
Carpenter & Capt has enjoyed significant victories on behalf of foreign nationals from Mexico, Canada, Poland, the UK, Kyrgyzstan, Poland, Morocco, Jordan, Peru, India, Lithuania, Venezuela and Germany in the last 60 days. The approvals ranged from marriage-based visas to embattled naturalization and adjustment of status cases, which required federal court intervention. The breakdown of the cases is as follows.
Two involved long-battled removal defense cases in front of the Chicago EOIR. In both, retiring Judge Glenn Bower granted the relief sought by Robert Carpenter. The first involved a long-time permanent resident convicted of a misdemeanor (trespassing) that the government alleged comprised a removable offense because it involved 'moral turpitude'. The matter was briefed on several occasions over the years; the IJ held that the conviction did not involve moral turpitude, citing a case offered in Carpenter & Capt's brief written by the late John Mug in 1996. Mr. Mug was an associate for Carpenter & Capt at the end of his career, and added so much to our office, both in terms of ability and intellect, as well as his levity of spirit in fighting for our clients. The case he cited was Matter of G, 1 I&N Dec. 403 (BIA 1943). It isn't every day that a winning citation comes from the first volume of the I&N series! The case was terminated on our re-filed Motion to Terminate.
The other removal matter involved another long-time permanent resident (20+ years), who had 5 U.S. citizen children, and a U.S. citizen wife. He was charged with being removable for a conviction for unlawful possession of a handgun nearly 25 years ago. He sought to re-adjust his status to that of a permanent resident, and successfully did so after a five year battle in immigration court. He and his family are extremely pleased to be able to continue educating their now college-aged kids and run their restaurant businesses.
Another victory occurred with a naturalization appeal for an applicant who was arrested on suspicion of shoplifting years ago. The evidence was so thin at the time of the arrest, the state refused to prosecute, and released the applicant without charge. The government denied the applicant's naturalization application on the grounds that the arrest negated the 'good moral character' required by the statute. The problem with the denial was that without a conviction, a mere arrest for a misdemeanor without a charge, much less a conviction, could not be a legal basis for denying a naturalization application. A supervisor at the Chicago office of CIS agreed, and after reading our brief, granted the appeal.
Other notable victories included very old labor certification cases/employment-based petitions that were approved after years of waiting for the slow-moving bureaucracy of the Departments of Labor and Homeland Security to come to fruition. The approvals were for positions ranging from a Food and Beverage Manager at a well-known country club, to a Mosaic Tiler who worked as a contractor on the homes of the rich and famous, to a psychiatrist specializing in troubled teens. Finally, the firm received an approval for a professional baseball manager with exceptional ability. The MLB team and the manager are thrilled.
We also received an approval on a highly contested case involving marriage-based visa for a Jordanian national. It deserves it's own blog entry, as its winding history involved multiple agencies, and overt discrimination and prejudging, in ways that should be as foreign to this country as they are offensive. Rather than transition to the negative aspects of that case now, the approval, after extensive litigation and travels to Florida for an interview with the DHS, is welcome news. More on it, and other significant cases, including fabulous work by Brian Sather, the newest addition to our office, next.





