Deportation Tales

  Fayetteville, AR (February 1, 2022) - The law firms of Bogart, Small + Associates and Kedron Benham, Attorney-at-Law, PLLC are proud to announce a merger effective February 15, 2022, that will unite the two firms under the Bogart, Small + Associates name. The merger combines two long-standing and respected Arkansas immigration law firms and enhances the experience and the capacity of both firms to represent members of Northwest Arkansas's growing immigrant community. "With this partnership, our goal is to be the most experienced and creative immigration law firm in Arkansas," said Nathan Bogart, a partner at Bogart, Small + Associates. "There is a shared set of values and goals that has connected both firms for years. Together, our firm's immigration attorneys will now collectively have nearly 60 years of experience." The combination aligns a depth of experience among the firms' respective attorneys who are already well-known throughout Arkansas and th...

The Memphis Immigration Court The Memphis Immigration Court has been busy during the pandemic. The court is in the process of expanding, adding additional space, more courtrooms, and new immigration judges. At the start of the pandemic in March 2020, the court only had four active IJs (two had recently retired, but two from Louisville were reassigned to Memphis). As of the writing of this post, the Memphis court's website lists eleven IJs. My court calendar confirms a twelfth IJ who I have included in this list. Rumors are there will be more. Here's who's new: Judge Alisha Campos : Judge Campos was appointed to the bench last October. She graduated with a B.A. from Arkansas State and a law degree from the University of Houston. Uniquely, Judge Campos has practiced both as a trial attorney for the Office of the Principal Legal Advisor, Immigration & Customs Enforcement, and as a private immigration attorney. Now she's hit the trifecta when it comes to removal proceed...

This morning, the  Executive Office for Immigration Review , sub-agency of the U.S. Department of Justice tasked with running the immigration courts, announced that, unless otherwise specified, non-detained immigration courts that have not resumed hearings since the start of the pandemic will remain closed to hearings through at least January 8, 2021. This means the earliest they can reopen is January 11, 2021. There is no word on whether they will open that week or not, but we should continue receiving these updates until they do. For months, EOIR has been sending weekly updates, but this was the first we've received for a couple of weeks. NOTE: This announcement does not extend to every immigration court. It does not apply to detained courts, for example. There have also been some non-detained courts that have already resumed hearings in full or limited capacity. Most importantly, even the non-detained courts not holding hearings at the present expect all filing deadlines to be m...

To kick off December, the Executive Office for Immigration Review reminded us of the havoc the Trump Administration can continue to wreak in the closing days of this presidency. In a newly released policy memo , Director McHenry, has impressively complicated the lives of attorneys and respondents in the name of making removal proceedings more efficient. Here's the rundown: Lies, Damned Lies... EOIR based this memo on a number of straight up lies. Director McHenry makes the claim that most respondents in removal proceedings have representation, especially in asylum cases. In fact, the memo claims nearly 85% of respondents had representation in 2020. This is based on unpublished numbers maintained by EOIR and has not been verified by any outside observer. In reality, large percentages of respondents have been unrepresented over the course of the last two decades and access to counsel remains a challenge confronting the immigration courts and their stakeholders. The memo also claim...

Yesterday, the Executive Office for Immigration Review , sub-agency of the U.S. Department of Justice tasked with running the immigration courts, announced that, unless otherwise specified, non-detained immigration courts that have not resumed hearings since the start of the pandemic will remain closed to hearings through at least December 18, 2020. This means the earliest they can reopen is December 21, 2020 - the week of Christmas. Our weekly reminder that EOIR does not have a long-term strategy This has been going on for months and, every Monday, every EOIR registered attorney and other stakeholders receive a new e-mail extending the non-detained closure yet another week.  NOTE: This announcement does not extend to every immigration court. It does not apply to detained courts, for example. There have also been some non-detained courts that have already resumed hearings in full or limited capacity. Most importantly, even the non-detained courts not holding hearings at the present...

Today, the Department of Justice announced, through Twitter, that all non-detained immigration courts without an announced re-opening date, will remain closed through at least August 21, 2020. This means the earliest non-detained hearings will return is Monday, August 24, 2020. For anyone with any hearing scheduled on August 21st or earlier, that hearing is now cancelled. This announcement applies to the immigration courts in our region, including Memphis, Kansas City, and Dallas. It does not apply to the detained courts. The immigration courts in LaSalle and Oakdale remain open and continue to conduct hearings.  Keeping the immigration courts closed is the right decision. COVID continues to rage, particularly in the South and grouping dozens, or more, people together for immigration court hearings and forcing those people to travel hundreds of miles is not a good idea.  Regardless, the DOJ needs to get this situation figured out. There is no reason we should be receiving a ne...

