First of all, any good immigration paralegal should be familiar with all of the relevant immigration forms, I am going to go over some of the most important which include:
- I-130 – is a petition for an alien relative form, it is what is used for, for example for a husband to petition for his wife to receive a green card and become a Legal Permanent Resident, or for a United States citizen child to petition for their parents to do the same.
- I-485 – is an application to register permanent residence or adjust status. Once an I-130 is approved a person needs to file an I-485 to adjust status to Legal Permanent Resident.
- 42-B – is an application for cancelation of removal. Both Legal Permanent Resident and people with no legal status can apply for cancelation of removal, but they have different sets of rules.
- I-589 – is an application for asylum – withholding of removal and deferral under the convention against torture (CAT). Asylum is very complicated and I am doing an entire article about how to apply for asylum here.
- I-765 – Application for Employment Authorization, or what is referred to as a “work visa”.
- 601-A – Application for Provisional Unlawful Presence Waiver. Certain immigrant visa applicants who are relatives of U.S. citizens or lawful permanent residents may use this application to request a provisional waiver of the unlawful presence grounds of inadmissibility under the Immigration and Nationality Act section
- DS-260- Immigrant Visa Electronic Application, just a way to apply for visas electronically.
- VAWA – Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) is a landmark piece of legislation that sought to improve criminal legal and community-based responses to domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault, and stalking in the United States. Makes domestic violence victims eligible to become a lawful permanent resident (get a Green Card) if they are the victim of battery or extreme cruelty.
- I-751- Petition to Remove Conditions on Residence. This form is used if you are a conditional permanent resident who obtained status through marriage and want to apply to remove the conditions on your permanent resident status.
- U visa- The U visa is a United States nonimmigrant visa that is set aside for victims of crimes (and their immediate family members) who have suffered substantial mental or physical abuse while in the U.S. and who are willing to assist law enforcement and government officials in the investigation or prosecution.
When choosing the right immigration paralegal for your particular needs obviously one needs to address their own particular situation. As shown above, each above immigration form fills a particular need. One of the greatest needs for a qualified immigration paralegal is immigrants with criminal convictions. Alien with criminal convictions present a particularly difficult challenge to immigration attorneys and paralegals. A United States Supreme Court justice once said that “U.S. immigration law was second only to U.S. tax law in complexity”, a different judge later commented that “immigration law is now more complex than tax law because there is no TurboTax-equivalent in the immigration field”. When an alien has an immigration case that is predicated on a criminal conviction this requires detailed knowledge of both immigration law and criminal law. Not to discount the complexity of immigration law, but criminal law is also incredibly complex.
The key to litigating and obtaining relief for immigrants that are in removal proceedings predicated on criminal convictions is understanding the categorical approach. I have will include links to my previous articles about the categorical approach here and the modified categorical approach here. If you are dealing with immigration issues predicated on criminal convictions I highly recommend that you read about and understand the categorical approach and the modified categorical approach.
The categorical approach was first announced by the Supreme Court in Taylor v. United States, 495 U.S. 575 (1990), and due to its complexity was later clarified in Mathis v. United States,136 S. Ct. 2243 (2016). In Moncrieffe v. Holder, 133 S. Ct. 1678 (2013) the Supreme Court affirmed the applicability of the categorical approach in immigration cases. If you go up to the my cases link at the top of this page, the cases that I have helped people win with predicate criminal convictions were all based on the proper application of the categorical approach.
I hope this page has shown you some of the skillsets that you should look for when you are looking to hire an immigration paralegal, and as always if you have any questions fell free to click the contact link and ask me!
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