OC Immigration Attorney

We recently received an approval for a marriage-based adjustment of status case. The wife was in the United States on a TN Visa from Mexico when she met her husband. They dated for several years before he proposed to her. Within a year they were married. The couple lives in Santa Ana and they hope to have children in the couple years.

At the interview, the officer was friendly and professional as they almost always are. He asked questions about how the couple met, when they started dating and how they decided to get married. I had prepared the couple on what to expect and they were very relaxed during the interview. The interview lasted only about 30 minutes and the case was approved.

Because the marriage is less than two years old, the wife will receive a conditional resident card valid for two years. They will be required to file an I-751 along with evidence of their marriage two years from now. I advised that they should collect evidence of their relationship over the next two years. If they provide enough evidence, USCIS has the option of foregoing another interview and granting the removal of conditions (I-751 form) based solely on the evidence.

The couple was very happy with the outcome and advised that they intend to hire us to handle the removal of conditions process in 2014. If you are considering the green card process, or need to file an I-751, contact The Nunez Firm to schedule a free and confidential consultation. Managing attorney Jay Nunez will personally meet with you to advise of your options and help you determine how to proceed with your case.

The President is deeply committed to fixing our broken immigration system so that it meets our 21st century national security and
economic needs. As a part of comprehensive immigration reform, the President supports legislative measures that would attract and
retain immigrants who create jobs and boost competitiveness here in the U.S., including creating a “Startup Visa,” strengthening the
H-1B program, and “stapling” green cards to the diplomas of certain foreign-born graduates in science, technology, engineering,
and math (STEM) fields. Together these actions would help attract new businesses and new investment to the U.S. and ensure that
the U.S. has the most skilled workforce in the world. In the meantime, the Obama Administration is working to make
improvements in the areas where we can make a difference.

As part of these ongoing efforts and in recognition of the one-year anniversary of the White House Startup America Initiative, the
Department of Homeland Security today announced a series of administrative reforms which will be completed in the future. These
reforms reflect the Administration’s continuing commitment to attracting and retaining highly-skilled immigrants. These efforts are
critical to continuing our economic recovery and encouraging job creation.

In last week’s State of the Union, President Obama noted that “Innovation is what America has always been about. Most new jobs
are created in start-ups and small businesses.” He also stated in his remarks in El Paso last May, “In recent years, a full 25 percent
of high-tech startups in the United States were founded by immigrants, leading to more than 200,000 jobs in America.” Echoing
this, the President’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness stated in its recent report, “Highly skilled immigrants create jobs, they
don’t take jobs.”

For more detailed information on the proposals.

Despite the devastating consequences of state immigration laws in Alabama and Arizona, legislators in other states have introduced similar enforcement bills this year. Legislators in Mississippi, Missouri, Tennessee and Virginia introduced an array of costly immigration enforcement bills in their 2012 legislative sessions—some which are modeled on Arizona’s SB 1070. While study after study continues to document how these extreme state laws are costing state economies, disrupting entire industries and driving communities further underground, state legislators clearly aren’t getting the message.

Last month, legislators in Mississippi introduced a slew of anti-immigrant bills. State Senator Joey Fillingane, for example, introduced SB 2090, a bill which requires police to check the immigration status of anyone they reasonably suspect is undocumented, makes it a crime to fail to carry proper immigration documents and a crime to harbor or transport an undocumented immigrant, and a misdemeanor for an undocumented immigrant to apply for or solicit work. Both the Mississippi House and Senate passed different versions of this bill, but are expected to hammer out one bill to send to Governor Haley Barbour’s desk for a signature soon.

In Missouri, state Senator Will Kraus recently introduced SB 590, a bill which requires police to determine the immigration status of individuals they reasonably suspect are unauthorized and makes it a crime not to carry immigration documents. Missouri’s bill, like Alabama, however takes the law a step further by requiring schools to verify the immigration status of enrolling students and their parents. Remember that the U.S. Department of Justice blocked a similar provision in Alabama’s immigration law, HB 56, last October. Missouri’s legislature passed the bill out of committee last week—a bill likely to cost Missouri millions.

Campaigning in Florida this month, GOP Presidential candidates continued to display a general lack of understanding of the state’s diversifying Latino population. While it’s well-documented that the Cuban-American population is currently a strong political force, the emerging story in Florida is that the state’s future voting population will become increasingly Latino, but less Cuban.

While it’s normal for political candidates to pander to today’s registered voters, they undermine the long-term electoral prospects of their party when they fail to recognize Florida’s changing demographics. Data from the U.S. Census Bureau reveal that increasing numbers of Florida’s children are non-Cuban Latinos. Overall, Latinos make up 26% of persons under age 18.

