Notes

Don't Be Headstrong - Consult an Immigration Lawyer on Employee Transfers
We have often heard it suggested that when immigration lawyers recommend that laypersons avoid filing their very own immigration paperwork, financial self-interest may be 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, human resources manager, or placement agency. Personally, I would rather lose a potential client to another lawyer than to see her have a chance on filing her own paperwork with the USCIS. The probability of failure is just too high.

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

THE L-1 TRANSFERS THAT ALMOST NEVER HAPPENED

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

The company'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 company didn't know was that the application requirements and procedures for a NAFTA visa differ significantly from those applicable to the L-1 intracompany transferee visa. Although the partner had all the details and documents he had a need to process the case in January, he held up the petitions so that he could research the right L-1 procedures. It had been late April, and the partner still had not moved forward on the petitions.

I asked the CEO to courier me the info and documents. Within three weeks of receiving the documents, we were able to 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 a group of Peruvian folk musicians to the U.S. for some music festivals. Amazingly, he could correctly prepare and file the required petition. He received the approval notice from the USCIS within 45 days. Once 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, plus they had jobs and businesses to return to in Peru once the visas expired.

Having previously dealt with quite us immigration attorney Dorset , we got on the telephone with the U.S. consular official who had dealt with 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 solution to California. (Incidentally, prior approval of a visa petition by USCIS does not guarantee issuance of the visa by the U.S. STATE DEPT.; and prior issuance of a visa by the U.S. Consulate will not guarantee admission to the U.S. by USCIS.)

MISSING THE H-1B BOAT

Toward the finish of February we received a call from an exasperated young man who had been offered a job at a medical clinic in Nevada as a medical physicist. After some independent research on the net, 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 up to 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 had not 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 current 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 what would happen if his application had not been 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 review of the documents. The forms have been filled out incorrectly, forms that didn't must be filed have been filed together with the correct forms, and the filing fee was incomplete. The prevailing wage for the positioning had not been determined, no labor condition application have been filed with the Department of Labor. Additionally, the clinic had not provided enough evidence regarding either the clinic or the position offered. Besides all of this, USCIS regulations were clear that petitions that reached its mailroom ahead of April 2, 2007 will be rejected. Thus, it was clear to us that USCIS would eventually reject the petition. Whenever we gave the young man the bad news, he was quite skeptical. We suggested that he pull back the original petition, and re-file a corrected petition exactly on April 2, 2007. He told us he would consider it and call us back.

On March 14, we received another call from the son. 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 attained USCIS on the same day, all of them vying for the 65,000 available visas. Fortunately, our client's H-1B visa petition was the type of 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 a computer systems analyst by a high-tech startup company in SAN FRANCISCO BAY AREA. She had landed the job by way of a recruiting firm in Toronto. That same recruiting firm had referred the candidate to a Canadian lawyer to prepare the application. This should 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 turned out 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 proof the woman's qualifications) to apply for the visa in advance of 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 and also presentation. She asked us to take over the case, and in a matter of five days, we sent her off to the pre-flight inspection post at Pearson International Airport with an expertly prepared application, and her bags in hand. Happily we received a telephone call from her that afternoon giving us the good thing that she have been issued the TN-1 visa and was about to board her flight to SAN FRANCISCO BAY AREA. We've received several referrals out of this client within the last two months.

IT'S NOT AS EASY AS THEY TELL YOU

In early April of the year, our office was contacted by way of a gentleman who had been offered a high-paying job as a family 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 on his own and was told by some unnamed clerk that he needed to do was to complete "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 headlines, the gentleman returned to Canada, sold his home, quit his job (as did his wife) took his children out of school, and they all arrived at the airport, bags in hand. Of course, these were turned away. Reasons: 1.) he had followed the wrong procedure for a permanent work visa; 2.) he didn't qualify under any temporary work visa category since he did not hold a university degree and did not have at least 5 years experience in the relevant area.

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

Not every case can be salvaged, because the above example illustrates. But many can, and we are quite pleased with the cases we have successfully shepherded to a satisfactory disposition. Of course, it might be much better for all parties concerned if, rather than trying to handle important immigration matters on their own, potential immigrants or employers take the time to consult with a skilled immigration lawyer. The savings with time, money and frustration is really worth the investment.
Homepage: https://immigrationsolicitorsdorset.co.uk/us-immigration-lawyers-dorset/