What ended, and what did not

What you lost on September 9 is TPS based work authorization and TPS based protection from removal. An employer who reverifies will find the document no longer valid. You did not lose anything already pending. You did not lose any other basis for relief you may have. And you did not lose the time you have already built up here, which counts toward several forms of relief.

Unlawful presence starts running again

You are also, generally, accruing unlawful presence again once the protected period ends and nothing else covers you. That is why the first month matters more than the next six.

Unlawful presence drives the three and ten year bars, and those bars are what make future options expensive or impossible. If something is pending that places you in a period of authorized stay, the analysis is different, so find out which category you are in rather than assuming.

What to do first

Start by getting your file together. Your TPS approval notices, every work permit you have held, tax returns, proof of continuous residence, your children’s birth certificates, and any prior immigration paperwork from any decade.

Half the options below turn on documents most people already have in a drawer. Then get an individual assessment, because there is no single answer for a group this large and the real work is matching your specific facts to a specific provision.

What options remain

Several options survive the termination. A U.S. citizen child aged 21 or older can petition for a parent as an immediate relative with no waiting line, and the real question is whether you can adjust status here, which turns on how you entered and whether you ever traveled with authorization. INA § 245(i) may apply if anyone filed a visa petition or labor certification for you on or before April 30, 2001, and asking costs nothing.

A spouse who is a citizen or permanent resident creates the qualifying relative that a child cannot. Asylum, withholding of removal, and protection under the Convention Against Torture remain available, and the one year filing deadline has exceptions, including changed country conditions. Cancellation of removal exists if you are placed in proceedings and meet the continuous presence, good moral character, and hardship requirements. And U or T status and VAWA are more common than people expect and badly underused.

Mistakes to avoid

A few mistakes to avoid. Do not leave the country to reset anything, because departure triggers the bars rather than clearing them. Do not pay a notario, since fraud follows desperation in the months after a termination and the damage from a badly filed application often cannot be undone.

Do not keep working on an expired document or present one to an employer. And do not assume that because TPS ended, everything ended. That assumption is the most expensive one on this page.

This week: Put every TPS approval notice, work permit, tax return, and proof of residence into one folder. Get your children’s birth certificates. Ask about paperwork filed before April 30, 2001. Then get an individual assessment rather than a general answer.

The first month after a termination is when good options are still cheap and bad decisions are still reversible. Call or text 512.761.8479 and let us find out what you actually have.

You cannot appeal to a judge

Start with a hard truth that shapes everything else. Courts will generally not review a consular officer’s refusal, and there is no appeal to a judge normally. That is precisely why the administrative response matters so much, and why treating the refusal as final forfeits the one path that actually works.

Which of the three denials you got

The word denial covers at least three very different outcomes, and the first job is to find out which one you got. Get the written refusal sheet, read the statute cited on it, and check the case status in the Consular Electronic Application Center.

The first possibility is a refusal under INA § 221(g). The case is still alive and the officer wants something more.

This is often fixable by supplying what was asked for, though there are time limits, generally measured in a year, before the case is treated as abandoned. The second is a finding of misrepresentation under INA § 212(a)(6)(C)(i), a lifetime inadmissibility that requires a waiver and changes the entire strategy. You need to know immediately if this is what happened, because nothing else you do matters until it is addressed.

The deadline nobody sees coming

The third, and the most common when a consulate doubts that a relationship is genuine, is that the officer returns the petition to USCIS with a recommendation to revoke it. This is the one people miss. When the petition comes back, USCIS mails a notice of intent to revoke, and the response window is short, typically about 30 days from the date of the notice.

The notice goes to the U.S. petitioner, not to the person abroad, and it often arrives months after the interview. Watch your mail, keep your address current with USCIS, and do not assume silence means the case is dead. That response is the fastest and cheapest path back into the process.

Refile, or marry and file

On strategy, consider whether a marriage based petition is stronger than refiling for a fiancé. A marriage case rests on a legal relationship instead of a stated intention, and the evidence standards are clearer.

Your spouse also arrives as a permanent resident who can work right away, with no adjustment of status afterward. Do not try a visitor visa as a workaround. It will be refused for immigrant intent, and depending on what is said, it can create a misrepresentation record that follows the case permanently.

What evidence actually moves a case

On evidence, the single highest value action is usually the least legal one: visit again, more than once, and document it. A relationship of many years with one trip reads as thin regardless of how real it is. Then build the file. Passport stamps and boarding passes.

