Olinger Law

Green-card renewal? There’s an app for that.

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The good news:  Need to replace a lost, damaged or expired permanent resident card (“green card”)?  It can now be done on a mobile phone.  The United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has an app which can be downloaded after creating an online account at https://myaccount.uscis.dhs.gov But be careful:  Replacing a green card, like any… Read More »

Gone: the online EOIR Benchbook

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What are they afraid of? Professor Geoffrey A. Hoffman of the University of Houston Law Center is raising awareness about our government’s escalating removal of immigration resources from official federal websites. In a recent Yale Journal on Regulation blog post, Professor Hoffman calls it “scrubbing away” transparency and accountability.   The most recent victim: the EOIR… Read More »

Immigration court backlog: like “doing death-penalty cases in a traffic court setting.”

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Source: Houston Chronicle America’s immigration judges have long been overburdened and under-resourced. One immigration judge has compared her job to “doing death-penalty cases in a traffic-court setting.” The stakes are high, while support and procedural protections for noncitizens facing deportation are negligible. It’s no surprise, then, that immigration judges suffer greater stress and burnout than… Read More »

Protecting DREAMERs from Trump – What happens to DACA?

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During the presidential campaign, president-elect Donald Trump said he plans to do away with the DACA program. Trump has provided no specifics, and has not said when this might happen. DACA was authorized in 2012 by the Department of Homeland Security.  Eligible undocumented persons who came to the U.S. as children got work authorization, protection from… Read More »

Immigration in the Trump Administration

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Immigration lawyers are as unsure and uneasy as our clients about what the new Trump Administration has in store.  AILA (the American Immigration Lawyers Association – of which immigration attorney Lynn Olinger has been a member for 15 years), released this YouTube video last month.  We’ll keep you updated as soon as we learn more.

Immigration, Drug Crimes, and Deportation

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Are you afraid that a drug crime (like sale or possession of a controlled substance) will cause you immigration problems?  Are you in immigration court because of it?  Is the government trying to deport you? You still may have a winning case.  Recent decisions by the U.S. Supreme Court and federal appeals courts have repeated… Read More »

USCIS Filing Fee Increase

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USCIS announced its filing fee increase.  Effective December 23, 2016 applications and petitions must include the new fee. USCIS has a webpage with the old and new fees, here.   We’ve also reprinted it for you, below: Immigration Benefit Request New Fee ($) Old Fee ($) G–1041 Genealogy Index Search Request 65 20 G–1041A Genealogy Records Request… Read More »

5 Reasons Why The Police Support Obama On Immigration

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Police chiefs, sheriffs and their organizations around the U.S. favor President Obama’s Deferred Action Policy which will give limited and temporary immigration benefits (such as the ability to temporarily stay and work in the U.S. with a federal ID card) to parents of U.S. citizens and green-card holders. They hope to persuade the Supreme Court… Read More »