This is Attorney Ahmad Yakzan from the American Dream®
Law Office. Thank you so much for joining the American Dream® Team, with this session Ask Ahmad. We are live right now with you, and I would love to answer some questions, we do have some things that are already submitted from some people, so I will answer.
I would be more than happy to answer any questions that you guys send me, any comments, I those really appreciate it. I do have a couple of things to announce, as of yesterday we have been in business for five years now, and I wanted to say thank you to everybody who has made this possible.
You guys have had really entrusted us for the past five years, and we are looking forward to the next 50 years of helping our clients. Honestly, we would not have survived without all the referrals that we get from our Attorney friends. Another service that we provide here at the American Dream® Law Office, I love you all, I would really love it if you can go to our pages, and like us on Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube. We need the YouTube followers, we just started posting these videos on YouTube a couple of months ago, we need 100 followers on YouTube to get that vanity American Dream® Law Office you are allow so, if you could please just go on YouTube and like us and if you could like us on Facebook, if you’re watching you haven’t done the Facebook likes or the Instagram follows, I would really appreciate it. Because of the backlog for the three months, Naturalization cases are not being scheduled as quickly as they used to, so before COVID, things were moving quickly if you do it online we were getting interviews within three to four months, now I really, honestly, don’t know when we’re going to be getting interviews, probably at the end of July beginning of August.
The people who is interviewed got postponed get priority over people who applied. They are still processing the cases they are still adjudicate cases in Tampa and in USCIS. However, they are taking longer than then usual in that processing times, are bad right now. If you qualify for Naturalization of or if you want to apply for any benefit, we have not missed a beat here at the American Dream® Law Office. We send in cases and will work through COVID as we have been since the beginning. We were set up to go remotely from day one, can do all that stuff if you need to apply for anything, please call us, the number is 88896 dream.
One thing that we cannot wait for, as you know 4th of July is coming up and America is celebrating two hundred forty-four birthday. It has been 244 years since 1776 when the United States of America declared our independence. What we are doing is we are doing 15-minute consultations over the phone for $76. Give us a call if you want to set up a consultation with me, and I will be more than happy. These videos are going to be done every month. Call us or email us all those questions that you have for next month’s video. It is the last Thursday of the month, and we will be able to do this every single month. Send us anything that you have about immigration, the email is Reem@americandreamlawoffice.com.
Today we have several questions, I know immigration has been a hard issue in the last couple of weeks. The Supreme Court issued a couple of decisions about DACA, and yesterday they issue a decision about indefinite detention for Asylum. I can talk about the DACA decision for a couple of seconds. One of the questions that we got, how would the DACA decision affect me if I had DACA before.? And what I have been telling clients is that if you had DACA before, even though the case was before the Supreme Court, you should have applied for their new. We have a lot of clients who qualified if you have DACA for a very long time, and there is an immigrant petition that was filed on your behalf, sometimes you’re able to actually apply for that Permanent Residence or some sort of fee, and they had immigrant petitions that were pending before when they were two or three years old and now they come to us. The DACA it was going to be taken away, so we apply for the Permanent Residence and we were successful in getting the final permanent residents are moving away from DACA this is my disclaimer in every single video. I know I am talking about the results in previous cases, if you have a similar case, not all these things in these videos apply to you, please do not take it as legal advice. We will have to talk to you about your individual case. Before you do anything, please let us know. If you have DACA, call us we will help you renew.
I am going to run very quickly through the Supreme court’s decision and honestly, it is a very technical decision that non-Lawyers will probably not understand. I’m going to try to sum it up in a couple of sentences. The Supreme Court did not rule on the legality of the DACA component. The Supreme Court said that the Trump administration tried to take away DACA in the wrong way. Basically, for now, the DACA program is enforced. You can apply I do not know if immigration is going to be processing these petitions, because they issued a statement after the Supreme Court decision. they said. OK, we still believe DACA is illegal or unconstitutional, but we will abide as much as we can, abide with the Supreme Court decision. Among immigration practitioners, we are asking ourselves what does that mean, what is going to happen? But the safest thing right now at least applies for your DACA renewal at least that puts you in the queue to see how you know they are going to adjudicate those conditions down the road. Again, a lot of our DACA clients have been able to get permanent resident status in a different way.
