it had one, the deluged immigration court system, flooded with asylum applications of individuals and torn-apart families fleeing the strife and violence in Central America, would have no choice but to schedule these USCIS-referred cases for hearing in 2020 and beyond.
Extend and Expand Suspension of USCIS Premium Processing Expedite Service. For many employers, the ability to get a response from USCIS in 15 days for an extra $1,225 filing fee was a safety valve. Premium Processing allowed firms and individuals to plan and execute alternative business and life strategies within a known timeframe if a submitted case were ultimately delayed or denied. It also gave USCIS — a user-fee funded agency perennially starved of financial resources with virtually no appropriations from Congress — mucho extra moulah with which to hire more adjudicators and whittle away at their growing unexpedited backlogs. Yet, ala Archie Bunker, USCIS deciders in the Cissna era are wont to prejudge people and businesses seeking legal immigration benefits as suspect classes, take unnecessary time to write up unconvincing and undeserved denial notices and NTAs, and quite foreseeably, cause both the expedite process and the “normal” system of adjudications to collapse under the weight of the agency’s ill-conceived follies. Unsurprisingly to immigration cognoscenti, USCIS recently announced that it will extend and expand its suspension of Premium Processing of H-1B visa petitions, while also proposing to increase the filing fee by 14.92 %, to $1,410.
Now that Labor Day has marked the official run-up to the mid-term elections, immigration stakeholders await a message from the voting public and the results of exit polling. Do Mr. Cissna’s actions warrant plaudits or plum tomatoes? Time will tell.
The State of California won and lost bigly last July 4th. But what if the state’s biggest loss could be salvaged because the primary federal immigration enforcement agency performing worksite visits – the Fraud Detection and National Security Directorate (FDNS) in U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) – has never been lawfully authorized to conduct such investigations?
An undoubtedly correct I-9 is one as to which the employer has not become aware of any credible facts calling into question the right of a current employee to work in the United States.
No preliminary injunction would issue against AB 103, SB 54, and the AB 450 Notice requirements, requirements because they do not trench upon federal authority over immigration.
I’ll admit I foolishly allowed myself to be misled. Despite almost 40 years of practicing immigration law, I didn’t anticipate the robustly revanchist re-grabbing of lost immigration territory and status, or the truly audacious intent and breadth of the April 18, 2017 “Presidential Executive Order on Buy American and Hire American (BAHA).” As interpreted by officers adjudicating requests for immigration benefits at U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), BAHA would “Make America Great Again” by taking us back to the pre-1965 days of racial and national origin discrimination, xenophobia, and jingoism, as was then embodied in America’s immigration laws.
Reading BAHA’s scant immigration provisions last April, I viewed it then as much a brouhaha about nothing. It merely called for inter-departmental proposals outlining potential administrative and legislative changes to the H-1B visa category that would “help ensure that H-1B visas are awarded to the most-skilled or highest-paid petition beneficiaries,” and, “[consistently] with applicable law . . . [would] protect the interests of United States workers in the administration of our immigration system, including through the prevention of fraud or abuse.” Since none of these proposals could come into existence without new legislation or new rulemaking under the Administrative Procedure Act (requiring a lengthy period of notice and an opportunity for stakeholder comment), I surmised that nothing much would change in the short-term.
To be sure, I noted BAHA’s ominous enforcement-minded tone (“it shall be the policy of the executive branch to rigorously enforce and administer the laws governing entry into the United States of workers from abroad”). But it seemed to me that, given the long-standing “culture of no” and gamesmanship at USCIS, BAHA was merely a ritualistic shot against the bow signaling more of the same. Boy oh boy was I wrong. BAHA has apparently awakened USCIS immigration officers as if it were a dog whistle, a silent reveille alerting them loud and clear – just like their recently “unshackled” colleagues charged with immigration enforcement – that the cuffs are off. Since BAHA was issued, USCIS immigration officers seem to view themselves as henceforth free to apply even more “innovative” and superficially plausible, if extralegal and disingenuous, reasoning to deny work visa status and employment-based green cards at whimsy and will.
