Client Released From Custody after NTA Cancelled

Yesterday, I was able to convince the head of Enforcement and Removal Operations, after first convincing Chief Counsel, to cancel a Notice to Appear prior to it being filed with the immigration court. My client was a detained H-1B overstay whose renewal petition filed by another firm was recently denied. The client was released from custody this morning at 6:30 to allow him to depart the country and avoid an order of removal.

A Toddler's Death Adds To Concerns About Migrant Detention

Matthew Kolken Named Among the Best Lawyers in America in Immigration Law

Matthew Kolken Quoted in Yahoo News

But Matthew Kolken, a Buffalo-based immigration attorney and elected member of AILA National’s board of governors, told Yahoo News that “those of us who have been in the trenches are uniform in our concern about the way he is handling cases.” Kolken said he’s spoken to about a dozen other attorneys with expertise in deportation defense over the last week or so, and “there’s been pretty much a meeting of the minds.”

“For experts in the field, it feels like we’re watching a Holiday Inn Express commercial,” Kolken said, referring to, what he and others worry is Avenatti’s rapid-paced, one-size-fits-all approach to serving potentially vulnerable clients in a highly nuanced and incredibly complex area of immigration law.

“Obviously the reunification of the child is of paramount concern,” Kolken said, emphasizing that he does not know the specific details of Avenatti’s clients’ cases, but has years of experience defending immigrant children from deportation to countries like Guatemala. “But reuniting parent and child in the place that they fled because of unspeakable violence isn’t necessarily the answer either.”

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Asylum Granted for Citizen of Pakistan

Asylum granted by the immigration judge on behalf of a citizen of Pakistan who was employed by an American corporation, and who was brutally attacked and hospitalized as a result of the expression of his pro-American sympathies.

Former Nazi Labor Camp Guard Jakiw Palij Removed to Germany

Palij is 68th Nazi Removed from the United States

WASHINGTON, D.C. - Jakiw Palij, a former Nazi labor camp guard in German-occupied Poland and a postwar resident of Queens, New York, has been removed by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to Germany, Attorney General Jeff Sessions of the U.S. Department of Justice, Secretary Kirstjen M. Nielsen of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Assistant Attorney General Brian A. Benczkowski of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division and ICE Deputy Director and Acting Director Ronald D. Vitiello announced today.  ICE removed Palij based on an order of removal obtained by the Department of Justice in 2004.

“The United States will never be a safe haven for those who have participated in atrocities, war crimes, and human rights abuses,” said Attorney General Sessions.  “Jakiw Palij lied about his Nazi past to immigrate to this country and then fraudulently become an American citizen.  He had no right to citizenship or to even be in this country.  Today, the Justice Department—led by Eli Rosenbaum and our fabulous team in the Human Rights and Special Prosecutions Section, formerly the Office of Special Investigations—successfully helped remove him from the United States, as we have done with 67 other Nazis in the past.  I want to thank our partners at the State Department and the Department of Homeland Security for all of their hard work in removing this Nazi criminal from our country.”

“Nazi war criminals and human rights violators have no safe haven on our shores,” said Secretary Kirstjen M. Nielsen of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.  “We will relentlessly pursue them, wherever they may be found, and bring them to justice.  The arrest and removal of Jakiw Palij to Germany is a testament to the dedication and commitment of the men and women of ICE, who faithfully enforce our immigration laws to protect the American people.”

Palij, 95, was born in a part of Poland that is situated in present-day Ukraine, immigrated to the United States in 1949 and became a U.S. citizen in 1957. He concealed his Nazi service by telling U.S. immigration officials that he had spent the war years working until 1944 on his father’s farm in his hometown, which was previously a part of Poland and is now in Ukraine, and then in a German factory. 

