A MARRIAGE IS A MARRIAGE, BUT IS A DIVORCE A DIVORCE?
Laws are shaped by culture. What may be legal or lawful in one country is not in another. In a diverse country like the United States, the courts frequently have to deal with foreign laws and the resulting legal “tension” that arises. Case in point. In international law there is a principle called comity. Comity, […]
PEOPLE ARE PEOPLE
Or at least, that’s about as bumper-sticker short as I can make my point. First, a disclaimer: I am decidedly pro-immigration. My background and profession play on each other, strengthening my resolve to fight for the rights of those who have come here from elsewhere. As a lawyer who focuses much of my practice in […]
SHOULD I SPONSOR MY PARENTS FOR A GREEN CARD?
The last few weeks this same issue has come up with such frequency we thought it appropriate to share some insight on it. You’re a US citizen. Your aging parents are back home in, say, India. You know a lot of people in your circle of family and friends who sponsored their parents for a […]
NEW I-751 MEMO – DON’T BE LATE!
The I-751 joint petition is a form used by conditional permanent residents to “convert” their two-year green cards into 10 year green cards. If the US citizen spouse and the alien are living together in marital harmony, and file in a timely fashion – the form is easy. That’s how it’s supposed to work. Complications […]
NEW IMMIGRATION BILL SHOULDN’T PRIORITIZE BUSINESS OVER FAMILY IMMIGRATION
Family unification has long been the foundation of the U.S. legal immigration system. This reflects our American values of keeping families united and strong. The HMA Law Firm therefore applauds the Senate’s efforts to decrease the backlogs in the family-based immigration system. Current backlogs keep U.S. citizen parents apart from their adult children for, on average, about seven years, and brothers and sisters […]
REVOCABLE DIVORCES VS. US IMMIGRATION
Marriage and divorce is understood differently across various cultures. That leads to different laws regarding marriage and divorce. We last touched on this subject back in 2010 in our Blawg post “A Marriage Is A Marriage, But Is A Divorce A Divorce?” Since then, the interplay of foreign marital law and US immigration law has […]
