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Mark P. Popiel is director of the Office of Immigration Services in the Office of International Student and Scholar Services.
What is your background?
Upon graduating from the UB Law School with a concentration in international law and being admitted to practice in New York State, I took an appointment with the law firm of Bond, Schoeneck & King, PLLC (a firm with approximately 200 attorneys), serving as the firm's associate/second chair of the Immigration Law Practice Group. In this position, I represented individuals, academic institutions and small to multi-billion dollar companies throughout the world in all their immigration/international law matters. I also have been active in publishing various articles on immigration/international law that have appeared in The Georgetown Immigration Law Journal, Across Borders: Gonzaga International Law Journal, Institut Europeen Des Hautes Etudes Internationales, Currents: International Law Trade Journal, and the Chinese Journal of International Law.
What does the Office of Immigration Services do and why are these services important?
The Office of Immigration Services is vitally important, not only to our faculty and staff, but also to the competitive standing of the university both domestically as well as internationally. The global community continues to become more interconnected and interdependent each year due, in part, to advances in cutting-edge telecommunication technologies, international collaborations between academic institutions and the private sector, as well as trade relationships established between states. The Office of Immigration Services helps make it possible for the university to fully participate in the increasingly global environment of higher education by facilitating the appointment of international employees at UB. Our office is responsible for obtaining work authorization and, where appropriate, U.S. permanent residency status for international UB employees, including professors, researchers and other staff members. We also enable UB to host J-1 exchange visitors—research scholars, professors, short-term scholars and specialists—and assist the visiting scholars with immigration, tax and other legal matters. In addition to its other services, our office provides numerous campus outreach services through workshops and listserv announcements. A key role of our office is educating members of the university community about employment-based immigration regulations and procedures, and keeping them abreast of changes to the immigration regulations, visa processing and border crossings as they affect visiting scholars and international employees.
Why does UB hire foreign faculty and researchers?
While it hires many faculty and researchers domestically, UB, like other leading research universities, seeks to attract the very best faculty and researchers from around the world. Given the increasing international collaboration among faculty researchers in their respective disciplines, employment of foreign nationals has become a common—indeed a necessary—practice among U.S. research universities. UB is fortunate in having a large number of outstanding faculty and researchers from other countries.
How has the immigration law environment changed since 9/11?
Most people have identified the ongoing changes in Immigration Law with the horrific acts of Sept. 11. Although immigration law is continually evolving, 9/11 served as the impetus for greater restrictions, additional security checks and a heightened level of alert within governmental agencies. As a result, these developments have slowed down the immigration process and instilled greater apprehension about the entire immigration system for those who are caught up in this process.
What challenges do immigration attorneys face now?
With the heightened security checks and continuing changes in immigration regulations, immigration attorneys constantly are seeking clarifications to new immigration provisions. It is necessary for them to continue to educate themselves regarding the changing legislation on a daily basis and to be watchful for upcoming legislation and policy changes that may inevitably hinder or further their clients' goals. Hence, one consequence of the rapidly changing regulatory environment is that immigration service officers like me need to work hard to keep abreast of all the changes.
What question do you wish I had asked and how would you have answered it?
I would like to have been asked what other professional objectives I have at UB. I would say that, in addition to providing the very best level of immigration services to the university, I would like, in my spare time, to continue with my research and publishing in the fields of immigration and international law.