Law Offices of Michael D. Baker, Chicago Immigration Lawyers.

09/22/2026

That old arrest? You might finally kill it.

A background check just cost you a job, an apartment, or a callback that never came. Illinois changed the rules, and the answer you heard 5 years ago may be wrong today.

Two tools. Know the difference.

Expungement destroys the record. Sealing locks it away from employers and the public. Which one fits depends on how your case ended, charge by charge.

What changed

Since 2017, a conviction in one case no longer stops you from expunging a different case that a judge dismissed. Illinois also opened sealing to far more felonies.

In 2026, the Clean Slate Act went further. You can now seal most eligible misdemeanors 2 years after your last sentence ends. Most eligible felonies take 3 years. Illinois dropped the old drug test requirement. A later felony no longer blocks sealing automatically.

W**d cases

Illinois now sets the minor cannabis threshold at 60 grams, up from 30. For qualifying arrests before June 25, 2019, that never resulted in convictions, police agencies must expunge the records on their own. You file nothing. Check anyway. That process covers police records, not necessarily the court file or a private background report.

What still blocks you

DUI. Domestic battery. Certain sexual and animal cruelty offenses. Most reckless driving. And automatic sealing for everyone else? It doesn't start until 2028 and 2029. If you qualify now, file now.

Immigrants: stop and read this

Illinois can wipe your record clean. However, federal immigration law may still count the conviction. Under Matter of Roldan, a state-level rehabilitative expungement does not erase a conviction for immigration purposes. Get certified copies of everything before you file, and talk to an immigration lawyer first.

Your first 3 moves

Retrieve your Court dispositions from the Clerk. Request your Illinois State Police transcript. ISP charges nothing to process it. Order your FBI summary for $18. Then match each charge to the appropriate tool.

Everything you need, with statutes, forms, and Chicago contacts, is here:

Illinois expungement and sealing explained: 2017 reforms, 2026 changes, cannabis relief, waiting periods, and an anonymous case study with official sources.

09/21/2026

Nearly 50,000 people. Tracked by ICE 24/7.

A lawsuit challenges GPS shackling without individualized justification. Being an immigrant doesn't make you a criminal.

Read. Share. Demand accountability.

This case before the Third Circuit challenges the constitutionality of prolonged detention without a bond hearing under a statute the government claims gives it the power to indefinitely detain anyone who has not been formally admitted to the United States by a grant of immigration status.

09/18/2026

Here's something worth knowing if immigration touches your life or anyone you love.

The Board of Immigration Appeals just ruled that certain felony convictions mean a person can never legally become a permanent resident here. Not someday. Not with a waiver. Never.

The one piece of good news: it only applies to convictions in the future. If it already happened, this new rule doesn't reach back and change that.

What's wild is how they got there. They took four different laws, none of them written with each other in mind, and linked them together to reach a result none of them actually say on their own. One law about good moral character. One about citizenship. One about who counts as "ineligible." One about who gets barred from a green card. String them together, and you get a permanent bar that didn't exist in this form yesterday.

They also threw out twenty-six years of their own prior rulings to do it.

I broke down what actually happened and why I think it's a stretch.

08/23/2026

They can now decide your asylum case without ever hearing your story.

Since July 28, the government has changed the rules. USCIS can now take your asylum application, review the paperwork, and send your case to immigration court without ever giving you an interview. No one asks what happened to you. No one asks why you ran. The form decides.

Why the interview matters

The asylum interview is the one place where you get to speak. It is not a courtroom. No government lawyer sits across from you trying to send you home. An officer asks questions and lets you explain. For many people, it is the entire case, because your testimony can be enough to win. Take away the interview, and the story never gets told.

Who this hits first

People who filed after the one-year deadline. Children who came here alone. Survivors of torture. People who could not come forward right away because speaking the words aloud was dangerous. These are the very people the new rule first reaches.

The trap

The government says not to worry; you will still get your day in court. That promise is thinning. Judges can now dismiss asylum cases on paper, too, without a hearing. No interview at USCIS. No hearing in court. For too many immigrants, that adds up to no one ever listening.

4 groups just sued to stop it

On August 19, four legal aid organizations filed in federal court to strike down the rule. Nothing has been decided yet. The rule remains in effect as the case moves forward.

What to do

If you have an asylum case on file or are about to file one, talk to an immigration lawyer about your situation. Do not wait to learn that your case went to court without a word.

An interim DHS rule lets USCIS refer affirmative asylum cases to immigration court with no interview. What the rule does, who it reaches, and the lawsuit challenging it.

08/19/2026

Big Green Card Change Starts September 18. Here's What Families Need to Know.

If you or someone in your family is applying for a green card, this one matters.

What's changing

Starting September 18, 2026, immigration officers will look at almost any government benefit a green card applicant uses when deciding the case. For years, benefits like SNAP, Medicaid, WIC, and housing help did not count against you. Now they can.