If you have DACA call an Immigration Attorney. Speak about the renewal and talk to them about whether you qualify for a different sort of relief and immigration for you to have a more permanent status. I do have a blog post on our page that thoughts about four different things that you can use if you are a DACA recipient, and four benefits that you might not even know that you actually qualify for. It is on the website americandreamlawoffice.com/blog, it is from last year, but if you do with a search for DACA alternatives on the website, you will be able to look at those. The DACA program still in power, go ahead and apply. We really do not know how you are USCIS is going to interpret that decision. The Supreme Court just says they are not running on the constitutionality of the DACA program, they are just ruling were that they actually trying to take it away in violation of the Administrative procedures Act, which really regulates how USCIS and any administrative agency can put things together or take any benefits away. It applies to all administrative agencies. We do have a question about the presidential proclamations that have happened in the last couple of weeks.
President Trump did have a proclamation regarding coming in for a Green Card, and he suspended through proclamation the entry of business visa holders; J, H1B, and L visas from coming to the US. The proclamation does not stop all visas from coming to the US. If you’re coming here to work in a health care field, you probably will be able to come to the US. Let’s run through them, the proclamation from last month suspended people from coming in because of the high unemployment rate. Honestly, I believe that the president is using immigrants as a scapegoat again. I know that we have high unemployment, but a lot of those affected, mostly in the healthcare industry asked the Trump Administration not to stop people on those visas to come in on those Green Care, especially if they are health care workers. so we have a lot of people who are healthcare workers who are helping with COVID-19.
There was an exception last month about people who work in the healthcare industry from coming to the US under an employment-based Green Card. Really the exemptions are very high, so it may not apply to you. But what the proclamation from last month said is that we have a lot of I-140’s, which is the petition used to bring people for employment, so I’m going to suspend that for people no to come here and take jobs from United States Citizens. The issue that I have with that is that when you are doing an I-140, depending on the category you actually use to apply for that petition, you have to go through a labor certification period to prove that no one else can do that job. A lot of I-140’s, especially under the second preference, have to go through the labor certification period. Suspending entry of these I-140 holders, or the Green Card holders based on Employment just does not make sense. What we are seeing is that when the Trump administration is suspending immigration through proclamation they are not following the law.
If you read the proclamation and the one from last month, you can see that it has a lot of equal protection and due process problems. What I see happening and I think the one from last month talked about this, we did have a couple of court challenges to it and actually one of them we won an injunction against, I think AILA filed for an injunction against the administration. There is a nationwide injunction against them. The one from yesterday we don’t know because it just happened this week. Immigration lawyers around the country filing junctions against the administration. There is a nationwide injunction against the one from yesterday we really don’t know because it just happened this week.
Immigration lawyers around the country are going to court and saying you know you violated the administrative procedures act you need it cannot do that. What I can see from a lot of from the proclamations is they do have a lot of constitutional problems and I think that they are going to be challenged in court. Having said that, what does the proclamation from last month do? It stops people as I said from coming in on green cards for work this number one. It stops other people from coming in if they are coming in from a petition from a lawful permanent resident. If your spouse in the United States is a green card holder they are we are going to suspend the processing of that green card to for them to come to the United States. Also, it exempted a lot of the health care workers from coming in and I think that’s where the equal protection grounds, with the challenges that might come from that proclamation because you’re exempting some and not exempting others.
Another problem that you have is that he’s not suspended it for national emergency or anything like that, they do try to poach in a national emergency so sort of reasoning but there is a problem with that because there is a shortage of health care workers in the United State. Again there are a lot of things that are going to have that those proclamations are a lot of constitutional problems. That they are going to do, and I think they are going to get it. I think there is going to be a successful challenge to them. The one from yesterday, again as I said it applies to only three kinds of visas.
That’s the L1 visa the H1B visa, and the J visa but also there are exemptions for health care workers there. The proclamation from the from last month doesn’t apply to any people who are who already had green cards, so if you have a green card already you can come to the United States it cannot stop you from coming in, and also does not apply to spouses of United States citizens. So if you’re a green card holder, for example, you apply for spouse and you’re eligible for naturalization while we can do is apply for citizenship and hopefully would get it would get done soon. Then you would be able to elevate the preference. If you notice from the one from yesterday, it did not include the E Visa and in our office, we do a lot of the E visa work for people from the 46 countries that are included in that category.
So if you have any that that doesn’t apply to you, it only applies to the 3 visas in the proclamation. So if you are from Jordan for example or from a country that has an actual treaty with the United States, the president did not stop those. If you want to come in and you have a B1/B2 visa and you want come into the United States that means this is one trick that you might be able to use. I have clients who have B1B2 visas they could come in on that, so you can have two visas on your passport in the United States. You can come in under the B1B2 but you will be limited in running the company and all that stuff, but if you actually have one B2 visa and have not applied for any of those three reasons I just mentioned, you can come to the United States and we can change your status here in the United States. So the proclamation from yesterday doesn’t apply to people who are in the United States so if you are here on a B1B2 visa, and you want to apply for another visa or the J visa by a change of status.
