Michelangelo Croce was born in Fribourg, Switzerland of an Italian father and a Swiss mother. At the age of three and a half Michelangelo immigrated to the United States with his parents and his brother on a boat bearing his name and after a long and perilous journey across the Atlantic arrived in New York Harbor.
Michelangelo grew up in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and obtained a Bachelor’s degree from Indiana University of Pennsylvania, with a double major in Criminology and Spanish. Michelangelo spent his last semester as an undergraduate at the University of Valladolid in Spain participating in a Spanish immersion program for foreign students.
Upon graduation, Michelangelo was employed as a U.S. Customs Inspector at the land border of Port of Champlain, N.Y. Michelangelo also spent a year on a diplomatic posting at the Preclearance Inspection Station in the Montreal Airport in Montreal, Canada.
In total Michelangelo spent ten years employed in a law enforcement capacity, having been employed as a U.S. Special Agent with the Bureau of Diplomatic Security as well as a Surveillance Agent for the Casino de Montreal. While at the Casino de Montreal, Michelangelo pursued evening classes in Quebec Civil Law at the University of Montreal in French and obtained a certificate in Quebec Civil Law in 1999.
In the fall of 1999 Michelangelo was admitted to the University of Pittsburgh School of Law and participated as a member of the University’s Jessup International Moot Court Team in 2001. In 2002 Michelangelo was awarded his Juris Doctorate degree from the University of Pittsburgh School of Law also receiving a certificate International and Comparative Law. During law school Michelangelo participated in a paid internship with the Disciplinary Board of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania in Pittsburgh, PA. This experience provided him with knowledge and a deep respect for professionalism and ethics in the practice of law.
Upon graduation Michelangelo was employed as an associate attorney and also was a contract attorney participating in document review on a major international litigation project. Michelangelo was specifically sought for the document review project given his multilingual skills in Spanish, Italian, French, German and Portuguese.
In April 2004, Michelangelo was admitted to the Florida bar. In August 2004, Michelangelo relocated to South Florida and began working as an Associate Immigration Attorney focusing on employment based visas including H-1B, E-2, L cases. Michelangelo spoke at property shows in the U.K. focusing U.S. immigration and real estate and serviced an international clientele from Europe and Latin America.
Over the past 17 years Michelangelo developed his talent, skill and knowledge on all facets of Immigration and Nationality Law representing clients in removal proceedings before the U.S. Immigration Court, the Board of Immigration Appeals, the Administrative Appeals, the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals, and the U.S. District Court Southern and Middle District of Florida.
Michelangelo excelled in representing numerous clients in filing Unlawful Provisional Waivers and subsequently obtaining lawful permanent resident status on their behalf after they spent many years of having been in the U.S. unlawfully. Michelangelo represented international corporate clients in obtaining business visas for their employees, and establishing a U.S. subsidiary in the U.S. (L1A visas) as well as assisting entrepreneurs realize their American dream of owning and operating their company in the U.S. (E-2 Investor Visa). Michelangelo has also represented Individuals with Extraordinary Abilities in Business, the Arts and Sciences in obtaining O-1 visa status in the U.S. and subsequently permanent resident status in the U.S. Michelangelo is a member of the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA), and a current member of the AILA ICE-ERO Liaison Committee.