In other words, USCIS now asserts that merely doing its job, i.e., by reviewing a nonimmigrant’s entire case history, somehow shifts the burden of proving eligibility to the agency. Not so. The statutory burden on the petitioner or applicant to establish visa eligibility remains the same. Rather the minimal duty imposed on USCIS is to retrieve the prior file and read it. If that is administratively burdensome, then a reasonable new policy would instead suggest to stakeholders that, if deference to a prior approval is desired, then the petitioning employer must include a copy of the prior submission and approval notice with each request for extension of status. Problem solved.
To tighten the screws even more, USCIS has released its 2018 regulatory agenda, which, if promulgated in final form, would apparently take steps to establish a point system to favor the most-skilled or highest-paid foreign workers, and raise the standard for eligibility as an H-1B worker in a specialty occupation – moves in step with BAHA, but entirely at odds with the H-1B provisions of the Immigration and Nationality Act and its legislative history. More draconian still are the changes to the H-1B visa category reportedly in the planning stage, possibly including restrictions on extensions of H-1B visa status beyond the standard maxout period of six years. Take a gander at “Trump considers big change to H-1B foreign tech worker visas,” as reported by the McClatchy Washington Bureau. This policy change, if true, would be the height of chutzpah because Congress enacted new exceptions to the usual six-year period of H-1B stay in the American Competitiveness in the 21st Century Act because of “lengthy adjudications” by the very same agency, USCIS, which had been unable to process its growing caseload in a timely manner (only in part due to visa-quota backlogs).
Latin, translation: “Thus always to tyrants”, purportedly (but unlikely) uttered by Brutus at the assassination of Julius Caesar.
The phrase is meant to signify that tyrants will always be overthrown and removed from power.
No, the latest California leap into the federal immigration ecospace is Assembly Bill 450, which imposes civil fines on employers ranging from $2,000 to $10,000 per violation for a variety of newly unlawful practices. Signed by Gov. Brown on October 5, 2017, AB 450 stands among a slew of new California laws taking effect on January 1, 2018.
An immigration agency, identified by name, has issued an NOI (a copy of which must also be posted at the same time) and will conduct inspections of I-9 forms or other employment records.
The date that the employer received the NOI.
The “nature of the inspection” to the extent known.
A description of any and all deficiencies or other items identified in the written immigration inspection results notice related to the affected employee.
The time period for correcting any potential deficiencies identified by the immigration agency.
The time and date of any meeting with the employer to correct any identified deficiencies.
Refrain from re-verifying the employment eligibility of a current employee at a time or in a manner not required by the employment eligibility verification provisions of the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986, 8 USC § 1324a(b), or that would violate any E-Verify Memorandum of Understanding the employer has entered into with the Department of Homeland Security.
Consider some of the issues this new law will raise.
Role of California state courts to interpret federal immigration laws? AB 450 grants the California Labor Commissioner or the state’s Attorney General the exclusive authority to initiate civil actions to enforce its provisions. Assuming that the courts find that this law can peacefully coexist with Congress’s plenary authority over immigration law, then presumably California state administrative officials and courts will now be required to decide whether or not particular actions by employers are “required” by federal immigration law.
Distinguishing between a subpoena and a judicial warrant? AB 450 permits employers to grant federal immigration officers access to non-public worksite areas if the employer is presented with a “judicial warrant.” Access to a company’s employee records, however, is not prohibited under the law if immigration officers tender to the employer a “subpoena or judicial warrant.” Few employers likely realize, however, that a subpoena may be issued by a court or by administrative agency officials.
Under Immigration and Nationality Act § 235(d)(4); 8 U.S.C. §1225(d)(4), immigration officers are empowered to issue administrative subpoenas for books and records. If an employer refuses to comply with an administrative subpoena, however, then immigration officials can only enforce it if they persuade a federal judge to issue a judicial order. Yet – in the real world – when federal immigration agents issue an administrative subpoena carrying an official federal seal and, by its terms, demanding access to business records, pity the unsophisticated HR manager who violates California law if s/he “voluntarily” provides the business’s employee records.