More striking, however—given Florida’s long association with Cuban immigration—is that the Cuban-origin portion of the Latino population is shrinking when you look at the youngest Floridians.

While Cubans are a majority of Florida Latinos over age 70, every Latino age group below 70 is becoming increasingly non-Cuban. Cubans are more than half (54%) of Florida Latinos aged 65 and over, but they are only 22% of Latino children in the state. Simply put, the Cuban population is getting older while a younger, non-Cuban Latino population continues to grow.

United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) invites you to join us as we launch our Entrepreneurs in Residence (EIR) initiative with an Information Summit focused on ensuring that the immigration pathways for foreign entrepreneurs are clear, consistent, and better reflect today’s business realities.

Through panel discussions and breakout sessions, the Summit will give participants the opportunity to share their strategic thinking and business expertise with the agency. The feedback from the Summit will inform the work of the Entrepreneurs in Residence tactical team, which will bring business experts in-house to work alongside USCIS staff to maximize current immigration laws’ potential to attract foreign entrepreneurial talent.

The Entrepreneurs in Residence initiative provides USCIS with a unique opportunity to gain insights in areas critical to economic growth to ensure that USCIS policies and practices fully realize the immigration law’s potential to create and protect American jobs.

The Information Summit will take place in Silicon Valley on February 22, 2012. For more information.

We recently received the good news that one of our clients from Irvine, who is currently studying in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania was approved for naturalization. There was an issue whether our client, who was a permanent resident, had broken his continuous residency and was barred from naturalization. In general, a naturalization applicant must satisfy USCIS that s/he has maintained continuous residency in the United States during the statutory time period, which is generally five years (three years in some cases).

The naturalization applicant cannot leave the United States for more than six months. An absence of more than six months raises a rebuttable presumption that continuous residency has been broken. USCIS will consider the following factors when deciding whether the applicant has rebutted the presumption: maintaining employment in the US; presence of immediate family in the US; retention of full access to US home; not obtaining employment abroad. Other factors may be considered relevant as well.

If an applicant is absent from the US for over one year, continuous residency is broken. There are certain exemptions including military service abroad, employment abroad and spouses of US citizens working abroad for US companies. There are very specific details regarding these exemptions, and you should contact The Nunez Firm to inquire if they apply to you.

In the present case, we provided USCIS with a legal brief explaining the law and why our client’s absence from the US did not disqualify him from naturalizing. The client advised that the naturalization interview went smoothly and he was very happy that he would soon be taking the oath ceremony to become a naturalized US citizen.

If you are considering the naturalization process, contact The Nunez Firm to schedule a free consultation. We handle many naturalization proceedings every year including complex cases involving criminal convictions and routine naturalizations involving clients that want to ensure that everything will go smoothly. Managing attorney Jay Nunez will personally meet with you to discuss the facts involved with your case and whether naturalization is a viable option for you.

We recently received a green card approval for the wife of an US Citizen residing in Fullerton, Orange County. The couple has been involved in a good faith relationship for several years and they married in 2011. The wife is originally from Mexico and entered the United States legally in the mid-1990s. She never left the United States and later had a son, who was a US citizen by virtue of being born in the US.

The couple met online in 2008 and developed a friendship that later evolved into a romance. After dating for a couple of years, the husband proposed marriage and she accepted. In mid-2011, they hired The Nunez Firm to assist with the adjustment of status process. We helped them collect all the necessary paperwork including evidence that the marriage was entered into in good faith and not for immigration purposes. We handled all the forms (including the I-485, I-130, G-325A, I-765 and G-28) and preparing the packet of evidence. Before the interview with USCIS in Santa Ana, I met with the couple and advised on what to expect at the interview. I told them what questions to expect and assured them that I would be at the interview to make sure they were treated respectfully and fairly.

On the day of the interview, the wife was very nervous. She read many horror stories online about rude USCIS officers, inappropriate sexual questions and interviews that seemed more like interrogations. I assured her that I would step in if the officer overstepped the bounds of decency.

The officer was very thorough, but respectful and patient during the green card interview. The officer approved the case on the spot and the couple was very emotional about starting their new life together. They were excited that they would be able to visit Mexico to meet the wife’s family for the first time. She was very happy that should would be able to see relatives she had not seen in over fifteen years.

If you are considering the adjustment of status process, contact The Nunez Firm to schedule a free consultation. Managing attorney Jay Nunez will personally meet with you to help you understand whether your situation is eligible for a marriage based green card. The Nunez Firm handles countless marriage based green cards every year and our reputation among our clients and the USCIS adjudicators is unparalleled.