The most important thing you can do

The date you file your green card application decides which rules apply to your whole case. If you file Form I-485 before September 18, 2026, the old, narrower rule governs everything. If you can file before that date, file work-based. Talk to an immigration attorney now about whether your case is ready.

Who this affects

This applies to people adjusting status inside the United States: spouses, parents, and children of U.S. citizens, and many family and work based applicants. It does not affect refugees, asylees, VAWA self-petitioners, U and T visa holders, or people with TPS. Those groups are protected from the public charge rule.

A few practical steps

Please send the file before September 18 if you can. Make sure your Affidavit of Support (Form I-864) is complete and strong, because a missing or weak one is the fastest way to lose. Keep good records of your income, work history, and private health insurance.

Every case is different, and this is general information, not legal advice. If you have a green card case in progress or coming up, talk to a licensed immigration attorney about your situation.

Read the full breakdown here: https://mikebakerlaw.com/blog/2026/08/19/public-charge-final-rule-2026
3 SUBSTACK

Title: The Public Charge Net Widens September 1 File Your Green Card Case Before It.

Subtitle: USCIS starts counting SNAP, Medicaid, WIC, and housing aid against adjustment of status. Your filing date decides which rule governs your whole case.

For years, the public charge rule was narrow. A family could use Medicaid, SNAP, WIC, or housing help, and none of it counted against the green card. That ends September 18, 2026.

On that date, USCIS widens the public charge test for adjustment of status under INA 212(a)(4). Officers will weigh nearly any means-tested benefit an applicant uses, not just cash welfare. The 2026 Final Rule rescinds the 2022 rule and strikes the word that protected people: primarily. The old test asked whether you were likely to become primarily dependent on the government; that ceiling is gone.

What counts now

Cash welfare and long-term institutional care always count. Now SNAP, Medicaid, CHIP, WIC, housing aid, and college financial aid count too, when received on or after September 18.

The two dates that decide your case

The rule the officer applies turns on your filing date. The benefits that count turn on the date you received them. File the I-485 before September 18, 2026, and your whole case runs under the old narrow rule. File on or after, and the wide rule governs. Benefits you received before September 18 stay under the old list either way.

The bond, revived

If USCIS finds you inadmissible only on public charge, it may invite a public charge bond on Form I-94. The floor is $1,000. The amount tracks the benefits USCIS projects you will draw over five years, and the bond breaks the moment the person takes a single means-tested benefit while it is in force.

Who it reaches, and who it does not

This is a USCIS adjustment. It hits Form I-485 filers: spouses, parents, and children of citizens; family and employment preference applicants; diversity visa winners It does not reach the consulate or thethe border-crossings-exemptedfugees, asylees, T and U victims, VAWA self-petitioners, SIJ, and TPS applicants. If you fall in one of those categories, the ground does not touch you.

My read, not the rule's: the authority holds up. The ground is statutory, the five factors are Congress's, and the government reads an old term the way the old cases already read it. Expect lawsuits. Please do not expect a quick win, and do not expect the effective date to slip while litigation runs. Plan around the calendar, not around a Court order that may never come.

Full analysis: https://mikebakerlaw.com/blog/2026/08/19/public-charge-final-rule-2026/

08/15/2026

A young man from India stood in immigration Court alone. No lawyer. No money. He told the judge he was afraid to go home. The judge gave him a few weeks to find help, then ordered him deported.

Last week the Board of Immigration Appeals said the judge did nothing wrong.

That decision matters to every young immigrant in this country right now.

The Court owes you one thing: at least 10 days between your first paperwork and your first hearing. That is the whole guarantee to find a lawyer. After that, more time is up to the judge. The old rule said judges must give you a real chance to find a lawyer. The Board just erased it.

So if you are in proceedings, or your friend is, or your cousin is, do not wait for a lawyer before that first hearing. File your paperwork on time, even if it is not perfect. Write down every call you make and every door that closes on you. That record can save a case.

The system is moving fast on purpose. Speed is the strategy; a good lawyer is the best defense against it.

Share this with someone who needs to see it.

Read the full post:

In Matter of A-K-R-, the BIA makes the ten-day floor the only firm time to find counsel and withdraws Matter of C-B-. What it means for detained pro se clients.

08/07/2026

FACEBOOK

🗳️ Ask an AI how to register to vote today, and it hands you a link. Register at the DMV, and they ask if you'd like to sign up. Ninety seconds online and you're done.

We spent fifty years making voting easy on purpose. And we were right to.

But here's the contradiction nobody talks about.

That same effortless system has no brakes. It doesn't check who you are, and for one person, walking through the door it holds wide open is a federal offense.

A green card holder stands at the DMV counter. A clerk asks if he wants to register. The whole system is built to make him say yes. Nobody stops him. The form doesn't check his status.

