Naturalization/Citizenship

There is Bill Pending before the Florida Senate that Will Waste Tax Payer Money, and Unfairly Increase Criminal Penalties for Immigrants.

Published on: November 10, 2015 | by Shorstein, Lasnetski & Gihon

There is a bill currently pending before Florida Senate that seeks to increase the maximum punishment for certain crimes committed by “illegal immigrants.” You can read the text of Senate Bill 150 here:

http://www.flsenate.gov/Session/Bill/2016/0150/BillText/__/HTML

Thankfully, there is no companion bill in the House. At first glance, many Floridians may think, “good, if someone is here illegally and commits a crime, they should face higher penalties.” But that gut reaction is wrong in this case, as the devil is always in the details. If you know anything about immigration law or have been following the protracted fights between the Obama administration and the federal courts over immigration, you know that the Federal Government and Federal Courts have a hard time interpreting and administering federal immigration laws themselves. What this bill proposes to do is to impose upon the Florida courts, prosecutors and criminal defense attorneys the additional time, financial and legal burden of determining the immigration status of a person before, during and after they commit a crime. This is much easier said then done.

Whether you are a Defendant in State or Federal Court, if you are not a U.S. Citizen, you need an Immigration Attorney Immediately.

Published on: November 5, 2015 | by Shorstein, Lasnetski & Gihon

Finding yourself in handcuffs and under arrest is a traumatic experience for everyone. Many thoughts run through your mind, where will they take me, will I be able to get out of jail, can I afford a criminal defense attorney? One thought that should also be at the forefront for everyone arrested who is not a U.S. citizen is, how will this arrest affect my immigration status and will I be deported?

For non-citizens who are arrested, hiring a criminal defense attorney is just the first step in protecting your rights. While criminal defense attorneys in both state and federal court are charged by the U.S. Constitution with providing accurate immigration advice to their clients, in reality, this often does not happen. Criminal defense attorneys are often unable to give accurate immigration advice because they do not practice immigration law and have no idea what the effects of a given criminal charge will be for a client.

This is true because the criminal aspects of immigration law, or crimmigration is a very nuisanced, complicated, ever-changing and inconsistent area of law that even the most experienced immigration attorneys are often fearful of practicing. If immigration attorneys don’t know the immigration consequences of criminal prosecutions, how can your criminal defense attorney be expected to know them?

How do I know if I’m a United States Citizen?

Published on: October 21, 2015 | by Shorstein, Lasnetski & Gihon

Seems like an easy question, right? You would think a person would know if they were a United States citizen as a matter of common sense. But sometimes it’s not that easy. If you have a United States citizen parent, either by birth or naturalization, you may have automatically acquired or derived U.S. citizenship and may not even know it.

A person can become a United States citizen any one of the following four ways: Constitutional citizenship, Acquired citizenship, Derivative citizenship, or Naturalization.

Constitutional citizenship – The fourteenth amendment of the United States Constitution states that “…all persons born in and subject to the jurisdiction of the United States are citizens.” This means that anyone born on U.S. soil is a United States citizen, other than the children of diplomats not subject to the jurisdiction of the United States.

SLG Attorneys Speak at the 2015 AILA Central Florida Annual Conference

Published on: October 14, 2015 | by Shorstein, Lasnetski & Gihon

This Friday and Saturday, October 16th & 17th, the Central Florida Chapter of the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA) will host its 2015 Annual Immigration Law Conference in Orlando. This conference will feature leading immigration experts from across the United States and a sitting U.S. Congressman. The venue is the beautiful Omni Champions Gate Resort.

SLG has the honor of having two of its partners, Jeremy Lasnetski and John Gihon, selected to be panelists at the conference.

Jeremy was chosen to be the discussion leader on the U.S. Citizenship and Naturalization panel. This panel will cover topics including the acquisition of citizenship by birth abroad, derivation of citizenship through a naturalizing parent and the requirements and procedure for naturalization.

Collaboration between AILA Central Florida and AILA Georgia-Alabama brings you Federal Court Summaries Part 3.

Published on: October 12, 2015 | by Shorstein, Lasnetski & Gihon

Over the last few months I had the opportunity to work with some fantastic immigration attorneys across the Southeast United States on a collaborative project. Our goal was to find, review and summarize every immigration-related and useful District Court and Circuit Court Case from the Eleventh Circuit and put them together in a newsletter. This was an enjoyable and educational experience. We expect to send out this newsletter every quarter and it will contain published and unpublished District Court cases from Florida, Alabama and Georgia and the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals.

This would not be possible without the hard work of our multi-state team composed of Marshall Cohen, Roberta Cooper, Bruce Buchanan and myself, John Gihon. Here is an excerpt of the 11th Circuit Cases. If anyone reading this newsletter has any suggestions, please contact me at John@slgattorneys.com or our editor, Bruce Buchanan at bbuchanan@visalaw.com

District Court Opinions

Collaboration between AILA Central Florida and AILA Georgia-Alabama brings you Federal Court Summaries Part 2.