Conceivably, AB 450, by its terms, could also extend to federal officials performing immigration functions within the Departments of State, and Labor. Moreover, the current practice of one Department of Homeland Security (DHS) sub-component, the Fraud Detection and National Security (FDNS) Directorate of United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), discussed frequently and critically in this blog, to conduct unannounced “administrative site visits” or “on-site compliance reviews,” raises immediate concerns about its officers’ future interactions with California employers.
Although FDNS asserts that it is not an immigration enforcement agency, a current job opening for the position, “Immigration Officer (FDNS),” – accessible here, and if the posting is taken down, also here – confirms that, “[every] day, our Immigration Officers (FDNS) . . . identify, articulate, and pursue suspected immigration benefit fraud.” Moreover, employers seeking to hire foreign workers must sign petitions under penalty of perjury for virtually every request for immigration benefits submitted to USCIS, requests which contain the acknowledgment, “I also recognize that any supporting evidence submitted in support of this petition may be verified by USCIS through any means determined appropriate by USCIS, including but not limited to, on-site compliance reviews,” see e.g., the Petition for a Nonimmigrant Worker (Form I-129 Part 7, p. 6).
Even if a line can fairly be drawn between FDNS’s pursuit of immigration fraud and ICE’s activities in conducting criminal investigations, the use by AB 450 of the term, “immigration enforcement agent,” suggests at the very least an agency relationship between FDNS (the agent) and ICE (the principal).
Thus, a California employers could well face liability under AB 450 if it voluntarily consents to an FDNS officer’s request for access to the beneficiary’s “physical workspace,” the opportunity take to “take photographs” of the workspace (which routinely happens), and conduct a “[r]eview [of] records.” Yet, if a California employer were to refuse such a request, FDNS officers will no doubt report that refusal to USCIS adjudicators, who then routinely issue a notice of intent to deny or revoke work-visa petition approval. Notices of intent to revoke approval are especially problematic, because if they cannot be overcome in light of the obvious state law impediments in AB 450, then USCIS will revoke the employment authorization of the particular beneficiary. The result of a revocation is that the employee must be terminated upon the employer’s receipt of the notice of revocation, and that termination may constitute a failure on the part of the beneficiary to maintain lawful nonimmigrant status, which itself would trigger an obligation to depart the United States immediately with his or her immediate family members, or face removal from the United States at a hearing initiated by ICE before an Immigration Judge.
These problems become even more complicated if the employer provides facilities for its own workers and for the employees of any of its contractors, consultants, staffing companies, or vendors. While AB 450 does not prohibit a California employer from voluntarily sharing whatever information it might possess about the employees of its contractors, this new law, by its terms, mandates, on penalty of civil fine, that the employer refuse to grant voluntary consent to “enter any non-public areas at a place of labor” – apparently irrespective of the party employing the particular workers at the place of labor. Such a refusal likewise under current USCIS practice would lead to a similarly insurmountable notice of revocation, thereby terminating the employment authorization and nonimmigrant status of a contractor’s who was the subject of an FDNS unannounced site visit, and conceivably, resulting in a breach of contract by the customer for precluding the vendor from fulfilling the object of the contract, i.e, the rendition of contractually-agreed services.
Good faith immigration compliance and voluntary internal audits? DOJ and DHS component agencies encourage employers to voluntarily conduct internal immigration-compliance audits, and prescribe procedures to (a) correct I-9 paperwork errors, and (b) reasonably investigate circumstances suggesting that an employee may lack employment authorization. Such audits sometimes require the cooperation of current employees, as, for example, if corrections must be made to the employee portion of the I-9, Section 1, or if the employer suspects that the documents of identity and employment eligibility that the employee previously presented may not be genuine.
Given that AB 450 prohibits reverifying a current employee’s eligibility to work in the United States, should California employers defensively adopt “head in the sand” policies to preclude or discourage voluntary immigration compliance audits? The answer will depend on the employer’s business circumstances and employment practices in the particular industry. It may also turn on whether an employer has become aware of facts or credible assertions that call into question the employment eligibility of one or more employees.