He votes once — because why would the government hand him the card if he wasn't allowed to use it?

Years later,r he finds out that the easiest civic act in America is, for him, a deportable offense. He can be deported over one vote he didn't know was against the law.

📊 And the "crisis" behind all this? It barely exists.

Michigan checked 5.7 million ballots. Found about fifteen.

The Heritage Foundation's own fraud database: 77 cases nationwide — in twenty-four years.

And the one screening tool a federal Court actually examined was wrong 97.6% of the time. Almost everyone it flagged as a noncitizen was a citizen.

✅ So here's the useful part.

If you're a citizen, check your registration. It's free and takes five minutes. Look yourself up, confirm your current address, set a reminder — and check again any time you move, because your registration doesn't move with you.

🛑 And if you're NOT a citizen: please do not register or vote. Not at any counter, not on any website, and no matter who says it's fine. A registration card is not permission. If you already have, talk to an immigration lawyer before you do anything else.

We made voting easy on purpose. Then we built a trap for the one person who trusted that it was — and blamed him for falling in.
👇 Full analysis, with the cases and the numbers:

Registering to vote is effortless for everyone — but for a noncitizen who trusts the counter, one registration can mean deportation. How to check your status, and the hard line if you're not a citizen.

08/06/2026

An ICE arrest at an airport used to mean the government had come for someone with a final deportation order. Not anymore.

Lawyers around the country are reporting a new kind of arrest: people who came here legally and overstayed a visa — many with pending asylum cases or valid work permits — pulled off domestic flights.

How does ICE find them? TSA collects your name and birthdate when you fly, to check you against terrorist watch lists. A May 2025 agreement, kept quiet until a FOIA lawsuit forced it out, now routes that data to ICE.

If your status isn't secure, a domestic boarding pass is no longer neutral ground. Here is what the agreement does, what it can't do, and what to do before you fly:

A TSA–ICE agreement, hidden until a FOIA suit forced its release, routes airline passenger data collected for counterterrorism into immigration enforcement. ICE now pulls legal overstays, asylum seekers, and work-permit holders off domestic flights. What the agreement says, what it can't do, and w...

07/23/2026

⚖️ A man voted once, in 2012. He thought he was allowed to.

He told the government himself — wrote it right on his citizenship application.

No prosecutor ever charged him.

Fourteen years later, he's being deported, and the Board of Immigration Appeals said the judge should have been harder on him.

📋 That decision came down today.

🤐 It also held something that should worry every immigrant with a pending criminal case: if you take the Fifth in immigration Court, the judge can hold your silence against you.

Most people don't know this — immigration Court isn't criminal Court. It's civil. If you ask to stay, you will need to demonstrate that you deserve it. So silence doesn't protect you. It sinks you.

⚖️ I've handled four of these cases. Four people charged with removal for voting unlawfully. I won all four.

Every one had 20+ years here. Citizen ki s. Steady work. Minor problems otherwise.

Under today's decision, I lose all four. 💔

🔍 Now here's the part that should make you angry.

They keep telling you noncitizens are voting in huge numbers.

Michigan checked 5.7 million ballots. Found about 15.
Georgia checked 8.2 million voters. Nine had ever voted.
The Heritage Foundation's own database: 77 cases in 24 years. The whole country.

Last week the government told four states they had 250,000 noncitizens registered. Where'd that number come from? Commercial marketing data. The kind that mails catalogs to people who moved out in 2011.

Nevada did the math out loud: 15,903 claimed — but only 138 people in the entire state have any paperwork gap at all.

📊 And the one screening tool a federal Court actually examined? Wrong 97.6% of the time.

Repeat something long enough,h and people stop asking for proof. That's what's happening, nd real families are paying for a crisis that isn't there.

Full breakdown here 👇

The BIA held unlawful voting is a significant adverse factor and that taking the Fifth can be held against you. One vote in 2012. Fourteen years to removal.

07/10/2026

They found a way to deport people before they ever get a lawyer.
It's called a "mega master" hearing. One immigration judge One morning. More than a hundred people ordered into a single courtroom , 611 in Chicago on one June morning, in a room that runs out of chairs before it runs out of names.

Arrive late because the security line wrapped around the block? Miss a roll call you couldn't hear. You don't get another date. You are ordered deported in your absence.

The crowd isn't a backlash. It's the strategy. And the scheduling data now proves it: the government is hand-picking specific judges and burying them, on purpose, to manufacture removal orders faster than anyone can fight them.

How it works, and how you fight back: https://mikebakerlaw.com/blog/2026/07/09/mega-master-hearings-due-process/

(The numbers come from a new data investigation by Austin Kocher, which confirmed what I'd been arguing: this is deliberate.)

DOJ "mega master" hearings stack 100+ into one setting to speed deportations. The notice and counsel law that fights back, plus a ready-to-file motion.