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Certain people are “inadmissible” for purposes of entry into the United States, either as an immigrant or as a visitor. There are many reasons why a person could be considered inadmissible to receive a visa and enter the United States, including that there were problems with the person’s labor certification.

General rules

In general, both skilled and unskilled laborers seeking to enter the United States to perform work are inadmissible unless there are not sufficient workers who are able, willing, qualified, and available to perform the same work and the employment of such laborer will not adversely affect the wages and working conditions of workers in the United States who are similarly employed. In order to obtain work as either a skilled or unskilled laborer in the United States, an alien must first obtain a “certification” from the U.S. Secretary of Labor stating these facts.

Without the labor certification, an alien wishing to work in the U.S. is inadmissible. In addition, if the alien obtains the labor certification on the basis of fraud, the alien is inadmissible.

Generally, waivers are not available for this ground of inadmissibility. This category of inadmissibility may be subject to waiver, however, upon the meeting of certain requirements specific to the category as determined by the Immigration and Naturalization Act, the U.S. Customs and Immigration Service, and applicable immigration regulations.

Specific Labor Situations Noted in the INA

Professional Athletes

A labor certificate issued to a professional athlete remains in effect if the athlete changes employers if the new employer is a team in the same sport as the team which employed the athlete when the athlete first applied for certification.

Healthcare Professionals

Aliens who are graduates of medical schools in foreign countries are inadmissible to perform medical services in the United States unless they pass a special medical skills examination given by the National Board of Medical Examiners Examination and are competent in oral and written English.

Aliens in the healthcare field (not including physicians) are inadmissible unless they present certification from the Commission on Graduates of Foreign Nursing Schools or an equivalent independent credentialing organization approved by the USCIS verifying the alien’s education, training, license, and competency in English.

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has reached a settlement agreement with Debt Solutions, Inc.; DSI Financial, Inc.; DSI Direct, Inc.; Pacific Consolidation Services, Inc.. The settlement also includes the owners of the four companies, Kenneth Schwartz and Jennifer Whalen, and two of their managers.

The FTC allegations are simple, and all-too familiar. The companies apparently represented to debtors that they had special relationships with credit card companies and other creditors that would lower interest rates and reduce overall payments. Customers were “guaranteed” to save a certain amount of money, but no time frame was specified, so that the debtors might have to make payments for decades to realize the savings. The savings they did see typically came only from increasing monthly payments and not from any actual reduction in interest rates or fees.

Schwartz and Whalen agreed to a permanent ban on engaging in the debt negotiation or debt elimination business.

Two down…how many to go?

1993’s Family and Medical Leave Act took an unprecedented step in the United States by ensuring that employees–at least, those working for companies with 50 or more employees–could take up to 12 weeks unpaid leave for medical or family needs without losing their jobs. The flaw in the plan, of course, was that many American workers simply can’t take that kind of time off work and survive. While the promise of a job to return to after illness or family crisis is very important, it’s meaningless in a practical sense if the employee has no means to take that time off and still pay the rent and put food on the table.

Now, Senators Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) and Chris Dodd (D-Conn) have introduced a bill that would establish mandatory insurance coverage for up to eight weeks of paid leave in such circumstances. In its current form, the bill provides for a sliding scale benefits, so that those at the lowest end of the income spectrum would receive full salary, while those at the higher end would receive only a percentage.

Dozens of other countries guarantee paid paternity leave and paid time off for parents with sick children, and more than 150 countries already guarantee paid leave for women for childbirth.

In a potentially ground breaking ruling, a Federal Court negated Hazleton, Pennsylvania’s anti-immigration laws. The town made national headlines, in 2006, when it passed a series of laws aimed at discouraging illegal immigrants from finding their way to Hazleton. The Court reviewed the City’s “Tenant Registration Ordinance” and “Illegal Immigration Relief Act Ordinance.”

The ordinances were thrown out primarily on the principle of preemption. The Congress may expressly forbid states and local governments from passing laws. A local law would be implicitly preempted if it interferes with or conflicts with already existing federal laws.

In 1986, Congress passed the Immigration Reform and Control Act, providing for the removal of illegal aliens from the United States. The Act expressly preempted any state and local laws imposing penalties for hiring undocumented workers. The Court, relying on the Act’s preemption clause, threw out Hazleton’s ordinance penalizing employers who hire illegal workers.

Federal law also reserves to the federal government the right to remove a foreign national or to allow him to remain in the country. Hazleton’s laws forbidding renting property to illegal aliens conflict with the federal government’s right to allow an illegal alien to remain in the country. So, the Court ruled against Hazleton’s anti-rental laws.

Samantha’s Question: If there is no court order in place, can one parent stop the other one from seeing the child (my daughter’s father is refusing to allow me to contact her. I have been her primary care giver since birth, we have a parenting plan which he has gone against, but it was not lodged with the court)?

Brette’s Answer: If there is no order of custody, each parent has an equal right to the child. You need to file an emergency petition for custody it sounds like.

