What we want to accomplish in this website: This web site is designed to give the readers an opportunity to become familiar with the immigration laws of the United States and with the procedures by which the United States federal agencies that have jurisdiction over noncitizens in the United States (e.g., the Citizenship and Immigration Services (CIS) the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the Customs and Border Protection, (CBP)) must follow in their daily adjudicatory, investigatory and enforcement interactions with non citizens. Adjudicatory interactions involve the agencies' adjudication of applications for benefits filed by non citizens (immigrant and nonimmigrant visas, employment authorizations, etc.,) while investigatory and enforcementinteractions involve the detention, interrogation, arrests and prosecutions of noncitizens by these federal agencies.  Because these agencies employ humans (agents) to carry out their daily investigatory and enforcement interactions with noncitizens, the likelihood that these agents will not follow the procedures that they are required to follow is significant, and more often than not, it will be the determinative factor in the appeal process. It is extremely important for a successful appeal therefore that a timely and careful scrutiny over those interactions of the agents with the noncitizen be conducted and properly recorded when they occur so as to preserve them for administrative and judicial review. This web site is written in plain and simple English. It intentionally dispenses of statutory and regulatory provisions of the Immigration and Nationality Act (the "INA") and of the applicable Title 8 of the Code of Federal Regulations (the "CFR").  And it does so because this web site is for readers like you, who wish to receive clarity of information, without needless complexities of the nomenclature employed by federal law enforcement agencies or immigration practitioners in the procedure and practice of immigration law.   This web site is also not intended to cover an overview of all immigration processes affecting noncitizens in the United States.  Rather, it is designed exclusively to cover only those areas dealing with the federal agencies that have been delegated by the Congress of the United States (and the Attorney General of the United States) with the authority to enforce the deportation, removal and or exclusion of noncitizens. It aims at offering a window into the interactions and procedures of the federal government agencies when enforcing our immigration laws and at illustrating to noncitizens on what they should avoid when facing deportation, removal or exclusion from the United States. And last, an important caveat, the reader should keep in mind that for just about every rule of law on the books, there will likely be an exception (or exceptions) that may apply. Although most all of our immigration laws in the United States are well-settled and will apply to all noncitizens the same across our nation, some of these laws may be subject to an exception. As a result, when you read a rule of law that we have posted or referenced in this web site, we do not intend that it be interpreted as if it is written in cement or is absolutely inflexible. To the contrary, the reader should consider the possibility that theremight be an exception to such a rule. Further below in this web site we inform the reader that although our immigration laws are intended by the Congress of the United States to be applied equally across the various states, in reality, it is the federal appellate circuit courts that have the ultimate authority to decide whether the laws enacted by Congress are constitutional, or not. But there are eleven separate federal appellate circuits in the United States and they do not always agree in interpreting our immigration laws the same as other circuits.  This results in unavoidable variances between the federal circuits as to what a particular law is, or is not, making an immigration law enforceable in some circuits while unenforceable in others until the Supreme Court of the United States intervenes and decides what the law is.  The reader therefore should consult with an immigration expert to determine his or her individual likelihood at prevailing in defeating the government's attempt to effect his or her deportation from the United States depending on the noncitizen's particular state where he or she resides.  Example:  until July 14, 2011, if a noncitizen was convicted of a simple drug possession related crime and was lucky enough to have been a resident of one of the states (when appearing before the office of the immigration judge) under the jurisdiction of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, his conviction for simple possession of a controlled substance would be treated differently (more favorable) than a conviction for the same or similar offense would be treated by another federal circuit court, on grounds of equal protection, if the noncitizen was a resident of a different state. The Ninth Circuit reversed itself in Nunez-Reyes v. Holder on July 14, 2011 joining the rest of the federal circuits finding that a conviction for a controlled substance that has been expunged remains a conviction for purposes of immigration law.    We are very grateful that you find this web site useful.  The Management.  Immigration_AppealWorks®