Akorli Talks Immigration

This is a huge victory.

To give some idea of scale of the ban, these 75 countries represent about 25% of the world's population.

The 75 countries include: Afghanistan, Albania, Algeria, Antigua and Barbuda, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bahamas, Bangladesh, Barbados, Belarus, Belize, Bhutan, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Brazil, Burma, Cambodia, Cameroon, Cape Verde, Colombia, Cote d’Ivoire, Cuba, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Dominica, Egypt, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Fiji, The Gambia, Georgia, Ghana, Grenada, Guatemala, Guinea, Haiti, Iran, Iraq, Jamaica, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kosovo, Kuwait, Kyrgyz Republic, Laos, Lebanon, Liberia, Libya, Moldova, Mongolia, Montenegro, Morocco, Nepal, Nicaragua, Nigeria, North Macedonia, Pakistan, Republic of the Congo, Russia, Rwanda, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Syria, Tanzania, Thailand, Togo, Tunisia, Uganda, Uruguay, Uzbekistan, and Yemen.

2 days ago | [YT] | 0

Akorli Talks Immigration

“The future of the United States is in Black Africa,” writes Neeraj Kaushal.

In the Wall Street Journal, Tunku Varadarajan reviews Kaushal’s When Africa Comes to America, which argues that African immigration will be essential to America’s demographic and economic future.

The review is regrettable. It praises African immigrants’ achievements without investigating the Trump administration’s efforts to obstruct their arrival through entry restrictions, visa pauses, five-figure bonds and increasingly inaccessible consular processing.

Instead, Varadarajan turns African immigrant success into a case against native-born Black Americans and progressive Black leaders.

The latest Substack examines what the review leaves untouched: akorlibrief.substack.com/p/africa-is-americas-futu…

1 week ago | [YT] | 0

Akorli Talks Immigration

Haitian TPS has ended. This seems a good moment to consider what immigration has made possible in America.

London has 9.1 million people, 2,000 years of history, and a reputation as an international capital of dinner. Yet Springfield, Ohio—population 58,281—has more Haitian restaurants than the whole of London.

Springfield is a place most Ohioans would have difficulty finding on a map.

This is a peculiar gift of recent US immigration.

2 weeks ago | [YT] | 0

Akorli Talks Immigration

USCIS just raised the stakes for getting a filing right the first time.

Effective August 5, 2026, USCIS officers may deny an immigration benefit request that is missing required initial evidence, without first issuing a Request for Evidence (RFE) or Notice of Intent to Deny (NOID).

What changed:
- A substantially incomplete filing may be denied without an opportunity to fix it through an RFE or NOID.
- RFE response periods are not automatically 12 weeks; 12 weeks is the maximum.
- NOID response periods may not exceed 30 days.
- Notices served by mail receive 3 additional days, regardless of location. The former 14-day allowance for international correspondence is gone.
- If USCIS receives any response to an RFE or NOID - even a partial one - it treats that response as a request for a decision on the record.

The practical takeaway: do not treat an RFE as a safety net. If you are preparing a case now, review the filing as though USCIS will decide it based only on what you submit on day one.

2 weeks ago | [YT] | 2

Akorli Talks Immigration

Happy Fourth of July.

It's a beautiful day to lie in the grass as the heat reminds us that American freedom hasn't historically been carbon neutral.

Don't think too hard about who built the roads, picked the crops, laid the railroad tracks, cleaned the hotels, or who is still roofing houses in July.

America turns 250 today.

For some Americans, freedom is 250 years old.

For others, considerably younger.

Still, America remains one of history's great improbabilities: a young country that somehow became the world's leading economic, scientific, technological, and cultural powerhouse.

People from nearly every corner of the world continue to leave everything familiar behind because they believe that here, through talent, grit, and ambition, they have a better chance to build a life of abundance.

Happy Fourth. 🇺🇸

1 month ago | [YT] | 2

Akorli Talks Immigration

Happy Juneteenth!

It's a federal holiday now, which is good.

What's remarkable is how long it took.

Slavery ended in 1865. Juneteenth became a federal holiday in 2021.

One hundred and fifty-six years.

What's less remarkable, at least to many of us in the Black community, is how it finally happened.

A Black woman spent decades pushing for recognition. Then came the largest protests in a generation (Black Lives Matter protests). Somewhere between moral persistence and national embarrassment, the country finally got around to formally commemorating the end of slavery.

And even now, some people would prefer that it didn't.

Which is what makes Juneteenth such a useful snapshot of America.

Not because it tells a simple story. Because it tells a true one.

A country capable of extraordinary acts of justice.
A country capable of postponing those acts for a century and a half.
A country that eventually does the right thing.
And then immediately starts arguing about whether it should have done it at all.

2 months ago | [YT] | 4

Akorli Talks Immigration

Even with a new Secretary of DHS, I don't doubt the Trump administration will continue trying to make immigration more difficult. But difficult times don’t call for despair.

Here’s a simple question: If your life were a movie, would you watch it? Would you sit there—popcorn in hand—thinking, “Yeah… this person is really doing something with their circumstances”?
I think about life this way sometimes.

You’re the director.

Great stories don’t avoid difficulty.

4 months ago | [YT] | 0

Akorli Talks Immigration

Eid Mubarak to everyone celebrating today. To my clients, team, and colleagues observing this joyous occasion—wishing you a day filled with gratitude, generosity, and good company. May the end of Ramadan bring you clarity and blessing.
‌احتفل بسلام وفرح.

5 months ago | [YT] | 0

Akorli Talks Immigration

Happy Lunar New Year.

A heavy day to begin a new year (rest in peace, Jesse Jackson), but that is sometimes how it works. The calendar does not wait for us.

Happy Year of the Horse to the billions celebrating.

6 months ago | [YT] | 0

Akorli Talks Immigration

Rest in peace, Jesse Jackson. Perhaps the last of the great civil rights legends. There are no more in the back. The storehouse is empty. It feels like the end of an era.

Today, I’m thinking about the final words of his famous David and Goliath speech: “[Y]our time has come! Pick up your sling shot, pick up your rock, declare our time has come, a new day has begun! Red, yellow, black and white, we are all precious in God’s sight! Our time has come!”

6 months ago | [YT] | 0