Visa Lawyer Blog

Articles Posted in Citizenship

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By Lupe Lopez

It was 1984 and I was meeting a friend at the Immigration office in San Francisco.  My friend was running late and asked that I wait for her in the courtroom.  She gave me the number of the room and as I walked into the courtroom I saw a small, thin, older woman crying – throwing herself down on her knees begging the judge to not deport her son.  “We have been here since he was 4 months old.  We don’t even know anyone in Germany.”  She cried and told him that they were alone and didn’t have anyone else but each other.  The judge looked empathetic but he said his hands were tied.  The young man of 19 had committed a crime that made him deportable.  The judge said to her “if only your son had become a citizen.  You both had plenty of time.”  The young man was taken away and the older woman had to be carried out of the courtroom screaming and crying for her son.

I have never forgotten that courtroom scene.  In 1984 I never dreamed that someday I would be working with Immigration lawyers or in an immigration law firm.  But, since I started working in the field of immigration, there has not been a month that goes by that I have not heard this same scenario in one form or another.  Parents become legal permanent residents and then for any of a multitude of reasons, never become U.S. Citizens; leaving their children to make the decision themselves as to whether or not they want to become citizens.  They never imagine that one day their child can be in the wrong place at the wrong time, or simply that their child may never get into trouble with the law.

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President Obama’s executive order is looming on the horizon, as part of an alleged 10 point plan the president plans to announce as early as Friday, November 21. According to a draft proposal released by a U.S. government agency, the plan may suspend removal proceedings for millions of undocumented immigrants who came to the United States as children, as well as parents of U.S. Citizen children residing in the United States illegally, and parents of green card holders, by allowing them to benefit from a reprieve that will expand deferred action for these individuals. Among its 10 initiatives, firstly, the plan proposes to bolster border security, secondly, to improve pay for immigration officers, thirdly, to provide a 50% discount to the first 10,000 applicants whose income levels are below 200% of the poverty level in order to encourage participation, fourthly, to establish a program designed to stimulate the tech industry which could potentially offer millions of immigrants and their dependents a path to citizenship, and lastly, to prioritize removal proceedings on the basis of the severity of an immigrant’s criminal history, calling an end to the program known as ‘Secure Communities.’ This 10 point plan makes anyone who entered the United States before turning 16 and before the date of January 01, 2010, eligible for naturalization. Such a plan would thereby suspend deportation for millions of undocumented immigrants.

The proposal has not yet been announced, we would like to inform our audience to please be wary of fraudulent schemes. At this time ONLY preliminary information has been released.

Please continue to follow our blog for further updates, for more information please contact our office.  It is our goal to provide you with the most up to date immigration reform developments.

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By Lupe Lopez

Alan and Diana married in February 2014.  They quickly filed for Diana’s green card and because they had been married less than two years at the time of the interview, Diana received conditional permanent residence.  Everything was fine and there were no problems until Alan received a promotion to a position in one of the firm’s overseas offices.  Both Alan and Diana were concerned because they knew that Diana would not be able to spend much time out of the U.S. and still maintain her permanent residence.

Alan and Diana came to our office in to get an attorney’s opinion of their situation and to see if there was any way they could file a form that would maintain Diana’s permanent residence while living abroad.  Normally, if you are a permanent lawful resident, you cannot be out of the country for an extended period of time if you wish to maintain your residency; especially for the purpose of obtaining citizenship.  In order to be naturalized as a U.S. Citizen, the permanent resident must fulfill residency requirements and show evidence that he or she has been physically present in the United States for at least half of the three years (for people who have gained status through marriage to a U.S. Citizen – half of five years for all others).  Diana would not be able to accumulate the time needed if she is forced to live abroad with her husband.

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by Marie Puertollano, Esq.

When will I be scheduled for an oath ceremony?

After your naturalization interview, if your case is approved, you will be scheduled for the naturalization oath ceremony. USCIS will send you the form N-445 indicating the date for your oath ceremony. If you cannot attend, reschedule immediately by sending back the notice to the USCIS local office with a letter explaining why you cannot attend.

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On April 07, 2014, in a much awaited public announcement, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services announced that it had already reached the statutory cap of H-1B petitions allotted for the 2015 fiscal year. According to the announcement, on the first five days USCIS began to count H-1B petitions, it was already flooded with more than 65,000 of regular cap H-1B petitions and more than 20,000 H-1B petitions qualifying for the advanced degree exemption.

USCIS began accepting H-1B petitions subject to the 2015 fiscal year cap on April 01, 2014. The H1-B visa program is utilized by U.S. businesses seeking to employ foreign workers in what are known as ‘specialty occupations’. Specialty occupations are those that necessitate highly specialized knowledge, whether theoretical or practical, as stated on the USCIS website. Specialty occupations include but are not limited to scientists, doctors, mathematicians, or engineers.

According to the announcement, USCIS completed initial intakes for all filings received by the filing deadline (April 07, 2014), and will conduct a random computer generated selection process also known as a lottery system of selection. Under this process, USCIS will select the number of petitions necessary to fulfill the 65,000 visa cap limit for the general category, and the 20,000 visa cap limit under the advanced degree exemption. Those whose cap-based petitions are not selected will have their cases rejected and filing fees returned to them. As stated by USCIS, the computer generated selection process will consider the advanced degree exemption first. Advanced degree petitions that are not accepted through the initial lottery system will be subjected to the lottery system for the general category.

