I have just found out that my brother-in-law is going to be deported from the U.S. to Mexico. Apparently he and my sister had been working on getting him a green card. They had a meeting with INS where instead of getting the card they arrested him. He is now being held in Indiana from where he will be moved to Chicago and then to the Mexican border. He and my sister have two young children who are heartbroken.
Can anything be done to stop this?
You may want to look here:
I wish I had more information to give you. 
Isn’t he a citizen through marriage?
Marrying a citizen does not make you a citizen. In addition, I think you’re assuming that undecided’s sister is a citizen. She may be just a legal resident.
In any event, **undecided, I would advise your family to speak to an immigration lawyer. I hope it works out for the best for your family.
Zev Steinhardt
In any event, I should be more careful with my coding. :rolleyes:
Zev Steinhardt
Thanks TheJungOnes for the website. I have sent it to my sister.
My sister is a citizen which makes the children citizens but doesn’t help her husband.
She will be getting in contact with a lawyer. However her financial situation is not good so I don’t know how much help she will be able to get.
I was not aware of that.
Zev 1, Ignorance 0.
Indeed, I was assuming. I’ll just slink over to the corner and put on the “Ass” hat (the one they talk about in the Pit all the time, I’m guessing) for the rest of the period…
Here are sites about free or low cost lawyers trained to deal with these issues.
http://uscis.gov/graphics/lawsregs/advice.htm
http://www.usdoj.gov/eoir/probono/states.htm
Breaking up families makes me angry! :mad:
Do you have any idea why he is being deported? If you have more informaiton, I’ll take a crack at it. Do you know whether she had ever filed for a green card for him? Any detail you can provide would be helpful.
Also, your sister should have received a list of nonprofits who accept pro bono cases. She should call all of them. If they can’t take the case, they may recommend other reputable providers.
By the way, in most cases they can’t just [physically remove someone from the U.S., particularly someone who has a claim to permanent residency like your BIL, without a full hearing before a judge, with everything that entails in terms of appeal rights, etc. Under no cirumstances shoud your BIL waive his right to a hearing without talking to an attorney first. Don’t let the Feds give him any crap about that.
Eva Luna, Immigration Paralegal and former Immigration Court interpreter
That is what is making me so mad about this situation. They were really making a go of things. They were self supporting. Now she will be a single parent and need government aid, food stamps, medicaid,etc. to get by. Not to mention that she has lost her husband and the kids their father.
Eva Luna thanks for your reply. I have found out a little more since I last posted. Apparently they had been working with an immigration lawyer to help get the green card. He had set up the meeting where my BIL was nabbed. At the meeting the authorities claimed that my BIL lied and said that he was a citizen the last time that he came into the country. I am not sure what that is about. It seems that if they had been in a position to question him they would have required documentation.
The lawyer will be going to see what he can do tomorrow. Not sure if it is a court hearing or what. Hopefully there will be more information after that.
Would the fact that he has children who are citizens help his case out at all or does it matter?
Thanks again.
The general proposition is that marrying a citizen makes you eligible to apply for an adjustment of status to permanant resident (“green card”) without waiting for a visa number to become available.
It’s unclear to me what the immigration status of your brother-in-law was, or at what stage, if any, his adjustment of status process was.
How did he enter the country? Did he come in on a fiancé visa?
I went through this with Mrs. Bricker, who is a citizen of the Dominican Republic and (now) a permanant resident of the US. Once we married, we immediately applied for a adjustment of status. It took two years from the time we first filed the I-485 before her residency came through - the only nice thing about the delay was that we bypassed the “conditional permanant resident” stage that apparently is granted to persons with marriages less than two years old. By the time her residency was granted, we had already been married over two years!
But since she entered the country legally, and because her I-485 was pending during that whole time, we never had a problem. (We did have to pony up for advance parole twice to allow our trips out of the country - or, more accurately, to allow her to return from those trips) but that was it.
If they had an I-485 pending, it’s absolutely outrageous that they would just deport him.
Sounds either like we’re still missing some part of the story, or that there’s a major mixup going on here. If they thought he was making a false claim to citizenship when he entered, I find it very difficult to believe that they would have just let him pass through at the time. Well, I’m glad to hear they have a lawyer. But don’t jump to conclusions that your BIL is going to be deported, just because deportation charges have been filed against him. It would blow your mind if you knew how convoluted these cases can get.
Just a thought: does your BIL have a common name? Is it possibly a case of mistaken identity? I know we’ve been having lots of problems with routine security checks for clients in places like Mexico, because so many people share the same first and last names. How do you prove you’re not the Jesus Garcia with the outstanding arrest warrant, if you’re one of 50 Jesus Garcias with the same birthdate, black hair, and brown eyes?