Immig Blog/Notes (www.sarponglaw.com)

The Law Office of James S. Sarpong, LLC is a Denver, Colorado based US Immigration Law Firm that provides immigration law services to clients throughout the United States (U.S.) and the world, including Colorado, Aurora, Colorado Springs, Denver, District of Columbia, Washington (D.C.), Maryland (MD), Montgomery County, Virginia (VA), Arlington, Chesapeake, Newport News, Norfolk, Richmond, and Virginia Beach.

Yesterday, Ohio Sheriff Richard K. Jones appeared in federal court facing charges that he violated the constitutional rights of an undocumented immigrant. The plaintiff, Luis Rodriguez, claims that Jones infringed on his 4th and 14th amendment rights. Cincinnati’s Local 12 channel reports:

 [Officials [police] said they were at the site to talk to a supervisor about undocumented workers, but while there Rodriguez and others were interrogated and asked to provide identification, said Rodriguez’s attorney, Al Gerhardstein.Gerhardstein said his client, who had lived in Butler County for 11 years, was arrested and charged with providing a false identification and was deported to Mexico, though he was later acquitted of the charge.

 Rodriguez is seeking damages and also trying to establish the principle that there aren’t any exceptions to the Fourth or 14th amendments.

 The deputization of immigration law has become a growing trend and rampant allegations of racial profiling and civil rights violations have proliferated alongside it. Immigration hardliners often argue that Jones and other sheriffs who take a similar approach to the immigrant community have done no wrong because they are dealing with a population to whom the Bill of Rights doesn’t apply. However, the American Civil Liberties Union points out that both the language and intent with which it was written suggests otherwise:

 The fundamental constitutional protections of due process and equal protection embodied in our Constitution and Bill of Rights apply to every “person” and are not limited to citizens. The framers of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights as well as the authors and ratifiers of post-Civil War amendments, all understood the essential importance of protecting non-citizens against governmental abuse and discrimination…Upholding the rights of immigrants is important to us all. When the government has the power to deny legal rights and due process to one vulnerable group, everyone’s rights are at risk.

 Back in 2006, NPR reported that Jones was on a mission to “prod and shame the federal government into more action” on the immigration issue. Back then, Jones went as far to implement mass arrests of Latino workers and put a big yellow sign proclaiming “Illegal Aliens Here” in front of the county jail to “let people know that there are illegals here, and it is a problem, and we want some help.” Nonetheless, when Congress tried to address the problem in 2007, Jones was part of the “anti-immigrant minority” that was “dancing in the streets” over the bill’s failure.

WASHINGTON – U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) today announced revisions to Form I-601, Application for Waiver of Ground of Inadmissibility. 
As of January 4, 2010, infection with the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) is no longer a ground of inadmissibility.  If you have the HIV infection, you are no longer inadmissible to the United States, and are no longer required to file Form I-601 because of your HIV infection.  As part of the revisions to Form I-601, any reference to HIV infection in the form and the instructions were removed. 
In addition, USCIS today announced that there are revised filing instructions and addresses for applicants filing Form I-601, Application for Waiver of Ground of Inadmissibility.   The change of filing location is part of an overall effort to transition the intake of benefit forms from USCIS local offices and Service Centers to USCIS Lockbox facilities. By centralizing form and fee intake to a Lockbox environment, USCIS can provide customers with more efficient and effective initial processing of applications and fees.
Beginning 1/27/2010, the following filing location changes are in effect for applicants located in the United States:

• Applicants who a) have an approved Form I-360 based as a Self-petitioning spouse or child of an abusive U.S. Citizen or Lawful Permanent Resident, or b) are a T nonimmigrant seeking adjustment of status, and who are filing Form I-601, must file their application at the USCIS Vermont Service Center;

USCIS Vermont Service Center
75 Lower Welden Street
St. Albans, VT 05479-0001.

• Applicants who are filing Form I-601 together with Form I-485, Application to Register Permanent Residence or Adjust Status, must file the I-485 and the I-601 at the filing location specified on the Form I-485 instructions.
• Applicants who have a pending Form I-485 must file Form I-601 with a USCIS Lockbox facility, based on the first 3 letters in their application receipt number. Detailed guidance can be found in updated Form I-601 instructions as well as at www.uscis.gov.  Applicants must include a copy of the I-797C, Notice of Action, showing that their Form I-485 was accepted.
• Applicants for Temporary Protected Status (TPS) under the Immigration and Nationality Act Section 244, must file Form I-601 with Form I-821, Application for Temporary Protected Status. Consult the applicable Federal Register notice for the applicant’s country’s TPS designation.
• Individuals in removal proceedings, must file Form I-601 with the Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR) office with jurisdiction over your case and according to the instructions that are provided to the individual in court.