Unintended harm to workers, their unions, and business operations? While the constructive-knowledge rule, in effect, requires an employer to conduct a reasonable investigation, the rule does not dictate the speed of the investigation. In past ICE investigations, some field offices have expressly allowed an employer time to respond to an NSD by phasing-in the duration of time when workers whose employment eligibility has been questioned must reverify their employment eligibility. A compliance phase-in would give the employer time to reverify its challenged employees in tranches. Without internally posting a notice to employees that ICE has begun in I-9 investigation, an employer granted phase-in permission by ICE would (a) privately and without fanfare reverify the employment eligibility of its most recently hired or least skilled workers, (b) speedily hire replacements (who would quickly be trained by employees with longer tenure or greater expertise in the operations of the business), and (c) then reverify the most senior or essential workers.
In this way, employers could conduct a constructive-knowledge investigation sequentially over time, business operations could continue with less disruption, the most valued employees could continue in employment for the time being, and unions would continue to receive dues payments, while retaining the ability to negotiate severance packages for terminated employees.
What, then, is the likely outcome of AB 450’s requirement that the employer give public notice within 72 hours to all employees and the local union that ICE has served a NOI? Today, many employers have found that when employees learn of an ICE worksite investigation, they quickly disappear for fear of arrest and deportation. Leaving the employer in the lurch, an unknown number of undocumented workers merely purchase new identities and forms of work permission on the street – documentation that, with the increasing sophistication of counterfeiters, will appear to be genuine, and thus be used to get a new job with the next employer. And so the cycle continues. Rinse and repeat. Consequently, the 72-hour NOI notice requirement in AB 450 will likely only serve to disrupt businesses and prompt undocumented workers to switch jobs, while shrinking the duration and amount of dues payments to unions.
A bonanza for translators? AB 450 requires employers, within 72 hours of receiving an NOI, to post a notice at the worksite in the language the employer normally uses to communicate employment-related information to employees, announcing that ICE has served an NOI on the employer, and providing other required details. Although not clearly phrased, the posting obligation seems to include the duty to provide a translation of the NOI itself into the language(s) ordinarily used to communicate with employees.
California is a state that prides itself on its diversity, which necessarily entails a noncitizen population speaking a multiplicity of languages. Many workers in the state do not speak English well, but do speak a native language, be it Spanish, Chinese, Tagalog, Vietnamese, Armenian, Khmer, Farsi, or Russian, among others.
Heaven forbid – for example – that ICE serves an NOI on a Friday. This will likely leave many an employer scrambling first to draft the AB 450 notice, and then to find weekend translators capable of quick turnaround to produce the required translations. Perhaps competent translators can be found, but probably only at a premium price for speedy, afterhours delivery.
The drafters of the legislation apparently did not realize, however, that ICE officers are usually quite willing to extend its own 72-hour regulatory deadline by a week or two for an employer to turn over its I-9s and other required records, or even longer, if the employer can provide a reasonable explanation for its inability to satisfy the 72-hour rule.
(Scene 7) en Tuesday morning, the factory is idle and quiet, except for the angry voices of union bosses complaining to management about unfair labor practices.
Following a six year investigation, the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) unit issued a statement confirming a guilty plea on September 28, 2017 by Asplundh Tree Experts, Co. (Asplundh) for unlawfully employing undocumented workers. As part of the plea agreement, Asplundh received a sentence to pay a forfeiture money judgment in the amount of $80 million dollars, abide by an ICE HSI Administrative Compliance Agreement, and pay an additional $15 million dollars to satisfy civil claims arising out of their failure to comply with immigration law. Prior to this, the often touted “record settlement” included IFCO Systems North America Inc.’s (IFCO) $20.7 million dollars from 2006.
While the facts of this case reveal the company to be an egregious violator, there are parts of this story that may ring true for many companies. The story of Asplundh, similar to the stories of IFCO, Abercrombie and Fitch, Chipotle and many others, should serve as both an informative and cautionary tale. While each of these companies faced different challenges and immigration violations, the lessons in each should help general counsel and the C-suite at companies appreciate the importance of taking stock of their own practices and putting into motion an action plan designed to mitigate risks and liabilities where possible. If nothing else, a judgment of $95 million solidifies that the Form I-9 is not really “just” a simple a form and the government can and will use a variety of tactics to enforce compliance with the Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA).
