Last week, the U.S. Supreme Court announced that it would decide whether a regulatory deadline by which motions to reopen must be filed could be bent. Mata v. Holder, 14-185, 2015 WL 213642 (Jan. 16, 2015). The Court’s decision to grant the petition for writ of certiorari last Friday was understandably clouded by news that it also agreed to hear a collection of cases involving equal marriage rights. Though less prominent, Mata is of significance to anyone involved in immigration law. This case arises from a time limit on when individuals in removal proceedings must file a motion to reopen. [...]
Scholars Sidebar: Immigration judges write “Immigration Law 101”
Two immigration judges recently found time in their overcrowded schedules to give crImmigration law aficionados their take on the basics of this convoluted area of law. Hon. Dana Leigh Marks and Hon. Denise Noonan Slavin, A View Through the Looking Glass: How Crimes Appear from the Immigration Court Perspective, 39 Fordham Urb. L.J. 91 (2012). Written by Judge Dana Leigh Marks, the president of the National Association of Immigration Judges, and Judge Denise Noonan Slavin, the NAIJ’s vice president, this article is a great starting point for criminal defense attorneys with limited immigration [...]
5 Cir: BIA can’t impose due diligence requirement on motion to reopen pre-1992 proceeding
U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit held thatthe BIA cannot impose a due diligence requirement on motions to reopen proceedings that began prior to 1992. Rodriguez-Manzano v. Holder, No. 09-60795, slip op. (5th Cir. Jan. 9, 2012) (Wiener, Clement, and Elrod, JJ.). Judge Elrod wrote the panel’s decision. This case involved an individual who entered without inspection. He was placed in deportation proceedings in 1987 and ordered deported in absentia in 1988. Almost twenty years later he filed a motion to reopen through new counsel claiming that his original counsel provided [...]