Dated photographs with other people in them. Money transfer receipts. A dated summary of your messages with sample screenshots, not a raw dump. Sworn statements from people on both sides who have actually met or spoken with your fiancé or spouse.

This week: Get the written refusal sheet and read the statute printed on it. Check the case in the Consular Electronic Application Center. Update your address with USCIS and watch your mail, because the notice comes to you, not to your fiancé or spouse.

If a case was refused abroad and you are not sure what you actually received, bring me the paperwork before the response window closes. Call or text 512.761.8479.

Why the entry decides everything

Only an immigration judge can set bond in proceedings, and the judge’s authority depends on which detention statute applies. If your family member came in on a visa and then overstayed, they are generally held under INA § 236(a) and can get bond. Certain criminal grounds trigger mandatory detention under INA § 236(c) instead.

If they entered without inspection, the Board held in Matter of Q. Li, 29 I&N Dec. 66 (BIA 2025), and Matter of Yajure Hurtado, 29 I&N Dec. 216 (BIA 2025), that they are detained under section 235(b) as applicants for admission, and that an immigration judge has no authority to set bond.

The Board’s position is not the last word

That is the Board’s position, and it is not the last word. Federal courts are divided on it. District courts have granted habeas relief rejecting the Board’s reasoning, and appellate courts have pushed back, so the answer can depend on where the person is detained.

Do not treat a denial of a bond hearing as the end of the matter. A habeas corpus petition in federal district court is a live route, not a theoretical one, and a request to ICE for release on parole runs alongside it. Both benefit a great deal from counsel who has filed them before.

The first 48 hours

The practical steps come in order. Get the alien registration number, the A-number, because without it almost nothing else is possible. Confirm the facility through the ICE Online Detainee Locator, then set up an account with the facility’s phone provider, since detained people can call out but cannot receive calls. With the A-number, call the EOIR case information line at 1-800-898-7180 or use the EOIR portal.

Confirm the next hearing date. Then find out what kind of hearing it is: master calendar, individual merits, or bond. That single fact drives everything. Get counsel involved immediately, especially if a hearing has been moved up, because advanced hearing dates are common right now and the compressed timeline is the whole problem.

Two warnings

Two warnings. Tell your family member not to sign anything, particularly stipulated removal or a request for voluntary departure, without talking to a lawyer. And if the government moves to dismiss the removal case, that motion should be opposed. A dismissal sounds like good news and often is not, because it can remove the protection of being in proceedings and expose the person to expedited removal.

What the family can build now

What families can build in the meantime is genuinely useful. A letter on company letterhead confirming the job, length of service, wages, and that the position is being held. Notarized support letters with copies of the writers’ identification.

A sponsor with a stable address willing to house the person. Tax returns, a lease, evidence of community ties, and copies of any work permit and any pending application receipt. Give that package to the attorney, not to ICE.

This week: Get the A-number. Confirm the facility on the ICE detainee locator and open a phone account so they can call you. Call 1-800-898-7180 to confirm the hearing date and type. Start the employer letter and the support letters today.

If someone you care about is detained and a hearing is coming, do not wait to see what happens. Call or text 512.761.8479.

Trading your own money is not employment

The starting point is favorable. Employment is defined at 8 C.F.R. § 274a.1(h) as service or labor performed for an employer in return for wages or other remuneration. Money you make trading your own capital is a capital gain, not remuneration from an employer. Passive investment has long been understood to be compatible with visa status, and automating your own strategy through software does not change the analysis. You are still managing your own portfolio.

Where the line actually falls

The line is not the sophistication of the tool. The line is whether you are providing services to anyone. You have left passive investing behind if you do any of these. Form a company and work in it. Trade other people’s money. Charge a fee or take a cut of profits. License or sell the software. Take on clients.

Which OPT you hold decides the rest

Once it is a business, the question becomes which OPT you hold, and the two answers are very different. On standard post completion OPT, self-employment is possible.

SEVP guidance conditions it on the business being directly related to your degree field, your holding whatever license the business requires, and your working at least 20 hours a week. Note that this comes from policy guidance rather than the regulation itself, which is one reason to confirm it with your school rather than rely on an article, including this one.

The STEM extension is different, and the prohibition there is regulatory. Self-employment is not permitted on the 24-month extension. That benefit requires a bona fide employer employee relationship with an employer enrolled in E-Verify and a signed Form I-983 training plan, and your own company cannot serve as that employer. Students routinely miss this and structure themselves into a violation.

