Musings on Immigration

In the 2015, the Georgia Department of Driver Services (DDS) began denying licenses to many non-U.S. citizens who are in the United States with employment authorization, also known as a work permit.   DDS had previously granted driver's licenses to these same immigrants for decades. The change came as DDS secretly changed their interpretation of existing law and decided that some immigrants with work permits did not have the proper "immigration status," However, the Georgia legislature had already decided that the immigrants whose licenses DDS is denying do in fact have the proper immigration status for Georgia driver’s licenses.   How is DDS acting against Georgia law? The relevant Georgia law is found in O.C.G.A. § 40-5-21.1, “Temporary licenses, permits, or special identification cards; foreign licenses or identification cards as evidence of legal presence in the United States, ” and specifically states that the following non-citizens may obtain a Georgia driv...

In a recent unpublished decision , the Board of Immigration Appeals (“BIA”) issued a rather devastating opinion on the subject of immigration status and adjusting to permanent residence.   The BIA held that the foreign national accrued “unlawful status” (but not “unlawful presence) during the pendency of his ultimately denied H-1B extension of status petition and after the initial H-1B had expired.   As a result, the foreign national was subject to the provisions in INA Section 245(k) barring him from eligibility for adjustment of status because he had accrued more than 180 days of unlawful status. .   In yet another weird twist of the complexity of immigration law, the foreign national was” lawfully present” and authorized to work during the period of the pending H-1B extension (up to 240 days), but, because his petition was ultimately denied, all of that time was NOT held to be “lawful status.”   The BIA held that upon the denial of the extension of status, th...