On August 4, 2017, Simone Williams, Managing Attorney with Williams Global Law PLLC, will speak at the National Bar Association’s (NBA) 2017 Annual Convention in Toronto, Canada. The NBA Convention is the largest gathering of African American lawyers, judges and law students in North America. Lawyers will be discussing trending legal social justice and economic issues. Ms. Williams will be speaking on basics of immigration practice in the United States as well as latest hot immigration topics. To learn more about the NBA Convention, click here.

According to new memorandums issued by the administration on June 15th, President Trump will maintain protection of roughly 75,000 so-called Dreamers, the immigrants under thee Deferred Action for Childhood Arrival program (DACA), or young people who came to the U.S. illegally as children. The Department of Homeland Security announced that it would continue the program intended to protect those immigrants from deportation and provide them with work permits so they can find legal employment. The fact that DACA remained in effect raised hopes among immigrant activists. According to White House officials, “there has been no final determination on DACA”, and the President still might take away w

U.S. Secretary of Labor Alexander Acosta recently reviewed the foreign worker visa program, and announced actions “to increase protections of American workers while more aggressively confronting entities committing visa program fraud and abuse”. The secretary determined that the department will enforce “all laws within its jurisdiction governing the administration and enforcement of non-immigrant visa programs, including: Directing the department’s Wage and Hour Division to use all its tools in conducting civil investigations to enforce labor protections provided by the visa programs. Directing the department’s Employment and Training Administration (ETA) to develop proposed changes to the L

The U.S. Department of State (DOS) released a new supplemental visa application (Form DS-5355) for certain individuals who may seem to pose heightened security concerns for U.S. consulates. The government estimates the new procedure may affect 65,000 people or 0.5% of U.S. visa applicants worldwide. The supplemental questionnaire includes questions about addresses, employment and travel history, as well as a list of e-mail addresses and social media handles used for the past 5 (five) years. Specifically, the form asks visa applicants the following information: Travel history during the last 15 years (including source of travel funds); Passport numbers and country of issuance for all passport

On June 26, 2017, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear President Trump administration's challenge to rulings blocking his executive order restricting travel from six Muslim-majority countries - Libya, Iran, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen. The court will allow enforcement of parts of the ban while the case moves forward. Under the temporary rules, the travel ban "may not be enforced against foreign nationals who have a credible claim of a bona fide relationship with a person or entity in the United States”. This means that the ban cannot be applied to visa applicants who have a close relationship to a family member in the U.S., who are coming to study, or accept a job offer from U.S. employ

Simone Williams was invited to the White House to celebrate Caribbean-American Heritage Month, which takes place in June. National Caribbean-American Heritage Month is a celebration of the accomplishments of Caribbean Americans and their long, shared history with the peoples of the Caribbean. The event was attended by Senior members of the White House Administration, Ambassadors of the Caribbean, State Department staff and leaders in the Caribbean-American community.