Immigration

Tourist Visas
Change Of Status
Permanent Visas
Temporary Working Visas
Through Marriage
Asylum
Child Status Protection Act
Unlawful Presence

Braking News:

Glendale residents, please be advised that NO healthcare workers or any law enforcement personnel, or any government officials are or will be going door-to-door testing people for Coronavirus COVID-19. If you encounter anyone offering such a service, REFUSE IT AND REPORT IT TO LOCAL LAW ENFORCEMENT. Scammers are criminals of opportunity; therefore, you must remain vigilant in considering unsolicited services.

USCIS Contact Center

As of March 18, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services has suspended routine in-person services until at least April 1 to help slow the spread of COVID-19. USCIS staff will continue to perform duties that do not involve contact with the public. However, USCIS will provide emergency services for limited situations. To schedule an emergency appointment contact the USCIS Contact Center.
USCIS domestic field offices will send notices with instructions to applicants and petitioners with scheduled interview appointments or naturalization ceremonies impacted by this closure. They will automatically be rescheduled once normal operations resume. Individuals who had InfoPass appointments with a Field Office must reschedule through the USCIS Contact Center.
Please check the USCIS Field Offices page to see if your field office has reopened before reaching out to the USCIS Contact Center.
- USCIS asylum offices will send interview cancellation notices and automatically reschedule asylum interviews. When the interview is rescheduled, asylum applicants will receive a new interview notice with the new time, date, and location for the interview.
- Please contact the asylum offices by email, mail, or phone. Contact information for each asylum office is found using the Asylum Office Locator. If you have an asylum application pending with us, you can check your case status online. You will need the receipt number that we mailed you after you filed your application. Start here: www.uscis.gov/casestatus.
- - As of March 18, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services has suspended routine in-person services until at least April 1 to help slow the spread of COVID-19.
  - USCIS will automatically reschedule your ceremony. You will receive a notice for your rescheduled ceremony by mail. If you do not receive a notice within 90 days, please reach out to the USCIS Contact Center.
  - If you become ill for any reason, regardless of exposure to COVID-19, please do not come to an appointment with any USCIS office.
    
    If you are pregnant, over 60, immunocompromised or have a chronic health condition, and would like to request a reschedule, please follow the above instructions.
    
    To reschedule InfoPass appointments, call the USCIS Contact Center at 800-375-5283. For people who are deaf, hard of hearing, or have a speech disability call TTY 800-767-1833.
    
    To reschedule any other appointment, please follow the instructions on your notice. You will be rescheduled without penalty.

New USCIS information entry system

Attention:

Immigration fraud is your worst enemy. Just when you think you are out of hot waters, your decade old fraud will come back to hunt you. Often someone, most probably a notario, will tell you that you can re-try your luck by filing in another state or by modifying your personal information.

Green Card

Complicated immigration laws should not keep families apart or jeopardize your legal right to be in the United States. With the right strategy, you can avoid the delays, costs and frustration, and get on the path to attaining legal status. Get a free evaluation from an immigration professional to evaluate your situation. If you decide to proceed, Andre Boghosian will handle your filing.

Tourist Visas

Immigrant Visas (IV) are for persons who plan to live permanently in the United States as legal permanent residents (with Green Cards). The immigrant visa permits an application for admission to the United States as a Legal Permanent Resident (LPR) and is a potential step toward acquiring United States Citizenship. Most immigrant visa applications are filed by close family members who are US citizens or legal permanent residents on behalf of the intending immigrant. It is also possible for a US employer to file a petition for a foreign national whom the employer wishes to hire for an eligible permanent position.

Change Of Status

In some cases, a foreign visitor might need to obtain some additional time to extend his/her legal stay in the United States. There might be different reasons as to why someone needs to get official permit from the Immigration Service to stay in the United States for another six months, however, in any case the applicant will need to prove that his intentions to stay in the United States are temporary only and he guarantees that he/she will be returning back to his/her home country.
If you have entered the United States legally with a nonimmigrant visa and wish to change your status, contact the Law Offices of Andre Boghosian

Permanent Visas

There have been a lot of debates about the immigration reform during these five days and every day they are becoming bitter and bitter. In this stage some members of US Congress have decided that the numerous ongoing amendments and proposals about the improvement of immigration reform have complicated the initial version of the reform so much that the immigration bill has become too cumbersome. In order to alleviate the situation the senators have decided to break up the bill and consider piecemeal. Now the arguments have been sparked if it’s necessary to consider the bill as the whole or as piecemeal. It seems that the project introduced initially is going to be quite different by the Fall.

