“A no bail arrest warrant has been issued for a prominent immigration attorney in Utah whose increasingly erratic behavior, according to police and prosecutors, culminated with him making terroristic threats against his wife in addition to making several bizarre statements,” reports Pat Reavy in KSL’s Utah News.

“Aaron Tarin, 40, of Herriman, was arrested three times over two weeks in late May through June. On Thursday he was charged in 3rd District Court with making a terroristic threat, a second-degree felony, and stalking, a third-degree felony.”

“According to charging documents, Tarin’s ex-wife reported to police that Tarin was engaging in ‘concerning behavior’ from May 18 to May 29, including sending her ‘multiple angry emails and videos … that talked about a ‘leprechaun chase’ and that ‘everybody needs to be ready for it.'”

Read the article.

Davis Wright Tremaine is pleased to partner with LaborLess and SHRM to bring you the webinar “COVID-19’s Impact on the H-1B Visa Process.” The COVID-19 pandemic has forced employees all around the US to work from home, which has had real implications on employers who hire H-1B visa workers.

This panel will go over how COVID-19 has impacted the H-1B visa process, walk through some of the issues around LCA posting and public access files, offer some practical tips and solutions, and discuss opportunities for streamlining processes going forward.

Register for this webinar.

“A couple of years ago, a Reuters investigation uncovered another revamp of immigration policies under President Trump. ICE has a Risk Classification Assessment Tool that decides whether or not arrested immigrants can be released on bail or their own recognizance. The algorithm had apparently undergone a radical transformation under the new administration, drastically decreasing the number of detainees who could be granted release. The software now recommends detention in almost every case, no matter what mitigating factors are fed to the assessment tool,” reports Techdirt in Above the Law’s Technology.

“ICE is now being sued for running software that declares nearly 100% of detained immigrants too risky to be released pending hearings. The ACLU’s lawsuit  opens with some disturbing stats that show how ICE has rigged the system to keep as many people detained as possible.”

Read the article.

The Supreme Court will hear a slate of highly charged disputes when the justices return to the bench in the new year and resume one of the most politically volatile terms in recent memory, reports The Hill.

The court already has heard high-profile fights over LGBT rights in the workplace, the scope of the Second Amendment and the deportation status of nearly 700,000 young undocumented immigrants. But the remaining cases on the court’s docket are no less explosive, write The Hill‘s John Kruzel and Harper Neidig.

The top seven cases to be heard this session involve a separation of powers fight over President Trump’s financial records, Louisiana’s abortion law, religious school scholarships, religious exemptions from discrimination suits, the future of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, a fight over how copyright law treats software interfaces, and Bridgegate and public corruption.

Read the Hill article.

The Supreme Court on Tuesday appeared likely to side with the Trump administration in its effort to end a program that lets nearly 700,000 young, undocumented immigrants live and work in the USA without fear of deportation, according to a USA Today report.

Several conservative justices noted the Department of Homeland Security laid out several reasons for its decision to rescind the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, program.

The court’s four liberal justices argued that the decision to end DACA should rise or fall on the administration’s tenuous claim that it was illegal.

“Chief Justice John Roberts looked to be the key vote, as he was in June when he voted with the court’s four liberal justices to strike down the Trump administration’s effort to add a citizenship question to the 2020 census,” USA Today‘s Richard Wolf writes.

Read the USA Today article.

Senators from both parties criticized a nominee for a federal appeals court for declining to answer questions Wednesday about his work in the Trump White House and Education Department, according to an Associated Press report.

Trump has nominated Steven Menashi, an associate White House counsel, to a seat on the New York-based 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

Senators from both parties at the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing complained as Menashi refused to answer questions about his work on immigration issues, including a policy to separate migrant children from their families at the U.S.-Mexico border.

“This isn’t supposed to be a game,” Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., told Menashi.

Read the AP report.

The company that was the target in a sweep of workers allegedly living in the country illegally had a history of “knowingly hiring and employing illegal aliens,”  according to allegations in an unsealed affidavit for a federal search warrant.

The Chicago Tribune reports that “Six of seven Mississippi chicken processing plants raided were ‘willfully and unlawfully’ employing people who lacked authorization to work in the United States, including workers wearing electronic monitoring bracelets at work for previous immigration violations, the affidavit alleges.”

The sworn statements supported the search warrants that led a judge to authorize the raids, and aren’t official charges.