I have not been diligent in keeping this blog up to date. Not to make excuses, but I think a lot of that has to do with a desire not to spend my free time talking about the stuff I see every day at the office or on the road. They take a toll and I generally cope with them by pretending they're not happening when I finally get some time away from it though. 2019 was an eventful year. There were oral arguments in front of the circuit courts, at least one involving litigation I had been managing for years. They didn't go so well, but it was a major step forward and a tremendous learning experience. New detention centers opened up in our region, leading me to get to know the state of Louisiana better than I had ever planned on doing. Winning in court got harder. The asylum denial rate in the Memphis and LaSalle immigration courts hovers near 100%. But there were victories too. We won some reversals from the BIA and had success in most of our cancellation of removal cases. ...

Normally, this is a blog about removal defense and, more broadly, immigration-related litigation.  Even so, I wanted to discuss an issue that's been on my mind a lot the last couple of years using an issue I've been seeing in family-based immigration, not litigation. Since Trump took office, there have been numerous immigration-related policies and proposals that have taken the news by fire.  From the Muslim ban to family separation, there are a ridiculous number of cruel actions that justifiably stir up shock and anger.  They have motivated thousands to take to the streets and demand change.  They have inspired lawsuits.  That's a good thing.  We shouldn't be okay with cruelty in any form. Yet, while attention has been focused on these horrific activities, the administration and its employees in the immigration agencies have also silently been implementing changes, policies, presumptions and attitudes that will and do have devastating effects.  Mo...

Jena, Louisiana On Friday, September 28, 2018, the Executive Office for Immigration Review ("EOIR" - pronounced "Eeyore" like the Winnie the Pooh character) announced the hiring and assignment of 46 new immigration judges ("IJ").  Of those 46, four were assigned to the LaSalle Immigration Court in Jena, Louisiana, the middle-of-nowhere location of the GEO run  (for profit) ICE detention center where so many immigrants arrested in Arkansas are separated from their families and detained. The LaSalle court has been operating for well over a year, with EOIR often flying IJs to Jena to manage the docket a few days to a few weeks at a time to begin and then transferring management of the court to the Miami Immigration Court.  The Miami court's IJs would appear via televideo alongside ICE trial attorneys and other court staff, including interpreters. Miami's management ended mere weeks ago and now we have what we presume to be full-time IJ...

Like the Memphis Immigration Court , the LaSalle Immigration Court is not an independent arbiter of the law.  Instead, it is an administrative law court.  It is the sub-agency of another agency tasked with enforcing the laws as that agency sees fit. In this case, it is the local office of the Office of the Chief Immigration Judge , a sub-agency of the Executive Office for Immigration Review , a sub-agency of the U.S. Department of Justice . Practically speaking, what this means is the immigration judges are not judges at all.  Rather, they are attorney employees of the U.S. Department of Justice and they have to do whatever the Attorney General, currently everyone's least-favorite Southern caricature, Jeff Sessions, tells them to do. Looking specifically at the LaSalle court, this agency's sole purpose is to adjudicate the removal proceedings of detained immigrants.  Individuals who have been detained from all over the mid-South, particularly Arkansas, Louisia...

The Memphis Immigration Court is not an independent, Article III, court of law. Rather, it is an administrative law court falling under the jurisdiction of the Office of the Chief Immigration Judge , a component of the Executive Office forImmigration Review under the Department of Justice. The court in Memphis has jurisdiction over all non-detained removal proceedings originating in Arkansas, Tennessee and Northern Mississippi. As we're located in Arkansas, the vast majority of our clients facing removal end up in Memphis. Our cases involving detained immigrants will find themselves before one of the Louisiana courts and we sometimes have clients who find themselves before the Dallas or Kansas City immigration courts either because they are placed there by accident or they live in eastern Oklahoma or southwest Missouri. Regardless, Memphis is the general rule... 80 Monroe Avenue, Memphis, TN Photo courtesy of Google As such, it might be helpful to get to know the...