Green card holders warned against leaving the United States
Green card holders warned against leaving the United States
"The revocation of green cards without giving an opportunity to prove lawful status...is a violation of due process," an immigration attorney told Newsweek.
The United States is not properly following national laws already on the books as it pertains to green card holders, international students and those with H-1B visas, according to multiple immigration attorneys who spoke with Newsweek.
The Trump administration, following the directive of a president who made immigration arguably his biggest issue on the campaign trail, is overhauling border protocols...
"The revocation of green cards and arrest and detention of individuals in the U.S. without giving them an opportunity to prove their lawful status is a violation of due process," Seattle-based immigration attorney Kripa Upadhyay told Newsweek.
She said that cardholders are arriving at U.S. ports of entry, including airports and border crossings, and not being provided such rights. She alluded to reports of returning green card holders who have been tricked or pressured into "voluntarily" abandoning their status.
"What the border officers cannot do is then put these individuals in a position where they are so tired of being held in custody for 8-10 hours (often after long haul flights of 16 hours or so) and tell them they can voluntarily choose to relinquish their Lawful Permanent Resident status," Upadhyay added.
"A LPR's status can only be revoked by an immigration judge, unless the individual voluntarily relinquishes it. What is happening at the airports/land borders is not voluntary. It is coercion, as was the case of [Schmidt]."
My brown Muslim professor of a wife who has expressed less than positive views of Israel's genocide is distraught because she will be forced to miss her brothers wedding.
At this point, if you are a non-citizen legal resident, avoid traveling abroad unless you have a squeaky clean record. Not even a speeding ticket or citation, or anything that gets you on a record somewhere that can be potentially used as a reason to deny you re-entry.
Also keep in mind that previously there has been a big grey area regarding grace periods when applying for new visas. Technically the day a student visa ends, you have overstayed your visa, even if you have a pending application for a new visa. It has long been State Department policy to allow a grace period for processing of new visa applications. Basically what this means is that a huge percentage of green card holders have technically violated the terms of one or more previous visas according to the letter of the law, even though a previous state department policy would have granted them a sort of amnesty for this while processing a new application. This could be used to revoke green cards en masse if desired.
I wonder how they’re going to handle the Jay Treaty with Canada? I assume fucking terribly.