A spokesman for the company, Koch Foods, denied that the company knowingly or willfully employed any unauthorized workers at its Morton, Miss., plant.

Read the Chicago Tribune article.

The Associated Press is reporting that sworn statements supporting search warrants allege that six of seven Mississippi chicken processing plants raided last week were “willfully and unlawfully” employing people who lacked authorization to work in the United States.

Some of the workers were wearing electronic monitoring bracelets at work for previous immigration violations, according to unsealed court documents.

“The statements unsealed Thursday allege that managers at two processing plants owned by the same Chinese man actively participated in fraud,” writes the AP’s Jeff Amy. “They also show that supervisors at other plants at least turned a blind eye to evidence strongly suggesting job applicants were using fraudulent documents and bogus Social Security numbers.”

Read the AP article.

The general counsel of a Minnesota think tank has been suspended for comments she made about Somali-Americans in a New York Times article, reports the Twin Cities Pioneer Press.

The article with the comments from Kim Crockett, vice president and general counsel of the conservative Center of the American Experiment, examined the resistance to refugee resettlement in St. Cloud.

The following day, the Golden Valley-based organization announced that Crockett had been placed on an unpaid 30-day disciplinary suspension and said in a statement that her comments do not reflect its “views and values.”

Read the Pioneer Press article.

Immigration law firm Foster LLP was ranked as a “Band 1” firm for immigration in the USA category for the firm’s Houston and Austin offices in the newly released 2019 Chambers USA Guide. Chambers provides an annual ranking of the best law firms based on independent research and interviews with lawyers and clients worldwide.

Chambers says the firm is “adept at acting for corporations, as well as individuals and families, on a range of issues, including work permits, visas and citizenship. [Foster LLP] routinely acts for investors and startups in connection with securing EB-5 visas. The full range of assistance includes litigation and appellate services.”

Notable practitioners include founding partner and Chairman Charles Foster, recognized by Chambers among the Senior Statespeople. Clients say Foster is “very knowledgeable” and a “thought leader” in the immigration space, Chambers says, and he has a well-established reputation for advising on a range of immigration strategy and policy matters for corporate clients.

Judy Lee, recognized by Chambers as a Band 1 attorney, is “highly recommended for the strength of her business immigration practice and she enjoys an excellent reputation among her clients.” Lee focuses her practice on assisting corporations with their employment-based immigration concerns.

John Meyer, recognized by Chambers as a Band 3 attorney, is regarded by peers as “a strong, competent attorney.” He has a wide-ranging business immigration practice and divides his time between the firm’s headquarters in Houston and multiple international locations, according to Chambers.

Chambers has been ranking clients and firms across many practice areas and geographies for nearly 30 years. Their independent research collects information about the organizations, individuals, and marketplaces. Their London-based team of over 200 researchers conducts thousands of interviews and collects the information by phone and email interviews.

Chambers ranks lawyers and law firms on several factors of consideration, all of which are investigated by their research team. Law firm rankings relate to a department of the firm, not the firm as a whole. Individual lawyers are ranked in their practice-area(s) on the basis of their legal knowledge and experience, their ability, their effectiveness and their client-service. Lawyers cannot buy their way into Chamber’s rankings; as a result, its annual directories are considered among the most accurate and reliable.

The 5th U.S Circuit Court of Appeals has affirmed a 2016 jury verdict and 2017 trial court judgment that ultimately awarded $9.5 million to a Dallas-based health care company, according to a post on the website of Androvett Legal Media & Marketing.

In a majority opinion, the appellate court found that BlueCross BlueShield of Louisiana failed to properly reimburse Encompass Office Solutions for in-office medical procedures, and distributed a defamatory letter to physicians with false information regarding the company and its services. That letter threatened to terminate the network contracts of doctors who continued to work with Encompass.

Subsequent to the opinion in the case, the court has denied a motion for rehearing.

A trial team from Thompson & Knight LLP represented Encompass throughout the district court hearings and before the 5th Circuit.

“This case has a lengthy history spanning several years, and we’re pleased that finally Encompass will be properly compensated for the services it provided and the damages the company has incurred,” said Jennifer Rudenick Ecklund, a trial partner at Thompson & Knight who argued the case before the trial court and 5th Circuit. The judgment remains subject to the awarding of interest and legal fees to Encompass.

Other members of the Thompson & Knight trial team included William L. Banowsky, Andrew C. Cookingham, Greg W. Curry, Richard B. Phillips, Jr. and Reed Randel.

