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.

Only In Texas – The “War On Birthright Babies”

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Texas’ “war on birthright babies.”  I wrote about this in August when the Texas school year started. Now it’s made national news, as the Washington Post  opined last week on the “act of stunning official arrogance:”  Texas’ refusal to issue birth certificates – for children born in the US – to undocumented parents. Blameless U.S.… 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 »

U.S. Citizen Children May Have Trouble Enrolling In Dallas ISD

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Dallas County Drawn Into Birth Certificate Debate by Julián Aguilar, The Texas Tribune August 5, 2015 Texas’ second-largest county has adopted a controversial policy that advocacy groups say could infringe on the civil rights of U.S. citizens born to undocumented parents. The Dallas County clerk’s office announced on its website that as of June 1 it no… Read More »

Jailed Immigrant Children Released

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The New York Times Opinion Pages | EDITORIAL A Judge’s Rebuke of Immigration Detention By THE EDITORIAL BOARD AUG. 5, 2015 Children do not belong in prison. The mass detention of families offends American values, a lesson this country learned long ago at Manzanar, Tule Lake, Heart Mountain and the other Japanese-American internment camps of… Read More »

Visa Application Equality For Same-Sex Spouses

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The U.S. will immediately begin recognizing marriage equality in visa applications. The State Department today announced that the same benefits are available to all lawfully married persons – whether same-sex or opposite-sex.  The announcement was made in response to last month’s historic Supreme Court decision on DOMA’s unconstitutionality. “As long as a marriage has been… Read More »