[Blog]

What part of illegal don’t you understand?

Guy comes to see me in February 2010 to see about his immigration status - today he became a Permanent Resident through a 10-minute hearing before the Immigration Court. In 5 years he will be eligible to become a US citizen. His story actually begins in 1996 when he and his wife came to the United States without authorization. Since then they have had 3 US citizen children. He has worked this entire time, and has volunteered at his Church and local VFW - for which he has received several awards.

He had an employer who filed for him in 2001, before the law changed. That law, INA 245(i), would eventually allow him to obtain his residence in the US even though he entered without authorization and worked without documents, as long as he entered before the end of 1999 and paid a $1000 penalty. Unfortunately that law was allowed to sunset on April 30, 2001 and inexplicably has never been renewed even though it would open up legal paths and raise a staggering amount of money top allow people to come out of the shadows and obtain their residence if they can show long-term residence, have a valid petition filed on their behalf, and don’t have any disqualifying criminal convictions.

In our case, the company that petitioned for him in 2001 had closed, but a new company wanted to hire him. That process tookseveral years, and we have to show there were no minimally qualified US workers ready, willing, and able to take the job at the wage determined by the Department of Labor. We filed with the DOL in November 2010, and it was approved in January 2011. We then filed the next step, a petition with USCIS by the new employer in July 2011, which was approved in January 2012. 

Then we had to wait several years for a visa to become available, because there are only so many available each year and that results in a backlog. In our case, that took until December 2016. We then filed for his residence with USCIS, but during the more than 1 year wait, he was arrested for a DUI. That resulted in him being placed in removal proceedings. We got him released on bond in December 2017, and had to show he was obtaining alcohol treatment, and continued with Breathalyzer monitoring throughout this process - all the way up until his trial today. 

Complicating matters further, he now had a new employer, and we had to show that his new job was either for a “successor in interest” to the employer who filed for him in 2010, and both companies were own by the same person, but also we could show that the new job was in the same or similar occupation, and we were able to show both. We also had to prove that the new employer had sufficient financial resources to pay his wages, and that he was otherwise approvable - no disqualifying criminal convictions, etc. In the end, our filings to the Immigration Court totaled over 230 pages. 

The hearing today only took 10 minutes because we had filed everything showing he was eligible for and deserving of getting his residence. While the Department of Homeland Security agreed with the Judge that he should get his residence, we still had to wait for his scheduled hearing some 2 years after he was released on bond. 

So, guy comes in without authorization, and begins his journey to getting legal in 2001, which only ends in 2019 after 3 different companies said they wanted to hire him, and he showed at least 3 times that he was worthy of discretionary grants of benefits. All of this was possible to him because of a law that no longer exists, meaning people who came here after 2001 and never had old qualifying petitions for them or their family can’t use this process anymore. So when you hear people ask why someone in the country just doesn’t “get legal,” remember this story.