USCIS Offices will forward incorrectly filed I-601 applications to the USCIS Lockbox facilities for 30 days, until 2/27/2010.  After that, incorrectly filed applications will be returned to the applicant, with a note to send the application to the correct location.
Applicants located outside of the United States will continue to file their Form I-601 with the U.S. Embassy or consulate where they are applying for a visa.
When filing Form I-601 at a Lockbox facility, applicants may elect to receive an email and/or text message notifying them that USCIS has accepted their applications.  To receive notification, the applicant must complete an E-Notification of Application/Petition Acceptance (Form G-1145), and attach it to the first page of the application.
For more information on USCIS programs or to download a copy of a USCIS Form, visit www.uscis.gov or call the National Customer Service Center at 1-800-375-5283.

Voorhis Lost Job After He Leaked Info From Criminal Database

POSTED: 10:54 am MST January 28, 2010

UPDATED: 11:00 am MST January 28, 2010

  DENVER — A former Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent who lost his job after information he provided from a restricted criminal database became part of a campaign ad in 2006 has become sort of a folk hero. He has inspired verses set to song and hours of discussion on Denver talk radio.
Now, Cory Voorhis is fighting to get his job back, and drew more than 50 supporters to a two-day hearing that began Wednesday.
Voorhis was acquitted in April 2008 of misdemeanor federal charges of illegally accessing a database. He provided Gov. Bill Ritter’s challenger Bob Beauprez information about the identities of illegal immigrants who struck deals with Ritter while he was Denver’s district attorney, allowing them to plead to lesser crimes to avoid deportation.
The case however continues to linger in Colorado politics. Last month, former campaign aide and Ritter staffer Stephanie Villafuerte withdrew her name from consideration for Colorado U.S. attorney after senators began asking about the Voorhis case.
Voorhis’s criminal defense team claimed that Villafuerte accessed the same database but wasn’t prosecuted. Those allegations were never proven and Villafuerte has denied wrongdoing.
“Cory’s not the bad guy,” said Bob Beauprez, who was Colorado’s Representative from the 7th Congressional District and running for governor at the time.
“The wrong that Cory blew the whistle on? Where did that issue go?” Beauprez said Wednesday outside the hearing.
In arguing for his job before an ICE Merit System Protection Board judge, Voorhis said he was following internal policy that allows ICE agents to disclose information to congressmen as well as to local political and business leaders.
Central to his defense is a claim by Voorhis that ICE supervisors knew about the disclosure of the information but didn’t do anything about it, in effect approving it.
During the hearing before Washington-based Administrative Judge Jeremiah Cassidy, ICE officials said Voorhis was fired because he accessed internal databases, disclosed the information to a campaign, and misused his post.
“What this case is about is whether he misused his position to further the interests of a political campaign,” ICE attorney Robert Erbe said.
Erbe said that Voorhis met with Beauprez campaign manager John Marshall, as well as with Trailhead, a Republican political group founded in 2005 by Republicans Gov. Bill Owens, beer magnate Pete Coors and GOP fundraiser Bruce Benson. Voorhis was given a list of names to check out and later gave the results to Marshall, according to testimony at the hearing.
“He should have known that he was talking to the campaign office,” Erbe said.
That nonpublic information initially allowed the Beauprez campaign to connect the dots on an illegal immigrant who used aliases and went on to commit a sexual assault in California after accepting the Denver plea deal, which became the basis of a campaign ad alleging Ritter was soft on crime.
Voorhis attorney Tom Muthers questioned the credibility of two supervisors in the Denver ICE office who denied that Voorhis informed them of the disclosure. At the very least, Muthers argued that ICE’s policy on disclosing information to members of Congress and other officials is unclear.
The hearing was to continue Thursday, with Voorhis set to testify in his defense. Cassidy was expected to issue a ruling in about 45 days.

