Olinger Law

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 »

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 »

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 »

Dallas Says No To ICE “Holds”

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  Dallas County says NO to ICE’s immigration holds.  As reported today by The Dallas Morning News, Dallas Co. Sheriff Valdez will no longer comply with ICE “detainer” requests to hold non-citizens for immigration. We have fought this battle for our clients for years, as we’ve previously posted. The holds were based on what law enforcement often called a… Read More »

Immigration Prisons Violate Federal Laws

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Immigration prisons routinely violate federal laws such as the Prison Rape Elimination Act.  The Department of Homeland Security, the agency responsible for detaining non-citizens, regularly violates their civil and constitutional rights in immigration prisons, known as “detention centers,” according to a fact-finding study by the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, an independent bipartisan independent federal agency.  … Read More »

Congress’ Immigration Detention Quota

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The massive immigration prison system is because Congress has an immigration detention quota in the Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Act 2015:  “not less than 34,000 detention beds.” At taxpayer cost, ICE keeps thousands of non-dangerous, non-criminal immigrants in private and local jails.  ​Most at risk are children, women, the disabled and seriously ill, and asylum-seekers who’ve fled… Read More »

President Obama’s Immigration Actions

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Although there are still no application details…here’s a compilation of the President’s Executive Action announcement. For millions here “without papers” the two significant initiatives are DAP (Deferred Action For Parents) – certain parents of US citizens and lawful permanent residents will be able to apply for deferred action status – and expansion of DACA (Deferred Action… Read More »