Lawsuit challenges green card delay
Legal News Center
[##_1L|1311190803.jpg|width="120" height="138" alt=""|_##]A woman is seeking class-action status for a lawsuit that claims the federal government violated her constitutional rights when it announced that no new employer-sponsored green card applications would be accepted until the fall.
The lawsuit was filed Friday in federal court by Gabriela Ptasinska, a Polish immigrant who has a temporary work visa sponsored through her job at an engineering consulting firm. It is among the first challenging the U.S. State Department's decision.
In June, the State Department announced that employment visa numbers were available for all people seeking employer-sponsored green cards, except unskilled workers. The announcement meant that as early as this past Monday, Citizenship and Immigration Services would begin accepting applications, which require a lengthy process including certified documents and medical exams.
But an update posted Monday on the State Department Web site said 60,000 such numbers were no longer available because of "the sudden backlog reduction efforts by Citizenship and Immigration Services offices during the past month," meaning no further applications would be authorized, effective immediately.
The department called the backlog reduction efforts an "unexpected action" and said employment visa numbers would be available Oct. 1.
Ptasinska—who flew from Chicago to Lincoln, Neb., on Monday in hopes of being among the first to submit a green card application—is seeking
a ruling that would keep the application from being rejected, according to her attorney Ira Azulay.
The lawsuit names several government officials and agencies, including the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, the U.S. Department of State and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
State Department spokeswoman Leslie Phillips said that the agency does not comment on litigation. Calls to Citizenship and Immigration Services went unanswered.
Immigration groups like the American Immigration Lawyers Foundation claim thousands of people across the country have spent time and money on attorneys and the application.
Spokesman Tim Vettel said the foundation is in the process of preparing a similar lawsuit.
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Grounds for Divorce in Ohio - Sylkatis Law, LLC
A divorce in Ohio is filed when there is typically “fault” by one of the parties and party not at “fault” seeks to end the marriage. A court in Ohio may grant a divorce for the following reasons:
• Willful absence of the adverse party for one year
• Adultery
• Extreme cruelty
• Fraudulent contract
• Any gross neglect of duty
• Habitual drunkenness
• Imprisonment in a correctional institution at the time of filing the complaint
• Procurement of a divorce outside this state by the other party
Additionally, there are two “no-fault” basis for which a court may grant a divorce:
• When the parties have, without interruption for one year, lived separate and apart without cohabitation
• Incompatibility, unless denied by either party
However, whether or not the the court grants the divorce for “fault” or not, in Ohio the party not at “fault” will not get a bigger slice of the marital property.