Published on: October 9, 2015 | by Shorstein, Lasnetski & Gihon

Over the last few months I had the opportunity to work with some fantastic immigration attorneys across the Southeast United States on a collaborative project. Our goal was to find, review and summarize every immigration-related and useful District Court and Circuit Court Case from the Eleventh Circuit and put them together in a newsletter. This was an enjoyable and educational experience. We expect to send out this newsletter every quarter and it will contain published and unpublished District Court cases from Florida, Alabama and Georgia and the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals.

This would not be possible without the hard work of our multi-state team composed of Marshall Cohen, Roberta Cooper, Bruce Buchanan and myself, John Gihon. Here is an excerpt of the 11th Circuit Cases. If anyone reading this newsletter has any suggestions, please contact me at John@slgattorneys.com or our editor, Bruce Buchanan at bbuchanan@visalaw.com

11th Circuit Decisions (September)

Collaboration between AILA Central Florida and AILA Georgia-Alabama brings you Federal Court Summaries Part 1.

Published on: October 7, 2015 | by Shorstein, Lasnetski & Gihon

Over the last few months I had the opportunity to work with some fantastic immigration attorneys across the Southeast United States on a collaborative project. Our goal was to find, review and summarize every immigration-related and useful District Court and Circuit Court Case from the Eleventh Circuit and put them together in a newsletter. This was an enjoyable and educational experience. We expect to send out this newsletter every quarter and it will contain published and unpublished District Court cases from Florida, Alabama and Georgia and the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals.

This would not be possible without the hard work of our multi-state team composed of Marshall Cohen, Roberta Cooper, Bruce Buchanan and myself, John Gihon. Here is an excerpt of the 11th Circuit Cases. If anyone reading this newsletter has any suggestions, please contact me at John@slgattorneys.com or our editor, Bruce Buchanan at bbuchanan@visalaw.com

11th Circuit Decisions (June through August)

A Law Pending in the Florida Legislature Unfairly Targets Immigrants for Prosecution for Something they Cannot Control.

Published on: September 28, 2015 | by Shorstein, Lasnetski & Gihon

Recently a concerned colleague sent a me a link to a bill that is under consideration in both the Florida House of Representatives and the Senate.

The crux of the bill is to make it illegal for immigrants to be in the State of Florida after they have a final order of deportation. For a copy of the bill follow these links:

https://www.flsenate.gov/Session/Bill/2016/0118/BillText/__/PDF

Summaries of Recent Publish Board of Immigration Appeals Decisions

Published on: September 14, 2015 | by Shorstein, Lasnetski & Gihon

Matter of D-M-C-P-, 26 I&N Dec. 644 (BIA 2015); The Board decided that neither the Board, nor the Immigration Courts have jurisdiction to determine if a respondent was properly placed into Asylum-Only Proceedings pursuant to INA § 217. Once an immigration officer determined that an alien was subject to removal as a visa waiver violator, the only issue the Immigration Court or the Board could review is whether the alien qualified for asylum or withholding or deferral of removal. In addition, the Immigration Judge cannot dismiss properly-filed applications for relief from removal due to an alien’s failure to comply with the biometrics requirement pursuant to 8 C.F.R. § 1003.47(c), (d), unless the respondent was advised of the biometrics requirement, provided a deadline for complying and advised of the consequences for failing to comply.

Matter of M-A-F- et al., 26 I&N Dec. 651 (BIA 2015); The Board held that where a respondent has filed a second or substantially amended asylum application, it will be considered a new application, and the filing date of the later application is operative for determining if the provisions of the REAL ID Act of 2005 apply and if an asylum applicant has met the one-year filing deadline. The Court will conduct a case-by-case factual analysis to make this determination, however a second or amended asylum application that raises a new basis for asylum or amends a prior fraudulent application will be considered a new application rather than an amendment of the old one.

Matter of R-K-K-, 26 I&N Dec. 658 (BIA 2015); The Board held that an Immigration Judge may rely on documents and statements from another asylum case while making an adverse credibility determination. The Department may provide applications and evidence from another case in order to impeach the credibility of an applicant. The Immigration Judge may then rely on the similarities between the evidence in the two different cases to make an adverse credibility finding, so long as the Court: 1) gives the applicant meaningful notice of the similarities that are considered to be significant; 2) gives the applicant a reasonable opportunity to explain the similarities; and 3) considers the totality of the circumstances when making the credibility finding.

Immigrants to the U.S. should never “wait to see what happens” in their criminal case before hiring an Immigration Attorney

Published on: September 8, 2015 | by Shorstein, Lasnetski & Gihon

When you are not a U.S. citizen and you are in criminal court facing criminal prosecution, why you should never wait to see what happens in your criminal case and then hire an immigration attorney.

I have spoken to many non-citizen clients who are facing criminal prosecution. When I let them know that they need to be concerned about the immigration consequences of their criminal prosecution before their case is over, many ignore my advice. Often times they are so worried about going to jail, that their immigration status is not at the top of the list on their concerns. I always tell them, “you need to be concerned about how this criminal case is going to affect your immigration status now, before the case is over, do not wait until it is too late.”

Many clients ignore my advice and they use a criminal defense attorney who doesn’t know about immigration, or they do not hire our firm or another experienced immigration attorney to help before the criminal case is over. Those same clients often are detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) as soon as they are released from criminal custody, or they are arrested by ICE while reporting to probation after their criminal case is over.