We also cannot bury our proverbial heads in the sand and ignore recent Executive Orders changing ICE’s immigration priorities-, and promoting “Buy American, Hire American” policies. While we have not yet seen the worksite raids we experienced under the Bush Administration or widespread “desk audits” or “silent raids” of Forms I-9 under the Obama administration, ICE is here for the long haul and future worksite investigations, on-site visits and Form I-9 audits can be expected. This will be especially true as we see an increase in resources allocated to meet the current administration’s priorities in this arena.
Described as one of the largest privately-held companies in the United States, and headquartered in Willow Grove, Pennsylvania, Asplundh is now also known as the company that pled to the largest civil settlement agreement ever levied on an immigration case – how did they get here?
ICE’s six – year investigation found that Asplundh employed a scheme where employees were hired and re-hired even when lower level managers were aware of the fact that the employees were not authorized to work in the United States. But more importantly, the charges noted that “the highest levels of Asplundh management remained willfully blind.” Even before the September 28th announcement of the settlement agreement following the guilty plea, the Department of Justice (DOJ) U.S. Attorney’s Office announced on September 19, 2017 that three employees, including supervisors and a Vice- President, had already entered guilty pleas to felony counts of conspiracy to commit fraud and misuse visas in connection with this case, with each defendant facing prison time and fines.
ICE Acting Director Thomas Homan stated in its September 28th announcement that “[t]oday’s judgment sends a strong, clear message to employers who scheme to hire and retain a workforce of illegal immigrants: we will find you and hold you accountable. Violators who manipulate hiring laws are a pull factor for illegal immigration, and we will continue to take action to remove this magnet” (emphasis added).
The charge was for one count of unlawfully employing aliens. Statements from ICE and the (DOJ) U.S. Attorney’s Office describe a company practice where a decentralized hiring practice reinforced and supported the acceptance of fraudulent documentation presented to company representatives by new hires and re-hires in regions across the United States. More specifically, as noted in ICE’s statement, the six year investigation revealed that from 2010 to 2014, “the company decentralized its hiring so Sponsors (the highest levels of management) could remain willfully blind while Supervisors and General Foremen (2nd and 3rd level supervisors) hired ineligible workers, including unauthorized aliens, in the field. Hiring was by word of mouth referrals rather than through any systematic application process. This manner of hiring enabled Supervisors and General Foremen to hire a work force that was readily available and at their disposal.” The purported motivation for this national industry leader in tree trimming and brush clearance for power and gas lines – a motivated workforce willing and able to relocate at a national level as needed to respond to weather related events requiring Asplundh crews.
Appointing a Compliance Specialist trained in fraudulent document identification in each Asplundh region nation-wide.
Revising hiring procedures to verify each identification examination for every new hire.
Investigating every complaint of potentially undocumented workers.
Retaining a third party consultant to review actions and procedures.
Presenting the company compliance program to ICE for review.
These corrective actions are reminiscent of what we saw with IFCO and changes that IFCO made in 2006 as part of its agreement with ICE. Recent history has shown us ICE’s unwavering commitment to its investigations and enforcement of immigration laws regardless of the name or party controlling the Oval Office.
What Does This Mean for Your Operations?
The key for all employers is to take all necessary and possible steps that will protect the company from a charge and a subsequent finding of knowingly or intentionally hiring undocumented workers. While all employers may not be able to guarantee full compliance, everyone can and should take steps that will provide an affirmative defense against charges and allegations of willfully employing undocumented workers or simply being careless to the point that a good faith defense cannot be made. From addressing proper form completion, document retention, remote hires, electronic I-9 vendors and detecting fraudulent documents, there are steps every company can and should take with minimal disruption to operations that can provide an affirmative defense in showing good-faith compliance with Form I-9 IRCA requirements.
