Hi, and welcome back to Unite Immigrant Families. I'm Rosemary Vega, and I'm an immigration attorney in Houston, Texas. And today I have Magali Candler. She is also an immigration attorney in Houston, Texas. Hi, Magali. How are you today? Hi, Rosemary. I'm doing great. Thank you for inviting me. It's a pleasure.

It's always fun to have you on. So today I'm super, super excited because we have a new executive order that I think is going to help lots of people in the immigration realm. Um, yesterday President Biden signed an executive order, um, It's a new action to keep families together. Um, this new executive order, he wants to help mixed status families have some peace of mind.

He wants to help them stay together in the United States, meaning, you know, so many of the families, they had to, because they entered the United States. Iwi, meaning entry without inspection, without a visa. So many of them had to consular process, meaning they had to leave the United States and they couldn't end consular process.

And when they did that, so many of them had the risk of maybe not being able to come back for a couple of years because as you know, at the consulate, you never know what's going to happen. Right. And they do trigger a 10 year bar anyway, when they leave, some might be able to have that provisional waiver here first.

And as you said, even with that, no guarantees. Yeah. So that's, it's really scary for a lot of these families, especially if, um, a mom or a dad came in with their minor children, you know, they're considered alien smuggling. Oh my goodness. So, they, those individuals really did have to do the waiver outside of the United States and had to wait years.

Exactly. Even if they're not out the 10 years, they still leave, trigger a 10 year bar, have to do the waiver of the 10 year bar and the waiver for alien smuggling just for having brought their children here. No wonder people are afraid of doing the consular processing under these circumstances. Right. So with this new program, it's giving the option for these individuals to be able to get a parole in place so they could do their adjustment of status here in the United States, which would be wonderful.

Exactly. Forgive me as if they entered legally. Correct. Correct. So the requirements, um, from what I'm reading is Um, and it says that these individuals have to be married to a U. S. citizen as of June 17th, 2024. They have to be physically present in the United States for at least 10 years as of June 17th, 2024.

And they have to be present in the United States without admission or parole. So let's, let's talk about the very first requirement that we talked, that I read, which is being married as of June 17th. That sounds so simple, right? Being married. It sounds simple. Jinx. But in Texas, but in Texas, Magali, what do we have?

We have common law marriage, what is recognized, and in a way that it complicates it a little bit, but it also makes it so that people who are not formally married, as of June 17, They can still register their common law marriages if they qualify. And in Texas, you have to have an agreement to be husband and wife.

You need to live together and you need to be otherwise eligible to be married. So there are lots of things to look at, but they can go and register their common law marriage going back before June 17th. But there are other things to look at. And don't you agree they should go consult with a good attorney before doing any of this?

Oh, absolutely. Because you don't want to definitely, you don't want to, um, cause any problems because I know I've seen where they've registered a common law marriage when they shouldn't have, or to a date where they really shouldn't have, you know, um, maybe the U S citizen spouse naturalized and they got their...

Hi, and welcome back to United Immigrant Families. My name is Rosemary Vega, and I'm an immigration attorney in Houston, Texas. Thank you for listening to the podcast. And today I want to talk about Texas, a fairly new Texas law called SB4. So Texas passed this legislation in November of 2023, and it was supposed to go into effect on March 5th of this year, 2024.

However, this legislation has been, um, in the courts. because the ACLU and other lawyers, other organizations have been, um, filing lawsuits claiming that it is unconstitutional. And let's talk about the law and why Many believe that it is unconstitutional. Okay. So what is SB4? SB4 is a law that states that if a law, a police officer, law enforcement officer has probable cause, if they're, they have a reason to stop you, anyone, right?

Then they can ask your immigration status. Texas is claiming that the federal government isn't doing their, their job as far as immigration is concerned. So they're going to do it at least in the state of Texas.

And, you know, many citizens Should know this because it goes back to, you know, many of my clients, when they do their natural exam, we go through the questions and one of the questions is some, some rights and some duties are for the federal government and some is for the state government. And some are for, and one, one of the rights and duties and laws for the federal government is the immigration laws, right?

And that's for the federal government to handle. Okay. So here we go. And that's why the many lawyers are arguing that it is not, this law is unconstitutional. So it's held up in the courts, and that's the basics of it. It's much more complicated than that. I'm trying to simplify it here for for our podcasters and our listeners, but it's much more complicated than that.

Okay. Um, but that's the gist of it. And so, as before, is basically saying If a police officer arrests, stops you for speeding, stops you for, for any reason, right? Speeding, running a red light, running a stop sign, they could ask you your immigration status. However, this is where it gets interesting. Instead of sending you to immigration, they would have a Texas judge determine whether you you're, you're able to stay in the United States. That's where it gets interesting. That's where the issue really lies. So you're going to go through a Texas magistrate, Texas judge, who is going to determine, is this person, you know, able to stay. And are you going to say, Oh, yeah, just I want to be deported.

