Law Offices of Michael D. Baker, Chicago Immigration Lawyers.

07/23/2026

⚖️ A man voted once, in 2012. He thought he was allowed to.

He told the government himself — wrote it right on his citizenship application.

No prosecutor ever charged him.

Fourteen years later, he's being deported, and the Board of Immigration Appeals said the judge should have been harder on him.

📋 That decision came down today.

🤐 It also held something that should worry every immigrant with a pending criminal case: if you take the Fifth in immigration Court, the judge can hold your silence against you.

Most people don't know this — immigration Court isn't criminal Court. It's civil. If you ask to stay, you will need to demonstrate that you deserve it. So silence doesn't protect you. It sinks you.

⚖️ I've handled four of these cases. Four people charged with removal for voting unlawfully. I won all four.

Every one had 20+ years here. Citizen ki s. Steady work. Minor problems otherwise.

Under today's decision, I lose all four. 💔

🔍 Now here's the part that should make you angry.

They keep telling you noncitizens are voting in huge numbers.

Michigan checked 5.7 million ballots. Found about 15.
Georgia checked 8.2 million voters. Nine had ever voted.
The Heritage Foundation's own database: 77 cases in 24 years. The whole country.

Last week the government told four states they had 250,000 noncitizens registered. Where'd that number come from? Commercial marketing data. The kind that mails catalogs to people who moved out in 2011.

Nevada did the math out loud: 15,903 claimed — but only 138 people in the entire state have any paperwork gap at all.

📊 And the one screening tool a federal Court actually examined? Wrong 97.6% of the time.

Repeat something long enough,h and people stop asking for proof. That's what's happening, nd real families are paying for a crisis that isn't there.

Full breakdown here 👇

The BIA held unlawful voting is a significant adverse factor and that taking the Fifth can be held against you. One vote in 2012. Fourteen years to removal.

07/10/2026

They found a way to deport people before they ever get a lawyer.
It's called a "mega master" hearing. One immigration judge One morning. More than a hundred people ordered into a single courtroom , 611 in Chicago on one June morning, in a room that runs out of chairs before it runs out of names.

Arrive late because the security line wrapped around the block? Miss a roll call you couldn't hear. You don't get another date. You are ordered deported in your absence.

The crowd isn't a backlash. It's the strategy. And the scheduling data now proves it: the government is hand-picking specific judges and burying them, on purpose, to manufacture removal orders faster than anyone can fight them.

How it works, and how you fight back: https://mikebakerlaw.com/blog/2026/07/09/mega-master-hearings-due-process/

(The numbers come from a new data investigation by Austin Kocher, which confirmed what I'd been arguing: this is deliberate.)

DOJ "mega master" hearings stack 100+ into one setting to speed deportations. The notice and counsel law that fights back, plus a ready-to-file motion.

07/01/2026

They wanted you to watch birthright citizenship. That was the bright object.

The real blast came the day before, in Trump v. Slaughter, 609 U.S. ___ (2026). Six to three, the Court overruled Humphrey's Executor and handed the President at-will command of the executive branch — fire anyone who wields executive power, no cause, no notice, no hearing. Pair it with presidential immunity, and the courts are told to look away from how he uses it.

And Barbara, the birthright "win"? It's really 5–4 on the Constitution, resting on a single vote and a statute Congress can rewrite.

I broke down all four decisions — and why 2026 feels worse than 1976 even though we're richer — on the blog:

The Court overruled Humphrey's Executor and handed the President at-will command of the executive branch. Birthright citizenship? A win one vote deep.

06/30/2026

The Supreme Court Just Saved Birthright Citizenship

The Court ruled today. If you are born on American soil, you are an American citizen. It does not matter whether your parents were here unlawfully or on a temporary visa. The Court struck down President Trump's Executive Order 14160 and upheld the Constitution. Trump v. Barbara, decided June 30, 2026.

Six justices to three. Chief Justice Roberts wrote the main opinion. Justices Sotomayor, Kagan, Barrett, and Jackson joined him. Justice Kavanaugh agreed the order had to fall, though for his own reasons. Justices Thomas, Alito, and Gorsuch dissented and would have let the order stand.

