Immigration Officials Made This Immigration Reporter Jobless ... So He Entered A Cooking Contest

The Hill reporter Rafael Bernal bides time as Favorite Chef

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Washington journalist Rafael Bernal in 2nd place tonight in the Favorite Chef cooking contest that he entered while awaiting the renewal of his work visa so he can return to the career he built with shoe leather and clean copy on immigration beat for The Hill editor Bob Cusack.

Rafael Bernal @Rafael_Bernal_

And now for a cliché: Some personal news... I will be on leave starting tomorrow, pending new work authorization from DHS. Been interesting to go through the immigration process while covering it - at times it's even given me a competitive advantage, but not today.

Bernal’s visa renewal with USCIS has been a months-long saga during which it has illegal for him to have an income in the United States. That means no reporting, editing, or even freelancing. It’s even illegal for him to work for free until USCIS can process his fingerprints.

SUPPORT RAFAEL BERNAL by voting for his Favorite Chef entry, which you can find here. Votes cost $1 each. We voted for Bernal ten times earlier. We will vote for him again tomorrow night once for every like this post gets¹ … at least for the first 100 likes.

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Help make Rafa the Favorite Chef until he can resume his job as our favorite immigration reporter.

1. To like just scroll to the top of the page and click the heart. We’ll tally the likes tomorrow night at 9pm EST tomorrow (17 Feb)