On December 1, 2015, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected the request from Texas and other states for a 30-day extension to file legal briefs in support of the lawsuit to block the DAPA program. Instead of the 30-day extension, the Court allowed an extension of only eight days. This is viewed as a procedural victory for the Obama administration as it would allow the court to hear the case during its current term and give the administration enough time to launch the program while Obama is still in office. If the Supreme Court hears the case during its current term, the decision would likely be published in June 2016.

Department of Homeland Security director Jeh Johnson has issued a memo directing USCIS Director Leon Rodriguez to change the Immigration Service's prior regulations to allow all family members eligible to immigrate to the U.S. to be allowed to file provisional waivers of inadmissibility.

Read Kathryn Karam's latest article in the Houston Business Journal: What Donald Trump is Missing in the Immigration Debate.

This evening, Kathryn N. Karam was a guest on KPFT Pacifica Radio's Proyecto Latino-Americano show with Henry and Alma Cooper at 9 PM . The podcast from the February 17th airing of Proyecto Latino-Americano is available here.

A Federal Court in Brownsville, Texas has issued a temporary injunction to stop the implementation of the executive actions announced by President Obama in November 2014, including the extended DACA program and the DAPA program. As a result, USCIS has announced that it will not begin accepting applications for protection under the extended DACA program tomorrow as originally announced. However, the Court's order does not affect the existing DACA program originally announced on June 15, 2012.

The House passed a bill today that would fund the Department of Homeland Security through September 2015, but will block funding for the Executive Action programs announced by President Obama in November 2014, including the Deferred Action for Parental Accountability (DAPA) program, and the extension of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program that reaches more individuals than the original 2012 DACA program. As the bill makes its way to the Senate, Democrats have vowed to stop these contested parts of the DHS Appropriations bill to ensure that they do not survive.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has launched a new Border Wait Times App, which is available for Apple and Android devices. The App provides travelers with information on the estimated wait time and open lanes at land ports of entry.

Kathryn Karam's new article on p. 54 of this month's issue of Lebanon Times Magazine discusses changes to the immigration system implemented to help immigrant families.

USCIS updated its Frequently Asked Questions on Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) on October 17th. The updated FAQs page is available here.