https://blue.feedland.org/?river=http://data.feedland.org/blue/feeds/RLAbramson.xml It's just a feed for now Sun, 23 Mar 2025 20:29:01 GMT feedland v0.6.43 https://cyber.harvard.edu/rss/rss.html Sun, 23 Mar 2025 20:29:00 GMT http://rpc.rsscloud.io:5337/pleaseNotify Sun, March 23, 2025 4:29 PM EDT <p>I’m in the office on a brisk but sunny spring Sunday, working on a few time-sensitive matters, including:</p> <p>* Trying to help two clients who were so badly abused by a parent in their home country, that they chose to walk thousands of miles alone to the United States as adolescents to seek safety, education, and opportunity</p> <p>* Devising a novel legal theory so that a client who only recently learned of their U.S. citizen father’s existence through a DNA ancestry database may stake their rightful claim to U.S. citizenship</p> <p>* Writing an appellate brief on behalf of a family who was extorted by organized crime on the one hand and then their local police on the other</p> <p>* Figuring out how to convince a US consulate that someone who was wrongfully accused of a minor criminal offense (which has been dismissed) should not be denied a visa to return to their work and their family</p> <p>* Helping small businesses register for the H-1B lottery, so that they may staff certain specialty positions which, despite endless recruitment campaigns, they have been unable to fill</p> <p>In 2017, then-US Attorney General Jeff Sessions called me and my professional ilk “dirty immigration lawyers”. Now, we are being targeted again, threatened with myriad consequences for pursuing what the administration may consider “frivolous” or “vexatious” immigration litigation (which will be basically anything with which they take umbrage). This is just the latest in a series of Orwellian tactics designed to squelch legitimate legal challenges to this administration’s unbridled and unprecedented constitutional overreach.</p> <p>In “King Henry VI”, Shakespeare famously wrote, “The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers.” Justice John Paul Stevens invoked the scene in a 1985 dissent, observing that, “As a careful reading of that text will reveal, Shakespeare insightfully realized that disposing of lawyers is a step in the direction of a totalitarian form of government”.</p> <p>This is where we are. We have an administration hell-bent on razing democratic institutions. Federal agencies are being eviscerated. Hundreds of thousands of federal workers are being eliminated. Environmental protections; voting rights; DEI; the mere existence of trans people … all on the authoritarian chopping block. All the while, too many of our elected officials, community leaders, and others in positions of privilege and access turn a blind eye.</p> <p>Worst of all, though, is the indefensible capitulation of powerful firms like Paul Weiss, which has bent the knee by offering a $40-million in-kind ransom payment in the form of free legal services to defend the interests of an administration which seeks to destroy the integrity of a nearly 250-year-old legal system specifically conceived as a check against monarchic excesses and tyrannical impulses.</p> <p>Others who are far smarter than I will surely challenge these developments in court. In the meantime, I’ll do everything in my power to represent our clients ethically, zealously, and with all the dignity and humanity which they deserve.</p> Sun, 23 Mar 2025 20:29:01 GMT https://blue.feedland.org/?item=788980 https://blue.feedland.org/?item=788980 I’m in the office on a brisk but sunny spring Sunday, working on a few time-sensitive matters, including: \* Trying to help two clients who were so badly abused by a parent in their home country, that they chose to walk thousands of miles alone to the United States as adolescents to seek safety, education, and opportunity \* Devising a novel legal theory so that a client who only recently learned of their U.S. citizen father’s existence through a DNA ancestry database may stake their rightful claim to U.S. citizenship \* Writing an appellate brief on behalf of a family who was extorted by organized crime on the one hand and then their local police on the other \* Figuring out how to convince a US consulate that someone who was wrongfully accused of a minor criminal offense (which has been dismissed) should not be denied a visa to return to their work and their family \* Helping small businesses register for the H-1B lottery, so that they may staff certain specialty positions which, despite endless recruitment campaigns, they have been unable to fill In 2017, then-US Attorney General Jeff Sessions called me and my professional ilk “dirty immigration lawyers”. Now, we are being targeted again, threatened with myriad consequences for pursuing