Our clients often come to us with situations that are as complex as their lives.
Khaled was brought to the US from Yemen by his parents in the ’70s. His parents received asylum as refugees but didn’t secure permanent residency for their son. Now in his late 40’s Khaled has a final deportation order that would return him to a country he has not visited in decades.
He came to us asking for help with regaining custody of five of his children, currently living with his ex-wife. He came with his two sons, one of whom lives with him, the other lives with his ex-wife. To hear them tell it, it sounds like a family coping with being fractured, and not always dealing in healthy ways.
He brought with him a massive stack of documents dating back to 1983, detailing his efforts to win asylum, obtain various visas. Khaled has been through a lot, it took us a while to get through his story. Between bad luck and missed deadlines, he has never been able to work out his permanent residency status. It is clear that he’s tried to work things out, but somewhere between a complicated and expensive immigration system and his not fully understanding what was required of him, he has failed to complete the process.
The best we could do for him was to start a visa application based on the sponsorship of his mother. Their most recent effort to resolve his status was to apply through his father. That effort ended when his father passed away last year. His mother is still alive but is ailing. Maybe this will put his put his deportation order on hold. Changing custody of the children will have to wait until that is resolved.
