Anyone know a good Immigration lawyer in Dallas?

Lots of folks get here without legal aid.

My sister. PM me some contact info and I'll put you in touch with her.

Quoted: Lots of folks get here without legal aid.

It'd be nice to see someone actually follow the rules for once though.

why do it legally?  afterall there are many benefits to crossing the border

1. less paperwork
2. immune from prosecution of even the most heinous crimes
3. free stuff - education, housing aid, welfare, etc...
4. pay less income tax (because you probably will not report it)
5. use someone's SSN to get credit = free stuff and you have nothing to lose! (see #2)

Quoted: Quoted: Lots of folks get here without legal aid. It'd be nice to see someone actually follow the rules for once though.

When I moved back to the US with my wife (a Thai national), "following the rules" took us a full calendar year before my wife could even set foot in the US.  I ended up stretching out my transfer for an extra few months so that we could stay together in Asia, and then we had to live apart for 7 months waiting for the paperwork to go through.  Even after the US side completed all of its paperwork, my wife had to schedule and wait 3 months just to get a 2 minute interview at the US embassy to get her visa.

Quoted: Anyone know a good Immigration lawyer in Dallas?

I don't know what you need an immigration lawyer for, but, except in the rarest of cases, I don't know that they're needed.  Have you checked www.uscis.gov for applications and such, first?

Quoted: Quoted: Anyone know a good Immigration lawyer in Dallas? I don't know what you need an immigration lawyer for, but, except in the rarest of cases, I don't know that they're needed.  Have you checked www.uscis.gov for applications and such, first?

If you make a mistake on an I-130 or a G-325A form, you'll set your petition back by months.  If you are wanting to bring family into the US who is not already here, use a lawyer to review your forms.  It should be relatively inexpensive.

Quoted: If you make a mistake on an I-130 or a G-325A form, you'll set your petition back by months.  If you are wanting to bring family into the US who is not already here, use a lawyer to review your forms.  It should be relatively inexpensive.

Heh...  The forms are very straight forward.  It's like saying you need an accountant to do your personal income taxes...  

Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: Lots of folks get here without legal aid. It'd be nice to see someone actually follow the rules for once though. When I moved back to the US with my wife (a Thai national), "following the rules" took us a full calendar year before my wife could even set foot in the US.  I ended up stretching out my transfer for an extra few months so that we could stay together in Asia, and then we had to live apart for 7 months waiting for the paperwork to go through.  Even after the US side completed all of its paperwork, my wife had to schedule and wait 3 months just to get a 2 minute interview at the US embassy to get her visa.

So should we repeal our immigration laws or just ignore illegal immigration?

Quoted: Quoted: If you make a mistake on an I-130 or a G-325A form, you'll set your petition back by months.  If you are wanting to bring family into the US who is not already here, use a lawyer to review your forms.  It should be relatively inexpensive. Heh...  The forms are very straight forward.  It's like saying you need an accountant to do your personal income taxes...

So how many have you done?

Quoted: So should we repeal our immigration laws or just ignore illegal immigration?

We should slam the door on illegal immigration.  The problem with our current legal immigration system is that it is swamped by family visas that stem from the illegal immigrants who produce US citizens, who are then immediately eligible to apply for legal immigration for all siblings and parents.  The backlog at USCIS penalizes people who follow the rules, and rewards those who don't.

Try Catholic Charities for inexpensive legal advice.


My opinion follows….


Here in TX we walk the razor edge of this issue.

Illegal immigration sucks because our schools, jails, hospitals, and poor communities are flooded with poor illegal folks who use more services than the sum of their payroll tax revenues will ever pay for.  

Cheap labor rocks and builds TX's economy.  We get to live in a place where things are inexpensive because of the hard work of these same illegal laborers.  Businesses screw them up and when they complain, there is no workman’s comp, no benefits, just an indigent who needs medical help.  I know a 15 year old who lost a foot in an construction accident; his dumb scared employers covered up the accident, and he got a gangrene foot.  The docs said it could have been salvaged if he'd gotten to the hospital.

If you like expensive places just check out areas with less illegal labor (other than the labor organized by certain Italians) in the northeast.  Up there, unions make illegal laborers less common.  Try getting a free refill with your meal up in Connecticut, Massachusetts, or New York.  Just check out the prices for a house, meal, lawn service, etc... we pay so little here.  

We have laws that make it impossible for them to get a drivers license, thus car insurance is not common in the illegal community.  Likewise, without valid ID, bank accounts are all but impossible to get.   Difficulty in Licensing and ID leads to the running part of hit and runs, lots of warrants, and money under the mattress= more violent home invasions.  

As a Nation we may just be too fat, complacent and happy to do anything about this; alternately, Texas business owners are definitely just a little too happy to have such cheap/disposable labor force.  

I say we make some means for the good, hard working, law abiding people to legally work here.  I like the idea of sending the thug-life, ghetto building, ignorence-breeds-ignorence folks back to where they came from.  

Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: If you make a mistake on an I-130 or a G-325A form, you'll set your petition back by months.  If you are wanting to bring family into the US who is not already here, use a lawyer to review your forms.  It should be relatively inexpensive. Heh...  The forms are very straight forward.  It's like saying you need an accountant to do your personal income taxes...   So how many have you done?

I review them professionally.

Quoted: I say we make some means for the good, hard working, law abiding people to legally work here.  I like the idea of sending the thug-life, ghetto building, ignorence-breeds-ignorence folks back to where they came from.

The way to do this is to eliminate illegal immigration, and increase but diversify our legal immigration.  One of the reasons that we have such a problem with hispanic immigration is that it's very easy for an illegal alien to hide in a large spanish speaking community.  There's also no incentive to adopt English and US customs, because so many services cater to Spanish speakers.  If we were to diversify our immigration - take a few from Greece, a few from Zimbabwe, a few from Czechosolovakia, a few from Azerbaijan, a few from Portugal, none of these groups has a massive cultural safety net to fall into.  

We do this already through the diversity lottery (which is being ended), but the diversity lottery is a failure because the numbers coming in are dwarfed by the number of people flowing over our southern border.

Quoted: FWIW, I'm pretty sure they pay more than just payroll tax.

In general, you'd be pretty wrong...

Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: FWIW, I'm pretty sure they pay more than just payroll tax. In general, you'd be pretty wrong... Sales tax Property tax Vehicle registration Gas tax etc

Ah, you're right.  I stand corrected.

Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: If you make a mistake on an I-130 or a G-325A form, you'll set your petition back by months.  If you are wanting to bring family into the US who is not already here, use a lawyer to review your forms.  It should be relatively inexpensive. Heh...  The forms are very straight forward.  It's like saying you need an accountant to do your personal income taxes...   So how many have you done? I review them professionally.

/\ /\ /\Check out your post number for this one. do you work for INS?

So you know the forms inside and out and for you it is easy. I don't and now I have to pay someone because the easy forms aren’t. If it were a piece of cake there would be no lawyers in this business.  

Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: If you make a mistake on an I-130 or a G-325A form, you'll set your petition back by months.  If you are wanting to bring family into the US who is not already here, use a lawyer to review your forms.  It should be relatively inexpensive. Heh...  The forms are very straight forward.  It's like saying you need an accountant to do your personal income taxes...   So how many have you done? I review them professionally. /\ /\ /\Check out your post number for this one. do you work for INS? So you know the forms inside and out and for you it is easy. I don't and now I have to pay someone because the easy forms aren’t. If it were a piece of cake there would be no lawyers in this business.

This is a touchy subject for me right now I am not trying to be a jerk. We are one of the cases that do need a lawyer, but thanks for the advice.

Quoted: Quoted: /\ /\ /\Check out your post number for this one. do you work for INS? So you know the forms inside and out and for you it is easy. I don't and now I have to pay someone because the easy forms aren’t. If it were a piece of cake there would be no lawyers in this business.   This is a touchy subject for me right now I am not trying to be a jerk. We are one of the cases that do need a lawyer, but thanks for the advice.

Hehe, yeah, I noticed that post number right before I went to post in the "post-count pics" thread...  Would've had some good pics with that number...

No, I don't work for INS.  That agency no longer exists...

And although the forms are very straight forward, there are situations that are indeed complicated.  I just get so sick of seeing immigration attorneys charging hundreds of dollars to simply translate a simple form for someone.  The forms aren't difficult.  The instructions are simple.  If you've got a strange situation, there are immigration information officers at the local immigration office that will help you.  There is also a LOT of good info at www.uscis.gov  Spend a few minutes reading that site and you could save thousands of dollars in attorney's fees.  But, again, you're certainly right, some situations definitely require the knowledge and resources of an attorney.  Those situations are rare, though.

Depending on the situation it's probably easier doing it yourself. Since the agency reform they are 10000000% more helpful, answer your questions and give rapid feedback on your status. I did all my own paperwork when I moved from the UK to TX and recently just completed my Citizenship, That only takes ~ 5 months now compared to 2-3 years before.

I'm convinced that the only way to stop illegal immigration is to target the reason they come to the US and the only way they can stay. Target the people hiring them. Fine them 100K per violation. No exceptions!

Quoted: I'm convinced that the only way to stop illegal immigration is to target the reason they come to the US and the only way they can stay. Target the people hiring them. Fine them 100K per violation. No exceptions!

Part of the problem here is that it's sometimes complicated to know who hired them.  Let's say I hire a contractor to build my new house.  He then subcontracts the foundation, who might subcontract some portion of the work to someone who runs a labor team (made up of illegals).  In this case, who hired the illegals?  The homeowner?  The contractor? The subcontractor? The guy who ran the labor team?  What happens when the guy who ran the labor team shows copies of labor documents that turn out to be forgeries, but are pretty good forgeries?

We could almost completely stop illegal immigration bly closing the border.  I can't believe that the world's only remaining superpower is incapable of stopping people from crossing a couple thousand miles of border.