And then that judge is going to deport you to the United from the United States. Does that judge actually have that authority?

Then you, or you say, no, absolutely not. I'm not going to have, I want to fight my case, which most immigration attorneys would definitely recommend that you fight always. Um, And so you don't agree to any type of removal, don't agree to be deported. So you're going to, to fight this and it's going to be stuck in, you're going to be stuck in fighting, fighting, fighting these cases.

And so right now this law is put on hold because they're, they're arguing this. in the courts. And the Supreme Court, the Supreme Court had said, okay, we're, we don't, it's not ready for us to hear because the lower court needs to hear it first. So right now, the, this circuit is hearing the arguments and they're making those decisions right now.

Eventually, the Supreme Court is going to hear this case. This, the Supreme Court eventually will hear the case and we'll see what happens. But that is where it lies. Okay. So I know there's lots of questions because I've been going out into the community and hearing a lot of the questions that are being asked within the community.

And these are some of the questions that I hear readily. What if I don't have a driver's license and a police officer stops me? So you...

Good morning and welcome back to Unite Immigrant Families. Rosemary Vega. I'm an immigration attorney here in Houston, Texas. know it's been some time my last podcast, but I'm back. Um, I felt like it was time that I recorded a podcast, especially right now because new fees that are going to be implemented April 1st. with the USCIS. Um, and some of these new fees are good. Some of them are bad. So, well, not bad, but they're an increase. And some of them are actually going down. So I don't see it as, as a bad thing, you know, but it is a fee change, right? today I have Mariana and she's my legal assistant. Hi Mariana. How are you today?

Hi, Rosemary. Good morning. I'm, I'm great. Thanks for asking. And thank you for having me. It is a pleasure for me to be here today.

Great. So we are going to discuss the fee changes with, uh, USCIS. And I wanted, I wanted you specifically on today's podcast because You do a lot of the forms and you have a lot of interaction with the clients. I wanted you to talk about how the fee increase or the fee change is going to affect some of your work because immigration is trying to change their system and they're trying to do a lot of stuff online, a lot of their applications online, they've, they're trying to incentivize by giving a little bit of discount on their fees to try to do some of these applications online. And some of these applications can be done online, and some of them might not be a good idea to be done online. Um, and that's why I wanted you explain, help me explain why some of these applications probably would not be a good idea to be done. Um, and also some of the difficulties we have had in doing the applications online with the client. Overall, I mean, I've done some of the applications online historically without a problem, recently been a few hiccups and that might just be USCIS changing their system and that might have been some of the hiccups. Um, let's go through some of the applications really quick because. I see that. Well, let's talk about why there's going to be an increase. You know, USCIS, they're usually self funded. So a lot of people don't know that, you know, they get very small percentage of their money. from, uh, from, you know, the government. Other than that, they're usually self funded. Their, their pays comes from the application fees. their salaries and whatnot. So, and they haven't had a pay increase in a long time, right? So it's kind of important to have that. Um, so that is really important, right? Um, USCIS us that it's about four or 5%. 95 percent of their funding comes from the appropriations of bill. And means the rest, 95 percent of their funding comes from filing fees. So that is huge, right? So they're raising fees because they need to Kind of work on the backlog, right?

Yeah. Yeah.

an I 130 is taking over a year. You know, the waivers, the I 601A waivers, They're taking four years. So our clients were saying they're, they're constantly calling us and what's the status? What's the status?

Oh, it's take, we're still pending. It's still pending, right? So this is why they're working on the backlog. They are, they really want to work on the backlog and they've told AILA, the American Immigration Lawyers Association, they've told us. That they are wanting to hire more employees to work on this backlog, um, hire more staff. Um, so that's important.

Sure. For doing so, they have to increase the fees. And that's the explanation of what they are doing, what they're doing now with the fees.

Absolutely. know, and especially because, because there is a lot more asylum applications and refugee support, so they need to hire more staff, right? So, I mean, we all know I've have asylum applications that have been pending almost nine, 10 years. So this is it. It is crucial. is...

Immigration attorneys, Rosemary Vega and Magali Suarez Candler, discuss a new policy memo regarding the three and ten year bars and how it will affect people.

In this episode, immigration attorney, Rosemary Vega, discusses the naturalization process. She also discusses that citizenship is used interchangeably with naturalization, but how the 2 are actually different. She discusses and provides some examples of good moral character issues, especially when dealing with crimes and naturalization. She also discusses how the pandemic caused some people to not qualify for naturalization because they were out of the country for too long and how that affects them.

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