Notes

AVOID BEING Headstrong - Consult an Immigration Lawyer on Employee Transfers
We have often heard it suggested that whenever immigration lawyers recommend that laypersons avoid filing their own immigration paperwork, financial self-interest is the only motivation. This is far from the truth. We cannot estimate just how many times our firm has already established to try and undo the damage done to a perfectly good case by an overconfident immigrant, recruiting manager, or placement agency. Personally, I would rather lose a potential client to some other lawyer than to see her take a chance on filing her own paperwork with the USCIS. The likelihood of failure is simply too high.

Following is a set of five notable immigration horror stories which have come across our desk since the start of the year. Most of these sad situations could have been avoided if the parties could have first consulted having an experienced immigration lawyer.

THE L-1 TRANSFERS THAT HARDLY EVER HAPPENED

The CEO of a UK Software company based in Manchester called me by the end of April. She have been trying since December 2006 to transfer three key employees to a U.S. subsidiary in the Southwestern USA. Two of these were British citizens, and one was a citizen of a country in Southeast Asia. This should have been a straightforward case.

The business's U.S. partner attemptedto handle the paperwork himself, since he'd previously handled two NAFTA visas for a pair of Canadian professionals. What the business did not know was that the application form requirements and procedures for a NAFTA visa differ significantly from those applicable to the L-1 intracompany transferee visa. Even though partner had all the information and documents he needed to process the case in January, he organized the petitions in order that he could research the correct L-1 procedures. It was late April, and the partner still hadn't moved forward on the petitions.

I asked the CEO to courier me the info and documents. Within three weeks of receiving the documents, we could actually send all three of the transferees to the United Embassy in London to have their passports stamped making use of their L-1A visas. Problem solved.

THE CONSULAR DENIAL

An artists agent/promoter was attempting to bring several Peruvian folk musicians to the U.S. for a series of music festivals. Amazingly, he could correctly prepare and file the required petition. He received the approval notice from the USCIS within 45 days. When the musicians went to the U.S. Consulate in Lima to pick up their visas, these were denied. The issue: The consular official didn't believe the musicians had "sufficient ties to Peru", even though they had lived all their lives in Peru, their parents, wives and children lived in Peru, and they had jobs and businesses to come back to in Peru after the visas expired.

Having previously handled Immigration Lawyers in Essex , we got on the telephone with the U.S. consular official who had handled the musicians, made a listing of all his objections, and reprocessed the visa applications. Inside a week, the musicians were issued their visas, and were on the way to California. (Incidentally, prior approval of a visa petition by USCIS will not guarantee issuance of the visa by the U.S. State Department; and prior issuance of a visa by the U.S. Consulate does not guarantee admission to the U.S. by USCIS.)

MISSING THE H-1B BOAT

Toward the end of February we received a call from an exasperated young man who was simply offered employment at a medical clinic in Nevada as a medical physicist. After some independent research online, he previously determined that the clinic should file an H-1B petition on his behalf. The business, which had never petitioned for an alien worker before, left the immigration details around him.

He studied the USCIS website, downloaded the forms, and sent them to the clinic. The clinic filled out the forms and sent them into the USCIS with a filing fee of $190.00. That was in January, and he still hadn't heard anything from the USCIS. The source of his stress was the rumour that began circulating in February that the H-1B cap for the existing fiscal year would be reached on April 2, 2007 -- the very first day that the visa cap was slated to open. He wanted to know very well what would happen if his application was not approved before the cap was reached.

Before dealing with his primary concern, we asked him to fax us all the documents the clinic had filed with the USCIS. Our worst suspicions were confirmed, upon overview of the documents. The forms had been done incorrectly, forms that did not need to be filed had been filed along with the correct forms, and the filing fee was incomplete. The prevailing wage for the position was not determined, no labor condition application have been filed with the Department of Labor. Additionally, the clinic hadn't provided enough evidence regarding either the clinic or the positioning offered. Besides all this, USCIS regulations were clear that petitions that reached its mailroom ahead of April 2, 2007 would be rejected. Thus, it was clear to us that USCIS would eventually reject the petition. Whenever we gave the son the bad news, he was quite skeptical. We suggested he pull back the initial petition, and re-file a corrected petition exactly on April 2, 2007. He told us he'd consider it and give us a call back.

On March 14, we received another call from the young man. USCIS had rejected the petition as we had predicted and had returned it to the clinic. He asked us to take over the case. On April 2, 2007, we filed the corrected H-1B petition. Over 150,000 petitions arrived at USCIS on the same day, all of them vying for the 65,000 available visas. Fortunately, our client's H-1B visa petition was among those randomly selected for processing. He's got since received his Notice of Approval.

THE NAFTA REJECTION

ON, MAY 25, 2007, we received a telephone call from a woman who was simply hired as some type of computer systems analyst by a high-tech startup company in San Francisco. She had landed the job through a recruiting firm in Toronto. That same recruiting firm had referred the candidate to a Canadian lawyer to get ready the application. This will have been a reasonably routine matter, because the woman qualified for a TN-1 visa beneath the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). However, it proved that the lawyer had limited experience in these matters. In his apparent ignorance, the lawyer sent the woman to the U.S./Canadian border at Buffalo with a poorly prepared application package (which lacked sufficient evidence of the woman's qualifications) to apply for the visa before the date she actually planned to enter america. She was rejected.

We reviewed the paperwork she had presented at the border, and found it to be quite wanting in substance along with presentation. She asked us to dominate the case, and in a matter of five days, we sent her off to the pre-flight inspection post at Pearson AIRPORT TERMINAL having an expertly prepared application, and her bags at hand. Happily we received a telephone call from her that afternoon giving us the good thing that she had been issued the TN-1 visa and was about to board her flight to San Francisco. We have received several referrals from this client in the last two months.

IT'S NOT AS EASY BECAUSE THEY TELL YOU

In early April of this year, our office was contacted by way of a gentleman who was simply offered a high-paying job as a family group counselor in the Southern United States. Although he had no University Degree, he previously acquired just short of four years experience in this field. He contacted the USCIS by himself and was told by some unnamed clerk that he had a need to do was to fill out "an I-750", present it at the airport, then file a petition for an adjustment of status once he found its way to the United States.

Thrilled at the news, the gentleman returned to Canada, sold his home, quit his job (as did his wife) took his children out of school, plus they all arrived at the airport, bags at hand. Of course, these were turned away. Reasons: 1.) he had followed the wrong process of a permanent work visa; 2.) he didn't qualify under any temporary work visa category since he didn't hold a university degree and did not have at least 5 years experience in the relevant area.

Unfortunately, there is nothing we could do because of this gentleman, since he did not qualify for any sort of visa. Despite the fact that he stood an excellent shot at qualifying for a visa under NAFTA with yet another year of experience, he previously already quit his job and sold his house. The damage was done.

Not every case could be salvaged, as the above example illustrates. But many can, and we are quite pleased with the cases we have successfully shepherded to a reasonable disposition. Of course, it could be much better for all parties concerned if, instead of trying to handle important immigration matters on their own, potential immigrants or employers take time to consult with a skilled immigration lawyer. The savings with time, money and frustration is really worth the investment.
Here's my website: http://immigrationlawyersessex.co.uk