what the administration may consider “frivolous” or “vexatious” immigration litigation (which will be basically anything with which they take umbrage). This is just the latest in a series of Orwellian tactics designed to squelch legitimate legal challenges to this administration’s unbridled and unprecedented constitutional overreach. In “King Henry VI”, Shakespeare famously wrote, “The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers.” Justice John Paul Stevens invoked the scene in a 1985 dissent, observing that, “As a careful reading of that text will reveal, Shakespeare insightfully realized that disposing of lawyers is a step in the direction of a totalitarian form of government”. This is where we are. We have an administration hell-bent on razing democratic institutions. Federal agencies are being eviscerated. Hundreds of thousands of federal workers are being eliminated. Environmental protections; voting rights; DEI; the mere existence of trans people … all on the authoritarian chopping block. All the while, too many of our elected officials, community leaders, and others in positions of privilege and access turn a blind eye. Worst of all, though, is the indefensible capitulation of powerful firms like Paul Weiss, which has bent the knee by offering a $40-million in-kind ransom payment in the form of free legal services to defend the interests of an administration which seeks to destroy the integrity of a nearly 250-year-old legal system specifically conceived as a check against monarchic excesses and tyrannical impulses. Others who are far smarter than I will surely challenge these developments in court. In the meantime, I’ll do everything in my power to represent our clients ethically, zealously, and with all the dignity and humanity which they deserve. <p>I’m in the office on a brisk but sunny spring Sunday, working on a few time-sensitive matters, including:</p> <p>* Trying to help two clients who were so badly abused by a parent in their home country, that they chose to walk thousands of miles alone to the United States as adolescents to seek safety, education, and opportunity</p> <p>* Devising a novel legal theory so that a client who only recently learned of their U.S. citizen father’s existence through a DNA ancestry database may stake their rightful claim to U.S. citizenship</p> <p>* Writing an appellate brief on behalf of a family who was extorted by organized crime on the one hand and then their local police on the other</p> <p>* Figuring out how to convince a US consulate that someone who was wrongfully accused of a minor criminal offense (which has been dismissed) should not be denied a visa to return to their work and their family</p> <p>* Helping small businesses register for the H-1B lottery, so that they may staff certain specialty positions which, despite endless recruitment campaigns, they have been unable to fill</p> <p>In 2017, then-US Attorney General Jeff Sessions called me and my professional ilk “dirty immigration lawyers”. Now, we are being targeted again, threatened with myriad consequences for pursuing what the administration may consider “frivolous” or “vexatious” immigration litigation (which will be basically anything with which they take umbrage). This is just the latest in a series of Orwellian tactics designed to squelch legitimate legal challenges to this administration’s unbridled and unprecedented constitutional overreach.</p> <p>In “King Henry VI”, Shakespeare famously wrote, “The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers.” Justice John Paul Stevens invoked the scene in a 1985 dissent, observing that, “As a careful reading of that text will reveal, Shakespeare insightfully realized that disposing of lawyers is a step in the direction of a totalitarian form of government”.</p> <p>This is where we are. We have an administration hell-bent on razing democratic institutions. Federal agencies are being eviscerated. Hundreds of thousands of federal workers are being eliminated. Environmental protections; voting rights; DEI; the mere existence of trans people … all on the authoritarian chopping block. All the while, too many of our elected officials, community leaders, and others in positions of privilege and access turn a blind eye.</p> <p>Worst of all, though, is the indefensible capitulation of powerful firms like Paul Weiss, which has bent the knee by offering a $40-million in-kind ransom payment in the form of free legal services to defend the interests of an administration which seeks to destroy the integrity of a nearly 250-year-old legal system specifically conceived as a check against monarchic excesses and tyrannical impulses.