Wonderful win in Elizabeth Immigration Court: Mexican mother of two small children obtains Immigration Judge’s decision awarding permanent resident status because her children would suffer “exceptional and extremely unusual hardship” if she were removed to Mexico. I previously reported on a successful case in Elizabeth Immigration Court in which a citizen of Guatemala obtained permanent resident status because his US citizen teenage daughter would suffer “exceptional and extr

That’s what The National Association of Immigration Judges, https://www.naij-usa.org/, appears to be saying in the attached Press Release: __________ BREAKING: STATEMENT BY IMMIGRATION JUDGES UNION ON MAJOR CHANGE ANNOUNCED TO IMMIGRATION COURTS August 24, 2019 Statement by the Hon. Ashley Tabaddor, Pres. of the National Association of Immigration Law Judges In an unprecedented attempt at agency overreach to dismantle the Immigration Court, the Department of Justice, Executiv

BRIAN D. O’NEILL VOTED ONE OF MORRIS COUNTY’S TOP TWO IMMIGRATION ATTORNEYS IN A 2018 PEER SURVEY COMMISSIONED BY MORRIS/ESSEX HEALTH & LIFE MAGAZINE I was surprised and excited to learn from my colleague Paul N. Gilbert, Esq. that he and I were listed as the top two immigration lawyers in Morris County, New Jersey in the Summer 2018 Issue of Morris/Essex Health & Life Magazine, in a peer survey commissioned by the Magazine earlier this year.[1] It is humbling to receive su

Yesterday I received word that one of my asylum clients, a Venezuelan college student who retained me in 2015, was granted asylum after a long wait for an interview with the Miami Asylum Office of USCIS. She was a proactive student protester and organizer against the Maduro regime, and took part in numerous campus protests against the dictatorial and economically ruinous policies of that government. She attracted the attention of government sponsored thugs, was physically a

"Alien smuggling" is one of the most serious immigration offenses. But what is it exactly? The answer lies in the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA). The principal provision of the INA dealing with the subject is Section 274, 8 USC 1324, named "Bringing in and Harboring Certain Aliens." INA Section 274 (a) contains a number of definitions of the term, but basically alien smuggling occurs if an individual knows, or with reckless disregard for the fact that the alien has no

Let's face it, life is difficult. Sometimes you do things that you regret. Sometimes you do things that may violate the law. And sometimes, in a moment of weakness, you may collapse under pressure of a law enforcement agent who "has you where he wants you" and is leaning on you to sign a document so that "your problems disappear." It is a fact that some permanent resident clients have criminal records. It is a fact that some of them have traveled with these offenses on the re

You will likely see many people commenting on this in many places in the days ahead. Rather than pick apart everything in the Executive Order, I will tailor my comments to the areas of my practice that are impacted by it. What we are really talking about here is the flood of "refugees," some purely economic, some legal, coming from Mexico and Central America to escape impossible living conditions, particularly in Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador, as well as certain sectio