21 Jun Application for Stay of Deportation or Removal Approved
A client who was detained due to a prior order of deportation in the 1990s retained us to file an application for a stay of deportation or removal as he was soon to be deported from the United States. This client is married to a U.S. citizen and has a U.S. citizen son, but was not eligible to apply for a green card prior to his immigration court hearing because his wife was not a citizen at the time. For that reason, there was no visa “immediately available” and while we did not represent him in Immigration Court, it appears that his Immigration Judge would not agree to adjourn the case to wait for his wife to be naturalized. Last Monday, we learned from our client’s deportation officer that he was scheduled to be put on a flight out of the U.S. last Thursday. We filed a request with the lawyers for the Government that they join a motion to reopen our client’s deportation proceedings, and immediately filed an application for a stay with evidence of our client’s relationship and positive discretionary factors. Our request for a stay was approved and our client was taken off of the flight last Thursday. We are now awaiting a response from the lawyers for the Government regarding our motion to reopen his deportation proceedings.