Media Highlights

Board of Immigration Appeals Decision

Matter of M-N-I-, 28 I&N Dec. 803 (BIA 2024)

Media publication regarding our published appeal decision.

Proving persecution can be a difficult task, however, even for people from Haiti, where those who have fled say the lines between politics and gang violence are often blurred. “Cases of just general gang violence are not that strong,” said Jen Bade, a Brookline immigration attorney. “You have to connect the violence with one of the [five] categories.”
Carl Pierre, meanwhile, is an asylum success story. It took more than 11 years, but the Port-au-Prince native eventually earned asylum. He credits the work of Bade, his immigration attorney. Back home, he was a math and French teacher, working his way through law school. He was also an activist, advocating for workers’ rights, including a minimum wage. This meant he was a target

With US Immigration and Customs Enforcement ratcheting up operations in Massachusetts and nationwide, agents concealing their identities raises a simple legal question: Can they do that?The short answer: Depends on whom you ask. Jen Bade, a Brookline immigration attorney, say that ICE agents are not required to wear a uniform. ICE officials are supposed to identify themselves during enforcement actions, said Bade, but in some cases they tell people, at least initially, that they are “police” and don’t specify that they are ICE. For Bade, it’s a distinction that matters.
ICE agents are supposed to carry some form of credential, she said, but Bade has handled cases where agents did not produce a badge or other form of identification during the arrest or detention.
“They are not making it clear in any meaningful way,” she said. ICE did not respond to a message seeking comment.
Bade, the immigration lawyer, said that deceptive tactics such as concealing the agency or identity of law enforcement officials can be part of a subterfuge to violate immigrants’ rights. For her, not identifying as ICE immediately could be part of a sleight of hand that could, for instance, gain warrantless entry into people’s homes.

Jennifer C. Bade, a Brookline-based immigration attorney, called the existence of the DOC program “more than disappointing.” “I honestly feel that it is a betrayal of the values this state claims to stand for,” she said. She stressed that 287(g) is a voluntary agreement: “The DOC is not required to act as ICE’s deputy.”
She called on Healey to nix the agreement. “All this does is actively help support Trump’s agenda of ridding the US of immigrants of color and poor immigrants,” she said. “This is not where I want my tax dollars going.” ICE officials have said the program could speed up deportations and negate policies that curtail local collaboration with federal immigration authorities.

In 2022, undocumented immigrants paid $25.7bn in taxes to social security, despite not being eligible to receive the benefits.
“It’s definitely affected a lot of individuals. We’ve tried to warn all of our clients,” said Jennifer Bade, an immigration lawyer based in Boston, Massachusetts.
Bade explained the issues and difficulties immigrants face in visiting a Social Security Administration field office, including having to take time off work, language barriers, and issues and delays for immigrants who need a social security number to start a job, open a bank account, or receive a loan. “The pausing of this program makes no sense,” added Bade. “It’s all just meant to attack immigrants, and it has no actual benefits. Pausing this program literally has no benefits.” Democrats on the House committee on oversight and government reform urged the Social Security Administration to reverse its decision to freeze the program.

Immigration attorneys, immigrants living in the US legally and non-White US citizens now worry that innocuous activities that aren’t indicative of illegal behavior — speaking Spanish, working certain jobs or looking like someone from South or Central America — will be used as reasons for law enforcement to stop and question them. “This is going to affect everyone, no matter whether they are an immigrant that’s documented or undocumented, or whether it’s somebody that’s a citizen,” said Jennifer Bade, a Boston-based immigration attorney. “I’m very, very concerned, because this effectively makes us a ‘show-your-papers’ nation where appearance and language is going to make everyone a suspect.”
“It just green-lit racial profiling,” she added.

“La acción diferida proporcionaba una protección temporal contra la deportación, y una vía para obtener un permiso de trabajo legal mientras se tiene el estatus de inmigrante juvenil especial”, explica en una entrevista con Noticias Telemundo Jennifer Bade, abogada de inmigración radicada en Boston, Massachusetts, quien afirma que los beneficiarios del programa tienen que esperar varios años para poder solicitar la green card.
“Una vez que se les aprueba el estatus de inmigrante juvenil especial se les pone en lista de espera, que en este momento es muy, muy larga. Por lo general, les decimos a los clientes que probablemente tardará más de cuatro o cinco años”, afirma Bade.

Though they have protections under SIJS, Alexandra is still worried about what could happen. “If the police stop us and ask for our documents, it’s all over, because we risk being deported.”
According to Jennifer Bade, an immigration attorney based in Boston, once youths like Rodrigo and Alexandra are approved for special immigrant juvenile status, they’re put on a waiting list, which is very, very long. "We typically tell clients it’ll probably take more than four or five years,” she said.

Local immigration attorney Jennifer Bade imagines a scenario where a client is in the United States on a visa and gets married.
“Say my client is trying to get a marriage-based green card. If we get to the USCIS interview stage for this couple, and the USCIS interviewing officer says something along the lines of, ‘What do you think about Palestine?’” she said.
“It’s going to really come down to who is the USCIS officer, which is like Russian roulette,” said Bade. “Do you have someone nice? Or do you have someone that’s maybe inherently biased in some kind of way?”