Just Because They Say So, Doesn’t Make It True

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 I received a frantic call from a client recently at her naturalization interview.  She was being advised by the interviewing officer that her application was going to be denied because she did not meet the residency requirements.  In the run-up to the interview, the client and I had reviewed all of the relevant legal issues, including the physical presence and continuous residence requirements, and I assured her that she met the requirements for naturalization.  The officer was kind enough to speak with me over the phone, but remained unpersuaded from her position that the residency requirements were not met. The client left the USCIS office and went home extremely upset, notwithstanding my attempts to calm her down and assurances that we were in the right and would be able to challenge any adverse decision. And then, two hours after the interview, something strange happened: I received an e-mail notification from…

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Hadi Deeb: Tsar-Consul of Uzbekistan

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They call him The Tsar.  And deservedly so. Who else can unilaterally, singlehandedly reinterpret Uzbek divorce law to deny numerous  Uzbek Diversity Visa applicants?  Who else can crush immigrant dreams using a variety of creative pretexts: disqualifying an applicant for failing to include a 3 day old baby (with no legal name) in a DV entry; a single woman for failing to include her nonexistent husband in her DV entry; a family for not including a second child in their entry, a child who was stillborn? Who else can have his staff ask a single woman applicant why she is not married or an infertile woman why she does not have more children? Who else can test an applicant’s knowledge of his third and fourth languages – i.e., not his native language and the language he learned in school – in black letter violation of the Department of State’s own…

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Alien Smuggling – Hope for the Accused

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Consular officers permanently bar more visa applicants every year for “alien smuggling” than any other provision of the Immigration and Nationality Act except misrepresentation. In 2012 alone, consular officers invoked the alien smuggling provision of the INA, Section 212(a)(6)(E), more than 6,000 times, an increase of more than 20% from the year before. What are the standards for a finding of alien smuggling, and what categories of people have been subject to this provision of the INA? A consular officer can make an alien smuggling finding if he or she decides that a visa applicant has, at any time, knowingly “encouraged, induced, assisted, abetted or aided…” another alien “to enter or try to enter the United States” in violation of law. The Immigration Act of 1990 abolished the “for gain” requirement, so a consular officer does not need to find that the applicant had a profit motive or received money…

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