As Palij admitted to Justice Department officials in 2001, he was trained at the SS Training Camp in Trawniki, in Nazi-occupied Poland, in the spring of 1943. Documents subsequently filed in court by the Justice Department showed that men who trained at Trawniki participated in implementing the Third Reich’s plan to murder Jews in Poland, code-named “Operation Reinhard.” On Nov. 3, 1943, some 6,000 Jewish men, women and children incarcerated at Trawniki were shot to death in one of the largest single massacres of the Holocaust. By helping to prevent the escape of these prisoners during his service at Trawniki, Palij played an indispensable role in ensuring that they later met their tragic fate at the hands of the Nazis.

On May 9, 2002, the Criminal Division’s then-Office of Special Investigations (OSI) and the U.S. Attorney’s Office of the Eastern District of New York filed a four-count complaint in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York, to revoke Palij’s citizenship.  The complaint was based primarily upon his wartime activities as an armed guard of Jewish prisoners at Trawniki, who were confined there under inhumane conditions.   Palij’s U.S. citizenship was revoked in August 2003 by a federal judge in the Eastern District of New York based on his wartime activities and postwar immigration fraud.  In November 2003, the government placed Palij in immigration removal proceedings.

In decisions issued on June 10 and Aug. 23, 2004, U.S. Immigration Judge Robert Owens ordered Palij’s deportation to Ukraine, Poland or Germany, or any other country that would admit him, on the basis of his participation in Nazi-sponsored acts of persecution while serving during World War II as an armed guard at the Trawniki forced-labor camp in Nazi-occupied Poland under the direction of the government of Germany and his subsequent concealment of that service when he immigrated to the United States. As Judge Owens wrote in his decision ordering Palij’s deportation, the Jews massacred at Trawniki “had spent at least half a year in camps guarded by Trawniki-trained men, including Jakiw Palij.”  In December 2005, the Board of Immigration Appeals denied Palij’s appeal.

The removal of Palij to Germany was effectuated through close cooperation between the Departments of Justice, Homeland Security and State. For nearly four decades, the Justice Department has vigorously pursued its mission to expel Nazi persecutors from the United States.  The Palij case was the product of the Department’s longtime efforts to identify, investigate and take legal action against participants in Nazi crimes of persecution who reside in the United States. Since OSI began operations in 1979, that office and its successor, the Human Rights and Special Prosecutions Section (HRSP) of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division, have won cases against 108 individuals who participated in Nazi crimes of persecution. In addition, attempts to enter the United States by more than 180 individuals implicated in wartime Axis crimes have been prevented as a result of the “Watch List” program initiated by OSI and enforced in cooperation with the Departments of State and Homeland Security. 

This removal was supported by ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations and Office of the Principal Legal Advisor as well as the Human Rights Violators and War Crimes Center (HRVWCC).  The HRVWCC is comprised of ICE HSI’s Human Rights Violators and War Crimes Unit, ICE’s Human Rights Law Section, FBI’s International Human Rights Unit and HRSP.  Established in 2009, the HRVWCC furthers the government’s efforts to identify, locate and prosecute human rights abusers in the United States, including those who are known or suspected to have participated in persecution, war crimes, genocide, torture, extrajudicial killings, female genital mutilation and the use or recruitment of child soldiers. The HRVWCC leverages the expertise of a select group of agents, lawyers, intelligence and research specialists, historians and analysts who direct the government’s broader enforcement efforts against these offenders.

The case was investigated, litigated and supervised over the years by a host of attorneys and historians in OSI, the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Eastern District of New York, and HRSP, including Director Eli M. Rosenbaum, Senior Trial Attorney Susan L. Siegal and Chief Historian Dr. Jeffrey Richter, all of whom have served with HRSP since its 2010 creation.  

Asylum Granted for Citizen of India

Asylum granted by Immigration Judge for our client, a citizen of India, who was severely beaten by the government for his lawful activities on behalf of a political party.

Matthew Kolken named as one of the Best Lawyers in America for Immigration Law

I am pleased to announce that I have been selected by my peers for inclusion in the 25th Anniversary Edition of The Best Lawyers in America© for my work in Immigration Law.