The Nunez Firm just received the good news that an E-2 visa was approved for a French client through consular processing. The E-2 visa is for foreign investors who wish to immigrate to the US on a temporary basis. The nationality of the investment enterprise must be at least 50% from the foreign country, and the source of the funds must be legal. In this case, we were able to satisfy the consular officer that the funds were obtained legally through prior businesses owned by the client.

The client wants to open a business in Orange County. We helped him find a location, and once he was satisfied, he put the funds in escrow with instructions that the escrowed funds were contingent on the approval of the E-2 visa. In general, E-2 adjudicators want to see that the investment money is “at risk,” but escrowed funds, if organized correctly, suffice to meet this requirement.

The substantiality of the investment is always an issue, and the adjudicator will generally focus on:

• the amount of the investment funds compared with the cost of purchasing or creating the enterprise
• the amount normally considered sufficient to ensure the investor’s commitment to the success of the enterprise
• the magnitude of investment to support the likelihood that the investor will successfully develop and direct the enterprise

The investor must also satisfy the adjudicator that the enterprise has the present or future capacity to generate more than minimal living for investor and family. Adjudicators will consider several factors including whether the investment will expand job opportunities, generate income substantially above what would be considered a living, whether the investor will work merely as a skilled or unskilled worker and whether the investor has other sources of income. Generally the investor must manage the business with hands-on management.

E-2 employees are also eligible for E-2 visas, although this was not at issue in this case. The client is very happy with the outcome and plans to move to the US within the next month after he wraps up his affairs in France.

If you are considering the E-2 visa process, contact The Nunez Firm to schedule a free consultation. Managing attorney Jay Nunez will personally meet with you confidentially and help you better understand the options available to you.

The Obama administration wants to more quickly reunite Americans with their illegal immigrant spouses and children in a move long sought by advocates but panned by Republicans as a way to push unpopular policies around Congress.

Currently, many illegal immigrants must leave the country before they can ask the federal government to waive a three- to 10-year ban on legally coming back to the U.S. The length of the ban depends on how long they have lived in the U.S. without permission.

On Friday, the Obama administration proposed changing the rule to let children and spouses ask the government to decide on the waiver request before they head to their home country to seek a visa to return here legally.

The illegal immigrants would still have to go abroad to finish the visa process, but getting a provisional waiver approved in advance would reduce the time they are out of the country from months to days or weeks, said Alejandro Mayorkas, director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.

The purpose is “to minimize the extent to which bureaucratic delays separate Americans from their families for long periods of time,” Mayorkas told reporters.

It currently takes about six months for the government to issue a waiver, Mayorkas said.

The waiver shift is the latest move by President Barack Obama to make changes to immigration policy without congressional action. Congressional Republicans repeatedly have criticized the administration for policy changes they describe as providing “backdoor amnesty” to illegal immigrants.

The proposal also comes as Obama gears up for a re-election contest in which the support of Hispanic voters could prove a determining factor in a number of states. The administration hopes to change the rule later this year after taking public comments.

If this rule change is successful, it could change the lives of many illegal immigrants that are married to US citizens or have US citizen family members that rely on them. Allowing undocumented immigrants to apply for the extreme hardship waiver without having to leave the US would minimize the usual risks associated with I-601 waivers.

If you are considering an I-601 waiver, please contact The Nunez Firm to schedule a free consultation. Managing attorney Jay Nunez will personally discuss your case with you during a free and confidential interview.

On January 1, 2012, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) changed the filing locations for Form I-130, Petition for Alien Relative.  Domestic petitioners will now mail their stand-alone I-130 applications to either the Chicago Lockbox or the Phoenix Lockbox, depending on their residence in the United States.  Updated filing addresses are available at this link: Form I-130 Direct Filing Locations.  This effort will balance workloads between the two locations and provide more efficient and effective processing of Form I-130.

There will be no change in filing locations when submitting Form I-130 along with Form I-485, Application to Register Permanent Residence or Adjust Status. Individuals filing these forms together will continue to mail them to the Chicago Lockbox facility. Petitioners filing from overseas addresses in countries without USCIS offices will also continue to file at the Chicago Lockbox facility. Petitioners residing in a country with a USCIS office may send their I-130 forms to the Chicago Lockbox, or they may file their Forms I-130 at the international USCIS office having jurisdiction over the area where they live.

Customers should ensure they are filing at the proper location. Individuals who submit their Form I-130 packages to the incorrect Lockbox location may experience a delay in processing. Questions or concerns regarding where to file your application should be directed to the USCIS National Customer Service Center at 1-800-375-5283.

If you are considering filing a visa petition for a relative, contact The Nunez Firm. Managing attorney Jay Nunez will personally discuss your case with you and help you better understand the options available to you.