Encompass provides mobile ambulatory surgery services that allow doctors to safely perform surgeries in their offices. Encompass’s business is primarily focused on women’s health, allowing patients to have sensitive gynecological procedures done in the comfort and safety of the doctor’s offices while providing the necessary anesthesia care. This method reduces the infection risks associated with hospitals and ambulatory surgery centers, and provides both doctors and patients with a more efficient and cost-effective means of delivering medically necessary surgical care.

Politico reports that the Justice Department placed an online job posting for a pair of attorneys to tackle border wall litigation in South Texas — a sign of coming property seizures and other legal controversies that President Donald Trump anticipates if he plows ahead with his signature project.

Politico’s Ted Hesson interviewed Chris Rickerd, the American Civil Liberties Union’s senior policy counsel on border and immigration issues, who said the attorneys likely will deal with eminent domain property seizures and quarrels with landowners over what their land is worth.

The two advertised jobs, based in McAllen and Brownsville, will pay between $53,062 and $138,790, according to a posting to a federal jobs website.

Read the Politico article.

Image by U.S. Customs and Border Protection

Government lawyers have taken the first step in trying to seize private property using the power of eminent domain to build a border wall — a contentious step that could put a lengthy legal wrinkle into President Trump’s plans to build hundreds of miles of wall, reports The Washington Post.

Previous eminent domain attempts along the Texas border have led to more than a decade of court battles, some of which date to George W. Bush’s administration and have yet to be resolved, according to the Post‘s Katie Zezima and Mark Berman. Many landowners are vowing to fight anew.

The reporters quoted Gerald S. Dickinson, an assistant professor of law at the University of Pittsburgh, who said this newest fight will be different because the earlier effort mostly included federal government land.

“If it’s going to be a contiguous wall across the entire southwest border, you’re talking about a massive land seizure of private property,” he said.

Read the Post article.

A growing number of lawyers, interpreters and other professionals across the U.S. — members of Lawyers for Good Government — have mobilized to force the Trump Administration to defend its immigration policies in court.

Bloomberg reports that the organization, which was launched as a Facebook group the day after Trump was elected president, is working on behalf of people who have been detained after they sought asylum for themselves and their children because they said they feared for their lives in their home countries.

Reporter Nick Leiber writes that “L4GG has only one employee: founder, president, and executive director Traci Feit Love, a Harvard Law School graduate and former litigator for DLA Piper, one of the biggest law firms in the world. She and her board have been figuring out how to direct L4GG’s volunteers—a significant chunk of the 1.34 million attorneys in the U.S.—to make them useful.”

Read the Bloomberg article.

The U.S. Supreme Court handed a victory to President Trump after the high court upheld the third version of his travel ban in a 5-4 vote, barring almost all travelers from five Muslim countries, North Korea and government officials from Venezuela.

“This is a big win for President Trump,” says Dallas appellate attorney David Coale in a post on the website of Androvett Legal Media & Marketing. “The decision signals that so long as the president is acting in an area of traditional executive power, in a facially neutral way with regards to religion, he has a lot of power. This signals how things may go in later immigration litigation about border policy.”

Coale adds that the latest ruling is different from another immigration hot button involving asylum.

“This dispute turned on the force of a law about visas. The current immigration dispute involves asylum requests, which is a different set of statutes. So this case does not apply directly, but it does provide a road map for future litigation by making analogies to these laws.

“Both the majority and Justice Stephen Breyer’s dissent note the system of waivers and exemptions built into the president’s order. The majority says it shows that the order was drafted carefully; the dissent says that if the waivers and exemptions are not actually used, that can justify a challenge to the statute. So that may be the next round of litigation about these matters – whether the waivers and exemptions are in fact being applied as written.

“Also,” he noted, “the majority signals that it isn’t particularly interested in presidential ‘tweets.’ It mentioned them, but basically said they were not relevant to the legal issue at hand.”

The U.S. Supreme Court, winding down its nine-month term, will issue rulings this week in its few remaining cases including a major one on the legality of President Donald Trump’s ban on people from five Muslim-majority nations entering the country, reports Reuters.

“The nine justices are due to decide other politically sensitive cases on whether non-union workers have to pay fees to unions representing certain public-sector workers such as police and teachers, and the legality of California regulations on clinics that steer women with unplanned pregnancies away from abortion,” write Lawrence Hurley and Andrew Chung.

