Interviewer: Wow. If I’m a citizen and I have family in another country; let’s say I have a parent, maybe two brothers, and a cousin, who could I sponsor? Could I sponsor all of them?
Jeanne Morales: You could not sponsor your cousin. Your parent would be the quickest one to sponsor because they would be an immediate relative; immediate being a term subject to some debate. Start to finish, by the time you got through all the paperwork and if there are no issues such as criminal issues, you could possibly get them here within six months. The brothers, you could sponsor, but they’re not immediate relatives. They would go on a wait list for adult siblings of US citizens and this can be like 20 years.
Interviewer: What options does the cousin have?
Jeanne Morales: To get someone else in the family who is legal and who has a parent, child, brother, sister, spouse relationship with them, or an employer to put in for them.
Interviewer: What are some of the most common cases that you handle, in regard to green cards and immigration?
Jeanne Morales: A lot of spouses, US citizen spouses fall in love with someone who is not a citizen of the United States. That’s a good number of the types of cases we handle. We also handle cases where someone has a green card, did something, and didn’t get immigration advice. Unfortunately, when people only get criminal advice they are in danger of losing their green card. We do a lot of work helping people in that type of situation. What people don’t realize is the society is getting more connected electronically. When someone has a green card or is a non-citizen and they are arrested for something, they need to make sure they approach their criminal case with an understanding of how it affects them from an immigration standpoint.
