I’m Ahmad Yakzan from the American dream
law office and today I want to talk to you about what would it mean to get a notice to appear in immigration court so you might be wondering what is a notice to appear. A notice to appear is just a notice for you to appear in front of an immigration court.
I know it sounds silly but that’s exactly what it means. They send you a piece of paper saying that you need to show up in immigration court. What does it mean for a notice to appear to be issued you have to go in front of an immigration judge. You might be wondering what does a notice to appear include. It has several sections in it.
The first one is the factual allegations that the government puts against you. So they may say you lied on your green card application or you lied on your naturalization ceremony or you don’t have any legal status in the United States. So the first section of the notice to appear will be with the factual allegations.
Some of the factual allegations would say you’re not a citizen of the United States, you are a national of this country you came into this country at 123, the location at the time and because of these factual allegations you’re not allowed to stay here in the United States. The second section will have the charges more like an information in a criminal case for example it would charge you either as inadmissible or deportable.
Deportability means is that the government can actually kick you out of the United States. Inadmissibility means you didn’t make an entry into the United States are you not allowed to come into the United States and the portability means that they’re going to kick you out of the United States or deport you that’s the second section.
The last section and notice to appear might actually have an extra page in it if the factual allegations do not fit on one page then they will have an addendum. Sometimes they would have an addendum if ice has been following you and they have a lot of a lot of evidence or allegations that they need to add in there so that’s that.
The last page the last page would have a signature at the end of it. It will be where you’re supposed to show up uh where is the immigration court you’re supposed to go to and should have the time and a place of your first hearing and there’s a lot of a lot of discussion in the immigration circuits regarding what that means but for now suffice it to say it is going to have and they and the time for you to appear.
Now you might be wondering, I got served with a notice to appear does that mean I have to be in immigration court tomorrow? The answer is really maybe and I say maybe because the government might not actually deposit that with the immigration court so removal proceedings don’t start against you until someone from the government takes that piece of paper and put it in with the immigration court. so recently there’s been a lot of issues with that with that step.
The government did not take it and by the day that you actually are supposed to appear and they did not deposit that notice to appear until the day before for example that’s another video that I’ll probably post later in a couple of months but suffice it to say you need to be checking the 800 number for the immigration court and you need to be checking your mailbox to see if you receive a hearing notice from the immigration court because it could have been submitted but then you have to show up on a different date. so I would keep my eyes open how do you get a notice to appear is really tricky now I’ve seen a clients get him after an interview at immigration.
I’ve seen clients who stayed outside the United States for too long get him with CP when they try to come back into the United States and their permanent residence that’s where they serve you with a notice to appear. I have seen him happen when you get caught for a traffic violation or and you don’t actually have status in the United States they give you a notice to appear to go to immigration court. so there is a plethora of ways to actually get one of those.
What should you do if you get one of those the first thing I would do is call an immigration attorney like myself call an immigration attorney even if you don’t intend to hire get some legal advice, I think you should hire someone because it immigration court is no picnic. you are going against some of the very most seasoned immigration attorneys in the country and that is the ice enforcement attorneys these people prosecute these cases every single day.
The immigration judges can stop you and take over the hearing and ask you all sorts of questions so doing this on your own should not really be an option. you should call an immigration attorney as soon as possible when you get a notice to appear. give me a call (813) 499-1250 24/7.
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