What is An Immigration Lawyer?
If you are seeking either legal permanent admissions or temporary admissions into the United States, you have a better chance of doing everything legally with an immigration lawyer. An immigration lawyer knows the ins and outs of what is needed to get legal status for both temporary as well as permanent status. With any immigration problem that comes up, an immigration lawyer can help you understand what the problem it and what the options are to fix it. If you are having trouble gathering all of the necessary documents to file with the right departments, an immigration lawyer can get you all the forms you need to fill out, tell you what additional paperwork is needed and they will file the paperwork for you.
By having the immigration lawyer help fill out and file the paperwork you can be sure that the paperwork is done correctly and legally. You don't have to worry about missing important questions or missing on any of the laws since the immigration lawyer will be knowledgeable on all immigration laws on both a state as well as a federal level. Having a handy lawyer can help you avoid any of the applications pitfalls such as knowing what all of the terms on the application mean.
If you have to appear in court or at an INS hearing to determine status, your immigration lawyer can do that as well. Having representation of the immigration laws is very helpful when it comes to the INS plus they can help you with options if you run into trouble. Just like hiring any other legal professional, here are some things to look for when hiring an immigration lawyer.
- Make sure that they are a member of the American Immigration Lawyers Association or AILA. If they are not then they are not qualified or recognized as an immigration lawyer
- Inquire how many years they have been working in immigration law. Make sure the attorney that you choose has many years of experience as well as qualifying credentials
- Find out if the lawyer does work on immigration on a constant basis or just every once in a while. You want to make sure that they are up to date with all of the rules and regulations when it comes to the law.
These are a great start when it comes to looking for an immigration lawyer but here are some things NOT to have in a lawyer:
- Non Attorney Consultation: Only immigration lawyers or accredited representatives of non profit groups can represent you or help you in anyway when it comes to legal help
- Stay away from anyone that promises success, immigration has very strict and unforgiving laws. Some people are successful when it comes to fighting an immigration issue while others are not. Any lawyer that promises you good results is not a lawyer that you can trust
- Avoid any lawyer that says that they have special influences in the system, see above, the immigration law is very strict and if there are any influences then chances are it is not legal.