The clock that actually ends OPT

Now the part that actually causes most of the lost status in this area, which has nothing to do with unauthorized employment. Passive investing is not employment, which means it does not stop the unemployment clock. Standard post completion OPT allows 90 days of unemployment. With the STEM extension the aggregate limit is 150 days. If your trading is the only thing you are doing, those days are still running, and they run out quietly.

Two housekeeping points. Keep your tax posture consistent with your immigration posture. Gains on Schedule D read as investment income, which fits passive investing. A Schedule C with self-employment tax tells a different story. The two records do get compared. And use only your own funds, since accepting outside capital raises securities and commodities registration questions well beyond the immigration issue.

Talk to your designated school official before you start, and get the answer in writing.

This week: Count your unemployment days honestly, because that clock is what usually ends OPT. Put the question to your designated school official in writing and keep the reply. Keep your trading in a personal account with no outside money in it.

Building something on OPT and unsure which side of the line it falls on? Ask before you launch, not after. Call or text 512.761.8479.

Losing a lab or a teaching line is disorienting enough without discovering that the standard advice does not apply to you. For someone whose H-1B was at a private company, that advice is roughly right. For someone whose H-1B was at a university, it can be badly wrong, and there are two reasons.

The grace period is shorter than you were told

The first is the grace period itself, which is shorter than most people are told. Under 8 C.F.R. § 214.1(l)(2), it is up to 60 consecutive days or until the end of your authorized validity period, whichever is shorter, once per validity period. If your I-94 expires three weeks from your last day, you have three weeks, not 60 days. Check the date on your I-94 before you build a timeline around the number 60.

Why the cap is the real problem

The second is the cap. Institutions of higher education, related or affiliated nonprofits, and qualifying nonprofit and governmental research organizations are exempt from the annual H-1B numerical limit under INA § 214(g)(5). That exemption is a benefit while you hold the job.

It becomes a problem when you leave, because if you were never counted against the cap, you are not portable to a cap subject employer on demand. A private company that wants to hire you has to register you in the electronic lottery in March, and if you are selected, the earliest start date is October 1. That is not a sixty day problem. That is a year.

So the first question after a university layoff is not who is hiring. It is whether you were ever counted against the cap. If you were counted at some point in the past six years, a cap subject employer can file for you now. If you were not, your realistic near term options are a cap exempt employer, meaning another university, an affiliated nonprofit, or a qualifying research organization, or a different classification entirely.

Whether O-1A fits

Which brings up the third point. For academics and researchers, O-1A is frequently a better fit than people assume. It has no cap, no lottery, and no seasonal filing window. The standard is demanding, but publications, citations, peer review service, grants, and press coverage are exactly the kinds of evidence the category is built around. Evaluate it in week one, not in month five when the grace period is gone.

What not to do

The fourth point is about what not to do. Changing to visitor status to buy time is a common instinct and usually a poor one.

A decision on a change of status to B-2 routinely takes many months, during which you cannot work and cannot travel without abandoning the application. Visitor status while actively interviewing also creates a misrepresentation exposure if the record suggests you sought it as a bridge to employment. And moving from B-2 back to H-1B does not solve the cap problem you started with.

Use the grace period for what it is for. If any employer files a nonfrivolous petition on your behalf before it closes, you preserve your status. The single most valuable thing you can do in the first week is figure out which employers can actually file for you and when.

This week: Find the date your employment actually ended and the expiration date on your I-94, and use whichever is sooner. Then answer one question: were you ever counted against the H-1B cap? Ask your prior employer’s immigration counsel if you do not know.

If you have been laid off, the cap question should be answered this week, not next month. Call or text 512.761.8479.

Used carelessly, it strands you outside the country. If you have been avoiding a funeral or a wedding at home because nobody could tell you plainly whether you would be let back in, that hesitation is reasonable.

How the provision works

The provision is at 22 C.F.R. § 41.112(d). An expired nonimmigrant visa is treated as automatically extended to the date you apply for readmission if you meet every condition. You must have been absent 30 days or less. You must hold a valid unexpired I-94 and a valid passport. You must have maintained and intend to resume your visa status. Nationals of countries designated as state sponsors of terrorism are excluded.

Where you are allowed to go

Watch the geography, because it is not the same for everyone. For most classifications the trip must be to contiguous territory, meaning Canada or Mexico. Students and exchange visitors in F and J status may also use adjacent islands. Travel anywhere else defeats the provision entirely.

Two points surprise people. First, the provision does cover a change of classification. The regulation expressly contemplates the situation where DHS changed your classification while you were inside the country, so an expired visa in one category can support readmission in the new one. You do not need a visa foil matching your current status to use this.

