During the first few days of the new President, President Joseph R.Biden, Jr. enacted several executive orders affecting Immigration law (Examples: Ending the Muslim travel ban, reinforcing protection of those participating in the DACA program, halt of the Border Wall, etc). As always, I will review the actual laws - those that have been enacted and are enforced - that have been released by the government and will notify you of any changes affecting the Thai community. In this article, I will be discussing recent news by the Biden Administration regarding Deportation, or in legal terms, "Removal" Cases. Specifically, the new President has in effect, (1) put a temporary hold on deportation cases and (2) brought back an immigration policy known as "prosecutorial discretion".

As of last Friday (1/22/2021), the United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has indicated a 100-day break in cases of deportation ... this moratorium applies to all deported persons except (1) those who were not present in the United States before November 1, 2020, (2) those who agreed to leave the United States voluntarily (Voluntary Departure), and (3) those who are found to be a terrorist or pose a great danger to the United States (Terrorists or Danger to America). Therefore, for the next 100 days, all deportation cases, except those listed above, will be on hold and not processed until after the end of the moratorium.

In addition to the 100-day moratorium on deportation (Deportation / Removal), an old policy called "prosecutorial discretion" for defending these types of cases has been revived. I've written about this before in an article on Deportation but as reminder, 'prosecutorial discretion' gives lawyers the opportunity to communicate with Government DHS attorneys (Chief Counsel) in order to negotiate a deal, whereby based on the circumstances, the Government DHS attorneys can use their discretion whether to prosecute or not. This was a good thing because in the past, I was able to get several of my clients released from Immigration Court based on convincing the Government DHS attorneys that my client was not a high priority case... However, when Trump became President he changed this and no longer allowed it. Now that we have President Joe Biden, prosecutorial discretion is once again a possibility.

As I mentioned, I will be reviewing more laws that have been and will be enacted. For those that affect the Thai community, I will be discussing them in future articles so stay tuned.

If you have any questions still left unanswered or you have questions regarding other legal issues, email me at: JC4LAW@HOTMAIL.COM, my office at (818) 846-5639, or my Thai direct line at (818) 505-4921. For those in Thailand, or outside the US, you can contact me on LINE: JC_esq Also be sure to check us out on FACEBOOK at: https://www.facebook.com/ThaiAttorney Be sure to follow (and "like") me for most recent updates in the law, on the web at: WWW.JC4LAW.COM, and now on YouTube, seach "Joseph Chitmongran" (Please LIKE and SUBSCRIBE for more videos in the future).

Disclaimer: The information contained herein have been prepared for informational purposes only and are not to be considered legal advice unless otherwise specified. If you have a specific question regarding your personal case, please contact the Law Offices of Joseph Chitmongran for a full consultation.