FREE NEWSLETTER

Learn how to benefit from United States immigration laws and procedures from a former INS Attorney (1976-82) with over 30 years of experience. SHUSTERMAN'S IMMIGRATION UPDATE is must reading for potential immigrants, employers, human resources managers, immigration attorneys, reporters and policy makers. Join over 57,000 persons in more than 150 countries in subscribing to our FREE monthly e-mail newsletter. E-Mail Address: Your Name:

The Department of Justice appears close to making a final announcement on handling cases subject to the 4,000 per fiscal year cap on suspension of deportation and cancellation of removal. The Department is in the final throes of developing a docketing system to log decisions and maintain the cap.

Cases reserved during Fiscal Year 1997 were carried over and received conditional grants during Fiscal Year 1998. The Nicaraguan and Central American Adjustment and Relief Act of 1997 (NACARA) allowed for the unused Fiscal Year 1997 numbers to be carried over to Fiscal Year 1998, making 8,000 numbers available for eligible cases. Cases involving certain classes of individuals (e.g., individuals from certain Central American and former Soviet-block countries) are not subject to the cap.

A rule is expected in late September that will outline the docketing system and announce how the cases granted conditionally will proceed to full grants and adjustment of status. In the meantime, the Chief Immigration Judge and the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) have directed that future decisions in all pending suspension or cancellation cases subject to the statutory cap be reserved, effective September 8, 1998, until the end of the month (which is the end of the federal fiscal year). This action apparently results from the fact that the number of conditional grants of suspension and cancellation may exceed the cap of 8,000. Action on the conditional grants is expected by the end of the month and may be encompassed by the new rule.

Until the end of the month, Immigration Judges are instructed to go forward with hearings as scheduled and to dictate oral decisions, but not to reveal those decisions—whether positive or negative—to either the applicant or the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS). It is anticipated that this procedure will continue into the future, and that the docketing system will permit the Justice Department to maintain the cap during each fiscal year.

Justice Department officials stated in a meeting with interested groups on Monday September 14, 1998 that the current scheme of issuing conditional grants of suspension or cancellation will not likely continue. Rather, cases will be reserved and intended approvals will be processed at to-be-determined intervals in order to ensure that the cap is maintained for each fiscal year. Officials at the meeting also indicated that no applicants with reserved or conditional grants would be subject to deportation, with the strong implication that the Department would move as quickly as possible to issue final grants and adjustments of status.

Schedule A Legal Consultation

Return to Text and Analysis of the 1996 Law

Return to Immigration Guide Homepage