Victory for Immigrants at US Supreme Court & Immigration Courts Reopen

Описание: Law Office of Heidi J Meyers, 11 Broadway, Suite 925, New York NY 10004
(212) 791-4007 or (646) 508-5225, [email protected]
The Immigration Courts are to reopen on July 6 2021, including the following: Texas (Dallas, El Paso, Ft. Snelling, Harlingen, Houston, and San Antonio); Kansas City, Kansas; Memphis, Tennessee; all three courts in New York City; Portland, Oregon; and San Juan, Puerto Rico. Hearings in non-detained cases are postponed through July 3. As of July 6, 2021, all immigration courts will be holding limited hearings.
If you or your loved one are in removal proceedings, and you have an individual hearing coming up, make sure you gather all required information and evidence together as soon as possible. You need to figure out who your witnesses will be and contact them. Your witnesses will also need detailed affidavits regarding what they will testify to, and a witness list must be submitted to the court. Many immigration judges require all evidence to be submitted at least one or two months in advance. If efiling documents, New York Immigration Court requires three months in advance. For example, if you have a hearing coming up in September 2021 and the Immigration Judge has a two month filing deadline, all evidence should be submitted by July 2021, which means that you should get all evidence to your attorney by May or June. It takes time for your attorney to organize all the evidence and put it together into exhibits and then file with the immigration court and the ICE District Counsel (the prosecuting attorney who works for the government). So really you should provide your attorney with all required evidence and information at least three months ahead of time.
This April 2021, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a decision which will help many immigration who are in removal or deportation proceedings. In Niz-Chavez v. Garland, (2021), decided on April 29, 2021, the U.S. Supreme Court held that a Notice to Appear is a single document and must include all information specified in the statute, the Immigration and Nationality Act, INA §239(a)(1), 8 U.S.C. § 1229(a)(1), in order to trigger the stop-time rule for purposes of cancellation of removal for nonpermanent residents, 8 U.S.C. §1229b(d)(1). The stop-time rule states that the foreign national must have accumulated the ten years of continuous presence in the U.S. prior to being served with the Notice to Appear.
The Supreme Court found that a Notice to Appear must be a single document containing all the information an individual needs to know about his removal hearing. The Court rejected the Government’s argument that providing information such as the time and date of the hearing or other required information, over a series of separate mailings over time was sufficient.
If the charging document in your case, the Notice to Appear, lacks the time and date of your hearing, then you may have an argument that removal proceedings against you should be terminated. Those with in absentia removal orders may argue that their removal proceedings should be reopened and terminated. Or, if your Notice to Appear lacked the time and date of your hearing, and you were placed in removal proceedings prior to accumulating the ten years required in order to be eligible for cancellation of removal, and while you were in removal proceedings you have now accumulated ten years since your entry, you may have an argument that you should be eligible for cancellation of removal for nonpermanent residents under INA 240A(b). For example, Jose entered the U.S. on January 1, 2009, and has a U.S. citizen wife and two U.S. citizen children. He was placed in removal proceedings on January 1, 2018, nine years after his entry to the U.S.
The Notice to Appear lacked the time and date of his hearing. However, he later received a Notice of Hearing with a time and date of June 1, 2018. The ICE District Counsel argued that because the second notice had a time and date, combined with the original Notice to Appear, that should stop the counting of the ten years of physical presence for cancellation of removal. Since from the date of entry, January 1, 2009 to June 1, 2018 is only nine and a half years, the Immigration Judge originally found that he lacked the ten years required to be eligible for cancellation of removal, because the second notice he received did have a time and date. However, now Jose will be eligible for cancellation of removal due to the Niz-Chavez decision. Because the original Notice to Appear lacked the time and date of the hearing, the time towards the ten years physical presence here in the U.S. never stopped accumulating and he would now be eligible to apply for cancellation of removal.