Author: Shahid Haque

I had a great time chatting with Carter Carroll on The Rational Middle about our Open Borders app, immigration in Montana and more.

The Rational Middle is a podcast that inspires fact-based discussions to find real-world solutions to our greatest challenges.

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We are proud to announce the launch of Open Borders, a free immigration guide created by the Border Crossing Law Firm, P.C.  The app is available now in both English and Spanish on the Web, Android, iPhone/iPad, and Mac.

This guide was created by Shahid Haque, an immigration attorney and former law professor who has spent more than 17 years representing thousands of clients in the U.S. immigration system.

“After conducting thousands of immigration consultations, an immigration attorney develops a system for evaluating cases and identifying the important factors that affect a client’s options,” Mr. Haque said.  “I wanted to use my knowledge of immigration law to benefit people around the world, so I spent several years writing a guide that offers a free, automated assessment of your immigration options.”

“While I can only be in one place at one time, Open Borders can help thousands of clients at once,” Mr. Haque said. 

By asking a series of important questions, we will evaluate your case and explain what you can do to get legal status in the country.

✅ We simplify our complex immigration laws, by presenting you with information that is relevant to your circumstances.

✅ We can help you explore the options you have to come to the United States, or remain here with lawful status.

✅ We assess complex immigration fact patterns, even those involving one or more illegal entries into the country.

✅ We can explain what relief you may qualify for in deportation or removal proceedings.

🙋🏽‍♂️ If at any point you want our help, you can schedule a consultation by phone or video, or hire us for full representation.

 We believe that legal representation is critical in immigration cases, and do not encourage you to file any applications without the assistance of a qualified attorney. Even though we provide personalized information based on your answers, this is not legal advice, and using this app does not make us your attorneys. 

Try it now on the Web:

https://openborders.io

We will be presenting on a panel at the 2021 AILA Annual Conference on Immigration Law on June 9–12, 2021.

From Samantha Hawkins, Capital News Service

WASHINGTON – Just three years ago, the words “oriental” and “negro” were removed from federal laws and regulations, after a bill to ban the offensive words unanimously passed Congress.

Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, D-New York, pushed the legislation through, under the premise that words matter, and can cause harm and division.

Another attempt to change the federal government’s vocabulary is underway, but unlike its predecessor in 2016, the bill seems far less likely to fly through Congress.

The term proposed for the chopping block is “illegal alien,” under legislation sponsored by Rep. Joaquin Castro, D-Texas.

The phrase refers to noncitizens who are in the country without proper authorization, and fell mostly out of use with politicians until last year, when President Donald Trump amped up his use of the term to refer to all authorized immigrants.

We spoke to the Capital News Service about our thoughts on the term, which we first shared over a decade ago:

In April 2013, the Associated Press revised its guidelines to abandon “alien” and “illegal alien” in news stories and instead encouraged journalists to specify how someone entered the country and from where.

For example, an unauthorized immigrant may have been brought to the United States against their will, such as a victim of sex trafficking. Some might have come under “temporary protected status” because of turmoil in their home country, and the government later removed their protected status. And it’s estimated that about half of unauthorized immigrants in the U.S. came here legally, but overstayed their visas.

“The term is a problem because you would think if someone is an illegal alien, that means they are all in the same boat,” Shahid Haque, an immigration lawyer in Montana, said, adding that “illegal alien” is overly simplistic and legally inaccurate. He also said the word can do a lot of harm in the way immigrants are treated.

“It allows characterization of a large group of people to be less entitled to compassion or dignity,” Haque said. “It allows people to dehumanize the immigrants themselves and cast their entire existence as illegal.”

“The broader the term is used, the more it’s meant to demonize immigrants and portray them as criminals,” he said.

Most immigrants aren’t criminals. Because crossing the border without authorization is a misdemeanor, but overstaying a visa is a civil infraction, a migrant’s unauthorized presence in the United States is not a criminal offense.

And the notion that immigrants are dangerous has been dashed by several studies showing both legal and illegal immigration does not lead to rising crime. While 6% of U.S. citizens are felons, only 2% of immigrants are felons.

But “criminal aliens” is an even more frequent phrase in Trump’s vocabulary than “illegal aliens.”

Please read the full article here.

From Eddie Kim, features writer for MEL Magazine:

Supreme Court Justice Elena Sotomayor tells a room of Yale Law School kids in 2014 why she chooses to say “undocumented immigrant” rather than “illegal alien”: “To call them illegal aliens seemed and does seem insulting to me.”

That last bit rings true to Shahid Haque, an immigration lawyer in Montana who a decade ago published a blog post arguing that “illegal alien” is a dehumanizing phrase. The key shift from the origin of the word “alien” is that in 2019, it’s used as a shorthand to categorize black and brown immigrants. “The average American conjures a common image: a Mexican person. It’s a phrase that makes people feel better than another group, and makes it easy to blame ‘illegals’ as the source of problems,” Haque tells me. “The term ‘alien’ is defined in our laws, sure. But the phrase ‘illegal alien’ makes no sense. There’s no reference in the law to that. You wouldn’t call someone an illegal citizen if they commit a robbery. You’re not an illegal driver if you have a DUI.”

Over the course of his 11-year career, Haque has watched as immigration rules made it harder and harder for people to navigate the system. He argues that an immigrant can be unauthorized for a million different reasons, not merely because they “cheated the system” or “cut the line” as critics have claimed. “The act of entering the country illegally is a misdemeanor. Once you’re in, that’s not a crime you can be arrested over. Your existence isn’t criminal — you just committed an illegal act. And if, like many, you’ve overstayed a visa, well, you’ve not committed any crime at all,” he says. “That’s a civil infraction.”

He also points to Trump as a cheerleader for the framing of people as “illegal aliens,” and notes that more and more people seem to be making a political choice to stick with using “illegal alien” instead of any other term. And there is undeniably a race and class element to this framing — as a 2018 study found, people are prone to use stereotypes in deciding who they call an illegal alien. “We find that national origin, social class and criminal background powerfully shape perceptions of illegality. These findings reveal a new source of ethnic-based inequalities — ‘social illegality’ — that may potentially increase law enforcement scrutiny and influence the decisions of hiring managers, landlords, teachers and other members of the public,” concluded researchers René Flores and Ariela Schachter.

What comes next? Haque is more or less holding his breath until Trump leaves office, as the administration has made a mess while changing a variety of immigration rules and regulations. This has turned immigration courts and the oversight of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services agency into a clogged artery where people are floating in limbo, unable to appeal decisions and facing judges who have been given orders to hear fewer cases, Haque says, mirroring numerous claims from immigration attorneys and activists. He argues the system, now hyper-jammed, is fueling an increase in immigrants “without status” in the U.S., and that reformed policy should allow more people who don’t have immediate family already here. In the meantime, major U.S. corporations are benefiting wildly from a secondary labor market that’s easily disposable and willing to work for lower wages.

“People say that the immigration system is broken, but really, it’s functioning as designed. The problem is that it’s hurting a lot of people, and really ourselves as a nation. The system isn’t designed to let enough legal immigration for the right people, so what’s happening is there are no opportunities for large categories of people,” he says. “Before Trump, I don’t think anyone credible believed we could do an enforcement-only strategy, but somehow, that’s where we are now. And Democrats spending their time talking about only helping the most needy people, rather than pushing to make the entire system more fair.”

Perhaps these points are a bit moot — Haque doesn’t expect reform to happen anytime soon, let alone people to stop using the phrase “illegal alien.” It still stands as the tip of the iceberg for a social, economic and moral issue larger than George Washington could’ve ever imagined.

Check out the full article.