|
||||||||||||||||||||||
Publications and Articles by the AttorneysOne of the first cases I accepted as a young lawyer was a very personal one. It involved bringing my own pregnant wife to be with me from Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. Back then, and as most people today think, I figured that since I was a United States Citizen, I had the right to quickly live with my spouse and start a family. I also counted on our government to process the immigration papers efficiently to ensure that I would have my first child in the United States, in a decent hospital. I quickly learned the lesson that drives me to help my own clients today: The lesson: Our immigration laws do not work, the system is completely broken down and there are people working at the immigration service that just do not care about the work they do. In my case, a comedy of errors occurred which illustrate how broken down the system is. Even after disbanding the I.N.S. and re-organizing the immigration service under DHS, I see little change today. I was separated from my wife while pleading with the legacy I.N.S. to just do its’ job for nearly a year. The long delay was caused by sheer ineptitude and lack of accountability during the same time the 9/11 terrorists were receiving visas to attack our country. In fact, it was harder for me to bring my own spouse here than it was for those murderers to get a red carpet into our country. Below, I will also illustrate how I learned the terminology we immigration lawyers use every day. Terms like "AOS", "POE", "DOS" etc... came to life before my eyes. I have purposely withheld the actual terminology I used to describe what I experienced, and the names of those officials at the legacy I.N.S. who caused my grief. I do so to keep my web site free of profanity. I filed under the new LIFE ACT, K-3 spousal visa. At that time, Congress recognized the unnecessary long separations of spouses while waiting for adjustment of status ("AOS") and they intended that the K-3 spousal visa as a remedy to the situation. When I filed, the posted processing times from the Missouri Service Center ("MSC") at that time was "15-30 days". When I contacted the then-existing I.N.S. Commissioner and the White House, I had been waiting over 124 days. By that time, my wife was receiving no meaningful prenatal care (typical in Mexico) and it appeared that my child would be born abroad because she was 8 months pregnant. At one point, we nearly lost our child due to the negligent care of a "doctor" who could not determine the true age of the fetus but would not tell us that he was unsure. I learned that in Mexico, at least in Puerto Vallarta, there are even private "doctors" who have NO CLUE and are not regulated or threatened by malpractice suits as in the U.S. The Petition From the beginning, someone with either no brain, or who was lacking any motivation do handle a simple task rejected my petition. I received a notice of rejection which stated "Wrong Fee" and the entire package was returned. I keep the rejection notice proudly framed and posted in my office to show that I also experienced the same problems a client might encounter. The correct fee was $95.00 (which is what I had sent), so I had to write another check with the correct fee of $95.00 again and re-submit the identical petition to the MSC. That mistake resulted in 30 days of lost prenatal care for my daughter, and more separation from my wife. It took the MSC twenty days to look at the correct fee, reject the file in "error" and print the rejection letter! The "error" cited by the Texas Service Center ("TSC") was that they had lost the photos in the process of accepting the petition. That meant more photo-taking in Mexico and more courier fees for us in addition to delay. This was only the beginning. Two months later, I received a Request for Evidence ("RFE") asking for a "Copy of V Visa in Passport". Of course, this was a K-3 visa case, not a "V-Visa", and someone did not care to review the file before holding the case up even further by an erroneous request for non-existent evidence. I had to respond by pointing out this obvious fact and the case dragged on. About 17 days later, I received another RFE asking for additional birth certificates for my two new step-children. The MSC had LOST both documents somehow, and now we would be faced with further delay, my wife was no less pregnant with a due date 2 months away at this point. It was during this time that a person who called himself a "doctor" attempted to induce labor on my wife two months early. Apparently he misread the ultra-sound. This is the type of pre-natal "care" available in Puerto Vallarta1. One lapse of reason behind the K-3 visa, was the requirement that form I-130 and Form I-129F be filed. Because there was no clear policy as to what constituted proof of a pending I-129F, I followed what fellow AILA (American Immigration Lawyers Association) lawyers were doing: I sent a copy of the cancelled check with the "A #" written on the back of the check as proof. In my case, the I.N.S. arbitrarily reversed its’ policy of accepting cancelled checks, and rejected my filing proof! This was immediately following a MSC liaison teleconference where the new policy was announced. Thus, I had to re-submit the petition and wait for it to be processed all over again. At that point, I turned to Congressional liaison for help. I contacted Sen. Fred Thompson’s office and explained the situation. The response from I.N.S. was inexcusably ridiculous, "the work visa is missing documents" and "a supervisor will issue an additional RFE if necessary. This was a direct quite from "Michael" at Fred Thompson’s office. Again, the I.N.S. could not even grasp what type of case it had been asked to process. I asked "Laura" at Senator Thompson’s office to again request assistance. The response was brutally cold: "This is not a life or death situation", email from "Rachel" MSC.Congressional@usdoj.gov . After writing to the White House, Bill O’Reilly (FOX TV, "The O’Reilly Factor"), William Strassberger (I.N.S. Media Relations) at a time that the 9/11 terrorists ease of obtaining visas was exposed, and after writing to Wayne Griffith and Kathryn Cabral at "DOS") (Department of State Visa Services Secretary), there was a "loud" approval. However, the MSC approved the wrong visa type! The pressure to approve my spousal visa, resulted in someone approving a fiancé, K-1 visa, in other words, I