Temporary Working Visas

The most far-reaching US immigration legislation in about two decades moved forward on a solid bipartisan vote in the Senate judiciary committee after supporters avoided a controversy over the rights of gay spouses.

In addition to creating a pathway to citizenship for 11.5 million immigrants living illegally in the country, the legislation creates a new program for low-skilled foreign labor and would permit highly skilled workers into the country at far higher levels. At the same time it requires the government to take costly new steps to guard against future illegal immigration.

Through Marriage

There are 3 important considerations when determining whether a person qualifies as a
spouse for immigration purposes:

The marriage must have been valid at the time it was performed
The marriage must still be in existence
The marriage must not have been entered into for the purpose of conferring permanent resident status on the
alien.

A person who qualifies as a spouse of a US person is classified in the second family based category preference, or as a derivate beneficiary of a third or fourth preference immigrant. If you believe you qualify as a spouse, or would like to
petition for your spouse, please call our office at (818) 507-8029 for more information.

Asylum

Gender-related violence, including domestic violence, can constitute persecution.
In recent years, both international law and U.S. asylum law have recognized that forms of violence typically directed at women, such as rape and domestic abuse, and forced abortion or sterilization can constitute persecution. The DHS, in its Memo regarding the Gender Guidelines, Considerations for Asylum Officers Adjudicating Asylum Claims from Women, recognizes that female applicants can present gender-specific claims, including domestic abuse. According to the Memo, persecution inflicted on women often takes gender-specific forms, including: sexual abuse, rape, infanticide, genital mutilation, forced marriage, slavery, domestic violence, and forced abortion. The form of harm or punishment may be selected because of the gender of the victim, but the analysis of the claim should not vary based on the gender of the victim.

Child Status Protection Act

Is Your Child Eligible for Relief Sought?
Children adopted from other countries must first obtain a U.S. visa before they can travel or move to the United States. Visas are issued at the U.S. Embassy or Consulate in the foreign country where a child resides. Since a child being adopted abroad by a U.S. citizen parent(s) will usually be brought to live in the United States, that child will need an immigrant visa.

Child’s Eligibility

Children being adopted abroad must be found eligible to immigrate under the U.S. Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) in order to reside in the United States. Because adoption laws vary from country to country, it is sometimes possible to adopt a child abroad who does not qualify for immigration under U.S. law; such children cannot immigrate to the United States.

Under the INA, a child who is adopted abroad while under the age of 16 and who has been in the legal custody, and has resided with, his or her adoptive parent(s) for at least two years may be the beneficiary of a U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) I-130 petition (Petition for Alien Relative) and receive an immigrant visa in the IR-2 category.

The Child Status Protection Act (CSPA) was signed into law on August 6, 2002. It was enacted in order to keep immigrant families united despite family-based and employment-based waiting times which can range up to 22 years or more.

Prior to CSPA, once a child turned 21 years of age, he or she “aged-out” and was no longer able to immigrate (or adjust status) along with his or her family. CSPA eliminates this problem by “freezing the age” of immediate relative children when their petitioning U.S. citizen parent submits a visa petition on their behalf; when a petitioning permanent resident parent naturalizes; or when a married son or daughter who has been petitioned by a U.S. citizen parent becomes divorced or widowed.

CSPA also creates a mathematical formula which allows the amount of time that a visa petition was pending to be subtracted from a child’s age.

What happens if a child “ages-out” despite the mathematical formula? Again, CSPA provides relief for “aged-out” children in the form of an automatic conversion clause. However, this subsection of CSPA is currently being litigated in the Federal Circuit Courts of Appeals.

CSPA is applicable not only to persons who were sponsored for permanent residence after the law took effect, but to many people who were sponsored for green cards prior to August 6, 2002. Therefore, it applies to hundreds of thousands of persons.

K-1, K-3

How to obtain a Fiance(e) Visa?
If you are an American citizen you have two ways to bring your foreign spouse (husband or wife) to the United States to live. They are

Immigrant visa for a Spouse of a U.S. Citizen (IR1 or CR1) – An immigrant Petition for Alien Relative, Form I-130 is required.
Nonimmigrant visa for spouse (K-3) – It is important to note that application for the nonimmigrant visa for spouse (K-3) who married a U.S. citizen must be filed and the visa must be issued in the country where the marriage took place. After the visa process has been completed, and the visa is issued, the spouse can travel to the United States to wait for the processing of the immigrant visa case. Two petitions are required:
Petition for Alien Relative, Form 1-130; and
Petition for Alien Fiancé(e), Form I-129F

Unlawful Presence

These are memoranda which have been issued by USCIS (and INS prior to the creation of USCIS) on this topic. You will need the free Adobe Reader software to view these files.