Second, and this is the trap, if you apply for a new visa at a consulate in Canada or Mexico while you are there, you lose automatic revalidation entirely. You are then stuck outside the United States until that visa is either issued or refused. There is no falling back on the old foil. Decide before you leave whether you are using revalidation or applying for a visa, because you cannot do both.

The condition that fails most often

The condition that most often fails in practice is the valid unexpired I-94. A pending application is not an I-94. If you filed to change or extend status and USCIS has not decided yet, you do not have the document this rule requires. Worse, leaving while a change of status case is pending kills that case outright. People plan a trip around revalidation and lose the underlying case they were trying to protect.

One terminology point drives a lot of bad decisions: an approved change of status gives you status and a new I-94, not a visa. Only a consulate issues visas.

One last practical note. Officers at the port of entry apply this provision, and their comfort with it varies. Carry the regulation, your I-94 printout, your approval notice, and evidence of continued employment or enrollment. Do not travel on a tight schedule with no backup plan.

This week: Confirm your I-94 is unexpired and that nothing is pending at USCIS. Decide before you go whether you are using revalidation or applying for a visa, because you cannot do both. Assemble the I-94 printout, the approval notice, and proof of your job or enrollment.

Planning a short trip north or south with an expired visa? Have the conditions checked against your actual documents first. Call or text 512.761.8479.

What the pending application does give you

Half of that assumption is right. A properly filed adjustment of status application generally means you are in a period of authorized stay, so you are not accruing unlawful presence while it sits. That is genuinely valuable. But it is not lawful status, and by itself it is not work authorization.

Where work authorization comes from

Work authorization comes from a separate document. You need an approved employment authorization document, issued on the basis of the pending adjustment application under 8 C.F.R. § 274a.12(c)(9).

You get it by filing Form I-765. Until that card is in your hand, the pending I-485 does not let you work unless some other status is independently authorizing you, such as a valid H-1B or L-1. Build the processing time into your planning, because that card does not arrive quickly.

That distinction reaches beyond employment. If your visa status runs out while the green card case is pending, you are no longer in status, even though you are still lawfully present. That affects extensions, changes of status, and what happens if the case is denied.

Why travel is the real danger

Travel is where the pending application really bites. Once your visa status ends, leaving the country without advance parole abandons the adjustment application. Not delays it.

Abandons it. File Form I-131 alongside the I-765 so the parole document is available if a family emergency or a work trip comes up. There is a narrow exception for people who travel while maintaining valid H or L status with a valid visa, but do not assume you fall inside it.

There is also a safety valve. Know about it; do not rely on it. INA § 245(k) forgives, for most employment based adjustment applicants, up to 180 days of failure to maintain status or unauthorized employment since the last lawful admission. That is a genuine cushion if the timing slips between one status ending and the next thing starting. It is not a plan, only what keeps a paperwork gap from becoming a disaster.

Maybe you have a visa extension pending and a green card case pending, and you cannot tell which one is holding you up. Usually the answer is to stop depending on the fragile one. Get the employment authorization document in hand. It is independent of your employer, independent of your petition, and it removes the question entirely.

This week: Check whether you hold an approved work permit card, not just a pending I-765. If you do not, file the I-765 and the I-131 together. Do not book any travel until the parole document is in hand.

If you are unsure what your pending case actually authorizes, that is a question worth answering before your next paycheck, not after. Call or text 512.761.8479.

Where the clock actually starts

The rule lives at 8 C.F.R. § 274a.12(b)(20). Say your employer filed to extend your stay on time. If you hold H-1B, L-1, O-1, TN, or E status, you may keep working for that same employer while the petition sits at USCIS.

That permission lasts up to 240 days. Here is what people get wrong. The 240 days start on the day your old I-94 expired. They do not begin on the filing date, and they have nothing to do with the end date your employer requested in the petition.

Work an example. Your I-94 expired July 27. Your employer filed on June 26. The 240 day clock starts July 27, which puts the outer limit in late March of the following year, not in February and not in October.

The three conditions

Three conditions have to hold. The extension must have been filed by the same employer you are working for. It must have been filed before your authorized stay expired, not after. And you must have been maintaining status when it was filed.

Miss the filing deadline and this provision gives you nothing at all. One thing to know while you wait. A timely filed extension keeps your stay authorized. You are not building up unlawful presence while the case sits at USCIS. The pendency itself is not damaging you.

What ends it early

Two things end the authorization early. The first is a decision. The moment USCIS decides the case, the 240 day provision stops doing any work. If the petition is approved, you work under the new approval and the new I-94 date. If it is denied, your work authorization ends on the date of the denial even if you are on day thirty of the 240.