By Mary Giovagnoli

Unless you were hanging on every word in Wednesday night’s State of the Union Address, you might have missed that the President reaffirmed his commitment to fixing our broken immigration system. His commitment wasn’t as specific as many of the things he has said about immigration reform in the past. In fact, this glancing mention of immigration reform has already caused a backlash among activists—many of whom are disappointed that the message was too muted and without teeth. But upon closer inspection, you might find that President Obama’s message of bipartisanship, American values and the importance of diversity translates into moving forward on immigration reform.
True, the President could have called for immigration reform as a component of rebuilding our economy. He missed a golden opportunity to make that link. And true, he could have laid out the case for immigration reform more systematically or made it clear that the White House and DHS are both working feverishly behind the scenes to make immigration reform happen. That would have been a welcomed message. President Obama did, however, deliver a more subtle message—a message aimed at Congress.

Take a look at the framing of the immigration statement from a rhetorical perspective. It wasn’t in the “jobs” section of the bill (although it should have been), but was instead in a section about governing and getting bipartisan cooperation. The arc of President Obama’s address goes something like this: jobs, jobs, economy, jobs, health care, foreign wars and terrorism, good deeds abroad, and then the following

                                   We must continually renew this promise. My Administration has a Civil Rights Division that is once again prosecuting civil rights violations and employment discrimination. We finally strengthened our laws to protect against crimes driven by hate. This year, I will work with Congress and our military to finally repeal the law that denies gay Americans the right to serve the country they love because of who they are. We are going to crack down on violations of equal pay laws – so that women get equal pay for an equal day’s work. And we should continue the work of fixing our broken immigration system – to secure our borders, enforce our laws, and ensure that everyone who plays by the rules can contribute to our economy and enrich our nations.

                                  In the end, it is our ideals, our values, that built America; values that allowed us to forge a nation made up of immigrants from every corner of the globe; values that drive our citizens still. Every day, Americans meet their responsibilities to their families and their employers. Time and again, they lend a hand to their neighbors and give back to their country. They take pride in their labor, and are generous in spirit. These aren’t Republican values or Democratic values they’re living by; business values or labor values. They are American values.

Translation:

My agenda this year is going to keep moving forward. If Congress won’t cooperate in doing the right thing, I can do it administratively. I have revived the nearly dead civil rights division so it can prosecute cases again after 8 long years without a real commitment to civil rights. I am finally going to get rid of discriminatory policies preventing gays to serve openly in the military. While I could do this on my own, I want to work with Congress to make it happen. And I still support comprehensive immigration reform that mirrors what Janet Napolitano laid out recently—a three legged stool where “everyone who plays by the rules can contribute to our economy and enrich our nation”—which means a path to legalization for the 12 million undocumented immigrants who would help revive our economy and continue to provide the rich diversity that makes the country strong.

Remember, Congress, we are nation of immigrants and immigrants vote. The values of our immigrant nation are what still drives us (that is, we are all immigrants) and sooner or later we need to fix the immigration problem. This isn’t a Republican or Democratic problem (read bipartisan) and it isn’t a business or labor problem (read the coming together of these two groups to solve immigration issues is vitally important.) It’s an American problem.

Translation, of course, is an art not a science. Many people will, no doubt, not read all of these subtleties into the speech. But consider the wide range of issues the president could have mentioned. The fact that immigration reform, framed within the context of quintessential American values, made it into the speech at all is surely significant. Also of significance is the fact that for the first time, Spanish language network anchors—from CNN en Español, Univision, and Telemundo—were invited to the traditional pre-State of the Union lunch with President Obama.

For days to come, the State of the Union Address will be taken apart line by line until the next big Presidential event—the release of the budget. Hopefully the President will learn before then that he can’t solely speak in Congressional code and expect the public to be satisfied. In the meantime, congressional leaders on immigration, such as Sen. Schumer (D-NY), Sen. Reid (D-NV) and Rep. Luis Gutierrez, continue to beat the drum for immigration reform and deliver the President’s coded message—immigration reform is still a top priority for this Administration, but we need to work together in order to move forward.

I think President Obama just killed comprehensive immigration reform.

 If he did, he killed it gently, with a pat on the head. Actually to be fair, he did not kill it. He sent it to the back of the bus. Behind the gays and lesbians.

The gays got the promise of the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. And a reminder that he’s already given them Employee Non-Discrimination.