Preventative Audits – Guided internal audits of I-9 documents, processes and procedures. Do this sooner rather than later and with guidance from experienced immigration compliance counsel. Whether you choose to conduct the audit yourself or retain counsel, the results of the audit will go a long way toward assessing exposure and limiting liability either in a “desk audit” or a full on investigation. Remember, if the company has been audited once, you are on the government’s radar with secondary inspections and active investigations a possibility.
Train, Train, Train – Human Resource teams and their delegates need to consistently and accurately complete Form I-9s. Provide them with basic knowledge of the process and the tools to recognize fraudulent identity and work eligibility documents. To become and remain compliant with IRCA and other state and federal immigration regulations training and investment in the people responsible for this function is critical.
Improve or develop policies and procedures – Often we see issues relating to immigration compliance handled ad hoc, with larger entities taking a more “decentralized” approach. Time and again we see that leaving immigration compliance at the lowest rung of priorities increases risks and liabilities. When the process is identifiable, then accountability can be, too.
Manage compliance – Policies and procedures do not mean anything without proper implementation and monitoring. Lack of compliance where immigration and IRCA mandates are concerned carries fines and penalties that includes prison terms for individuals. For the company it can also mean a PR nightmare. Dedicating top management level resources to oversee a company’s immigration compliance program should be a top consideration.
Prepare for possible workplace disruptions – Whether the current Administration steps up enforcement actions is not really the motivating factor. As depicted in the excerpt below from the Department of Homeland Security – U.S. ICE Worksite Enforcement FY 2014 annual report, we have continually seen ICE conduct long, exhaustive investigations, with an increase in audits and related fines and penalties. The following table reflects the number of opened and closed worksite enforcement investigations, criminal and administrative employee and employer arrests and the assessed fines and collections for each fiscal year from the annual report.
For more than sixteen years, since the infamous worksite raids under the Bush administration, we have watched enforcement actions increase regardless of the party controlling the executive branch. Whether a paticular form of enforcement action becomes more prevalent or not, should your company be investigated, severe losses could occur and planning for potential impacts on workforce availability in advance can prove to be critical to limiting disruption to ongoing operations.
As ICE investigations continue and potentially expand under Presidential Executive Orders or future Presidential Proclamations, it is more important than ever for employers to protect themselves by ensuring that proper immigration compliance policies are in place and in-house audits are conducted on a regular basis to detect potential issues and irregularities. As demonstrated in Asplundh, the stakes are high, employer responsibilities as well as liabilities under Title I, Part A of the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 (IRCA) should be taken very seriously.
Deciphering the workings of the bureaucratic mind is never easy. What seems settled practice is often anything but. Abrupt abandonment of longstanding policy can happen in a nanosecond — many times with nary a word of forewarning or explanation. Usually there’s an unstated backstory — one that can be divined by asking the forensic question first popularized by the Romans: Cui bono? (Who benefits?) Yet once in a while there is simply no logical explanation.
A recent example of illogic at its most stark comes from an unexplained about-face in policy just adopted by the nation’s agency that grants or denies immigration benefits — U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), a component within the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). This “turnabout is unfair play” change involves “advance parole,” the privilege to enter the U.S. without a visa that USCIS and its predecessor, the old Immigration and Naturalization Service, have collectively made available for decades.
This USCIS policy change will unnecessarily impede the flow of U.S.-based global travel to and from the United States. Without strengthening the integrity of the immigration system, or enhancing President Trump’s admonition to “Hire American,” the change will gum up the workings of the national and global economy, and needlessly disrupt the lives of individuals and families here and abroad.
A few words of explanation: Advance parole is a special form of permission to return to the U.S. without a visa stamp in one’s passport. As the name applies, USCIS grants it to a foreign national before s/he leaves the country. It is a generally reliable reassurance that the advance parolee will be allowed to reenter upon return from foreign travel. It is also essential to most persons applying for a green card, because a different USCIS rule treats applications for adjustment as having been abandoned if the applicant travels abroad without having first received advance parole. In the exercise of agency discretion, USCIS grants parole in finite increments for legitimate business or personal reasons requiring travel abroad.
