Attorneys Present Tips on Federal Litigation

ILG Attorneys Present Tips on Federal Litigation

Jennifer Rotman advised lawyers from across the country on how to better combat government delay on immigration applications at the American Immigration Lawyer’s Association (AILA) National Conference, held in Washington, DC, in early July.

As part of “an advanced panel for the experienced court litigator,” Jennifer was joined by Emily Creighton of the American Immigration Council and Joshua Goldstein, an immigration attorney practicing in Boston, MA, to discuss strategies for compelling the U.S. government to make decisions on held-up cases, lawsuits commonly referred to as Mandamus suits.

“Since September 11th, Immigration started doing FBI background checks and people’s residency and naturalization applications would get stalled four or five or six years,” Jennifer explained. “Now they are still holding up a lot of applications, saying that applicants are possibly tied to terrorist organizations or have given material support to terrorist groups. Often, however, these are groundless accusations and unnecessarily hold up the process.”
This is the second year that AILA has called on Jennifer to advise members from across the country, following a presentation last year on criminal inadmissibility issues.

Immigrant Law Group attorney Stephen Manning also presented at the conference, as he has in years past. This year, he presented strategies in dealing with conflicts of law between the Board of Immigration Appeals and different circuit courts, as well as conflicts within individual circuits. Stephen also sat on an advanced panel for experienced federal litigators to discuss effective brief writing and tips for keeping current on case law.