</p> <p>Others who are far smarter than I will surely challenge these developments in court. In the meantime, I’ll do everything in my power to represent our clients ethically, zealously, and with all the dignity and humanity which they deserve.</p> Sun, 23 Mar 2025 20:25:32 GMT https://blue.feedland.org/?item=788979 https://blue.feedland.org/?item=788979 I’m in the office on a brisk but sunny spring Sunday, working on a few time-sensitive matters, including: \* Trying to help two clients who were so badly abused by a parent in their home country, that they chose to walk thousands of miles alone to the United States as adolescents to seek safety, education, and opportunity \* Devising a novel legal theory so that a client who only recently learned of their U.S. citizen father’s existence through a DNA ancestry database may stake their rightful claim to U.S. citizenship \* Writing an appellate brief on behalf of a family who was extorted by organized crime on the one hand and then their local police on the other \* Figuring out how to convince a US consulate that someone who was wrongfully accused of a minor criminal offense (which has been dismissed) should not be denied a visa to return to their work and their family \* Helping small businesses register for the H-1B lottery, so that they may staff certain specialty positions which, despite endless recruitment campaigns, they have been unable to fill In 2017, then-US Attorney General Jeff Sessions called me and my professional ilk “dirty immigration lawyers”. Now, we are being targeted again, threatened with myriad consequences for pursuing what the administration may consider “frivolous” or “vexatious” immigration litigation (which will be basically anything with which they take umbrage). This is just the latest in a series of Orwellian tactics designed to squelch legitimate legal challenges to this administration’s unbridled and unprecedented constitutional overreach. In “King Henry VI”, Shakespeare famously wrote, “The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers.” Justice John Paul Stevens invoked the scene in a 1985 dissent, observing that, “As a careful reading of that text will reveal, Shakespeare insightfully realized that disposing of lawyers is a step in the direction of a totalitarian form of government”. This is where we are. We have an administration hell-bent on razing democratic institutions. Federal agencies are being eviscerated. Hundreds of thousands of federal workers are being eliminated. Environmental protections; voting rights; DEI; the mere existence of trans people … all on the authoritarian chopping block. All the while, too many of our elected officials, community leaders, and others in positions of privilege and access turn a blind eye. Worst of all, though, is the indefensible capitulation of powerful firms like Paul Weiss, which has bent the knee by offering a $40-million in-kind ransom payment in the form of free legal services to defend the interests of an administration which seeks to destroy the integrity of a nearly 250-year-old legal system specifically conceived as a check against monarchic excesses and tyrannical impulses. Others who are far smarter than I will surely challenge these developments in court. In the meantime, I’ll do everything in my power to represent our clients ethically, zealously, and with all the dignity and humanity which they deserve. <p>I’m in the office on a brisk but sunny spring Sunday, working on a few time-sensitive matters, including:</p> <p>* Trying to help two clients who were so badly abused by a parent in their home country, that they chose to walk thousands of miles alone to the United States as adolescents to seek safety, education, and opportunity</p> <p>* Devising a novel legal theory so that a client who only recently learned of their U.S. citizen father’s existence through a DNA ancestry database may stake their rightful claim to U.S. citizenship</p> <p>* Writing an appellate brief on behalf of a family who was extorted by organized crime on the one hand and then their local police on the other</p> <p>* Figuring out how to convince a US consulate that someone who was wrongfully accused of a minor criminal offense (which has been dismissed) should not be denied a visa to return to their work and their family</p> <p>* Helping small businesses register for the H-1B lottery, so that they may staff certain specialty positions which, despite endless recruitment campaigns, they have been unable to fill</p> <p>In 2017, then-US Attorney General Jeff Sessions called me and my professional ilk “dirty immigration lawyers”. Now, we are being targeted again, threatened with myriad consequences for pursuing what the administration may consider “frivolous” or “vexatious” immigration litigation (which will be basically anything with which they take umbrage). This is just the latest in a series of Orwellian tactics designed to squelch legitimate legal challenges to this administration’s unbridled and unprecedented constitutional overreach.