How to Stay in the USA Legally: Prepare for Immigration Reform
Author: Immigration Attorney Alena Shautsova
The Immigration reform is inevitable, and many should consider preparing for it and/or taking advantage of the recent changes that were adopted by the USCIS.
How to prepare for the new immigration reform?
Even though President Obama has outlined the main points for the immigration reform, currently, the specifics of it are unavailable. It means that an immigration lawyer who would like to help his/her client may only guess as to how to prepare best for the incoming changes.
- Have an Immigrant Family of Employment Petition filed on your behalf (Forms I-130 and I-140) WHY: History shows that a well-known INA 245(i) section allows an undocumented person to receive permanent residence status even in case of entry into the US without inspection but only when an immigrant petition on his/her behalf or a labor certification application was filed prior to a certain date. the Congress may choose to use the same pattern and implement new immigration law with the same “cut off” date provision.
- File Taxes. WHY: Because it might be possible that you need to show that you were paying your Taxes and you were in the US for those years
- Collect School and Medical record. WHY: You might have to prove continuous residence requirement
- Clear Up Your Criminal History: go to a criminal defense or immigration attorney, run a background check to see if something comes up
- Try to Improve Your English Skills. WHY: You are going to remain here anyway, so why not to learn the language of the country!
Current Immigration Reform Laws
The “new immigration laws” to this date include (1) provisions regarding prosecutorial discretion; (2) deferred action for childhood arrivals (“DACA”); and (3) norms regarding provisional 601A waiver that will become available from March 4, 2013.
Those are the three main “new” policies that allow undocumented immigrants who are otherwise would have to go through a lengthy immigration process and family separation to avoid removal (deportation), receive a temporary status and a possibility to travel abroad, and to remain with their families while applying for a waiver of inadmissibility. Each of these policies provides for its own set of applicable criteria, and each client’s case must be evaluated separately before utilizing any of the policies. A criminal conviction, absences from the country, multiple EWI (entry without inspection) may prevent an immigrant from receiving the benefit and expose him/her to potential removal. That is why a help if an experienced immigration attorney is necessary.
Law office of Alena Shautsova is a full service New York Immigration law firm. Shautsova's US immigration attorneys will fight for your immigration status; we fight for your dreamed entry Into the United States of America and ability to live without pressure of being deported; we take the worries regarding your US immigration status out of your life.