was free to marry my own wife! The truth about our government became apparent: It took going to the media and threatening to criticize the government to get the government to act. But even then, they could not even approve the right petition. Eventually, the "15-30 days" processing time was in my case, 150 days, and was approved only due to consistent "pressure" and threats of going public. The same branch of government had just been caught issuing terrorists visas. By the time my case was approved my wife was 8.5 months pregnant, and she went into labor when I went to bring her "home" while I was connecting flights to meet her at the U.S. Consulate. The U.S. Consulate experience: Cuidad Juarez. Because I was expecting to bring my pregnant wife home, with my two small step-children, I was not prepared for a two day nightmare at the U.S. Consulate, begging for my 6 day old daughter to receive her "Consular Report of Birth Abroad to a U.S. Citizen" so she could enter the U.S. In order to bring your child of a U.S. Citizen from Mexico, it is necessary to "register" the birth at a local "Registro Civil" first. I believe that my daughter was 4 days old when we registered her and six days old when I brought her to the consulate. After going though the medical examinations, long lines, avoiding being robbed in the streets of a rough border town, we were able to get a Report of birth to a U.S. Citizen (equivalent to US Citizenship) in about 8 hours over two days. However, due to my past history of touring musician, and then 8 years of study, I did not "have any real evidence" that I had "not abandoned" my residency in the United States! This was the statement from the officer handling the case. One of the beautiful things of being in a famous 80’s rock band , was that there was a new technology which gave evidence of my existence in the United States: the internet! I actually got the officer to run a web search of my band’s name. She found some concert information and a few write-ups which confirmed my story. She still could not get over the fact that I studied at Oxford England for a year, and began to argue that I had abandoned my residency and was ineligible to apply for my daughter, that I would have to apply for a visa. Again, I threatened going to the media, the White House, and explained the sordid history of my case, and I think she just gave up and issued the birth document! The Point of Entry ("POE"): Border Crossing. In Juarez, there is this long bridge, possibly two miles long we had to walk across in the hot desert heat. I had everything my wife owned in large suitcases, three children (ages: six days, four years and six years), and a wife just out of child birth with me. When we arrived at the window to apply for the "visa", the officer had never heard of a K-3/K-4 spousal visa! I had to explain it to him, and even read the regulations to him. Then and only then did he issue the visas. What the Consulate failed to tell us was that there was a "visa fee", payable at the POE. The officer handling the cash register was a real jerk. In fact, I will not use the profanity that aptly describes this person. The officer would not accept Mexican pesos, nor a check for the fourteen dollars. My wife was exhausted, the baby was crying, and the two little ones were needing a bathroom. There was nowhere for them to even sit. I asked him if today, perhaps he would give us a break and take the pesos or a check from the law firm. He robotically repeated what the hand-written sign posted to the window stated "cash only". He as kind enough to suggest that I walk across the bridge back into Mexico to look for US Dollars. He spoke to me in a condescending tone, and I felt ashamed to be an American, the same as he at that moment. It was most humiliating and my wife had a bad first impression of her new country. I thanked him for his "kindness", and crossed into the US and walked to a mini-market about three miles away to use an ATM. This guy would not even give me directions to an ATM or place to get cash near the border station. When I returned I told him that I thought he was most unprofessional and that I wished he burned in Hell along with James Ziglar, and at last, we entered into the US. A term not officially used by immigration lawyers which would adequately describe this POE officer, would probably be "SOB"! Shortly thereafter, I.N.S. Commissioner James Ziglar resigned, and the legacy I.N.S. was disbanded under criticism of a President trying to save face. Sadly, the laws and processes still plague USCIS, and I am sure that the people who botched my case were either "retrained", or relocated in a manner fitting for our large, bloated and ineffective federal civil service core. Unfortunately, these are the same folks who are failing a defending our borders. Clearly, our country allows terrorists and illegal entrants in, and those trying to follow the rules get the run around. This is why I practice immigration law: to protect my wonderful clients from a large bully: the immigration process. 1Subsequentally, we fired this "doctor" and found a great OB/GYN at the American Hospital (San Javier Hospital) and had no further complications. "UPL And Language Fraud In Tennessee: A Notarious Problem", Nashville Bar Journal, (Feb. 2005-Vol.5, no.2). In this article, Sean Lewis discusses the problem of businesses who take advantage of the language barrier and represent that they are licensed attorneys by the use of the word "notario publico" to take fees for unlicensed practice of law. The article reveals that most Spanish-speaking immigrants are too afraid to report the problem to authorities, and that virtually no enforcement had taken place in Tennessee at the time the article was released. Also revealed is the different classes of legal service providers in Latin America, similar to the Inns of Court distinction between barristers and solicitors. However, a notario publico is an attorney of immense prestige and represents the validity of transactions on behalf of the state in most civil-law notary jurisdictions. The article then discusses the problem related to botched immigration cases handled by these unscrupulous predators. "Lost in Translation", Nashville Scene, (May 4,2006). Illegal ‘lawyers’ in Nashville’s Latino community use a linguistic sleight of hand to rip off fellow immigrants, a lawsuit claims Lost in Translation |
|
|||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