Matthew Kolken Referenced in Reason Magazine

Matt Kolken, an immigration attorney and national immigration reform advocate, thinks there's a viable solution. "The law specifically provides that if you are an immediate relative of a United States citizen, [you're] eligible to apply for adjustment of status, which is to become a green-card holder from inside of the country," says Kolken.

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Matthew Kolken Quoted in Salon

Matthew Kolken, a partner at a New York immigration law firm, said there are only two substantive ways Trump’s in-laws could gain green cards: through sponsorship by their daughter or an employer. The latter is unlikely, he said, as it would require evidence that there were no Americans who could do the job for which they were hired.

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Immigration Arrests Drop at Mexican Border for Second Straight Month

Via the New York Times:

American immigration officials arrested 2,885 fewer people at the Southwest border last month than in June, the second month in a row that the number of migrants trying to enter the United States has dropped.

Data released on Wednesday by the Department of Homeland Security show that authorities apprehended 39,953 people at the American border with Mexico in July. The number of arrests in June totaled 42,838.

Matthew Kolken Recognized as One of Western New York's Top Attorneys

I am pleased to announce that I have been named by Business First and the Buffalo Law Journal as a "Legal Elite" honoree for 2018 as one of Western New York’s top attorneys.

Stepped Up Illegal-Entry Prosecutions Reduce Those for Other Crimes

Via TRAC:

The latest available case-by-case records for June 2018 reveal a total of 11,086 new federal prosecutions were brought as a result of referrals from CBP in the five federal judicial districts along the southwest border. June numbers were up 20.3 percent from the 9,216 such prosecutions recorded during May, and up 74.1 percent over March figures[1]. Despite this increase, only 46 percent of all Border Patrol arrests of adults in June were criminally prosecuted.

The number of families arrested by the Border Patrol showed little indication of materially dropping. Numbers have remained quite similar during April, May and June. This meant that Border Patrol officials still had to pick and choose which adults to refer to federal prosecutors, and which adults not to criminally prosecute.

Percent of Criminal Prosecutions for
Non-Immigration Offenses, Southwest Border

Matthew Kolken Recognized as a Five-Year Selectee as a "Super Lawyer" by Super Lawyers Magazine

I am pleased to announce that I have been recognized as a five-year selectee as a "Super Lawyer" for having attained a high-degree of peer recognition and professional achievement.

BIA PRECEDENT CHART

Note: This document compiles headnotes from BIA precedent cases published in volumes 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, and 27 of the Administrative Decisions under the Immigration and Nationality Laws of the United States, organized by topic.  It currently includes headnotes from all BIA cases published from Matter of Esposito (March 30, 1995) through Matter of L-E-A- (May 24, 2017).

Disclaimer: This document is provided for informational purposes only as a convenience to the public.  It is not intended as a comprehensive source for preparing an appeal, or for citation in legal briefs, and does not represent an official publication of EOIR.

It is always nice to be recognized for pro bono representation, but that isn't why you should do it

Ivanka Trump: Family separation policy was "a low point for me"

If only Michelle Obama had the strength of character to speak out against her husband's policies of jailing refugee children in deportation internment camps.

"That was a low point for me as well. I feel very strongly about that.  I am very vehemently against family separation and the separation of parents and children…immigration is incredibly complex as a topic." ~Ivanka Trump

.@IvankaTrump: "That was a low point for me as well. I feel very strongly about that. I am very vehemently against family separation and the separation of parents and children…immigration is incredibly complex as a topic." #axios360 pic.twitter.com/shU32wprwu

— CSPAN (@cspan) August 2, 2018

A Refugee Child Has Died After Being Released From Family Detention

Update: The child died following her stay at an ICE Detention Center, as a result of possible negligent care and a respiratory illness she contracted from one of the other children. 
The events took place in Dilley Family Detention Center in south Texas.

— Mana Yegani (@Law_Mana) August 1, 2018