- Law Offices of Michael D. Baker Madison asked in 1790 who is "worthy" to immigrate to America. 236 years later, Congress still has no answer — and the rock keeps rolling back down the hill.

In 1790, Madison asked who was "worthy" to immigrate. 236 years later, Congress still has no answer. The rock keeps rolling back down the hill. mikebakerlaw.com/blog/2026/04...

Opinion | Who’s worthy of immigrating here? We may never decide. A debate as old as the country itself, and, still, we keep pushing that rock up the hill.

"The worthy part of mankind," Madison said in 1790. 228 years later, Congress still can't define it — and we keep pushing that rock up the hill. www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/who...

Find the governmental nexus or reframe the theory entirely. No nexus, no political opinion.
www.justice.gov/eoir/media/1...

The rule: political opinion = a belief or conviction tied to a government. Gangs in El Salvador aren't a de facto government, according to this record. Opposition to them, standing alone, isn't political. That kills most claims about gang-based political opinion.

BIA: Opposing gangs is not a political opinion. Matter of D-G-E-A- & N-G-G-E-, 29 I&N Dec. 570 (BIA 2026). Even principled, sustained anti-gang resistance fails the INA standard without a tie to a government or de facto government.

Arrests follow the blocks. Cubans qualify presumptively under the Cuban Adjustment Act — USCIS suspended their cases. Cuban ICE arrests jumped 463%. A Navy sailor’s wife detained after status lapsed. Swedish student married to a citizen, same. Block status, wait, arrest.

Numbers do the work. Green card approvals cut ~50% across 2025. Family-sponsored down 54% from July 2025 to January 2026. December 2025: USCIS suspended processing for 19 nationalities. January 2026: 40 countries. USCIS shed 10% of workforce, stood up a new enforcement wing in September.

USCIS Cut Green Card Approvals in Half to Help ICE Arrest Legal Immigrants A deliberate effort to thwart people's efforts to stay on the right side of the law.

USCIS didn’t break. Trump broke it on purpose. Green card approvals down 50% across 2025. Family-based approvals down 54% in six months. ICE arrests of Cubans up 463%. The formula is simple: strip the status, then arrest the person whose status you stripped.
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221. Chief Justice Roberts and the Clean Power Plan Remarkable reporting from the New York Times provides a peek behind the curtain of the February 2016 rulings that ushered in the modern emergency docket. And what it reveals is pretty discouraging.

Steve Vladeck wrote in February that we'd need our grandkids to read these memos. The NYT didn't wait. His five-takeaway breakdown at One First—wrong standard, irreparable harm hypocrisy, zero acknowledgment of precedent, belongs alongside the primary source. substack.com/@stephenvlad...

a woman wearing sunglasses and a pin with the letter s on it . Alt: a woman wearing sunglasses and a pin with the letter s on it .

NEW: Prof. Steve Vladeck @stevevladeck.bsky.social joins to talk about the NYT story on the behind-the-scenes goings on at SCOTUS over the Clean Power Plan stay - & birth of modern shadow docket

Then we cover girls v ghouls SCOTUS fights & more
crooked.com/podcast/scot...

Not one justice mentioned climate damage as a harm worth considering.

Sotomayor, this month: "We've done it to ourselves."

Read Kantor, Liptak, and Vladeck. All three are worth your time.

#SCOTUS #ShadowDocket

Four days later, Scalia was dead. One week's delay = deadlock = Obama's plan survives. Georgetown's Steve Vladeck ("One First" newsletter) nails the five big takeaways — including that Roberts applied the wrong legal standard and ignored the government's side of the harm equation entirely.

His quote: "Absent a stay, the Clean Power Plan will cause substantial and irreversible reordering of the domestic power sector."

Kagan warned him it was unprecedented. He didn't care. Kennedy cast the deciding vote in three sentences.

Roberts's evidence of "irreparable harm"? A BBC interview with the EPA chief. A blog post.www.nytimes.com/2026/04/18/us/politics/s...

