Welcome to the Garfinkel Immigration news roundup, where every month we will summarize and provide links to the latest stories impacting U.S. immigration.
Below is the April 2023 edition of the Garfinkel Immigration news roundup:
Garfinkel Immigration Law Firm announces formation of Healthcare and Education Specialty Practice Groups
Garfinkel Immigration Law Firm is proud to announce the formation of two new Specialty Practice Groups (SPG).
Garfinkel’s Healthcare SPG will centralize and expand on the Firm’s decades of experience developing innovative legal solutions across the spectrum of the healthcare community, including for physicians, nurses, technicians, therapists and IT personnel. The group will be led by Partners Meredith W. Barnette and Colleen F. Molner.
The Firm’s Education SPG will be led by Partner William Hummel. The group will concentrate on strategizing best immigration practices for private, public and charter schools of all sizes as well as colleges and universities in the Carolinas, the Southeast region and across the United States.
Find out more about Garfinkel Immigration’s Healthcare and Education Specialty Practice Groups.
Learn more about the Firm’s “Immigration Solutions for Healthcare Workers” webinar series.
Immigration is slowly increasing after a stark pandemic drop
This story from Marketplace.org details the moderate growth of immigration rates over the last year following their sharp decline during the pandemic.
“The flow of immigrants into the U.S. has ramped up over the past year or so, as cross-border restrictions have lifted and as U.S. immigration officials have started to work their way through visa application backlogs,” the story read.
The story continued: “Since border restrictions started to ease … U.S. immigration officials have been playing catch-up with a backlog of visa applications, and they’re making some headway.”
Read the full story from Marketplace.org here.
House Democrats call to double immigration backlog processing funds
Some Democrats in the United States House of Representatives are urging Congress to increase funds to “process immigrant application backlogs,” according to a story published by The Hill in early April.
“Reps. Lou Correa (D-Calif.) and Dan Goldman (D-N.Y.) wrote a letter to Reps. David Joyce (R-Ohio) and Henry Cuellar (D-Texas), the chairman and top Democrat on the Homeland Security Appropriations Subcommittee, in support of President Biden’s fiscal 2024 budget request but called on the appropriators to amp up immigration spending,” The Hill story read.
The pair of Democrats said they were “encouraged” by President Joe Biden’s proposed spending package but called for even further increases to the USCIS budget.
“We request that the committee increase this funding from the President’s proposal of $264 million to $400 million to support application processing and the reduction of backlogs within asylum, field, and service center offices, and an increase from $342 million to $425.9 million to fully fund the March 2022 asylum processing rule,” Correa and Goldman wrote.
Find out more via The Hill here.
Signature Biden asylum reform policy is now on hold
A Biden administration policy that would have allowed “officers to grant and deny asylum to migrants at the southern border,” is currently on pause, according to a story published by the Los Angeles Times in mid-April.
The pause was implemented to “ensure that the country’s immigration agencies are prepared for a potential increase in border crossings after the end of Title 42, a pandemic-era policy that allows border agents to quickly turn back migrants,” administration officials said, according to The Times.
“The administration also plans to limit asylum for migrants who cross the border without authorization and did not apply for protections in a country they passed through on the way to the U.S,” The Times story read. “That policy, which the administration unveiled in February but has yet to finalize, is Biden’s latest attempt to deter migrants from crossing the southern border without permission.”
Read the full story from the Los Angeles Times here.
NCAA’s international athletes still facing NIL challenges
This story from ESPN explains the challenges that international athletes face profiting from name, image and likeness (NIL) deals in the United States and the ways in which some universities have “found … creative ways to work within the rules to (allow their students to) make money.”
“While rule changes have allowed their U.S.-born teammates to make money through NIL deals since July 2021, questions about how to give international athletes the same capabilities remain unresolved two full seasons later,” the story read. “Legal experts say a lack of clear expectations for how the Department of Homeland Security will view these deals, and what impact that could have on the immigration status of players, makes the NIL marketplace riskier for international athletes than it needs to be.”
The story continued: “In the absence of rule changes or any added clarity, international players and their schools have started to find less convenient, alternative routes to cashing in on their fame. For many, the safest route has been to do NIL-related work while back in their home country. UConn’s (Adama) Sanogo said he earned money by organizing a basketball camp in Mali last summer, and Miami’s (Norchad) Omier said he had several endorsement deals arranged during a trip back to Nicaragua.”