The Fourteenth Amendment says every person born here and "subject to the jurisdiction" of the United States is a citizen. That language is more than 150 years old. The Court has read it the same way since 1898 in United States v. Wong Kim Ark. The President argued that the words "secretly" required a parent's permanent home hhere The Court said sohere.. The text means what it has always meant.

The Chief Justice wrote, "Where the dissents see feudalism, the Framers of the Fourteenth Amendment saw emancipation." He called citizenship "the right to have rights." He closed with four words. "We keep that promise today."
What it means for families.

The order is blocked nationwide. A child born here remains a citizen regardless of the parents' immigration status.T o clarify,u a newborn's citizenship does not depend on a parent's paperwork.

Read the decision here:

06/23/2026

A green card just got weaker at the airport.

The Supreme Court ruled today, 6–3, in Blanche v. Lau. Here is what changed for green card holders.

The rule. A border officer can now treat a returning permanent resident as someone "seeking admission" based solely on a pending criminal charge. The government does not have to prove the crime when it takes that step. It can prove it later, in immigration court.

Why it matters. Once you are pushed onto the "seeking admission" track, the burden flips onto you. You have to prove you belong here. Your green card can be taken and replaced with a temporary paper one. The man at the center of this case spent fourteen years on a stapled paper card while his case dragged on.

Who should pay attention? If you hold a green card and have any arrest, charge, or open case anywhere in your past, this affects you directly. A charge that later pleads down to nothing can still cost you the card at reentry.

What to do. Talk to an immigration lawyer before you travel, not after you land. Carry certified copies of every disposition. If you have an open case, treat travel as a risk to your status until a lawyer clears you.

Full breakdown here:

blanche-v-lau-charge-enough-green-card-limbo

06/21/2026

The Supreme Court Will Decide How Long Is Too Long

The Supreme Court just agreed to hear a case that asks a simple human question with enormous stakes. How long can the government lock up a green card holder, with no bond hearing at all, while it tries to deport him?

The People

Two lawful permanent residents brought this fight. One sat in detention for about seven months. The other, Keisy G.M., sat for twenty-one months. Neither ever got a hearing to ask a judge for release. A federal law, 8 U.S.C. § 1226(c), requires immigration officials to hold people charged with removability for certain criminal convictions. The law gives them no automatic day in front of a judge and sets no time limit.

The Ruling Being Reviewed

A federal appeals court in New York said the Constitution draws a line. When detention drags on unreasonably long, due process requires a bond hearing. And in one of the two cases, the Court said that the government, not the detainee, must prove that continued detention is justified and do so by clear and convincing evidence.

What the Justices Will Answer

First, is there a point at which this kind of detention becomes too long, such that the Constitution demands a hearing? Second, if so, does the government bear the burden of justifying keeping someone locked up? Third, the Court added a question of its own: whether one detainee's case still counts, given that he was released in 2022.

Why You Should Care

This is about who bears the burden when liberty is on the line. Put the weight on the government, and prolonged detention becomes rare. Leave it on the detained person, and a hearing can become an empty exercise. The Court's answer will reach every person held under this law, in every state.

The case is Genalo v. Black. You can follow it here:

Supreme Court case (25-886) — tracked on SCOTUSblog.

06/18/2026

Today, the government has a way to end an asylum case without a hearing.

The Board of Immigration Appeals ruled this afternoon, changing how asylum can be lost. An asylum claim can now be thrown out on the written paperwork alone. No hearing. No testimony. Picture a judge in an ordinary lawsuit ending a case before trial because he decides there is nothing to try. That power just arrived in immigration court.

The tool is something called an Asylum Cooperation Agreement
It is a deal between the United States and another country, saying that the country will take the asylum claim instead. When the government decides one of these agreements covers your case, it asks the judge to dismiss your application before it is heard and to order you removed to that other country. In today's case, that country was Ecuador, which is living under a declared internal armed conflict and where the State Department warns Americans not to enter parts of Guayaquil.

Why is this radical
Courts have always allowed some cases to end early on paper, but only with strong protections around them. A real chance to gather your evidence. A judge who reads that evidence in your favor. A clear warning to anyone without a lawyer before the case can end. Immigration court just took the power and dropped the protections.