 Immigration reform got a casual platitude.

 And we should continue the work of fixing our broken immigration system — to secure our borders, enforce our laws, and ensure that everyone who plays by the rules can contribute to our economy and enrich our nations.

 12 million undocumented immigrants deserved more than those 38 words.

 ”Continue the work of fixing our broken immigration system.”

 Does that imply that Congress or the White House have been already busy fixing our broken immigration system? Were they doing it during the rest breaks in the middle of health care reform gridlock? If so, I missed the memo.

 Yes, Department of Homeland Security has been tweaking the system, re-examining Bush-era diktats, looking at the conditions of detention centers. But that’s not fixing a broken system, it’s not even duct taping it. That is just sweeping at the edges with a fly whisk.

 But it says something for our nation’s mood that President Obama felt more confident promising repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell than taking on the immigration hot potato. Perhaps the defenders of Prop 8 in the courts in San Francisco had a point when they said that gays don’t need the protection of the court. It’s a community with a lot of political clout already.

 The tragedy is, that when the cultural tides are sweeping towards gay marriage, the president offered gays the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell — a promise that seemed fresh and exciting in the first days of the Clinton presidency. Now it seems like yesterday’s leftover promise.

 But at least gays got the leftovers. The immigrants who had demanded comprehensive immigration reform were gently told “Not right now. With 10 percent unemployment, it’s too risky. We must wait for the right time.”

I remember when they would tell that to the gays.

Baltimore’s ‘children’s docket’ is a step toward making immigration court more humane

By Wendy Young
January 28, 2010
 

The scene in a Baltimore immigration courtroom on a late October morning was unusual. Several dozen children of all ages filled the galley benches – from a 5-year-old girl in pigtails to several 17-year-old boys in dress shirts, and all ages in between. Aunts, uncles and guardians filled the seats around them. The judge was in his usual place before the court, but instead of immediately banging the gavel and calling cases, he was addressing the children, patiently explaining the duties of the officials in the courtroom, what the children should expect during their appearance before him, and stressing the importance of education. The judge promised the children a piece of candy after their appearance. As the proceedings began, he called each child by name instead of only calling their immigration numbers.

It was the day before Halloween at the Baltimore immigration court’s first children’s docket – newly established by the Department of Justice’s immigration agency to help make immigration court a less scary and traumatic experience for children. The creation of a day for children only to appear before an immigration judge and the implementation of child-friendly procedures is a huge step forward in improving the care and protection of immigrant children. (The second children’s docket took place Friday.)

This is a particularly important change for the more than 8,000 children who come to the U.S. alone each year and end up in immigration proceedings. More than half do not have a lawyer. In immigration court, defendants are not appointed a public defender, even if they are children; they must find a lawyer themselves or face the judge and the government attorney alone. Children who come to the U.S. without a parent or guardian are often fleeing a desperate situation. Some are trying to escape severe abuse or persecution; others have been abandoned by their parents and are trying to find a way to survive.

A number of children come to the U.S. each year as victims of trafficking. Some children are trying to reunite with their parents. Regardless of why they come, many are suffering from trauma from whatever drove them to this country. Without representation, these children are typically unable to make their case for U.S. protection. Even those with viable claims are sent back to their home countries and the harmful situation they fled.

Before the creation of a children’s docket day, children in immigration proceedings in Baltimore and other cities were mixed among the adults. Large numbers of adults would sit in a court waiting room until the judge called their immigration number. Children would be interspersed among these adults, often bewildered and scared. The judge would call immigration numbers, working through the many cases on his or her docket in a formal, even intimidating manner, especially for those not familiar with the U.S. court system (or even the language). The judge would hammer the gavel loudly between cases. If a child came for his or her first hearing without an adult or an attorney, the child would likely have a very difficult time understanding what was going on.

Perhaps most importantly for these children, on a normal docket day there is little opportunity to find an attorney or a legal service provider, unless the defendant happens to be approached by one in the waiting room. On the children’s docket day, the judge pointed out the pro bono attorneys and free legal service providers in the courtroom and encouraged the children to talk to them if they did not yet have an attorney.

The children’s docket day lasted until nearly noon. In each case, the judge encouraged the child to work hard in school, to learn about the United States, and to tell their schoolmates about their home country. Regardless of what happens in your case, the judge said, learn all you can so you can have a good life.