Katie’s Question: My ex husband and I have 50/50 joint custody, but my kids primary residence is his home. He is mad at me because I wont get intimate with him, so now he won’t let me see my kids unless he is there. Their grandmother watches them during the day. If I go pick them up at there grandmas, can he turn me in for kidnapping?

Brette’s Answer: If he is interfering with your right to visitation, then you should file a violation in court. Doing this is called custodial interference and can be the grounds for a change in custody. If you pick them from his mother’s house, he cannot say you kidnapped them if you are exercising your court ordered visitation rights. I think you need to go back to court to get this straightened out.

Melissa’s Question: Our divorce decree states that my ex gets the kids for 2 weeks out of every summer, but I have always been lenient since he is in the military and does not see them any other time during the rest of the year. This year I let them go for 4 weeks, and when I tried to ask him where we should meet to pick them up (he lives 5 states away) he said he was not going to let them come home for 3 more weeks! What can I do to get them back?

Brette’s Answer: You can file a violation with the court that ordered the visitation. You could also contact the police or perhaps his commanding officer and show them the order which he has clearly violated.

Cindy’s Question: I have sole custody of our 17 year old son. My ex of 3 years has visitation and is letting our son run around all hours of the night with no supervision. My son went to visit his dad four months ago, and refuses to come back home. What can I do, and how can I keep my son at my house. My ex lives only 2 miles away.

Brette’s Answer: At age 17 there is not an awful lot you can do. Even if you go to court for violating the order and the judge orders your ex to bring him back, making your son stay is difficult. You can try going back to court if you want to try something.

Will my custody papers be enforced if he threatens to keep our son?

Theresa’s Question: My son is 3 years old, and I have sole physical custody. His father takes him for 4 weeks each summer and lives 5 states away. He is threatening not to give him back. Will my divorce decree and custody papers be enforced in another state.

Brette’s Answer: Yes they will be enforced. Based on that threat, you can seek to have his visitation reduced.

When Your Ex Doesn’t Comply With the Visitation Schedule

Melissa’s Question: Our divorce decree states that my ex gets the kids for 2 weeks out of every summer, but I have always been lenient since he is in the military and does not see them any other time during the rest of the year. This year I let them go for 4 weeks, and when I tried to ask him where we should meet to pick them up (he lives 5 states away) he said he was not going to let them come home for 3 more weeks! What can I do to get them back?

Brette’s Answer: You can file a violation with the court that ordered the visitation. You could also contact the police or perhaps his commanding officer and show them the order which he has clearly violated.

Holder_Eric_070427 President-elect Barack Obama will officially nominate Covington & Burling partner Eric H. Holder Jr. to be attorney general sometime after Thanksgiving, Politico.com reports. Obama is satisfied that the Senate will confirm Holder despite plans by Republicans to grill him about his role in President Clinton’s last-minute pardon of international financier Marc Rich. (See our previous coverage.)

But even as Holder appears likely to become the nation’s next attorney general, opposition to his appointment is being heard from an unlikely array of critics from the left and the right. Among those who oppose Holder’s appointment:

* The right. The Republican Liberty Caucus says: “For years, Eric Holder has worked to degrade our civil liberties and weaken the Constitution and the values on which our nation was founded.”

* The left. TalkLeft is not happy about Holder’s efforts while U.S. attorney in Washington, D.C., “to raise marijuana penalties and restore mandatory minimum penalties for drug crimes.”

* The legalization lobby. NORML Blog expresses concern about Holder’s “long history of opposing drug policy reforms, perceiving cannabis smoking by adults as a public nuisance worthy of constant harassment, promoting violent governmental intervention into the private lives of citizens who consume cannabis.”

* Free speech advocates. The Legal Satyricon says Holder “has a censorship goon past.” NewsBusters suggests Holder would “stifle free speech on the internet.”

* Civil libertarians. The blog Wizbang Blue accuses Holder of “pandering to religious right organizations” on separation of church and state.

Even legendary trial lawyer Gerry Spence is not pleased. Calling him “Eric Holden,” Spence says that when a lawyer works long enough for big corporations, as Holder did as partner at a corporate law firm, “the human psyche begins to dry up and one day will fall out on the carpet of the boardroom floor … like a dried up old prune.” Let us just hope that doesn’t happen until after the confirmation hearings.

Eric Palmer reports for the Kansas City Star

The MD-80 that took off Friday from Kansas City International Airport carried about 120 passengers. Some were headed for Mexico, others to Central and South America.Once off the ground, food and beverages would be served.

The flight was one of up to 180 flights flown each month by Kansas City’s only locally based airline. While most are to Central and South America, others are to such exotic locales as Indonesia, Nigeria, Pakistan and Palestine.

Yet most Kansas Citians will never get a seat on one of the flights — nor would want to.

The little-known Flight Operations Unit was established by Immigration and Customs Enforcement in 2006 to handle the repatriation of the surging number of illegal immigrants caught up in tougher enforcement.