The San Diego Immigration Law Offices of Jacob J. Sapochnick welcomes you. Our immigration practice is committed exclusively to the areas of immigration and citizenship law. We have big firm expertise in these specialties, but strive to deliver personalized client services at an economical cost.
Every week we cover different immigration topics on our Youtube channel. Subscribe and hit the notification bell to be notified every time we upload!
Recently the President of the United States controversially announced that he could end birthright citizenship by executive order.
What is birthright citizenship? The 14th amendment of the U.S. Constitution grants citizenship to all persons born in the United States. This right to citizenship is referred to as “birthright citizenship.” Such a right is granted to an individual born in the United States, irrespective of their parent’s immigration status in the United States.
Unsurprisingly, the President made the suggestion that he could do away with birthright citizenship, ahead of the midterm elections in the United States. The timing of the President’s statement shows that the message was politically motivated.
Does the President have the power to end birthright citizenship? The President cannot end birthright citizenship by executive order. The President’s message was made simply to incite fear in the non-citizen population, and to solidify the President’s support from his conservative base, who believe that “anchor babies,” a derogatory term used to refer to children born in the United States to non-citizen parents, should not be entitled to United States citizenship.
The President is likely aware that he, of course, does not have the power to end birthright citizenship by executive order, and made such a statement to deliberately deceive his base, and create confusion.
This is very troubling, given the state of our current political climate. If the President ever signed such an executive order, it would undoubtedly be met with fierce opposition in court.
In this video we cover a new USCIS policy that can have devastating consequences on students who overstay their duration of stay in the United States, or otherwise violate their status. This new policy will change the way F-1, J-1, and M students, accrue unlawful presence in the United States, for visa holders have violated the terms of their visa by not attending school or engaging in unauthorized employment.
Background
In the year 1996 Congress passed legislation that previously governed how an individual on a non-immigrant visa type such as an F-1 visa, could accrue unlawful presence. Pursuant to this legislation, visa holders who overstayed for more than 180 days, could be subject to a 3-year bar, while visa holders who overstayed for more than one year, could be subject to a 10-year bar.
Typically, individuals who travel to the United States on a non-immigrant visa type receive an I-94 arrival/departure record and a stamp in their passport indicating the length of their authorized stay in the United States. Failure to abide by the duration of stay results in an immigration violation of the terms and conditions of a non-immigrant visa type.
F, J, and M students are unique in that these individuals do not receive a definitive length of stay within the United States, and instead are issued an I-20 (for F students) or DS-2019 (for J students) that denotes their authorized stay as “D/S” or “Duration of Stay,” meaning that the individual’s stay within the United States is not confined by any particular date, but instead depends upon the conclusion of that individual’s program of study or authorized employment.
While students on an F-1 visa type could violate their status by failing to go to school, they could not accrue unlawful presence within the United States because of the D/S designation. This class of individuals could only accrue unlawful status at the time of being apprehension by an immigration official or by court judgment.
Immigration Lawyer Blog