Until a few weeks ago, USCIS’s standard practice has been to allow noncitizens — largely green card applicants — already granted a period of advance parole to apply for, and receive renewal for another term before the current grant expires. For years, USCIS allowed this beneficial practice to persist, presumably so that frequent international travelers would have no advance-parole gap, and thus, no impediment to travel abroad and reentry.
But now, USCIS apparently has just remembered that an instruction to the advance parole application (Form I-131) states: “If you depart from the United States before the Advance Parole Document is issued, your application for an Advance Parole Document will be considered abandoned.” In plain English, this means that if you are a noncitizen who (1) has an unexpired advance parole document, (2) applies for renewal, and (3) travels abroad with the intention of returning before the initial grant expires, then the act of departure NULLIFIES your renewal application because USCIS considers that you’ve abandoned it.
This would be little more than an annoyance involving the burden of reapplication if USCIS adjudicated advance parole applications quickly. To every applicant’s dismay, however, USCIS — according to its own published processing times reports — takes between SIX TO NINE MONTHS to decide whether or not to grant advance parole.
The upshot of this USCIS policy reversal is that it creates a de facto foreign travel ban. It means that most green card applicants cannot leave the U.S. on short notice no matter if grandma is dying or a business emergency requires immediate foreign travel. It also means that if they do leave the country without advance parole travel authorization or re-authorization, not only will they have to reapply for a green card (assuming they have a visa for reentry), they might not even be able to get back in at all. Some might be required to apply for and receive a nonimmigrant or immigrant visa from a U.S. consulate abroad; others who had been unlawfully present in the United States before their departure might have to wait three or ten years before becoming eligible to receive a visa and return to the United States.
Furthermore, for the two categories of nonimmigrants who can travel abroad and reenter without advance parole — H-1B (Specialty Occupation workers and their H-4 dependents) and L-1 (Intracompany Transferees and their L-2 family members) — they may well need to apply for renewals of their visas at a consular post abroad, but only after USCIS has approved their employers’ requests to extend the visa-petition validity period.
So what’s this all about USCIS? Asking the “who benefits” questions, we wonder: Is it you? Does your agency reap a windfall in additional filing fees from abandoned and renewal applications for advance parole travel authorization? The answer is “no.” Ever since July 30, 2007, renewal applications for advance parole on Form I-131 require no filing fee.
In other words, USCIS will be required to renew advance parole applications for free, and deal with a slew of expedited-adjudication requests for advance parole renewals, also for zero dollars. Perhaps USCIS adjudicators look with envy at immigration officers in other DHS components who view themselves as unshackled by executive orders to clamp down hard on illegal immigration. So, folks at USCIS headquarters: Is this a dog whistle? Have you concluded, perhaps for the sake of your own and your teammates’ job security, that you must be seen as strictly enforcing the eligibility requirements for legal immigration benefits, even if all stakeholders and your agency suffer?
If that’s the case, you’ve gone too far. Your forebears at INS and your former selves in prior administrations realized that when a “rule” makes no sense, hurts immigration stakeholders for no good reason, and puts more uncompensated work on your desks, the appropriate course is to see if another, less damaging interpretation might be permissible. A more relaxed view of the so-called rule is especially warranted if the requirement merely originates in an instruction to a form.
To be sure, 8 CFR § 103.2(a)(1) provides that USCIS form “instructions are incorporated into the regulations requiring its submission.” But a warning or advisal in this context that USCIS would consider departure from the United States as an abandonment of an advance parole application cannot fairly be considered an instruction that explains how to complete and file a form to request permission to reenter the United States. Moreover, if your agency has already granted permission to travel abroad and return on a document that is unexpired, why would you infer that an advance parole renewal application has been abandoned? Have you already forgotten that a 2012 Board of Immigration Appeals precedent decision binding upon your agency — under a common sense reading of the immigration laws — expressly rejected your interpretation that travel outside United States with an unexpired advance parole document authorizing one’s readmission is not to be treated as an abandonment of the pending application.
So again I ask you, the leaders of USCIS, who benefits from this senseless policy reversal?

References: § 702
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 § 212
 § 204
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 § 1001
 § 1546
 § 214
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 § 103
 § 1324
 § 235
 §1225
 § 103