By establishing this children’s docket, Baltimore is underscoring what is best about this country and its commitment to the protection of the most vulnerable, particularly children. While these children are in our care, they deserve to be treated fairly and with particular attention – something all children need and deserve.

Wendy Young, who has worked on immigration policy with many advocacy organizations, is founding executive director of Kids in Need of Defense (KIND). Her e-mail is wyoung@supportkind.org.

January 19, 2009

 Washington D.C. – The Immigration Policy Center has compiled research which shows that immigrants, Latinos, and Asians are an important part of Texas’s economy, labor force, and tax base.  Immigrants and their children are a growing economic and political force as consumers, taxpayers, and entrepreneurs. Immigrants accounted for nearly 1-in-10 registered voters in the state and more than one-fifth of all workers. With the state working towards economic recovery, immigrants and their children will continue to play a key role in shaping the economic and political future of the Lone Star State.

Highlights from Texas include:

- Immigrants made up 16.0% (or 3,828,904 people) of Texas’s population in 2007, which is roughly the total population of Los Angeles, California.

-  30.9% of immigrants in 2007 (or 1,185,001 people) in Texas were naturalized U.S. citizens who are eligible to vote.

 - Latinos accounted for 36.0% (or 8,605,577) and Asians 3.4% (or 812,749) of Texans in 2007.

 - The 2008 purchasing power of Latinos totaled $175.3 billion and Asian buying power totaled $33.5 billion in Texas in 2007.

 - If all unauthorized immigrants were removed from Texas, the state could lose $69.3 billion in expenditures, $30.8 billion in economic output, and approximately 403,174 jobs. 

There is no denying the contributions immigrants, Latinos, and Asians make in Texas and the important role they will play in the state’s political and economic future. For more data on their contributions to the Lone Star State, view the IPC fact sheet in its entirety.

By CATHY WOODRUFF THE ADVOCATE
Click byline for more stories by writer.
First published: Sunday, January 17, 2010

For more than five years, Ivan Pavlenko has been building a life in the United States. He arrived here from Ukraine in 2004 with his mother, who married an Albany man in September of that year, and became part of a new family in America.

He worked an assortment of jobs, including stints with Price Chopper and Huck Finn’s Warehouse, while attending Hudson Valley Community College and the State University at New Paltz, graduating with high honors from both colleges. Now, he aspires to a career in international law, is studying Spanish and Arabic and has one law school acceptance already in hand.

Since their arrival in the United States, both Ivan, known to his family as Vanya, and his mother, Tetyana Pavlenko Palmer, have complied with a series of deadlines for submitting paperwork, “biometrics” such as fingerprints, and fees associated with those requirements on the way to their goals of citizenship.

Pavlenko achieved a significant milestone in January 2006, when he received a form known as a Welcome Notice.

“This is to notify you that your application for permanent residence has been approved,” it says. “It is with great pleasure that we welcome you to permanent resident status in the United States.”

The notification also included a reminder that his residence was “conditional” and noted that he would need to apply for removal of the conditions within two years, which he did.

All seemed to be going well until he checked back with the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service in November. His latest resident visa, commonly known as a green card, was about to expire, and he’d still had no response to his application for removal of conditions.

That’s when he and his family were stunned to learn that the future Pavlenko was charting with such energy was now in jeopardy. After years of languishing in review status, he was told by CIS staffers in Latham that he is disqualified from the “non-conditional permanent resident” status he has sought for years and could be tapped for deportation to Ukraine, where he no longer has any close family.

Pavlenko’s offense? In March 2005, he had the nerve to turn 21 before federal immigration authorities had finished processing his application — which they still have not done.

“I ‘aged out,’ using their term,” Pavlenko told me. “And because I aged out, I was no longer eligible for permanent residence. I was stunned. My mom was stunned. I said, ‘This is legally incorrect.’ I said ‘How can you punish me for your mistake?’”

At this point, I pause for a disclosure: Pavlenko is the step-son of Times Union Editorial Design Director Tom Palmer. We don’t usually write about folks with such close connections to the newspaper, but we are making an exception in this case because it is so rare for immigrants facing legal issues with the U.S. government to go public.

In line with his ambition to study and practice law, a passion that he says is growing with immersion in his own case, Pavlenko is gathering a body of legal briefs, research and recent court decisions related to other families facing the same crisis.

