Boy Howdy

Today just draaaaaagged on. Felix was out of the office, so I was uninterrupted and actually got to work for eight hours. I spent the entire day working on one Motion. It's for an NI visa and I had to wade through page after page of scientific jargon, trying to understand enough about what it *is* that this person does, exactly, to tell the USCIS why she should be given permanent residency.

Part of the application involves letters of recommendation from other scientists or researchers in the applicant's field. This particular person submitted five of them. Three are lovely letters and I've quoted extensively from them. The other two are masterpieces of self-congratulatory waffle. In fact, one of them is literally half about the person writing the letter. "I'm such a great scientist, look at all the stuff I published (see attached CV)"-- which actually was attached and was 32 pages long. Not the applicant's CV, mind you, the recommender's CV. The other one is so smug in tone that it makes me want to crumple it up and throw it away every time I see it.

I thought I would be finished with this Motion by 1 or 2 p.m., but it was unfinished when I left this evening. Tomorrow, in between meeting with a client and trying to track down some woman who has expertise of some sort in the law we're trying to base our appeal on, I'm going to finish it. Hopefully right in the morning, since I'm told that she's coming in tomorrow to discuss it. Then I get to start over with another one, this time for a scientist doing some sort of high-level stem cell research. Oh, and I still have to work on a Motion to Reopen a file for a client who was ordered deported years ago when his claim for political asylum failed. I don't understand why it failed (he had a clear and credible fear of persecution if returned to his home country, backed up by the fact that his family was persecuted after he escaped to the U.S.), but it doesn't matter because the guy won the Green Card lottery literally days before he was ordered deported. We just have to get the USCIS to understand that fact and re-open the proceedings so that they can be terminated so that he can file for adjustment of status on the basis of winning the lottery. Except I'm sure that USCIS will be less than cooperative.

After this summer, I'm certain my name will be on some Homeland Security list, if it isn't already there by virtue of being friends with War