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Beach-Oswald is a full-service law firm, concentrating
on immigration law. We have special expertise in work visas, family
based visas, visa waivers, green cards through family and employment
and asylum. We have staff members who speak many different languages
to assist you.
We succeed
when others don't!
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Military Now
Recruiting Eligible Noncitizens
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 The military will be implementing a pilot program that
will temporarily allow certain legal aliens to enlist in the armed
forces. Currently, only citizens and green card holders are eligible
to serve in the military, whereas this program would also allow
eligible nonimmigrants to enlist. The program will be accepting
noncitizens that have lived in the US for at least 2 years,
and that possess certain critically important qualifications for
which the army is actively recruiting. In particular, the
military is looking for certain health care professionals and people
who have knowledge of certain strategic foreign languages and
cultures. Anyone who joins the military during a time of war is
eligible for accelerated citizenship. For a list of requirements and
the types of skills that the Department of Defense is looking for, click here.
For general information on this pilot program, click here.
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New Rule Allows
Victims of Crime and Human Trafficking to Become Permanent Residents
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 USCIS
announced that those who are in the U.S. on a "U"
or "T" visa will now be allowed to adjust their status to
become permanent residents. The T visa is issued to victims of human
trafficking, and the U visa is given to victims of certain crimes who
are willing to assist law enforcement and government officials in the
investigation of the crime. To learn more, click here. To find out if you qualify, please
contact one of our attorneys.
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Deportations to Haiti
Have Resumed and no TPS Protection in Sight
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 Haiti has been ravaged
by severe storms that have killed hundreds of people, and caused the U.S. to temporarily stop deporting
Haitian residents back to Haiti for the past three
months. However, immigration officials have announced that they are
resuming deportations to Haiti,
which has sparked outrage from the Haitian community in the U.S. and many human rights advocates,
who insist that the humanitarian crisis in Haiti
is at its worst right now, and that returning residents back to Haiti
is simply inhumane. Many hope that the government will extend
Temporary Protected Status to Haitian citizens who are currently in
the U.S., which
would allow them to stay in the U.S.
until the conditions in Haiti improve. To
read a recent Washington Post article on this topic, please click here.
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Notable Immigration Cases
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Supreme Court to Rule
on the Persecutor Bar to Asylum
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The Immigration and
Nationality Act makes any persons who are determined to have ever
participated or assisted in the persecution of others ineligible for
asylum. The Supreme Court agreed to hear a case regarding whether
this persecutor bar should be rigidly applied in all cases. The
Court heard oral arguments on November 5 about whether an Eritrean
citizen who worked as an armed prison guard should nonetheless be
granted asylum, based on the fact that he was opposed to and
occasionally refused to inflict punishment on prisoners. A
decision on this case is expected within the next several
months.
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Supreme Court to
Review the Standard for Granting a Stay of Removal
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The Supreme Court
has agreed to review a case where a man's request for a stay of
removal was denied by the 4th Circuit on the premise that a court can
only stay the removal of a person if he shows by clear and convincing
evidence that his removal would be prohibited by law, as mandated by
Section 242(f)(2) of the Immigration and
Nationality Act (INA). The alien, however, maintains that the 4th
Circuit Court's interpretation of Section 242(f)(2) conflicts with
that of eight other circuits, which all hold that the Section does
not apply to requests for temporary stays of removal during the
alien's appeal. After the Supreme Court hears oral arguments on
January 21, 2009, the Court is expected to decide whether a request
to stay a removal while an appeal is pending is governed by Section
242(f)(2) of the INA, or instead by the more lenient traditional
standard for injunctive relief that measures an applicant's
likelihood of success on the merits.
For more information, please refer to Nken v. Mukasey, 08-681.
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Fourth Circuit
Criticizes Immigration Judges for Failure to Decide Asylum Cases
Consistently
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The Fourth Circuit
remanded a case back to the Immigration
Court after an Immigration Judge (IJ)
granted a Cameroonian asylum seeker withholding of removal and
protection under the Convention Against Torture (CAT), but denied him
asylum. Although the IJ found the asylum seeker to be credible based
on the testimony of his witnesses, and believed that his life would
be in danger if he were returned to Cameroon, she nonetheless
denied asylum because it was within her discretion to do so.
The IJ cited what she called a "split credibility finding"
- although she believed his witnesses, she felt that the alien's
second testimony and several of his documents were not completely
truthful. The Fourth Circuit Court disagreed with the IJ's findings,
stating that it was inappropriate for the IJ to find the alien
eligible for one form of relief but not for another based on the same
set of documents. The Fourth Circuit concluded that the IJ abused her
discretion by not considering the totality of the circumstances, and
even listed the types of factors that an IJ must consider when
deciding such a case. The Court appeared extremely critical of the
fact that the immigration court system has on many occasions failed
to adjudicate asylum cases consistently, and emphasized the
importance of appropriate judicial review. To read the decision in
its entirety, refer to Zuh v. Mukasey, No. 06-2050.
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The
information contained on this email is for informational
purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. The transmission
of information to or from this email does not create an
attorney-client relationship between the sender and receiver. We take
our privacy policy seriously and will never sell, rent or share our
email list. View our Privacy Policy here. To schedule a consultation with
one of our immigration lawyers, please click here.
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Maureen Johnson Joins Beach-Oswald as a Full-Time
Associate
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We are proud to announce that Maureen Johnson, who
joined Beach-Oswald as a part-time Law Clerk in Spring 2007, has now
joined our firm as a full-time Associate. In May 2008, Ms.
Johnson received her J.D. from American University's
Washington College of Law, where she graduated magna cum laude,
placed in the top 5% of her class, received the Mussey Award for
scholastic achievement, and was awarded the Order of the Coif, an
honor society for law school graduates. Ms. Johnson earned her
B.A. in Peace and Conflict Studies from U.C. Berkeley in May 2003,
where she graduated magna cum laude and was awarded Phi Beta Kappa.
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Attorney General Appoints New Vice Chair of the BIA
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Chief Immigration Judge David Neal has been appointed
as the Vice Chair of the Board of Immigration Appeals. Immigration
Judge Thomas Snow will serve as Acting Chief Immigration Judge until
the next Attorney General appoints the Chief Immigration Judge
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