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More than 500 leaders for the networks of young immigrants, frustrated with House Republicans’ failure to move on immigration this year so far, have decided to turn their protests on President Obama in an effort to pressure him to act unilaterally to stop deportations.

Months of lobbying, rallies and sit-in demonstrations have not brought any movement in the House on a pathway to citizenship for immigrants here illegally. The youths who gathered in Phoenix last week for an annual congress of the network, United We Dream, have voiced severe disappointment by Republicans and Democrats who seem to not be moving over political reasons more than a true desire to reform immigration. Pointing to Mr. Obama’s promise earlier this year to use his own powers when Congress would not move on this agenda, they now demand that he take executive action to increase protections for immigrants without papers.

“The community we work with is telling us that these deportations are ripping our families apart; this has to stop,” said Cristina Jiménez, the managing director of the network, the largest organization of immigrants who grew up in this country without legal status after coming as children and who call themselves Dreamers. “And we know the president has the power to do it.”

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Do you want to become a US Citizen? Foreign nationals who wish to become citizens of the United States may do so through the naturalization process. Citizenship confers many advantages — the right to vote, protection from the government, access to certain jobs and benefits, and the option to hold public office.

A great tip from AILA regarding the timing of filing is provided here:

INA § 334 permits a naturalization applicant to file a Form N-400, Application for Naturalization, up to 3 months before the date the applicant would first meet the 5-year or 3-year continuous residence requirement. See INA §§ 316(a), 319(a); 8 C.F.R. §334.2(b). While the application can be filed within this 3 month time period, the applicant cannot be naturalized until he or she has met the 5-year or 3-year continuous residence requirement, in addition to meeting the other statutory requirements for naturalization. See INA §§ 316, 319.

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Brenda Vazquez is a 29-year-old elementary school teacher in Matamoros, Mexico. Laura Castro lives across the border in Brownsville, Texas. She is a 32-year-old housewife who helps her husband manage several stores. They share one thing in common: Both say they were delivered by midwives in south Texas, but pressured by U.S. Border Patrol agents to deny their U.S. citizenship. Their problems began, according to attorney Jaime Diez, when a group of midwives along the U.S.-Mexico border were found guilty of selling birth certificates to people who were not born in the United States.

“Now all the midwives in the area are suspected of committing fraud,” said Diez, who said his office regularly sees cases of people delivered by midwives in Texas. Some of them are struggling to get passports because officials question the validity of their birth certificates, he said. Others have been deported and had their identification documents confiscated at the border, he said.

Vazquez, who Diez is representing in a federal lawsuit filed last week, said she was intimidated into signing a document swearing she was not a U.S. citizen at a border crossing in Brownsville, Texas, last year. “He said, ‘You’d better cooperate with me, because if you don’t, you’re going to jail. I had to lie and say that I was not a citizen. … I was quite scared. I was crying,” the second-grade teacher said.

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We really enjoy seeing cases where individuals who have done everything right are able to succeed in being granted their citizenship. In Naturalization cases, it can be difficult to get an approval if the government decides to fight even one minor part of the record. This recent decision by a U.S. District Court highlights the struggle between an individual and USCIS when the government chooses to carry on the fight with its determination that you should not receive citizenship.

The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California ruled on March 21, 2012, that Plaintiff Mirsad Hajro was eligible for naturalization. The decision follows a May 27, 2011 order by the court denying a summary judgment motion by the government. USCIS originally denied Mr. Hajro’s Form N-400, alleging that the Mr. Hajro gave false testimony with the intent to obtain an immigration benefit, and thus lacked the good moral character required for naturalization.

The facts in question concerned information provided by Mr. Hajro during an interview for his naturalization. Mr. Hajro had served in the Bosnian military and a question arose asking if he had been in possession of any firearms during his time in the military. The court found that the Mr. Hajro did not provide false testimony on either his I-485 or N-400 applications, noting that, in the instances where Mr. Hajro’s responses were deficient, he provided reasonable, credible explanations for the omissions. It also found that Mr. Hajro consistently volunteered information to USCIS to enable it to make its decision. As a result, the court held that the plaintiff was a person of good moral character during the relevant three-year period, and was eligible for naturalization.

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How much do you know about the 10 plus Million illegal immigrants currently living in the United States? How long have they lived among us, who are their parents and more? The Pew Hispanic Research Center released some interesting stats and we are sharing below.

Nearly two-thirds of the 10.2 million unauthorized adult immigrants in the United States have lived in this country for at least 10 years and nearly half are parents of minor children, according to new estimates by the Pew Hispanic Center, a project of the Pew Research Center.

The characteristics of this population have become a source of renewed interest in the wake of former House Speaker Newt Gingrich’s recent endorsement of a proposal to create a path for unauthorized immigrants to gain legal status if they have lived in the country for a long period of time, have children in the U.S., pay taxes and belong to a church. Several of Gingrich’s opponents for the Republican presidential nomination have criticized the proposal as a form of amnesty that would encourage more immigrants to come to the U.S. illegally.

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