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  1. #1

    Default Wife's Deportation Order

    The basics:

    wife is chinese national
    undocumented entry sep 2002
    filed for asylum in Dec 2002
    denied in 2003, appealed
    married to u.s. citizen aug 2003
    appeal denied nov 2004, appealed to circuit court
    marriage interview approved later 2004
    2 kids born 2005, 2008
    circuit court appeal denied jan 2009
    deportation order april 2009

    I will be talking again to lawyer who handled to the circuit appeal but also to others to get more opinions. However, I'd like to get the internet cloud's thinking also.

    1) Deportation order is to Moldova (hence my name) even though neither myself nor my wife are of Moldovian descent. Is there a possible avenue to fight this order based on the destination?

    2) Is it possible to negotiate to get the deportation destination changed to China? Circuit Court says conditions have changed drastically in China, there is no need to fear any more -- why send us to Moldova where we have zero language skills, contacts or cultural ties?

    3) Will the Attorney General consider suspension of deportation even if my wife only has 6.5 years of consequence residence in this country (googled up some links saying 7 years needed)? I'm a business owner but I will leave with my wife and if that means I have to fire 12 people, I will. This would be an extreme hardship to the 12 people I have employed and the local/state/federal governments probably will end up losing 1M in annual payroll/income taxes.

    4) Any other delay tactics possible to see what Obama's planned immigration reform brings?

    5) Other than being in this country illegally, my wife has no other record. What's the likely penalty she would face for ignoring the deportation order (in order to wait on Obama)?

  2. #2

    Default Re: Wife's Deportation Order

    I consulted a lawyer who explained the mailed deportation notice to Moldova was probably a clerical error and they would try to send my wife to China because that is what the original court order stipulated. He also suggested that if we're worried about it, we can prepare our own travel documents ourselves and simply leave ... and that is what we will do.

    Even though nobody replied to my question specifically, I'd like to thank all the regular posters. I spent quite some time reading through the many threads that seemed similar to my wife's case. Only after knowing such basics could I even determine whether a lawyer knew enough to give "expert" advice. I only wish I knew about this forum 5 years ago and our current headache might have been averted.

    First lawyer (referred to my wife before I knew her) did not review the case with her nor prepared her for the asylum hearing. In hindsight, he obviously was only interested in accepting her money to do the minimal work possible to file a case which he promptly lost in a landslide. (Chances were so remote since she could not prove she was in the country for less than a year due to entering uninspected -- an ethical lawyer should have pointed this out.)

    Between the time of losing the asylum hearing and her deportation hearing (which he accepted more money for), lawyer #1 was disbarred and arrested for insurance fraud. My wife's first question was "I already paid him .. who is going to represent me now" when she should have been thinking "damn, I'd better find somebody good to fully review this case." Instead, she let some junior at that firm take over the case at no extra fee and I doubt lawyer #2 did anything other than go through the motions and run the clock out.

    After we got married, her relatives immediately referred her to a local lawyer. Lawyer #3 was 70 years old and probably completely out of date with immigration legal proceedings -- maybe even senile. Why we picked him? Because the relatives claimed their employee successfully used him to win a case. Just winning once is all you need to have a rep, right? Basically, he didn't even give a consultation on the various possibilities -- instead, his only comment was "we're in a race with time". Turns out his primary strategy was for our marriage interview to be approved before the deportation hearing happened so he could then file more paperwork. I doubt he even communicated anything with lawyer #2. He could give lessons to ostriches on putting his head in the sand.

    After the deportation hearing verdict, we looked in the newspaper for another immigration lawyer. Lawyer #4 first said we had a 50% chance to request to reopen the case and 5% chance of winning at the circuit court but no explanations of how the cases would be approached. We figured pretty good -- we'll take those odds -- then lawyer #4 came back and said 5% chance for both options. Pretty deflating so we just took the circuit court option. Why waste money right?

    Now that it's too late, we found a lawyer who really knew the laws and climate. (Our circuit appeal lawyer was on vacation.) Lawyer #5 just kept shaking his head as he looked through the history. Many possibilities at each turn. For example, having your lawyer arrested & disbarred for fraud (for different cases) while representing you -- if that's not a possible case for inadequate counsel, I don't know what is. Such is life.

    My wife definitely made her share of mistakes. Primary mistake of course is how she came to the U.S. -- you mess up there (or somebody messes up for you), it's often impossible to make corrections -- i.e, all the replies here about no way to adjust status. And I made mistakes assuming whatever our lawyers were doing was the correct route. But when looking at big picture, not really major mistakes. Her being here illegally allowed us to meet, start a family and now we head to China together. 1/5th of our monthly expenses in our current HCOLA coast city would support a lifestyle twice as nice. Not to mention, 88K overseas income exemption invested over 10 year ban would be PV 250K in taxes saved -- thank you INS/IRS.

    Moral of story, just because somebody has a degree or certification or reputation does not actually mean they know what they're doing. The past few years, I've found this out first hand not just for lawyers (you know the 99%/1% joke) but for investing (investment advisor = commissioned salesman) and real estate (realtor/mortgage broker = commissioned salesman). While it would be foolhardy to represent yourself in court, you have to do research beforehand to determine the legal help you find might actually help you.

    Moral of story #2 (for those in similar situations), prepare for the worse. Ever since the deportation hearing loss, we have been saving like madmen. Even though I built a successful high tech business, we lived like new immigrants. Whenever people would ask us why we were living so frugal, we'd give answers like "oh, we're saving for a house". But the reality was we're saving for the worse. And we're now prepared to turn the worse into the best. The side effect of this of course is we don't remotely qualify for any of the hardship waivers -- oh well, tough luck for us.

    So probably in less than 2 weeks, the Sword of Damacles that has been hanging over us will be taken down. Whether I'll even bother to apply for her visa to return to the U.S. when her 10 year ban is up, I don't know. Perhaps I'll do country PR shopping and see who's wants to pick up my annual taxes paid. I wonder how many countries I can gain multi-citizenships for before I get locked up as a spy for having too many passports.

    And no, I didn't fire anybody. Part of my cleanup has been setting up an ESOP to transition management and equity to my employees.


    Cheers from No_longer_the_Moldovian

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