Immigration Services
Investor Green Card: EB-5
Families and individuals who seek to move to the United States on a permanent basis can apply for the EB-5 Immigrant Investor Program.
The United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (U.S.C.I.S.) set out various requirements to obtain permanent residency through the EB-5 visa program. The requirements can be summarized as:
The investor must meet capital investment amount requirements; it is typically required to make either a $800,000 or $1,050,000 capital investment amount into a U.S. commercial enterprise,
Job creation requirements, and
Ensure that the business receiving the investment qualifies for the EB-5 program.
EB-5 visa applicants, their spouse, and their children under 21 will obtain Permanent Residency in the U.S. (a.k.a. a “Green card”) once all requirements have been successfully met and approved by USCIS.
Family Immigration
Individuals from all over the world need help in filing for immigrant visas for their families. This is because most immigrants come alone to the United States, dreaming of bringing their relatives once they have attained legal status and economic success. This is most likely the reason why the Family Immigrant Visa Backlog is so large. That is, there is a long waiting time for Green Cards for family members of U.S. Citizens and Green Card holders.
Our goal at Immigration Solutions LLC is to bring families together as quickly as possible. We have experience helping clients in the following immigration situations:
- Marriage to a U.S. Citizen
- Parents and Children of U.S. Citizen
- Brothers and Sisters of U.S. Citizen
- Spouse and Children of Green Card Holders
- Removal of Conditions for Spouse of U.S. Citizen
- Fiancée Visa
- Consular Processing for relative of U.S. Citizen or Green Card holder
- Adoption
- Visas for Spouses of Non-Immigrants (F2, H4, J2, L2, M2, O3, P4, Q3, R2, etc.)
Contact us any time to talk about family immigration. We will work to help you bring your family to the United States.
Student Visas
Application Requirements for F-1 Student Visas
An alien who is going to pursue full-time academic studies in a college, university, seminary, conservatory, academic high school, private elementary schools, other academic institution, or language-training program in the U.S. can apply for an F-1 Visa with a U.S. consulate abroad. In order to be eligible to apply for an F-1 Visa, various documents should be submitted to the U.S. Embassy or Consulate abroad. An F-1 Visa holder is permitted to change his or her educational objectives once the visa has been approved and is also allowed to change schools without approval from U.S.C.I.S.. F-1 Visa holders can change status to other visa categories like H-1B. F-1 Visa holders are not permitted to work in the United States during their educational program, but can be authorized for employment in connection to ‘practical training’ once their studies are complete. Students who hold a degree in the STEM fields (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) are also eligible for a 17-months extension on their ‘occupational practical training.’
F-1 Visa holders are permitted to bring family members to the United States in F-2 status.
Many times students get accepted by their school of choice but are unable to attend classes because they were denied the visa at the interview at the U.S. Embassy or Consulate. The experienced immigration attorneys at Immigration Solutions LLC can help you prepare for the interview and assemble the requisite supporting evidence. Contact us today to discuss your situation.
Work Visas
Temporary Employment Visas
Temporary employment visas allow employers to hire foreign nationals to work in a specific job for a limited time period. Depending on the type of visa being sought and the nationality of the prospective employee, the employer may be required to file a petition for a nonimmigrant worker with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (U.S.C.I.S.). If the petition is approved, a State Department consular officer will then determine the foreign worker’s eligibility for a nonimmigrant visa.
Once the visa has been issued, the worker may travel to the United States to begin employment with the petitioning employer. A Customs and Border Protection (C.B.P.) officer will inspect the worker upon the worker’s arrival in the U.S. to confirm eligibility for admission and to determine the specific length of stay. The worker must depart from the United States upon expiration of this period of stay unless the period of stay is extended by U.S.C.I.S.
Permanent Employment Visas
A permanent employment visa (also known as a “green card”) allows a foreign national to permanently work and live in the United States. Permanent residents are subject to fewer restrictions than nonimmigrant, temporary workers and generally may apply for U.S. citizenship after five years. In order to obtain a permanent employment visa, the individual’s employer typically must file a petition with U.S.C.I.S. If the individual is already in the U.S. on a temporary visa, he or she may apply for “adjustment of status” to permanent residence once U.S.C.I.S. approves the employer’s petition. If the individual is outside the U.S., then a U.S. consular official will process the immigrant visa.
