Hurst, TX Immigration Law Firms & Lawyers

If your wife has been outside of the country for more than 1 year, without a valid excuse, it is likely that immigration will deem that she has abandoned her residency in the United States. In which case, you will need to submit another I-130 petition on her behalf and start the immigration process all over again. The paperwork should be completed in about 1 year, and she should be able to return to the US after she receives her immigration visa from the US consulate.

USCIS (or Immigration Court, if you are already under proceeding) will wait until the criminal charges against you will be resolved. If the charges will be dismissed, they will have no effect on the immigration process. It is a conviction that you have to worry about. Please understand that having any criminal conviction at all will not work in your favor. However, some convictions are simply fatal for immigration law purposes because they put many forms of relief from deportation out of your reach. The rules are very complicated, and very few criminal defense attorneys know them. In my practice, we very often see clients who, following advice of their criminal defense attorney, enter a guilty plea in exchange for reduced charges and no-jail sentence - just to be arrested by the Immigration & Customs Enforcement and find that their freshly imposed criminal conviction made them defenseless in removal proceedings. Even getting them bailed out of the immigration detention becomes very difficult - and, sometimes, impossible. So don't agree to plea guilty only because the offer sounds good. Do not go without an attorney to the criminal court, even if you are innocent (*especially* if you are innocent!). If you are being offered a plea deal, ask your attorney how will the resulting conviction affect your eligibility for relief from removal, and don't settle for anything but a specific answer. If you can, consult an immigration attorney before going to the criminal court and ask your criminal defense attorney to check any proposed plea with your immigration attorney (or find an attorney who defends immigrants in criminal court as his or her specialty).