Immigration and Cancellation of Deportation
We offer full services covering all immigration and naturalization law, our services cover petitions for adjustment of status, immigrant petitions through cancellation of removal proceeding and waivers before an immigration court.
Other areas of our services include the following
A. Immigrant Visas and Naturalization
1. Citizenship
If you have continuously resided in the U.S. and have been a permanent resident for a period of either, three years for a spouse of a U.S. Citizen, or five years for other residents, you are eligible for naturalization. You should be aware that having a criminal record makes it very difficult, but not impossible, to be eligible for citizenship status. Continuous residency does not mean you have to have been in the U.S. for all three/five years. It means that you have to have maintained your residency status but not being outside of the U.S. for more than a year.
2. Permanent Residency
If a person intends to live and work in the U.S. on a permanent basis, such a foreign national needs to obtain a permanent residency. There are many ways to become a permanent resident. Adoption, the diversity lottery, investment, employment, family ties, refugee or asylee status, are some of the ways for a person to become an immigrant and a permanent resident. Permanent residents are given an alien registration card (green card) as a proof of their lawful permanent residency. Each year, the government sets a quota for the number of people who can become immigrants. Your country of origin and the way you obtained your adjustment matter since these are directly related to the amount of time you have to wait to obtain your permanent residency. Immediate relatives of U.S. citizens (spouses, children, parents) are exempt from numerical quotas. Refugees and diversity immigrants are also given a separate quota.
3. Asylum/Refugee
Technically an asylum seeker is not quite an immigrant but the person is not a non immigrant either. Asylum and refugee laws fall under a separate category altogether. Asylum seekers and refugees have refugee status. But while refugees are processed outside of the U.S., asylum seekers are already in the U.S. or at a U.S. port of entry when they apply for asylum. People seeking refugee status are people whom have been persecuted in the past or have a well-founded fear of persecution on the basis of their race, religion, nationality, or membership in a particular social group or political opinion, and who are unable or unwilling to return. An asylum applicant must petition for asylum status within a year after his/her arrival in the U.S. Only those who can show changed circumstances in the home country or extraordinary circumstances are exempt from the one-year limit.