CASE: Asylum in Immigration Court
CLIENT: Chinese
LOCATION: Elizabeth, New Jersey Immigration Court

Our client, through his relative in the United States, retained us in May 2011 to help him with his asylum case. He is from China and came to the United States with a fraudulent passport.  He was not inspected nor admitted into the United States, and was detained in the Elizabeth New Jersey CDF facility.  He passed his credible fear interview and at his Master Hearing, with our firm representing him, he applied for asylum, withholding of removal and relief under CAT.  Our client is scared to go back home to China, fearing that he will be persecuted on account of his political opinion against the “one-child policy (forced family planning)” in China.

Our client lived in China with his wife and son.  However, he learned that his wife was pregnant again early this year.  Fearing forced abortion against her, our client told his wife to hide and did not report her pregnancy to the local Family Planning Office. According to our client, forced abortions and sterilization surgeries are common in his village in China.   Later, the Family Planning Office personnel came to his house and looked for his wife several times.  When they could not find her, they forced to take our client for sterilization surgery.  Our client opposed the Family Planning Office and its personnel, and he had a physical altercation with them.  The officials punched and beat him.  Eventually, our client managed to escape and fled his home town.  He left China and arrived in the U.S. in April 2011.

Once retained, we helped him prepare his asylum application.  We also asked him to provide supporting documents corroborating his claim, some of which were a letter from his wife, the notarial birth certificate of his son, medical records of his wife, and a family planning procreation and birth healthcare service booklet for his wife.  Our firm also did some research on articles pertaining to his particular claim, and the type of persecution he will experience in China if sent back.

Our client’s individual hearing was scheduled on September 12, 2011 at the Elizabeth Immigration Court in New Jersey. Attorney Sung Hee Yu represented our client at the hearing. During the hearing, our client testified credibly as to his past persecution in China and likelihood of future persecution. On September 20, 2011, the Immigration Judge granted asylum relief for our client and our client was subsequently released. He is now an asylee and will be eligible to apply for permanent resident status in one year. He also would obtain his work permit in about two weeks.

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CASE: Motion to Reopen and Rescind an In Absentia Order of Removal Based on Exceptional Circumstances
CLIENT: Moldovan
LOCATION: Baltimore, Maryland

Our Moldovan client came to the United States in 2008 with a J-1 visa.  Her ex-husband filed for asylum and she was a derivative applicant for this asylum application. After the application was filed, our client attended all necessary appointments related to her immigration applications.  She went to the CIS office to do her fingerprinting, and attended her asylum interview at the Arlington Asylum office.  Our client also attended her first Master Calendar hearing on March 2010 after her ex- husband’s asylum case was referred to the Baltimore Immigration Court.  Eventually, Respondent and her ex-husband’s individual hearing dates were scheduled on May 19, 2011.

Due to marital difficulties between our client and her ex-husband, her previous lawyer filed a Motion to Deconsolidate in October 2010.  Since our client was a derivative asylum applicant with her ex-husband, the Motion stated that she had her own independent grounds for seeking asylum relief.  Nonetheless, since she filed the Motion to Deconsolidate, she never got a response from her previous attorney nor the Court regarding the possible deconsolidation.

From May 16, 2011 to May 24, 2011, our client was in a great deal of pain with headaches, fever, and other symptoms that resulted from the extraction of her tooth on April 30, 2011.  On the days leading up to the hearings, our client got very sick, including May 19, 2011, the individual hearing date. Thus she did not appear before the Court on her individual hearing date.

She later learned about her order of removal on August 3, 2011.  On that day, the divorce between our client and her ex-husband was finalized.  When our client met her ex-husband, he informed her that she was ordered removed on May 19, 2011 because of her absence at the hearing. Her ex-husband was in that hearing and actually won his asylum case. Once she learned about the order of removal, she immediately contacted her previous attorney and explained to him that she was not able to attend her hearing due to illness.  Our client never received anything pertaining to her order of removal.  She intended to attend Court on May 19, 2011 but was too sick to do so.

Our client contacted and retained our office on August 15, 2011 for the Motion to Reopen and Rescind her in absentia order.  After listening to her reasons and learning the surrounding circumstances pertaining to her non-appearance in Court, our office determined that the Immigration Court will most likely grant our client’s Motion to Rescind an in absentia order based on exceptional circumstances.

We contended that our client could not attend at the hearing due to her medical condition and her absence was inevitable due to her sickness.  Our office included supporting documents such as a doctor’s letter, copies of her medical prescriptions, a letter from her employer stating her absence from work around the time of the Individual Hearing, etc.  Our office filed the Motion on August 18, 2011 within the statutory time frame.  The DHS, however, opposed our Motion, so we filed a response on August 31, 2011.   On September 20, 2011, the Baltimore Immigration Court granted our client’s Motion and rescinded the order of removal.  Our client’s case is re-opened, and she can now pursue her asylum claim.

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