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What does “Immigration Reform” actually entail?

Author: US Immigration Lawyer Alena Shautsova For the past few months there has been a lot of talk about “Immigration Reform”. On Thursday, June 27, 2013, the current bipartisan immigration reform bill passed the Senate with a vote of 68-32. So what is all this talk about immigration reform really about? For the approximately eleven million und ...

Immigration Consequences of DOMA Being Struck Down

Author: US Immigration Attorney Alena Shautsova On June 26, 2013 the Supreme Court of the United States issued an opinion in United States v. Windsor that caused rainbow flags to fly high all across the country. In Windsor, the Supreme Court held that Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act enacted by Congress violated the Fifth Amendment of the ...

Asylum Claim Based on Domestic Violence in Home Country

Author: Asylum Attorney Alena Shautsova An applicant for asylum must establish that he or she is a refugee within the meaning of INA § 101(a)(42). To qualify for asylum, an individual must demonstrate that he or she has a well-founded fear of persecution on account of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or politi ...

U.S. Supreme Court Struck Down Section 3 Of The DOMA

Author: US Immigration Lawyer Alena Shautsova Dear Friends, We are happy to share the recent news that on June 26, 2013, Justices of the U.S. Supreme Court in United States v. Windsor, struck down Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), which defines marriage as between a man and a woman, noting that “DOMA’s principal effect is to iden ...

What relief is available under the Convention Against Torture (CAT)?

Author: Asylum Attorney Alena Shautsova In some instances, an individual who does not qualify for asylum may meet the threshold requirements to qualify for relief under the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CAT). As declared in Article 3 of CAT, countries do not want to remove an individual t ...

Age Discrimination: When to Complain?

Author: Discrimination Attorney Alena Shautsova New York State and City laws, as well as Federal ADEA (“Age Discrimination Employment Act”) protect workers from age discrimination: it is illegal to subject employees to harassment, disparate treatment and retaliation. Different laws provide different frames of protections, with the New York City l ...

Immigration 800 Number

Author: US Immigration Lawyer Alena Shautsova Immigration 800 Number: 1-800-898-7180 Immigration 800 number is an automotive system that provides updates on alien’s case processing dates such as next hearing date; status of the case; immigration clock… To use it, the person must know the A number of the subject of the call. There is no name dir ...

Spousal Visa Denial: What’s Next?

Author: US Visa Attorney Alena Shautsova Every year, thousands of U.S. citizens get married to foreigners and if they thought that the marriage and wedding is the most tiring part, they were bitterly mistaken. After the wedding, the happy couples have to “deal” with the maze of the U.S. immigration laws. Some brave hearts attempt to do it on their ...

Anthropologists Study the Prevalence of Sexual Harassment

Author: Sexual Harassment Attorney Alena Shautsova Anthropology is the science that studies mankind in terms of physical and cultural development including biological characteristics, social customs and beliefs. As in many other scientific areas, scientists engage in fieldwork in remote and uncivilized locations. According to an article in A ...

Winning DV Lottery and Next Step

Author: US Green Card Lawyer Alena Shautsova May is the time of the year when applicants for the Diversity Lottery learn if they were selected for further processing. Typically, the number of those selected is much higher than the number of available immigrant visas. Why? Because many applicants will be disqualified based on misrepresentation in t ...