The Inside Story of Five Days That Remade the Supreme Court

The Supreme Court's shadow docket has a birthday: February 9, 2016, 6:20 p.m.

The NYT's Jodi Kantor & Adam Liptak just published 16 leaked pages of internal memos from the night five justices killed Obama's Clean Power Plan — no briefs, no argument, no reasoning.

Pay what you owe — full or partial — without the extra penalty. Cash, check, card. Daley Center or any suburban courthouse. Call (312) 603-5030 to pay by phone. Moving violations only. Not parking. Not red light cameras. Five days. Use it.

If you've got old traffic tickets with collection fees piled on top, Cook County is giving you a window to clear them at a cheaper rate. April 27 through May 1, the Clerk's office waives collection fees on past-due moving violations.
forms.cloud.microsoft/pages/respon...

Escalation Trap | Prof Robert Pape | Substack The Escalation Trap equips you with the frameworks to recognize when conflicts are shifting phases, anticipate the pressures driving escalation, and make clearer decisions before volatility hardens in...

Forty days in. Iran controls 20% of the world’s oil. Billions flow to Chinese banks and buy the conversion of enriched uranium into working weapons. A fourth world power rises? Hegseth calls it Operation Epic Fury. Pape calls it a sucker deal.
escalationtrap.substack.com

Pape ran this film before. Vietnam. We cut 80-90% of the Ho Chi Minh Trail. Never got the last 10%. The VC won. We destroy 70% of Iran’s drones — and Iran needs a handful left to sink a ship in the Strait of Hormuz. Geography beats ordnance.

Robert Pape called this war before it started. Chicago professor. Founder of CPOST. Taught bombing strategy at the Air Force’s School of Advanced Airpower Studies. Wrote Bombing to Win. He says Iran has us in the Escalation Trap.

The clock is ticking toward May 9. The Fifth Circuit is the field. And his team is simultaneously fighting in the Third Circuit to establish that this whole framework — forcing him to wait for a PFR while the government deports him — was unconstitutional from the start.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

www.justice.gov/eoir/media/1...

Mahmoud Khalil. Syrian native, Algerian citizen. Entered December 2022. Columbia graduate, July 2025. U.S. citizen wife. U.S. citizen son born here. Six-month UNRWA internship in 2023. Proceedings ran through April 2026. Asylum, withholding, CAT, waiver — all gone.

INA § 237(a)(4)(C)(i) demands no criminal conduct, no terrorism nexus — just the Secretary’s certification. The I-485 misrepresentation charge required only that omitting the UNRWA internship had a “natural tendency to influence” USCIS. Six months. One blank line on one form.

Authority: Matter of Ruiz-Massieu, 22 I&N Dec. 833 (BIA 1999). Congress gave the Secretary unilateral, unreviewable judgment on foreign policy consequences. Built for a Mexican drug official. Now applied to a Palestinian grad student with a green card.

M-K- is Mahmoud Khalil — the Columbia grad student whose arrest made national news. The Board gave him a procedural win: under Matter of Forjoe, 29 I&N Dec. 463 (BIA 2026), he was statutorily eligible for a § 237(a)(1)(H) waiver. Then denied it on discretion anyway. The win meant nothing.

Here it is: The Secretary’s letter is “equivalent to a duly-certified record of criminal conviction.” Immigration courts cannot look behind it. No cross-examination. No discovery. No factual challenge. One letter from Rubio. Case closed.

Three holdings: (1) Rubio’s letter alone establishes removability under § 237(a)(4)(C)(i). (2) Omitting an UNRWA internship from Form I-485 = material misrepresentation. (3) A U.S. citizen wife and child don’t outweigh the Secretary’s letter. All relief denied.

The BIA just gave the Secretary of State the power to remove a lawful permanent resident with a letter. No trial. No conviction. A letter. Matter of M-K-, 29 I&N Dec. 556 (BIA 2026).

Omitting a 6-month UNRWA internship from Form I-485 sealed it. Audit your clients’ Part 8 disclosures.