Category: Uncategorized

Aug. 9 Update: USCIS announced in a news release today that they have cancelled plans to close operations at 7 international field offices: Beijing, Guangzhou, Nairobi, New Delhi, Mexico City, San Salvador, and Guatemala City. The news release calls these operations “cost-effective and high value”: they will continue to “adjudicate complex immigration petitions that require in-person interviews, to enhance integrity through fraud detection and national security activities, and to liaise with U.S. and foreign government entities to improve migration management capacity.” The news release gives no reason for the partial retreat in plans to axe all international offices.

The agency is moving ahead with plans to close the remaining 13 international field offices, beginning with Seoul and Monterrey at the end of Sept. 2019, and completing in Aug. 2020.

July 3 Update: USCIS closed its Ciudad Juarez field office on June 30. The Manila field office will close on July 5.

Apr. 23 Update: BuzzFeed is reporting that “In September, the Monterrey, Mexico, office is projected to close, as well as the station in Seoul, South Korea. By the end of January 2020, the majority of the offices, including those in Mexico City, London, Athens, and Guatemala City, are slated to cease operations. All offices, including the main district offices for the separate regions, are scheduled to close by March 10, 2020.”

Mar. 12 Original Article: U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services has announced plans to close its international field offices, according stories by NPR and Reuters, among others.

Continue reading “USCIS Partial Retreat: Some International Field Offices, including Beijing and Guangzhou, Will Remain Open”

Are you a U.S. citizen or permanent resident married to a spouse living overseas? Maybe you are living overseas together, or maybe you are in the U.S. waiting for your spouse to immigrate.

Continue reading “Filing Tax Returns When Married to a Nonresident Alien”

Andrew and Elad Dvash-Banks have twin sons, born four minutes apart. The U.S. State Department has maintained that one is a U.S. citizen and one is not. The same-sex couple has been fighting the U.S. government in federal court for citizenship rights for their young child.

Continue reading “U.S. State Department Appeals to Ninth Circuit a Ruling That Same-Sex Couple’s Child Acquired Citizenship Upon Birth Abroad”

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services’ processing of Forms I-751, Petitions to Remove Conditional Resident Status is in a state of disarray.

Sandra Feist writes for the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA) that USCIS has been adding new procedural delays and hurdles to I-751s, like brick after brick in an “invisible wall” making life difficult for spouses of U.S. citizens.

Continue reading “USCIS Processing of I-751s in Disarray”

Happy Lunar New Year!

The U.S. Embassy and Consulates General in China will be closed Feb. 4 to 7.

Chodorow Law Offices will be closed for the official holiday, Feb. 4 to 10.

The federal government is now in partial shutdown due to a failure by President Trump and Congress to agree on how to fund the government.  How does this impact key immigration agencies?

Continue reading “How the Government Shutdown Impacts Immigration Agencies”

President Trump baldly asserted this week that he can issue an executive order ending birthright citizenship for children born in the U.S. to undocumented parents. My initial reaction was frustration. How can the President claim–with no explanation–the power to act in a way that appears contrary to the plain words of the U.S. Constitution? Is this a serious proposal that just sounds like a flippant remark, or is it merely a cynical political ploy to rally his base before the midterm elections?

Continue reading “Trump’s Wrong Assertion That He Can End Birthright Citizenship by Executive Order”

Gerry Shih reports for the AP today that the U.S. government may pursue sanctions on Chinese officials involved in human rights abuses in the western region of Xinjiang. Shih has recently reported elsewhere on a sweeping security crackdown in the region. 

Continue reading “AP: Potential Visa Sanctions on Chinese Officials Over Xinjiang Abuses”

The Trump administration’s war on immigration has included an array of tactics. There have been full frontal assaults, such as the Muslim ban, cancellation of DACA, the border wall, and the RAISE Act. Simultaneously, the Trump administration is using the tactic of death by a thousand cuts: numerous assaults in the administrative agencies and courts intended to make immigration slower, more expensive, and painful. Here’s but one example. Continue reading “Death by a Thousand Cuts: Evisceration of the Foreign Service”

On August 2, White House adviser Stephen Miller held a press conference defending President Donald Trump’s support for the RAISE Act, legislation that would reduce legal immigration to the United States.

CNN reporter Jim Acosta asked whether the bill is in keeping with Emma Lazarus’ sonnet, The New Colossus, at the base of the Statue of Liberty, which reads in part: Continue reading “Steve Miller, Meet Saum Song Bo: What the Statue of Liberty Symbolizes”

Daniel Bell, Why Anyone Can Be Chinese (Wall St. Journal, July 14, 2017): Daniel Bell is a Canadian by birth who has who has taught political science in China for twenty years, speaks Chinese, and studies Confucian philosophy. In this essay, he writes, “I identify with Chinese culture” but objects that “no one considers me Chinese” because he is white. He wishes that China would “embrace those” like him “who meet the cultural criteria of Chineseness.” He recommends that China institute a “meritocratic immigration policy open to all.” / Bell’s most recent book, The China Model (2015), analyzes the philosophical and practical flaws of democracy, while arguing for the “China Model” in which a society’s leaders are chosen on the basis of meritocracy–through examinations and performance evaluations. Let’s put aside momentarily the question of to what extent China’s party-state really is meritocratic. Let’s also put aside the question of whether embracing “the cultural criteria of Chineseness” equates to merit. Bell’s yearning to belong is understandable because it is a primal, universal urge. But how can his proposed “meritocratic immigration system” overcome racial conceptions of what it means to be Chinese, especially since Bell says that “the obstacles are not legal”? Continue reading “Quick Takes on Visa Law News”

Make your lunch productive by joining 12-15 motivated young professionals from within the AmCham China community to discuss U.S. and China visa issues. Mar. 8, 12pm, Deloitte Beijing Office. Read more.

Get the latest on China’s implementation on the State Administration of Foreign Expert Affairs’ Notice on Implementation of Plans for Employment Licenses for Foreigners Coming to China for Work (国家外国专家局关于印发外国人来华工作许可制度试点实施方案的通知) and the Ministry of Commerce’s Interim Measures on Record-filing Administration for the Establishment and Alteration of Foreign-Invested Enterprises (外商投资企业设立及变更备案管理暂行办法). The target audience is HR managers and foreigners working, investing, or doing business in China. Read more.