On the subject of collecting fees for union from non-members, the court’s conservatives indicated opposition during arguments on Feb. 26 to so-called agency fees that some states require non-members to pay to public-sector unions.

Read the Reuters article.

The New York lawyer caught yelling racist comments at Spanish-speaking restaurant workers in a viral video was treated like a pariah by fellow attorneys at a Queens court Thursday, lawyers there told The New York Post.

And Aaron Schlossberg will have to find a new place to work because his landlord kicked him out of his office space after the video went public.

Schlossberg was in court Thursday representing Queens medical center Aimes Enterprises Inc. — a day after footage emerged of the lawyer threatening to have workers at a Manhattan eatery “kicked out of my country.”

The NY Post article quotes two lawyers who were in court that day: ““I was taken aback that he would have the balls to come to court in front of all of his colleagues after his crazy outburst.” And: “Why would he do that? His reputation will be shot. What a dope!”

Read the NY Post article.

Employment and labor law firm Littler has released the results of its seventh annual survey, completed by 1,111 in-house counsel, human resources professionals and C-suite executives. The Littler Annual Employer Survey, 2018 analyzes the impact that sweeping regulatory changes and other factors, including the #MeToo movement, are having on employers.

The firm summarized its findings:

Following a year that brought several changes to workplace policy, the survey shows employers feeling some regulatory relief with the change in administration, while cautiously anticipating less of an impact from key regulatory issues over the next year. The portion of respondents expecting a significant impact from the Affordable Care Act dropped from 33 percent in the 2017 survey to 15 percent in 2018, with similar drops in significant concern around enforcement by the U.S. Department of Labor (25 percent to 16 percent) and the National Labor Relations Board (13 percent to 8 percent).

At the same time, employers feel buffeted by the burdens created by abrupt and dramatic regulatory changes, slow-moving confirmations to key government agency positions and the growing patchwork of state and local labor and employment requirements. The majority of respondents (64 percent) said that reversals of workplace policies and regulations between presidential administrations put a strain on their businesses and 75 percent said they faced challenges as states and localities work to fill perceived policy vacuums at the federal level.

“Companies want certainty more than anything,” said Michael Lotito, co-chair of Littler’s Workplace Policy Institute. “The vast majority of employers want to comply with the law and the continuous reversals of federal workplace policy, as well as the increasingly fragmented and sometimes contradictory rules at the state and local level, is an enormous distraction for them. Uncertainty means inability to plan, budget and anticipate, and it requires constantly retraining employees and reformulating employment policies.”

Of the changes that occurred during the first year of the Trump administration, respondents identified the rollback of wage-and-hour policies (62 percent) and the new tax bill (62 percent) as the areas that have most significantly impacted their businesses.

Immigration Reform Focuses on Visas and Enforcement

Amid tightening regulation and enforcement of both legal and illegal immigration, employers expect a range of immigration-related changes to significantly impact their workplaces over the next year.

Tighter restrictions on visa adjudications, such as those for employees with specialized skills and temporary workers, was the top concern selected by 48 percent of respondents. More than a third (36 percent) expressed concern with increased workplace immigration enforcement by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and associated agencies.

“It’s not surprising that the visa process and immigration enforcement emerged as employers’ top concerns,” said Jorge Lopez, chair of Littler’s Global Mobility and Immigration Practice Group. “The increased scrutiny being applied to employment visas and rule changes impacting visa programs, which often come mid-stream and without prior warning, make it difficult for employers to plan ahead and manage their workforces. In addition, the increase in worksite enforcement and raids have naturally heightened employers’ focus on worksite compliance issues and properly addressing those concerns.”

Continued Workplace Discrimination Enforcement Expected Amid Focus on Harassment

The survey showed virtually no change in the impact employers anticipate from enforcement by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) over the next year, with 76 percent anticipating an impact in the 2017 survey and 77 percent in 2018. This aligns with a key finding from Littler’s Annual Report on EEOC Developments – that the Commission actually filed more lawsuits in fiscal year 2017 than it has since 2011.

Employers surveyed expect the EEOC’s top enforcement priorities in the near-term to be harassment claims (64 percent), hiring practices (53 percent) and retaliation against employees who file discrimination or harassment claims (48 percent).

