Immigration Arrests and Raids and Employment Law Update

Here is a video of a speech that I gave a few months ago to an overflow crowd in Houston. I was talking about my predictions for immigration raids of churches, hospitals, synagogues, mosques and other places where immigration officials historically would not visit.

While the video is several months old, some of my predictions are already coming to fruition, where spouses of Americans with no criminal record are being arrested and deported and where according to some of my clients, immigration officials are “rounding-up” foreigners in some of the smaller, more rural areas. With my 30+ years of experience in immigration law, I am uniquely situated to advise individuals, companies and non-federal government agencies on how our laws work and exactly what is going on right now. I have been staying very busy, lately, doing just that.

In other matters at our office the past couple of weeks, I had the opportunity to visit with clients from some of the smaller countries of Africa, such as Equatorial Guinea, Burkina Faso (formerly known as Upper Volta) and Angola. In addition to providing legal advice to these clients, this Houston immigration lawyer and Miami immigration lawyer always finds it interesting to talk to them about their culture, language, and other aspects of their country.

On the employment law and employment discrimination law front, I am currently in Phoenix, Arizona for two days of depositions. My client sued Dignity Health in Phoenix, alleging he was fired due to sex discrimination and retaliation. The essence of his allegations are that his boss was sleeping with his co-worker, that Dignity knew about it and allowed it to continue, and when there was a lack of funding, his supervisor chose to keep his female co-worker (the one sleeping with the boss) , rather than my client. In addition to the two days of depositions, I have been enjoying the regional food, the dry heat and 100+degree temperatures, and the sight of all the exotic desert flowers and cactus plants.

Lastly, it has been a busy month for court hearings on our employment discrimination cases. We went to court twice this month in our client’s case against Wells Fargo, where our client claimed race discrimination, and the bank sued her back for alleging stealing money from the vault. We also had a court hearing in our client’s case against Hobby Lobby, where he alleges he was fired in retaliation for complaining about sex discrimination.

For further information, I may be reached in Houston at 713.850.0066 or in our Miami office at 305.538.6800. I can also be reached at bruce.coane@gmail.com.

Immigration Office Discriminates against the Disabled?

The immigration laws passed by Congress provide special provisions for people with disabilities. In particular, there is a process called disability naturalization, where individuals who cannot learn to speak English or otherwise retain information because of a disability, can be exempted from certain parts of the naturalization process.

As background, naturalization is the process to become a U.S. citizen. To become a citizen, a person must first, generally, have been a permanent resident with a green card. To obtain citizenship through naturalization, a person must speak English, take a history test and know how to read and write English. An exception to all of this, is if they have a disability such as blindness, deafness, mental disorder, etc.

While historically, the immigration service has approved many of these cases, I have noticed a trend in Houston lately where the interviewing officers are looking for ways to deny disability naturalization or otherwise give the disabled a hard time. For example, in a case that I  had at the Houston immigration office today, the officer, Ms. C. Arredando, claimed that she could not read the doctor’s writing on the immigration form that the doctor is supposed to complete.

While doctors may be notorious for their poor handwriting, the doctor’s writing in this case was clearly legible to this Houston immigration attorney. When the officer was losing that argument, she then claimed that the doctor’s signature was not original, but rather a scanned copy. All the while, this poor disabled client who does not speak English was being told she would have to come back (after driving two hours to get there and waiting over an hour until her name was called) another day with a clearer form and original signature.

Sadly, this is the new reality of how disabled clients may expect to be treated when visiting the Houston immigration office. The notion of the government accommodating people with disabilities does not seem to ring true, from my recent experiences, at the Houston immigration office. Perhaps the current strategy of the Houston immigration office is to frustrate as many people as possible so that they will drop their efforts to become a U.S. citizen.

For further information, I can be contacted at bruce.coane@gmail.com or 713.850.0066 or 305.538.6800.