An H1B will actually be able to apply for them. I think this is where the equal protection argument might come from because you’re actually having to district classes here we are treating people outside and from the outside United States differently from people who are here in the United States. There’s a question about the proclamation from last month, how does it affect I-130 petition and what executive the executive order entails. I already spoke about what the Presidential proclamation entails, would affect the I-130 portion I don’t believe it will. Again you have to understand that it applies to people who are outside the United States.
The processing of the I 130 for a relative who’s outside the United States would not stop because USCIS is actually adjudicating the petitions here in the United States. If your spouse is outside the United States, the issue that you are going to have is what is the national visa center is going to do once that I-130 gets approved. I believe that because of that if you went through to get an approved and sent to the national visa center, I think that is the portion that you that he will actually not be able to go through. So if you are a permanent resident and you’re not eligible for naturalization, I think you should apply for that I 130 portion regardless because that will give you the priority date today compared to waiting three or four months.
That would actually make a whole lot of difference that you should know when it comes to that visa availability. So you should go ahead and apply for that another thing that I wanted to mention is that the proclamation from last month was only for 90 days and it actually going to expire. So there is a sunset clause in those in those proclamations. So after 90 days, it is going to stop, so we don’t know if the administration is going to extend it or not. That’s just one point of caution so if it doesn’t get renewed, they have to start processing these petitions again. The other question that we got is “can I apply for N400 90 days before completing three years of marriage and before having or receiving any decision on I-751. Again we have a blog on that and I have a video regarding that on Americandreamlawoffice.com/blog. I have a post on that so there’s a couple of things that are happening. Let me explain a couple of things before we move forward, and I751 if you are here married to United States citizen, and you apply for a green card actually even if you’re married to a lawful permanent resident, but this question doesn’t apply to you but if you’re married to a United States citizen for less than three years.
The United States citizen applies for your actual green card you get a conditional permanent resident card. you don’t get the full 10-year green card and you will have to apply for removal of conditions within 90 days before the expiration of that card. So let’s say your green card that your conditional permanent resident card said than expiration date of September 2000 and 90 days before that would be so September 25th, 2020 today, June 25th, 2020 you can apply for that for that removal of conditions. You have to do in ninety days before the expiration of their condition. The problem that would happen now is that these petitions are taking almost 2 1/2 years to process. Some of our clients actually become eligible for naturalization under the three-year rule instead of the five-year rule. Let me explain the difference between the three and 5-year rule. The three-year rule, if you’re prepared to United States citizen for three years have been an impairment resident for set up for three years because of the conditional permanent residence. Actually applies to that and you are the man spice has been a united states, citizens, for more than three years then you can apply under the 3 year old instead of The three-year-old is standard five years for naturalization so if you are actually you are you have a conditional permanent resident card and you apply for I-750 one 90 days before that three years.
Though it ends, you can actually apply for your naturalization at the same time so you can have the 751 and then 400 pending at the same time and we’ve done that for a lot of our clients that will apply for the end 400 window becoming eligible once I 751 is pending and then they would add judicate both of those positions at the same time so I would go in the officer would look at this at the I-751 adjudicate that remove the conditions interview for you say they would add judicate both of those conditions together which absolutely would be fantastic because they will take away you know some processing time from the I-750 one and then you will become a symbol which actually is you know the ultimate American dream I believe that would that would really help you so yes if you have a 751 and you’re eligible to apply for the N 400 let’s go ahead and apply for both of them and what we do is we do get discounts if you for example you did the 751 with us we will take some money off the naturalization for you because will be using the same the same happens for both but call us even if you haven’t applied for this for the I-750 one with us call us and I’ll be more than happy to speak to you about naturalizing wild at 751 is pending you don’t have to wait the whole the whole 2 1/2 years through the process the next question that we have is I am AUS citizen and I want applied for my brother how long does the process take in the United States you can apply if your US citizen you can apply for a bigger pool of people than if you are a permanent resident OK so if you are permanent resident can apply for unmarried children you can apply for your spouse you can apply you can apply for those categories but you can’t apply for your parents for example you cannot apply for your brothers and sisters the problem is if you are a permanent resident he actually have to wait for the visa number to become to become available but if you are a United States citizen then the beneficiaries get classified in a different way so if you are an immediate relative of a United States citizen then you don’t have to wait for the visa number and those are children the spouses and parents so if you become a citizen and you want to apply for those for those three categories you don’t have to wait for the visa