“Employers are right to expect the EEOC to continue to vigorously investigate workplace discrimination claims, particularly harassment claims and other EEOC priorities, regardless of upcoming changes at the Commission with an expected new chair, commissioner and general counsel,” said Barry Hartstein, co-chair of Littler’s EEO & Diversity Practice Group. “With the #MeToo movement and the EEOC’s focus on stemming the tide of harassment in the workplace, taking steps to minimize the risk of harassment claims should be a top priority for employers. We also should expect an active plaintiffs’ bar threatening and initiating private lawsuits during the coming year based on these developments.”

Sexual Harassment and Pay Equity Rank as Top Concerns for Employers

Among the many headline-grabbing issues swirling through the workplace, the majority of survey respondents (66 percent) ranked sexual harassment as the most or second-most concerning issue on their radar.

In the wake of the cultural shift sparked by the #MeToo movement, 55 percent of respondents have added training for supervisors and employees, and 38 percent have updated human resource policies or handbooks. However, only 13 percent have implemented new tools or investigation procedures to manage employee complaints and 24 percent have not made any changes over the past year.

“No company can afford to ignore this issue, and while many already have a good foundation, the past several months have shown the importance of reevaluating and reinforcing policies and procedures,” said Helene Wasserman, co-chair of Littler’s Litigation and Trials Practice Group. “While the law governing harassment in the workplace hasn’t changed much, employee expectations have. In addition to providing training and updating policies, it’s critical that companies have effective complaint procedures in place and that employees feel confident that reports of potential misconduct will be taken seriously and acted upon.”

Gender pay equity followed sexual harassment as the second-most concerning issue in the headlines for employers, with 41 percent placing it among their top two concerns. Companies reported taking action as a result, including conducting audits of current pay practices and salary data (61 percent) and revising hiring practices, such as updating job applications and ceasing the practice of asking candidates about prior salaries (34 percent). However, only 14 percent have modified compensation policies or taken steps to facilitate advancement of female and minority employees.

“Conducting audits is a critical first step to identifying pay disparities among employees, but with continued attention to this issue and an evolving legal landscape, an audit is just the beginning of addressing pay equity in the workplace,” said Denise Visconti, a shareholder heading the Littler Pay Equity Assessment. “As time goes on, pay disparities only become more intractable, so proactively addressing this issue helps companies mitigate risk and reinforce their commitments to treating employees equally and fairly.”

Employers Start to Embrace Data Analytics and Artificial Intelligence

Recruiting and hiring is the most common use of advanced data analytics and artificial intelligence, adopted by 49 percent of survey respondents. Employers also said they were using big data to guide HR strategy and employee management decisions (31 percent), analyze workplace policies (24 percent) and automate tasks previously performed by humans (22 percent). The smallest group of participants (5 percent) are using advanced analytics to guide litigation strategy.

“It is encouraging to see employers starting to embrace the many benefits provided by big data in helping manage their most important asset, their people,” said Aaron Crews, Littler’s Chief Data Analytics Officer. “However, it appears that many employers are not aware of the significant potential to use advanced data techniques to guide litigation strategy. The ability to leverage data early in a case, to tease out insights before you ever take a deposition or begin evaluating the credibility of witnesses, is revolutionary.”

The survey results are being released at Littler’s 35th annual Executive Employer Conference taking place May 2-4, 2018, in Phoenix, Arizona.

Image by Rhododendrites

Reuters is reporting that President Donald Trump on Wednesday blasted the U.S. court system as “broken and unfair” after a federal judge blocked his move to end the program protecting young immigrants brought to the United States illegally by their parents, commonly known as “Dreamers.”

He was responding to a Tuesday ruling by U.S. District Judge William Alsup in San Francisco that DACA must remain in place while the litigation is resolved.

In a post on Twitter on Wednesday morning, Trump wrote, “It just shows everyone how broken and unfair our Court System is when the opposing side in a case (such as DACA) always runs to the 9th Circuit and almost always wins before being reversed by higher courts.”

Read the Reuters article.

A Ninth Circuit ruling on President Trump’s “travel ban” case offers the U.S. Supreme Court a clever way to reject the ban without limiting government power over immigration, writes Garrett Epps for The Atlantic.

The court does not question the statute that the administration relies on as the basis for the travel bans, but it denies that the bans conform to it.

Epps explains that “a travel ban is perfectly possible, and the administration is always free to ask Congress for one. Had it done so in January, Congress might have enacted one by now. The Supreme Court may be concerned that a decision against the government in this case may weaken the nation; the Ninth Circuit opinion suggests a way to avoid doing so—while still rejecting Trump’s demand for personal powers that ‘will not be questioned.’”

Read The Atlantic‘s article.