hi this is Joseph and i'm the managing partner here at Tsang & Associates where we solve legal
problems with creative solutions so today's legal problem is that the wife of an h-1b visa holder
in h-4 status somehow falls out of status now how can this possibly happen well very typically when
a company hires somebody on h-1b they prepare the application they file for them and now they're
here but what if they're married oh well then the spouse gets an h-4 visa okay so a lot of times
these law firms will file the h-4 for the spouse but then what happens when you do an extension a
lot of the times many law firms only do it for the h-1b principle and they don't do it for the
spouse for whatever reason i can venture a guest many times maybe the company is not
willing to pay for the spouse but didn't tell the employee the employee assumes the company
if they're petitioning him then they of course will petition his wife and a lot of times the law
firm because nobody told them they're not going to do extra work so they only prepare the h-1b a
lot of law firms do 600 700 h-1b's at every season and so of course they're not going to double their
workload and do a whole bunch with h4 especially if they're not paid for it and then suddenly
the h1b applicant is in the unfortunate unenviable position where they themselves have the h-1b visa
but the spouse does not now if that is where the story ends that's not a big deal the h4 spouse
can go and hire that particular firm or hire any immigration attorney and help them file the
appropriate paperwork get the visa and they can come just a little bit more money or a little bit
more time no big deal however a lot of people fall into this unique situation they think that they
have the h4 visa and they are staying in the U.S. but when they found out that this is not the case
that they've already stayed unlawfully in the u.s for a year for two years for three years then once
this is discovered they have violated a federal immigration law and they are unlawfully present in
the U.S. and now there is a 10-year ban on their presence in the u.s and they should get deported
a lot of people find out and is in absolute shock now what should they do this particular story
is when the clients themselves the wife and the husband found out that the law firm did not file
the h4 for them they've been here unlawfully for over a year and now there's a 10-year ban they
try to talk to different people USCIS CBP and what makes matters even worse is when they went to CBP
when the CBP the immigration officer at the airport looked at her passport and looked
at her approval notice and said whoops last time you came in we gave you an extra six months when
we shouldn't have so we're gonna deduct another six months and so now their unlawful presence is
actually close to two years and now there's a 10-year ban on them and the attorney says just
go home wait the 10 years and then come back but the husband was about to get the green card and so
what should they do should the husband stay in the u.s get the green card and just stay here 10 years
removed and wait until the wife can come back again should the husband quit the job abandon the
green card and go with the wife what is the right thing to do luckily the y found us because we did
a lot of success stories just like this and we've been posting them in written format and now we're
doing a video explaining exactly how we did it and they saw everything and wanted their law firm
the the law firm that the company hired to do it but the law firm said they couldn't do it and
so they're very panicked and the company wasn't willing to hire any other law firm to handle their
particular case so they were very stressed out well they contacted us and we were able to be a
shadow council for this couple and we do a lot of these what does it mean to be a shadow council
well it means we pretend we are the attorney we prepare everything the only thing we don't end up
doing is sign the g-28 and put our letterhead on the attorney filing we prepare everything we give
it to the client the client gives it to the law firm the law firm makes them sign a waiver that
if it fails it's not their fault they file it and that ends the story and if it succeeds well
then it's their success we are totally okay doing this we've done this so a little history
about our firm side note um our firm started as an agency and we represent or we helped a lot of
other firms do cases um that was the bread and butter most of our cases came from other firms
they have an RFE we handle it if they have a motion to reopen we handle it they messed up on
a particular case they need to save it we handle it most of our clients were other big name firms
and that's because we are located here at little Artesia, California we don't have that many
walk-in clients um that's business cases and we love doing complex cases and we are able to charge
a small amount of fee and that when we were able to survive well because of all this experience in
doing all these complicated cases once we started writing the success story out a lot of people
saw them and they want to directly engage us especially when other firms are not willing to do
it because maybe they weren't paid for it or maybe the risk was too high so we prepared this case
and we gave it to the client the client gave it to her attorney they filed it and it was a success
this is what we did we basically explained to the officer this situation happens a lot
it's because immigration law is so complex may you do a discretionary relief and allow
this particular person the wife to still maintain status even though they've been illegal here
for almost two years but please there's a lot of precedent for this type of case being approved
we've given you success story after success story here's case law here's your authority please
understand it would be a disaster for them to be a part and even if you ultimately deny them if the
husband gets the green card she can file a waiver and it's just a waste of government resource again
it's discretionary it's not a simple form there's a lot of argumentation about the particular
situation of course the wife has a good merit on her own she is a good citizen no criminal record
high uh paying taxes everything is just so sympathetic we prepared the case gave it to them
filed it did an expedited biometrics corrected everything after the case was approved the
clients were super happy and continuously send us gifts um every major holiday and of course to them
it was night and day right it was the choice between leaving and the potential divorce because
they were going to be separated for 10 years across the pacific it was just absolutely hell
for them but we were able to overcome it it wasn't too difficult we were able to
do it within a few weeks and we're happy to do these type of cases and this really goes to show
immigration law USCIS is very elastic it's very understanding there's a lot of not
loopholes the way the law is set up is not that it has a lot of loopholes is that it
is supposed to be elastic discretionary understanding sympathetic and equitable
it's able to correct itself and that is a good system it's very self-correcting and and the
officers have the authority to do that but how do you convince an officer to do that for you
and not for somebody else and that takes a good story and that's what we do here
at south associates so if you need a creative solution for your legal problem would love to
jump on a call strategize brainstorm because there's a lot of ways to get to the same goal
and would love to just partake in your journey and share that story thank you take care bye