Senior Policy Correspondent
Marcus Sterling is the senior policy correspondent at Immigration Legal Daily, where he reports on consular adjudication trends, student visa enforcement, and the legal mechanics of executive action.
He has covered immigration policy continuously since 2014, with bylines on the rollout of DACA-era guidance, the FY2020 H-1B rule rewrite, and the post-pandemic restoration of routine consular processing.
DACA renewal delays have a new litigation trigger: five months pending. Attorneys also explain why Judge Hanen's 'moot' order changes nothing.
No travel-ban country is barred from naturalizing. If you're a green card holder eligible for citizenship, file the N-400 now, because waiting only lengthens the line.
B-2 extensions to wait out an I-130 priority date are not a lawful purpose, and telling USCIS that is the plan hands the agency its denial.
PM-602-0199 interview questions reached field offices within days. One applicant got all three in Denver, and a new lawsuit against the memo is coming.
A green card taken at the airport over an unresolved criminal case sits in a CBP drawer. Filing an I-90 instead of clearing deferred inspection can backfire.
A J-1 researcher's status ends in August while her marriage green card and EAD sit pending. How to hold a backup status without claiming the wrong intent.
Overstaying a tourist visa as a teenager and leaving after a year of unlawful presence past 18 triggers a 10-year bar, with no U.S. visa until it runs out.
Under the new USCIS discretion memo, a Canadian married to a U.S. citizen has the hardest case for adjusting inside the country: consular processing is too easy.
A 221(g) refusal citing the travel-ban pause is hard to beat with an individual lawsuit. INA 212(f) and Trump v. Hawaii give the president wide control.
DACA renewal delays now run far past USCIS's posted times. Kuck, Bless, and Siskind are preparing a mass mandamus to force decisions on stuck I-821Ds.
Pre-litigation intent-to-sue letters have been the immigration bar's default first move on a stuck case for two decades. The U.S. Attorney's Offices that read them are now buried in habeas petitions and APA challenges — and a different sequence has taken their place.
USCIS's adjustment-of-status discretion memo arrives in a post-Chevron legal landscape, where agencies no longer enjoy automatic deference and where the ITServe Alliance v. Cissna playbook — sue when the agency changes practice without changing the rule — is back in the immigration bar's toolkit.
Brought as a child, left the country as a teenager, then traveled in and out for years — and only discovers through a FOIA request that an immigration judge ordered removal in absentia in 2008. A familiar pattern, with sharply narrowed exits in 2026.
USCIS Policy Memorandum PM-602-0199 reframes adjustment of status as an 'extraordinary' discretionary benefit, instructing officers to weigh prior status violations, intent at entry, and consular-processing alternatives. Practitioners say it rewrites the statute by memo — and a federal-court challenge is being prepared.