number to become available now when it becomes sticky is when you’re applying for your children who are over 20 minutes or 21 if they’re married or not married the categories would differ and then you can apply for it properly insisted because you have to wait for the visa numbers those can take a very long time for those visa numbers to become available so for example if you’re in a United States citizen and you’re applying for a spouse I mean a brother or sister from at from Lebanon for example right now is the wait time is about 14 years and I know that’s a minimal time and that’s one of the reasons why Congress was trying to actually get rid of the brother petitions and use those visa petitions that towards a different category one of the things that you have to understand and why there is a backlog is because the United States citizen at the United States Congress has an imitation on the number of visas for categories that can be used for that category so if you look at the visible attempt from the state Department will tell you which days we’re working on in which eligibility dates that those affected face that you can actually so one that once that day becomes available then you can apply for your permanent residence or for your immigrant visa for your you know your beneficiary can start processing them but because of the limit per country limitation and per category limitation a lot of people are applying for those United States citizen can apply for the brothers and sisters immediately after becoming citizens so there is a backlog on those numbers so there’s not an available visa number for them to use to come to the United States with their spouses for example so that’s why there’s that wait time so right now it’s about 14 years something that we’ve done is if for example you’re from A and E2 visa country or any other country were able to bring you here sometimes they bring it here and up and wait for that green card application to be done another way is for them to come here on a student visa or a work visa or anything like that and then wait for the processing to happen and then once that 14 that number becomes available they can apply for permit doesn’t if they have enough left for messing with another way so there are ways around it you just have to call us and again the number is 888963 the last question that we have is I applied for I-750 one last September 2019 I did the fingerprint last January how long does it take for the I-751 normal and again I kind of alluded to that earlier in my previous answer is it’s taken about a year and a half to 2 1/2 years the 751 category however is there are a couple of things that people don’t understand is that even if you are a CPR you are a permanent resident you have all of the rights of permanent residents when you’re here, unconditional parameter as it so don’t feel like you’re inferior to other green card holders.
What will happen is that once you apply for the 751, immigration is cognizant of the fact that it’s actually taken a long time for them to process these, they send you a letter saying we’re extending your status for 18 month and then you can actually ask for another extension and some unless you become eligible for that naturalization in the other answer that I gave you, you can applied in September I don’t know which processing center you’re under, or which you know which Tampa for example that it’s taken about a year and a half to two years because that’s the last one we did for a client but if you’re in a different process and then different district it might actually differ but if your conditional perimeter hasn’t you still can actually work you can leave the country and come back you’re a permanent resident only issue that you got to have is that you don’t have a card add note of course caution though you do have to either file for a for a green card jointly with it remove the conditions jointly with your US citizen spouse or if you have if you’re not with your spouse anymore you have to go to go through an exception and those exceptions are very tricky so if you’re doing a 751 at some point that ejection waiting rate was about 65% so you would really want to hire an attorney to actually help you with it with a removal of conditions don’t do it on your own special is that if you actually get denied the 751 under the statute you have to be put in removal proceedings and it has to be referred to the immigration jump for you to remove your conditions so look in the website uscis.gov/processing times and you can put in the form that you have and which district are in which processing center you’re going to be under and it will tell you what the processing time would be able to give you the date because that last question gave us a tape so it would give you the date that that district is actually working on they do have a lot of online tools for example for the for the question about sisters and brothers there’s also the website from the state Department that would tell you which states are actually working so make sure that you visit those two websites to be able and I will post them on in the comments in a second for you to be able to check for the people who ask us a question thank you very much for watching I see that we had a lot of people watch I would appreciate any questions email your questions to at americandreamlawoffice.com for the next one is going to be the last Thursday of July happy July 4th if I don’t if I don’t hear from you by then I wish you and your family safe July 4th happy birthday America please social distance if you’re going to be outside wear mask if you don’t have a mask stop by we have extras if you want to come into the office for a strategy session we have extras for you even if you don’t want, we would be more than happy to provide one for you again, we’re not missing a beat it’s been five years. I am very excited about that, unfortunately, because of COVID-19 we did not have a celebration, but we are going to have one soon especially turning 40.
- President Trump’s Coronavirus Executive Order Suspending Immigration to the United States
- Ask Ahmad Immigration Question Answered on May 28 2020
- Biden’s “New Green Card” Rule
- Five Questions Answered About United States Permanent Residence
- Three Things to Know About the Supreme Court’s DACA Decision