Author Archive
Guest Post: A K-1 Interview Story from One of Our Clients
Felipe da Silva (not his real name) is a Brazilian client of our firm who recently was approved for a K-1 fiance visa. With Felipe’s consent, we are publishing his email to us describing the interview process. We are very happy for Felipe and his American bride, and wish them all the best!
I left home at 5:30, it was still dark! I got to the US consulate at 6:45 and there were 5 girls waiting in line with their Americans fiancés. At 7:15 other 4 girls got in line and I felt awkward… 9 girls that apparently knew each other from a website, talking, and talking, and talking… I was the only guy.
We went to the second floor and a woman made the first check on my documents… Everything was nice and easy, because my lawyer ROCKS!!! She gave me a password, and I got to be the second one, thanks for our organization. They made me wait at a room with the others, and I started to imagine if they keep an eye on that room… I tried to make a conversation with some them, but it was too early, and it is impossible for a man to follow the conversation of 6 or 7 worried girls at that time of the day.
Almost an hour later, they call me in a private room, and I gave him all my documents. He asked me if it was me who fill in all the forms… I said no, “it was my lawyer!”… “Have you double checked all the information?”… Yes sir, 5 times only in the last hour!”… He laughed, gave me a few documents back, that he said was unnecessary and I was dismissed…
Back to the waiting room… I had to wait for all the girls to do the same thing… Another hour has passed when the first password was called to the Consul’s room. The funny part is that Americans are not allowed in that room, only the Brazilians. I got called to the Consul’s office, and he nicely asked me to sit down. He was about 32 years old. An older skinny woman was sitting behind, but she never looked at me, and stayed the whole time taking notes… He spoke something to her, but the microphone was turned off… Finally he said good morning and made me swear that I would only speak the truth.
The whole interview was in Portuguese and felt like he was trying to see if I was really me… Almost all the questions were about me. Where I studied, where I lived, where I worked… questions about my family and older visas. He knew that my father used to be a lieutenant, and asked me if I had any army training. He knew that my brother went to U.S. before me, and asked me if he was still living there. I tried to answer everything objectively and with conviction. The only question that he asked was “how you met you fiancé”. I told him the story… he laughed and said “Jack in the Box??? Your kids will love fast food”… “Ok, your visa is approved”… The whole thing took less than 10 minutes.
THANK YOU ALL for you hard work… I am really happy! And I’ll personally Brazilian handshake you when I move to SF…
Tags: Brazil, fiance, immigration, K-1 interview, K-1 visa, U.S. consulate, visa interview
Posted in Guest Posts | Read More »
Harvard Student At Risk of Deportation
Eric Balderas is an immigrant success story. Originally from Mexico, Eric grew up in the U.S., graduated as valedictorian from his high school in San Antonio, and now attends Harvard as an undergraduate on a full scholarship studying molecular biology. He aspires to be a cancer researcher one day.
And yet, under our immigration laws, Eric Balderas is deportable.
Eric is undocumented. He came here as a young child with his parents from Mexico, a country which he does not even remember. Recently caught by ICE, he is now in danger of being removed from the U.S.
See: http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jnk7spK92rmzC439rdIValXaBvxQD9G9CJJ00 for the full story.
Eric is the poster child for the Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors Act, or the DREAM Act, as it is known. The bi-partisan DREAM Act, if enacted, would grant permanent resident status to undocumented immigrants who were brought to this country as minors if they enroll either in school or in the military.
Why the DREAM Act has not yet passed continues to defy logic. What possible good can come from deporting someone brought here as a child, who, by virtue of having been raised here, is essentially American? I have yet to hear opponents of the DREAM Act articulate anything other than mean-spirited and nonsensical rhetoric in response to this question.
Tags: deporation, DREAM Act, eric balderas, immigrant, immigration reform, undocumented
Posted in immigration reform | Read More »
USCIS Proposes Fee Increases
USCIS announced a proposed fee increase today, designed to address a $200 million budget shortfall for the agency in the coming fiscal year. The proposed increase of approximately 10 percent would affect most petitions, and would leave applications for naturalization unaffected. A 45-day public comment period will follow.
As an attorney in the trenches, I regularly see the incredibly poor level of service that USCIS delivers to its “customers”. For instance, a company petitioning for an H-1B employee must already pay anywhere from $1570 to $2320 in filing fees, and it receives very little value for it.
Increasingly, what we see in the adjudication are burdensome and unnecessary requests for evidence; evidence that is irrelevant and/or already provided in the initial petition. For instance, recently, I received a request asking that I “prove” why a position for a staff scientist at a DNA sequencing start-up company qualifies as a professional occupation worthy of an H-1B. In that case, the scientist in question has a degree in molecular cell biology from a U.S. university and is spending 100% of their time on scientific research.
It’s bad enough that in this era of declining applications, USCIS feels that it must make busy work for its under-employed contractors by encouraging those contractors to waste the petitioners’ time and money with unnecessary requests for more evidence. Now they expect petitioners to have to pay ten percent more for this “service”? Where I come from, they call that serious chutzpah.
Tags: fee increase, filing fee, H-1B, immigration, USCIS
Posted in Alerts | Read More »
Visa Fees to Increase on June 4, 2010
On June 4th, the fees for nonimmigrant visa processing at U.S. consulates around the world will increase. The fee increase was necessary, according to the Department of State, to help cover the rising cost of processing visas.
The new fee schedule is as follows:
Applicants for all visas that are not petition-based will pay a fee of $140. These are visa categories that don’t require an approved petition from a USCIS service center, and include B1/B2 tourist and business visitor visas and all student and exchange visitor (F, M and J) visas.
Applicants for petition-based visas will pay an application fee of $150. These are visas that require an approval of a petition from a USCIS service center before the applicant can apply for a visa at the U.S. consulate. These visa categories include:
· H visa (for temporary workers and trainees)
· L visa (for intra-company transferees)
· O visa (for persons of extraordinary ability)
· P visa (for athletes, artists and entertainers)
· Q visa (for cultural exchange visitors)
· R visa (for religious workers)
The application fee for a K visa for a fiancé(e)s of a U.S. citizen will increase to $350.
The application fee for E visas for treaty traders (E-1) and treaty-investors (E-2) will increase to $390.
Proposed fee increases for U.S. passports and immigrant visas are currently under review.
Posted in Alerts | Read More »
Visa Extensions: A Problem?
Many of my immigration attorney colleagues are reporting denials of visa extension requests. These are situations where the foreign national is already in the U.S. working legally; but when it comes time to renew the visa, the USCIS says no.
If your status is about to expire, do not think that the USCIS will simply rubber stamp a prior approval and extend your visa. Now more than ever it is important to thoroughly document your eligibility again even if nothing about the employment situation has changed. What was approved once will not necessarily be approved again.
Although most reported cases I’ve heard about involve denials of L-1, O-1 and H-1B visa extensions, other visa types are not remotely immune to the culture of no that pervades USCIS these days.
In fact, just this past weekend, the New York Times reported that E-2 visas are becoming difficult to extend. See http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/30/us/30visas.html?pagewanted=2&sq=E-2%20visa&st=cse&scp=1 for a woeful tale of a business forced to shut down because its British proprietors were not able to renew their visas.
Tags: E-2, extension, H-1B, L-1A, O-1, renew, visa
Posted in Alerts | Read More »
F-1 Students: Beware of Falling Out of Status
Over the years, I have seen many cases of international students falling out of status for reasons that could have been avoided. Typical scenarios include dropping below the required 12 units per term, or failure to pay tuition in time, as well as other seemingly minor violations.
When an F-1 student falls out of status, there are usually two options for fixing the problem:
1) the student can leave the country and seek re-entry with a new Form I-20 provided by the university. Depending on the situation, it may also be prudent to obtain a new visa at the U.S. consulate;
2) the student can apply to USCIS for reinstatement of their F-1 status. Essentially, the student must then prove to USCIS that failure to maintain status occurred through circumstances beyond the student’s control.
Both courses of action involve risk and uncertainty, and it’s best to avoid having to go down either path. I always advise students to be as proactive as possible in maintaining their status. This involves being in regular contact with your international student office, and making sure that the advisors in that office have everything they need from you in order to maintain your record in the SEVIS system
If you require assistance with F-1 immigration issues, please contact one of our San Francisco Immigration Attorneys who can assist you.
Tags: F-1, I-20, international students, reinstatement, SEVIS
Posted in F-1 | Read More »
Have You Been Convicted of a Crime? Speak with an Immigration Attorney Before You Travel!
If you are a lawful permanent resident or a lawful nonimmigrant residing in the U.S. with a criminal conviction in your past, and you plan to travel outside the U.S. and re-enter, it is critical that you consult with an attorney prior to departing the US.
Certain crimes are considered Crimes Involving Moral Turpitude (CIMT) under our immigration laws. These crimes can make you inadmissible to the U.S.
Even if you are a long-term resident of the U.S. with one prior conviction, you could have trouble re-entering the U.S if the crime you were convicted of is considered a CIMT. This may be true even if you served a jail sentence, satisfied your probation requirements, and are otherwise now a model citizen. It is essential to analyze the conviction or convictions in your case to determine whether or not you are inadmissible to the U.S.
Do not find out the hard way that you have a problem. Please consult with an immigration attorney prior to travel.
Tags: CIMT, crime moral turpitude, immigration, inadmissibility, nonimmigrant, re-entry, resident, travel
Posted in Crimes and Immigration | Read More »
Attention Foreign National Entrepreneurs: Small Tech Companies Needed in the U.S.
Attention Foreign National Entrepreneurs: Small Tech Companies Needed in the U.S.
There are a number of potential opportunities in the U.S. for small technology companies, including start-ups established by foreign nationals. Reported on http://www.nextgov.com/nextgov/ng_20100416_1532.php, and confirmed in that article by Alan Swendiman, former general counsel of the General Services Administration, small businesses (even those established by foreign nationals) in the U.S., are able to go after “set asides” (Federal contracts) reserved for small firms. Foreign companies and foreign national entrepreneurs should find this encouraging and should be incentivized to establish U.S. start-ups, subsidiaries or branch offices.
Currently, large companies submitting proposals for Federal projects must include a subcontracting plan using smaller subcontractors. These plans must account for 40% of the total offer. This is great news for small U.S. companies since large companies are constantly seeking the work of smaller subcontractors to meet this requirement. This also allows small companies to take advantage of the Federal Recovery Act stimulus money available to Federal subcontractors. Please note that in order to qualify for these subcontracts, the U.S. company must have been in business for at least two (2) years.
We encourage you to take advantage of these unique subcontracting opportunities by establishing a company in the U.S.. If you have any immigration questions regarding the establishment of your business within the U.S., please don’t hesitate to contact our immigration law firm.
Tags: entrepreneur, foreign national, immigration, start-up, technology, visa
Posted in Uncategorized | Read More »
Report Shows 88,000 U.S. Children Lost Immigrant Parent to Deportation
A report based on analysis of data provided by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security was recently released showing that between 1997 and 2007, 88,000 children in the U.S. lost a legal permanent resident parent to deportation. In most of these incidents, the green-card holding parent was deported because they committed a crime deemed by the Department of Homeland Security to be an “aggravated felony”, and therefore a deportable offense.
In 1997, the definition of what constitutes an aggravated felony was significantly expanded to include even relatively minor crimes, such as non-violent theft and drug offenses, as well as other offenses which are not felonies under state law. The study found that in 68% of cases, the crime in question did not involve violence.
Not surprisingly, subsequent to their parents’ deportation, many of these children simply tanked. High rates of depression, anxiety, behavioral problems, as well as plummeting grades were documented.
The results of this study should come as a surprise to no one. It’s obvious that when a child loses a parent, he or she loses a main source of stability and support. What astounds me is that our government, in the name of enforcing our nation’s immigration laws, would inflict this harm on its own citizen children. How absurd from a policy standpoint, considering the broader cost to our society.
As this study recommends, immigration judges should have the discretion to grant individuals a waiver from deportation when minor children are involved.
The study was a joint project of the Immigration Law Clinic at the UC Davis School of Law, and the International Human Rights Law Clinic and the Chief Justice Earl Warren Institute on Race, Ethnicity and Diversity at the UC Berkeley School of Law. It is available at: http://www.law.ucdavis.edu/news/images/childsbestinterest.pdf.
Tags: immigrant; immigration; green card; lawful permanent resident; children; crime; deportation; removal
Posted in Politics/Current Events, Uncategorized | Read More »
