News Update - August 4, 2007Congresswoman Attempts to Roll Back Big USCIS Fee Increases but the Legislature Takes a VacationZoe Lofgren (D-CA) introduced a joint resolution last week calling on Congress to nullify the fees that went into effect July 30th. Lofgren submitted the resolution on July 27th citing the lack of adequate explanation or justification by the USCIS for the fee increases as well as a lack of any specific, detailed plans to modernize the Service. The resolution cites the continuous lack of transparency, waste of money and resources and persistent backlog. The resolution was not adopted and the fees are in effect as Congress goes on vacation.
† The author is a 26+ year practitioner of immigration law based in New York City. He was awarded the Sidney A. Levine prize for best legal writing at the Cleveland-Marshall College of Law in 1977 and has written extensively on immigration over the past years for the ethnic newspapers, World Journal, Sing Tao, Pakistan Calling, Muhasha and OCS. He has testified as an expert on immigration in civil court proceedings and was recognized by the Taiwan government in 1985 for his work protecting human rights. His article, "The Bush Temporary Worker Proposal and Comparative Pending Legislation: an Analysis" was Interpreter Releases' cover display article at the American Immigration Lawyers Association annual conference in 2004, and his victory in the Second Circuit Court of Appeals in a case of first impression nationwide, Firstland International v. INS, successfully challenged INS' policy of over 40 years of revoking approved immigrant visa petitions under a nebulous standard of proof. Its value as precedent, however, was short-lived as it was specifically targeted by the Administration in the Intelligence Reform Act of 2004. ‡ This article © 2007 Alan Lee, Esq.
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Copyright © 2003-2012 Alan Lee,
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