It is unclear just how many foreign step-children are in the same fix, but an attorney with the nonprofit American Immigration Council in Washington, D.C., said she and her colleagues have been surprised at the broad response the organization has received since filing a brief with the U.S. Board of Immigration Appeals in November in a similar case.

Pavlenko is among foreign nationals from many countries who have emigrated to America with so-called K-2 nonimmigrant visas. They are the unmarried children (under age 21) of parents who came here as fiancees or fiances of American citizens and were issued K-1 visas.

Since marrying Palmer in November 2004, the conditions attached to Tetyana Pavlenko Palmer’s permanent residency have been removed, but her son’s have not.

Attorney Emily Creighton of the American Immigration Council has heard many similar stories. “This is an issue that catches people off guard all the time,” she said.

So far, in several cases heard by the Board of Immigration Appeals and federal courts, the government has persisted in its argument that K-2 children, even if they were under 21 when they came to the United States and met the prescribed deadlines to apply for permanent resident status and removal of conditions, cannot be granted immigrant status if they turned 21 before the agency’s review process was finished.

Pavlenko, who now has studied stacks of legal briefs and decisions, can cite, perhaps, a half-dozen legal arguments to support his case, and he created a new blog just last week, ivanforusa.wordpress.com, to document his progress.

This is the bottom line underlying all of his arguments: Ejecting step-children of U.S. citizens and breaking up their families because they — inevitably — grew older during the government’s glacial process for processing their applications is absurd and unfair.

A spokesman for the Citizenship and Immigration Service declined comment on Ivan Pavlenko’s case or others of similar nature.

I am pleased to report that last week a decision from the Tenth Circuit of the U.S. Court of Appeals in the West unexpectedly buoyed spirits for Pavlenko and his family.

In a Colorado case remarkably similar to Pavlenko’s, the appellate panel overturned rulings by an immigration judge and the Board of Immigration Appeals, concluding that “a K-2 visa holder who timely applies for an adjustment of status … must be under 21 when he or she seeks to enter the United States, not when his or her subsequent application for adjustment of status is finally adjudicated.”

The court said the immigration officials’ contention that a person’s status is dependent on the date when the application is finally decided “violates basic principles of common sense and fairness.”

That’s the best news yet in a string of promising developments, said Pavlenko’s attorney, Jill Nagy of the Troy firm Bartle, McGrane, Duffy & Jones.

“The legal position that Immigration has been taking is not tenable, and I believe within a matter of weeks, they are going to change it,” she said. “There have been other similar situations lately, and the agency has acted very sensibly.”

The Advocate can be reached at advocate@timesunion.com. The Advocate appears in print Thursdays and Sundays, and online at http://timesunion.com/advocate. 

For more than five years, Ivan Pavlenko has been building a life in the United States. He arrived here from Ukraine in 2004 with his mother, who married an Albany man in September of that year, and became part of a new family in America.

He worked an assortment of jobs, including stints with Price Chopper and Huck Finn’s Warehouse, while attending Hudson Valley Community College and the State University at New Paltz, graduating with high honors from both colleges. Now, he aspires to a career in international law, is studying Spanish and Arabic and has one law school acceptance already in hand.

Since their arrival in the United States, both Ivan, known to his family as Vanya, and his mother, Tetyana Pavlenko Palmer, have complied with a series of deadlines for submitting paperwork, “biometrics” such as fingerprints, and fees associated with those requirements on the way to their goals of citizenship.

Pavlenko achieved a significant milestone in January 2006, when he received a form known as a Welcome Notice.

“This is to notify you that your application for permanent residence has been approved,” it says. “It is with great pleasure that we welcome you to permanent resident status in the United States.”

The notification also included a reminder that his residence was “conditional” and noted that he would need to apply for removal of the conditions within two years, which he did.

All seemed to be going well until he checked back with the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service in November. His latest resident visa, commonly known as a green card, was about to expire, and he’d still had no response to his application for removal of conditions.

That’s when he and his family were stunned to learn that the future Pavlenko was charting with such energy was now in jeopardy. After years of languishing in review status, he was told by CIS staffers in Latham that he is disqualified from the “non-conditional permanent resident” status he has sought for years and could be tapped for deportation to Ukraine, where he no longer has any close family.

