Chamblee, GA Immigration Law Firms & Lawyers

Generally, a Form I-130 Application for Relative Alien may be filed and approved regardless of whether the beneficiary remains subject to the 10-year bar. Although not clear from your message, I presume that only the consular processing step was denied, and the Form I-130 application remains pending or perhaps has been approved. If you had been represented by an immigration attorney, you could have avoided the costs and waste of time involved in seeking consular processing before you were eligible, and it would be wise to engage an immigration attorney now, who after learning all of the relevant information about you and your immigration history would be able to advise you about the most appropriate steps to take this year to achieve your goals as promptly as possible.

Regrettably, there is no visa category by which a U.S. citizen may apply for a mother-in-law, and so it may be worthwhile for your mother-in-law to consult with an immigration attorney to explore any other possibilities for achieving her immigration-related goals.

The immigration-related ramifications of criminal matters is among the most complex areas of immigration law. In some instances the USCIS may treat a misdemeanor as a felony and may treat a case dismissal as a conviction (that generally happens when a dismissal follows acknowledgement of the elements of an offense as part of a pre-trial diversion or similar process). In any event, it will be necessary to disclose the arrest and provide court-certified copies of a full set of disposition documents (or proper evidence that no such documents still exist). Especially since a theft offense can have very harsh immigration-related consequences, it would be a mistake to proceed with a naturalization case without consultation with an immigration attorney who, after learning all of the relevant information and seeing the court disposition documents, could advise about eligibilities, options and strategies to attain your goals, and who then could offer legal representation in the often complex application process.