The Eighth Circuit remanded for the BIA to explain why it denied the petitioner’s motion to reopen and reconsider after the petitioner had provided proof of his filing of a U visa application, when Matter of Sanchez-Sosa suggests that a completed application weighs in favor of pausing the removal process to await adjudication of the U visa.

The San Francisco Chronicle reports DOJ plans to issue rule changes that would make it easier for a handful of appellate immigration judges to declare their rulings binding on the entire immigration system. The changes could also expand the use of single-judge, cursory decisions at the appellate level.

The American Immigration Council filed suit on behalf of a company that provides amenity services to seniors, their families, and their senior communities to challenge USCIS’s “not a specialty occupation” denial of an H-1B petition.

USCIS announced that it had once again received more than enough H‑1B petitions within the first five business days of the FY2020 filing period to reach the annual cap of 85,000 new H‑1B visas. The agency received 201,011 petitions, an increase from last year’s total of 190,098.

CBS News reports on a complaint filed yesterday, the American Immigration Council, and CLINIC regarding “an alarming increase in the number of infants” being held in ICE detention in Dilley, TX. The complaint states that infants have been subject to “lengthy delays in receiving medical attention and lack of appropriate follow-up treatment.” Physicians for Human Rights also sent a …

Read more

DOS announced that in light of the suspension of routine visa services at the U.S. Embassy in Caracas, Venezuela, the U.S. Embassy in Bogota, Colombia, has been designated as the primary site to process immigrant visas for residents of Venezuela. Nonimmigrant visa applications may be submitted at an embassy or consulate outside of Venezuela.

The DOL Office of Foreign Labor Certification (OFLC) published notice in the Federal Register that all applications filed on or after July 3, 2019, will be randomly ordered for processing based on the date of filing and the start date of work requested. The public may submit comments on these changes through April 2, 2019.

The Immigration Court Improvement Act of 2019 would block DOJ from implementing the ‘quota system’ as a performance appraisal tool and put in place measures that would help shore up judicial independence, and the Fair Day in Court for Kids Act of 2019 would guarantee the appointment of counsel for unaccompanied children and strengthen legal orientation programs, among other …

Read more

USCIS will accept new H‑1B petitions subject to the annual quota for FY2020 starting on April 1, 2019

The Ninth Circuit reversed the district court’s dismissal of the habeas petition for lack of subject matter jurisdiction, holding that 8 USC §1252(e)(2) violates the Suspension Clause as applied to the petitioner, and remanded the case for the district court to exercise jurisdiction to consider the petitioner’s legal challenges to the procedures leading to his expedited …

Read more

Reuters reports that as of March 7, a total of 2,287 ICE detainees were quarantined around the country. At a privately run immigration detention center in Aurora, CO, 357 people have been quarantined following eight confirmed and five suspected cases of mumps detected since February. Westword reports that there’s only one medical doctor at the Aurora facility

The Hill reports that a group of immigrants filed a lawsuit Sunday alleging the Trump administration unfairly ended Temporary Protected Status (TPS) designations for Honduras and Nepal.

Representatives García (D-IL), Espaillat (D-NY), and Velázquez (D-NY) and 83 more House Democrats sent a letter to USCIS Director L. Francis Cissna raising concerns about the agency’s growing backlog of adjudications.

The Associated Press reports that the ACLU and other groups filed a federal lawsuit yesterday to block the Trump administration from returning asylum seekers to Mexico while their cases wind through U.S. immigration courts.

USCIS announced that it will resume premium processing on February 19, 2019, for all H‑1B petitions filed on or before December 21, 2018. For pending H‑1Bs that have been transferred, a premium processing request must be submitted to the service center now handling the petition.