Pavlenko’s offense? In March 2005, he had the nerve to turn 21 before federal immigration authorities had finished processing his application — which they still have not done.

“I ‘aged out,’ using their term,” Pavlenko told me. “And because I aged out, I was no longer eligible for permanent residence. I was stunned. My mom was stunned. I said, ‘This is legally incorrect.’ I said ‘How can you punish me for your mistake?’”

At this point, I pause for a disclosure: Pavlenko is the step-son of Times Union Editorial Design Director Tom Palmer. We don’t usually write about folks with such close connections to the newspaper, but we are making an exception in this case because it is so rare for immigrants facing legal issues with the U.S. government to go public.

In line with his ambition to study and practice law, a passion that he says is growing with immersion in his own case, Pavlenko is gathering a body of legal briefs, research and recent court decisions related to other families facing the same crisis.

It is unclear just how many foreign step-children are in the same fix, but an attorney with the nonprofit American Immigration Council in Washington, D.C., said she and her colleagues have been surprised at the broad response the organization has received since filing a brief with the U.S. Board of Immigration Appeals in November in a similar case.

Pavlenko is among foreign nationals from many countries who have emigrated to America with so-called K-2 nonimmigrant visas. They are the unmarried children (under age 21) of parents who came here as fiancees or fiances of American citizens and were issued K-1 visas.

Since marrying Palmer in November 2004, the conditions attached to Tetyana Pavlenko Palmer’s permanent residency have been removed, but her son’s have not.

Attorney Emily Creighton of the American Immigration Council has heard many similar stories. “This is an issue that catches people off guard all the time,” she said.

So far, in several cases heard by the Board of Immigration Appeals and federal courts, the government has persisted in its argument that K-2 children, even if they were under 21 when they came to the United States and met the prescribed deadlines to apply for permanent resident status and removal of conditions, cannot be granted immigrant status if they turned 21 before the agency’s review process was finished.

Pavlenko, who now has studied stacks of legal briefs and decisions, can cite, perhaps, a half-dozen legal arguments to support his case, and he created a new blog just last week, ivanforusa.wordpress.com, to document his progress.

This is the bottom line underlying all of his arguments: Ejecting step-children of U.S. citizens and breaking up their families because they — inevitably — grew older during the government’s glacial process for processing their applications is absurd and unfair.

A spokesman for the Citizenship and Immigration Service declined comment on Ivan Pavlenko’s case or others of similar nature.

I am pleased to report that last week a decision from the Tenth Circuit of the U.S. Court of Appeals in the West unexpectedly buoyed spirits for Pavlenko and his family.

In a Colorado case remarkably similar to Pavlenko’s, the appellate panel overturned rulings by an immigration judge and the Board of Immigration Appeals, concluding that “a K-2 visa holder who timely applies for an adjustment of status … must be under 21 when he or she seeks to enter the United States, not when his or her subsequent application for adjustment of status is finally adjudicated.”

The court said the immigration officials’ contention that a person’s status is dependent on the date when the application is finally decided “violates basic principles of common sense and fairness.”

That’s the best news yet in a string of promising developments, said Pavlenko’s attorney, Jill Nagy of the Troy firm Bartle, McGrane, Duffy & Jones.

“The legal position that Immigration has been taking is not tenable, and I believe within a matter of weeks, they are going to change it,” she said. “There have been other similar situations lately, and the agency has acted very sensibly.”

The Advocate can be reached at advocate@timesunion.com. The Advocate appears in print Thursdays and Sundays, and online at http://timesunion.com/advocate.

Ariz. Senate panel approves immigration bill

http://www.kswt.com/Global/story.asp?S=11852293

PHOENIX (AP) – An Arizona Senate panel has approved a sweeping bill to strengthen immigration enforcement.
The measure passed the Republican-controlled Public Safety and Human Services Committee Wednesday on a 4-3 party-line vote.
It would ban police departments from adopting policies that prevent officers from asking people about their immigration status.
The bill also would make it a state crime to be in Arizona illegally or to transport or conceal an illegal immigrant. And it seeks to curb day-labor employment by making it illegal for an illegal immigrant to solicit work in a public place or for anyone to hire someone from a vehicle.
Mesa Republican Russell Pearce is sponsoring the measure. A similar bill passed the Senate last year but failed in the House.

Copyright 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed