By Reeves Miller Zhang & Diza
Of course, we are proud of our hundreds of success stories. Here are just a few more. Each attorney speaks for all of us.
A client came to me this year at the point of total despair. He had consulted and worked with other attorneys before coming to Reeves Miller Zhang & Diza. Still, his wife was waiting in Manila after leaving the United States unnecessarily during the course of removal proceedings. After carefully and thoroughly reviewing the wife’s immigration history, we were able to come up with an innovative argument that allowed his wife to return and to do so without filing a waiver for unlawful presence. The client and his wife were filled with joy.
One client’s case exemplifies for me the positive impact our firm has on people’s lives. In this case, we were able to convince an immigration judge to grant our client a waiver which let him keep his green card. Nearly 20 years ago, he left his pregnant wife and two minor sons to come to the United States. He had lied at the US Consulate immigrant visa interview about his marital status in order to qualify under the unmarried son or daughter category. His father was going blind and he was desperate to join him. Once here, he realized what great opportunities existed for him to help his family if he stayed. He knew that he needed to have good legal representation to straighten out the complicated situation he was in. We are grateful that he chose us to help him. We were able to put together and present a persuasive case in Immigration Court that convinced the Judge to grant him the waiver. With his green card safe, we helped him naturalize and petition for his family. Today, he is a U.S. citizen and is reuniting with his family. Helping people in need is the reason I became an immigration attorney.
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I am proud of securing the approval of a late-filed asylee-relative petition through the filing of a lawsuit against the immigration service. Our client’s family had suffered greatly while they waited to reunite with their adult son. He was under 21 when the father’s asylum was initially filed, and was thus eligible to immigrate as a derivative of that application. Unfortunately, the family’s prior representative failed to timely file the son’s petition.
Tragically, around that same time, the family’s beautiful daughter underwent surgery to correct a congenital heart defect. It did not go well and she was rendered a paraplegic. The family was devastated. And the continued failure of the immigration service to apply the correct law to reunite them with their son exacerbated their pain and distress. The family desperately needed the comfort and support of their only other child in this trying time. We filed multiple motions with the immigration service to reconsider their position and multiple petitions, and even involved a Congressman’s office, to no avail. Finally, we decided enough was enough and we filed a lawsuit against the immigration service to compel them to apply the correct law. Once the case was in federal court, the immigration service agreed to reopen and approve the petition. It is unfortunate that it took a lawsuit to get the immigration service to apply the correct law but it is also heartening that such a remedy exists for this type of situation. The process was very emotional for the family and we were all elated when at long last we received the approval notice.
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A couple came to our office wanting to obtain lawful status in the U.S. They had a U.S. citizen daughter who was old enough to file a petition for them. The problem was that both the husband and wife had entered the U.S. with false names, so they both needed waivers for misrepresentation. These waivers required them to have a parent or spouse who was a U.S. citizen or permanent resident. They were both out of status, so neither could claim a spouse with status. The wife’s father was a U.S. citizen, but her husband’s parents had no status here. We filed a green card application for the wife along with a waiver, but while her case was pending, her father passed away. We convinced the immigration service to grant the waiver despite the death of the father. After the wife received her green card, we filed the adjustment application for the husband, now claiming his wife as his “qualifying relative” for the waiver. His waiver was approved, and now both the husband and wife are U.S. permanent residents.
We would love to help your immigration situation be successfully resolved in 2015. Happy New Year!