Think about what gets decided this way. One order can wipe out three separate forms of protection at once, asylum, withholding of removal, and protection from torture, in a single paragraph, against a person who often has no lawyer, before the hearing the court itself scheduled. A judge reads a handwritten statement, calls it not enough, and signs the order. A man can be sent toward danger without ever speaking a word in his own defense.
That is the heart of it. The most basic promise of American law is that before the government takes something that matters, you get a real chance to be heard. A claim that you will be persecuted or tortured matters as much as anything can. Deciding it on paper, fast, in bulk, is not a shorter hearing. There is no hearing at all.

Read the full breakdown and the decision here:

The BIA's A-C-M- trilogy lets judges deny asylum and CAT on the papers, pro se, by asking the wrong question. Why the Seventh Circuit should reverse.

05/31/2026

🏛️ One judge. A hundred-plus respondents. One morning.
DOJ has started stacking immigration cases into "mega master" hearings — advancing dockets by years and counting on the people without lawyers to miss the date, then issuing removal orders in absentia. The volume changes nothing about the government's burden. Notice, counsel, and language protections all survive the crowd. ⚖️

New on the blog: how the tactic works, where it breaks, and a motion to continue you can file today.

DOJ "mega master" hearings stack 100+ into one setting to speed deportations. The notice and counsel law that fights back, plus a ready-to-file motion.

05/30/2026

DHS Spent Eight Days Terrorizing the Entire Adjustment of Status Pipeline. Then It Retreated.

In 2024, roughly 820,000 people obtained green cards through adjustment of status. That number tells you the scale of the pipeline — the pending applicants, the future filers, everyone who planned to adjust status inside the United States. Eight days ago, DHS told the entire population to leave the country instead. On May 29, the agency retreated.

That retreat is not good news. The fear has already done its work — and officers are still citing the policy in live interviews right now, with no definition of what the standard actually requires.
The original press release caused applicants to stop filing, reconsider pending cases, and contemplate departure. That damage is done. AILA's executive director said it plainly to the New York Times: it is now harder to figure out what you are even suing for, because DHS has blurred what the policy actually is. Deliberate ambiguity is the litigation shield. When the backlash came, DHS retreated to the memo. That was the play from the start.

Officers are already running the standard in live interviews. The Times reports that immigration attorneys say their clients were asked this week by USCIS officers why they were applying in the U.S. and whether anything prevented them from applying abroad. PM-602-0199 is active in actual adjudications right now — before anyone has defined what it requires.
The walk-back creates a new legal argument. DHS said on May 29 that this authority exists on a case-by-case basis. Any officer who denies an I-485 categorically — without individualized balancing — now contradicts the agency's own public statement. That is a live APA arbitrary-and-capricious argument that practitioners can use today.

The 10-year bar trap has been confirmed from within the agency. Former senior USCIS official Doug Rand: If you leave the country because you were told you had to, and you had unlawful presence, you are barred from returning for 10 years. The Times adds another dimension: nationals of countries where immigrant visa processing has been paused cannot pursue consular processing even if they want to. The trap, in that case, is entirely the government's creation.

Full NYT reporting here:

But details remained scant after officials said last week that, with “extraordinary” exceptions, people seeking permanent residency must first leave the country.

05/23/2026

USCIS just made the green card harder to get — even if you qualify.

A new policy memo (PM-602-0199, issued May 21) says adjustment of status — the way most people get a green card without leaving the country — is now "administrative grace," not a right. Meeting every legal requirement used to put you in line for approval. Now it only gets you to the starting line, and you have to prove that granting your green card is in "the best interest of the United States."

Who this hits hardest: parolees, people who overstayed a visa while waiting for a green card, H-1B and other work-visa holders stuck in long backlogs, and TPS holders with pending applications.

If you have a pending green card case, talk to an immigration attorney before USCIS asks for more evidence. The cases that win under this memo are the ones that prove their value up front. Read the full breakdown:

USCIS Policy Memo PM-602-0199 rewrites adjustment of status as extraordinary discretionary relief. What the new standard means for your I-485 — and the case law USCIS ignored.