The Law Firm of Deborah M. Lee

Recent Success Stories

Asylum/Refugees

I-730 Refugee/Asylee Relative Petition
Location: Cleveland, Ohio

Asylee Relative Petition was filed for a citizen of Ukraine with USCIS. The case was approved and forwarded to the Department of State and from there sent to the U.S. Embassy in Moscow. For several months the beneficiary of this case would not be scheduled for an interview. Our office multiple times contacted the International Organization for Migration that was assisting the US Embassy in Moscow with asylum related cases. After numerous phone calls and demands to expedite the processing, the applicant was interviewed in May 2010 and was given authorization to enter the United States in an Asylee Relative Category.

I-730 Asylee Relative Petition for Aged-out Child & Requested Waiver of 2-Year Deadline
Location: Cleveland, Ohio

Our client from Uzbekistan was granted asylum by an Immigration Judge. She wanted to bring her husband and two children to the U.S. Spouses and children abroad are eligible to receive benefits as relatives of asylees, but the I-730 Petitions must be filed within two years of the grant of asylum. You can ask for an exception to that requirement based on humanitarian reasons. There was one problem with the case. Our client's daughter was over 21 years old (age limit to be considered a child) at the time that the asylum application was granted. Our client went to two attorney's offices to find out what she could do. She was informed by both offices that nothing could be done about her daughter who was over 21, so our client filed an I-730 Petition only for her husband and one child under the age of 21. Both I-730 Petitions were granted, and our client's husband and one child came to the United States. Our client's daughter was forced to remain alone in Uzbekistan.

Several years passed, and our client's daughter underwent depression and other forms of mistreatment in Uzbekistan. Our client was desperate to bring her daughter to the United States. She filed an I-730 Petition by herself on her daughter's behalf after the two-year deadline. The I-730 Petition was denied for being untimely filed.

Several months later our client filed a motion to reopen, but the motion to reopen was denied for being untimely filed (past the 30-day deadline). Our client was devastated and came to our office for help. We discovered that our client had been misinformed by her previous attorneys. Her daughter was eligible to receiving benefits as the relative of an asylee even though she was over 21 at the time of the grant of asylum. The Child Status Protection Act provides that children who have aged out are still eligible to be classified as children as long as they were under 21 at the time the asylum application was filed and as long as the daughter was included in the asylum application. Our client's daughter fell into that category. She could have filed an I-730 Petition at the same time she filed for her husband and son. We filed an I-730 Petition asking Immigration to excuse the two-year deadline because the failure of our client to timely file the petition was due to the ineffective assistance of counsel. We also asked Immigration to excuse the deadline based on humanitarian reasons because of the hardship our client's daughter was experiencing in Uzbekistan. The I-730 Petition was approved in one month! Our client's daughter will now be scheduled for an interview at her local consulate!