SHOWING INEFFECTIVE ASSISTANCE OF COUNSEL VACATES DEPORTATION ORDER….
Clients are entitled to trust that their attorney will provide them effective and zealous representation in their deportation proceedings, because the outcome of those proceedings will determine the course of their life, and affect their entire family. Our clients’ children came to us after their father surrendered himself after learning he had been ordered deported in his absence. For two years, the attorney he retained had not moved to change venue in his case from the Immigration Court in Texas to the Immigration Court in New York where he was living. When he called his attorney several days before the hearing date, he was assured by the paralegal his case had been adjourned, and he would receive a new hearing date – that was not true: he was ordered deported and taken into custody.
Our client faced imminent deportation – within a week we had reviewed the file; obtained the requisite supporting documents; filed the required bar complaint against prior counsel; and prepared and submitted our motion to vacate our client’s deportation-removal order. We learned our client’s name was on the list for the next day’s flight. We obtained a stay of removal which stopped his deportation – he was the only one on the list not deported. Ultimately the I.J. found he had indeed been the victim of ineffective assistance, and he reopened his deportation order. He will now have his asylum claim determined on the merits.
EXPEDITED GRANT OF I-601 WAIVER
Our client, educated at one of America’s foremost University’s, returned to Pakistan to marry her childhood sweetheart. During the years she lived there following her marriage, she spoke out frequently and publicly against that country’s mistreatment of women and its rigid barriers preventing their full participation in society. As the result of her advocacy on behalf of women, she began receiving anonymous death threats, and then she and her family were fired upon while in their car. As a result of these threats, and her son’s medical condition, we were able to have her request for a waiver of inadmissibility for her husband expedited, and granted. She and her family will soon be safe in the U.S. and she will be able to have her young children – U.S. citizens – grow up with the freedom, security and opportunities available to them in the U.S.