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As a practicing lawyer for 30 years, I have learned that winning at trial or putting together a winning waiver application takes more than expertise in the law, and compelling, well-reasoned arguments: it takes a committed and knowledgeable support staff. While the lawyer may craft the arguments, it is our experienced support staff that lays the foundation for our victories. Our paralegals and clerks follow up with family, friends, physicians and expert witnesses; they obtain the medical records and psychological evaluations we rely upon; the photographs and the documentary evidence – and then they put it all together in a well-organized submission. In this way, Immigration Judges or U.S.C.IS. adjudicators are often moved to want to help our clients after having reviewed our submissions – even before having heard testimony. After many hearings or trials, I have received complements from Judges and U.S.C.I.S. adjudicators about how well documented and organized our submissions were – and this is testimony to the experience and dedication of our support staff. When litigating, a team effort is the key to success.

TRAINING NEW ATTORNEYS IN IMMIGRATION COURT PROCEDURES AT THE AMERICAN IMMIGRATION LAWYERS’ 2016 CONFERENCE

With over 14,000 members, the American Immigration Lawyers Association is by far the largest bar association of immigration lawyers in the country. Every year at their national conference, many thousands of dedicated immigration practitioners gather to review the most recent developments in immigration law, and to discuss cutting edge legal theories relating to defending clients who are facing deportation-removal from the United States. This Friday, June 23rd, 2016, at AILA’s annual conference, held at the Cosmopolitan Hotel in Las Vegas, I will be part of a panel teaching newer practitioners the best practices and procedures for defending non-citizens facing deportation in our nation’s Immigration Courts. When the outcome of a hearing determines the course of someone’s life, it is critical defense counsel be familiar with required courtroom procedures and best practices for organizing and presenting evidence to support the client’s claims for relief! I am looking forward to using my 25 years of litigation experience to help train the next generation of immigration advocates.

Our 17 year old client was arrested and charged with a “B” violent felony assault after members of a gang crashed a birthday party and assaulted his friend. He faced 25 years in prison.  In the course of the wild fight which broke out between the guests and the gang members, a gang member was stabbed and seriously injured.The police arrested several people, including our client, who denied involvement in the stabbing, but admitted being involved in the fighting.

We provided the District Attorney’s Office with character letters from our client’s teachers stating he was a model student and athlete, as well as from his employer.   We also presented evidence indicating he had not been involved in the stabbing.   Our client was permitted to plead guilty to a misdemeanor assault and was adjudicated a “youthful offender” – which resulted in no criminal conviction and a sealed record. After he was taken into immigration custody, we were also retained to defend him in his deportation-removal proceedings. Continue reading →

Our client left Vietnam to live in the U.S. when he was 14 years old. When he was 19 he was arrested at school, and charged with attempting to sell some ecstasy he had purchased at a rave in the City.   He pleaded guilty to a controlled substance offense. Unfortunately, his defense attorney never warned him his guilty plea made him deportable.

Many years later, now in his late twenties,and a college graduatewith a promising career, our client was detained by I.C.E.attempting to return to the U.S. after a weekend trip to Canada. He learned that despite being a legal “permanent” resident, and despite the many years which had passed, his conviction for a controlled substance offense made him inadmissible to, and deportable from, the U.S..  He was placed into deportation proceedings and faced the frightening reality that he could be deported and separated from his family because of his guilty plea. Continue reading →

When he was twelve,  our client’s mother died. His stepmother turned him away from his father’s home in Canada, so our foreign-born client visited, and was ultimately raised by, his older sister in New York City.   His teenage years and early twenties were troubled, resulting in a series of arrests and convictions for low level offenses.  At 30,  he married and moved to Florida, where he started a family and has since lived an exemplary life.

Unfortunately, the actions he took as animmature and angry young man frustrated his attempts to gain legal status in the U.S..  He livedundocumented, in fear of deportation.  Over the years he spent his limited funds on a series of lawyers who gave him bad advice and whose attempts to gain him legal status  were  unsuccessful.  At his second U.S.C.I.S. interview, his attorney sat silently, with folded hands, when the Officer told him his marijuana convictions barred him from ever becoming a legal permanent resident,  and could even lead to his deportation. Continue reading →