</p> <p>In “King Henry VI”, Shakespeare famously wrote, “The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers.” Justice John Paul Stevens invoked the scene in a 1985 dissent, observing that, “As a careful reading of that text will reveal, Shakespeare insightfully realized that disposing of lawyers is a step in the direction of a totalitarian form of government”.</p> <p>This is where we are. We have an administration hell-bent on razing democratic institutions. Federal agencies are being eviscerated. Hundreds of thousands of federal workers are being eliminated. Environmental protections; voting rights; DEI; the mere existence of trans people … all on the authoritarian chopping block. All the while, too many of our elected officials, community leaders, and others in positions of privilege and access turn a blind eye.</p> <p>Worst of all, though, is the indefensible capitulation of powerful firms like Paul Weiss, which has bent the knee by offering a $40-million in-kind ransom payment in the form of free legal services to defend the interests of an administration which seeks to destroy the integrity of a nearly 250-year-old legal system specifically conceived as a check against monarchic excesses and tyrannical impulses.</p> <p>Others who are far smarter than I will surely challenge these developments in court. In the meantime, I’ll do everything in my power to represent our clients ethically, zealously, and with all the dignity and humanity which they deserve.</p> Sun, 23 Mar 2025 20:25:27 GMT https://blue.feedland.org/?item=788978 https://blue.feedland.org/?item=788978 I’m in the office on a brisk but sunny spring Sunday, working on a few time-sensitive matters, including: \* Trying to help two clients who were so badly abused by a parent in their home country, that they chose to walk thousands of miles alone to the United States as adolescents to seek safety, education, and opportunity \* Devising a novel legal theory so that a client who only recently learned of their U.S. citizen father’s existence through a DNA ancestry database may stake their rightful claim to U.S. citizenship \* Writing an appellate brief on behalf of a family who was extorted by organized crime on the one hand and then their local police on the other \* Figuring out how to convince a US consulate that someone who was wrongfully accused of a minor criminal offense (which has been dismissed) should not be denied a visa to return to their work and their family \* Helping small businesses register for the H-1B lottery, so that they may staff certain specialty positions which, despite endless recruitment campaigns, they have been unable to fill In 2017, then-US Attorney General Jeff Sessions called me and my professional ilk “dirty immigration lawyers”. Now, we are being targeted again, threatened with myriad consequences for pursuing what the administration may consider “frivolous” or “vexatious” immigration litigation (which will be basically anything with which they take umbrage). This is just the latest in a series of Orwellian tactics designed to squelch legitimate legal challenges to this administration’s unbridled and unprecedented constitutional overreach. In “King Henry VI”, Shakespeare famously wrote, “The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers.” Justice John Paul Stevens invoked the scene in a 1985 dissent, observing that, “As a careful reading of that text will reveal, Shakespeare insightfully realized that disposing of lawyers is a step in the direction of a totalitarian form of government”. This is where we are. We have an administration hell-bent on razing democratic institutions. Federal agencies are being eviscerated. Hundreds of thousands of federal workers are being eliminated. Environmental protections; voting rights; DEI; the mere existence of trans people … all on the authoritarian chopping block. All the while, too many of our elected officials, community leaders, and others in positions of privilege and access turn a blind eye. Worst of all, though, is the indefensible capitulation of powerful firms like Paul Weiss, which has bent the knee by offering a $40-million in-kind ransom payment in the form of free legal services to defend the interests of an administration which seeks to destroy the integrity of a nearly 250-year-old legal system specifically conceived as a check against monarchic excesses and tyrannical impulses. Others who are far smarter than I will surely challenge these developments in court. In the meantime, I’ll do everything in my power to represent our clients ethically, zealously, and with all the dignity and humanity which they deserve.