Because of numerical and per-country limits (detailed below), some individuals must wait a significant period of time to apply for adjustment of status or an immigrant visa even after U.S.C.I.S. approves the employer’s petition. The Department of State issues a monthly visa bulletin detailing the availability of visas for each preference category on a per-country basis. Some visa categories are “current,” meaning that visas in that category are immediately available to individuals when their employer’s petition is approved by U.S.C.I.S. Other categories are considerably backlogged, requiring the applicant to wait years for a visa to become available.
Immigrant Visas
EB-1 visas for immigrants who are among the most able and accomplished in their respective fields within the arts, sciences, education, business, or sports;
EB-2 visas, also known as National Interest Waiver (NIW) or EB-2 NIW for immigrants who have a permanent job offer and an approved labor certification (although there are certain waivers of these requirements);
Foreign Nurse Immigration petitions;
EB-3 visas for “Skilled Workers, Professionals Holding Baccalaureate Degrees and Other Workers;”
EB-4 visas for Special Immigrants, such as religious workers and certain overseas employees of the U.S. Government.
Citizenship
Becoming a Citizen
Becoming a United States Citizen is the dream of most immigrants. At times, uninformed immigrants with past criminal acts file an Application for Naturalization on their own and they end up in Removal Proceedings in front of an Immigration Judge. This is because they did not consult a skilled immigration attorney who has reviewed their past history to assess whether they are able to naturalize. Other times, individuals do not apply for naturalization because they are unable to speak English or learn History, and are unaware that certain individuals can file a waiver to waive both tests.
In essence, prior to filing for naturalization it is paramount that a skilled immigration lawyer be consulted. Individuals are often surprised and find out that they are already U.S. Citizens by operation of law.
Taxes and Immigration Law
A growing number of non-citizens have been victimized by the practices of unscrupulous tax preparers. Tax preparers in the United States are not regulated, meaning that they do not need a license from the government in order to operate. While most tax preparers in the United States are honest and provide candid advice based on the law, a significant number of tax preparers target immigrant communities, prey on non-citizens’ lack of experience with U.S. taxation regulations, and trick or mislead non-citizens into making serious errors on their tax returns. These errors can lead to non-citizens obtaining much higher tax refunds than they were actually entitled to receive and, often, this leads to non-citizens being accused of tax fraud.
Reporting incorrect financial or personal information to the IRS on tax returns can have very serious repercussions for an immigration case. Immigration law considers tax fraud to be a crime of moral turpitude and an aggravated felony, and convictions for tax fraud can lead to non-citizens being placed in Removal Proceedings and deported from the United States.
Even if you are never convicted of tax fraud, immigration officials can use your tax returns as a way to challenge your moral character during an immigration case. Many immigration cases require that an applicant prove that he is a person of “good moral character.” If your tax returns contain errors that suggest fraud, you could be denied political asylum, cancellation removal, or even naturalization, even if you were never convicted of tax fraud.
Serious, frequently made errors on tax returns include:
- Incorrectly filing taxes under “Head of Household Status. A taxpayer is not eligible to file as Head of Household if he or she is married, not legally separated, and lived with his or her spouse for at least one day during the last six months of the year. In certain situations, incorrectly filing as Head of Household can lead to a taxpayer receiving thousands of dollars in tax credits through the Earned Income Tax Credit, money to which that taxpayer was not entitled. If you claimed Head of Household Status when you were not eligible to do so, you may have committed tax fraud.
- Claiming Child Tax Credits for Children that did not live with you. A taxpayer is only eligible to claim a Child Tax Credit for a dependent that lived with him or her for more than six months in a year. If you claimed a Child Tax Credit for a dependent, you have represented to the IRS that the dependent lived with you for more than six months of the year. If this is not the true, then you may have up to collected $1,000 per child per year to which you were not entitled.
- Understating Income. All of a taxpayer’s income needs to be reported on tax returns, even cash payments. Unscrupulous tax preparers often give poor advice regarding cash income, leading to non-citizens reporting unrealistically low incomes on their returns. Even if your tax return is never challenged by the IRS, an immigration judge or a USCIS officer might notice that the income that you reported to the IRS could never realistically have supported a household of your size, and they can use this information against you in your immigration case.