The second is subtler and catches people who are near a maximum period of stay. Suppose your employer asked for a short period because you are hitting the five year L-1B limit or the six year H-1B limit. The approval only carries you to that date.

The 240 day rule cannot push you past a limit set by statute. And if approval arrives after that requested end date has already gone by, the safe reading is that you should not have relied on the rule past that date. USCIS has never squarely resolved that scenario, so do not build a plan on the aggressive reading of an unresolved question.

What employers should document

For employers, this is also an I-9 issue. When the provision applies, human resources should document the timely filing and the receipt notice and calendar the reverification date rather than treating the expired I-94 as an automatic stop.

One last piece of housekeeping. Confirm that what was actually filed is a request for extension of stay, meaning a Form I-129 filed with USCIS, and that your employer holds the receipt notice on Form I-797C.

A blanket L petition on Form I-129S submitted for consular processing is not a request to extend your stay. If nobody filed the right form, the 240 day rule does not apply and you have been out of status since your I-94 expired.

This week: Print your I-94 from the CBP website and note the expiration date. Get the I-797C receipt from your employer and confirm it is for a Form I-129 filed with USCIS. Count 240 days from the I-94 date, not the filing date.

Bring me your I-94 and your receipt notice and I will do the math against the documents rather than the internet. Call or text 512.761.8479.

Did anyone ever file a visa petition or a labor certification for you on or before April 30, 2001? If you have spent years being told there is no path, I know how little another lawyer’s question sounds like good news. Ask this one anyway.

The general rule under INA § 245(a) is that you cannot adjust status inside the United States unless you were inspected and admitted or paroled. If you entered without inspection, that rule ordinarily forces you to leave and interview at a consulate abroad, which can trigger a three or ten year bar on return.

How the exception works

Section 245(i) is the exception. If a qualifying petition or labor certification was filed for you on or before April 30, 2001, you may be grandfathered. There is a second requirement for filings made after January 14, 1998: you must also have been physically present in the United States on December 21, 2000.

If you meet the test, you can adjust status here, in this country, despite the illegal entry, by paying a $1,000 penalty fee with the application. No departure. No bar. No waiver problem.

Two features that surprise people

Two features of 245(i) surprise people. The first is that the petition does not have to have been approved, and it does not have to have been filed by the person who is helping you now.

A labor certification submitted in 2000 by an employer that went out of business 20 years ago can still do the work, as long as it was approvable when filed. The second is that grandfathering can extend to a spouse or a child who held that relationship to you at the time of the qualifying filing. A parent’s old paperwork can carry a whole family.

Where to look for the old filing

So the practical instruction is to go looking. Ask your parents. Ask a former employer. Ask an aunt who once mentioned that someone filed papers for the family in the nineties. Look for old receipt notices, an approval notice, a letter from a law office, or a canceled check to a lawyer or to the immigration service. If you have a family member who once had a case, request their file.

What it does not do

One caution so that nobody overreads this. Section 245(i) solves the entry problem. It does not make you admissible if some other ground applies, and it does not substitute for a currently available visa category. It removes one specific obstacle, and for the right person that obstacle was the only thing in the way.

I ask this question in every intake where entry is an issue. Whether a particular filing qualifies turns on what was filed, when, and whether it was approvable as filed. That is a records question and a legal question, and it can be answered.

This week: Call your parents. Call any employer who ever sponsored anyone in the family. Look for receipt notices, approval notices, letters from a law office, and canceled checks written to a lawyer or to immigration. Request the file of any relative who once had a case.

If anyone in your family ever had immigration paperwork filed in the nineties, bring it in and let me look at it. Call or text 512.761.8479.

Who counts as a qualifying relative

The provisional unlawful presence waiver on Form I-601A waives the bar at INA § 212(a)(9)(B). That waiver requires a showing of extreme hardship to a qualifying relative, and the statute defines qualifying relative as a U.S. citizen or lawful permanent resident spouse or parent.

Children are not qualifying relatives. It does not matter how many citizen children you have, how much they depend on you, or how severe the hardship to them would be. If the only U.S. citizens in your immediate family are your children, there is no qualifying relative and there is no waiver.

Why the bar only bites when you leave

Why that matters so much is timing. The bar only triggers when you leave. As long as you stay inside the country, the unlawful presence bar is dormant.

The moment you depart for a consular interview, it activates. If you accrued more than a year of unlawful presence, you face ten years outside, and without a qualifying relative there is no waiver to shorten it. People leave for what they are told is a routine interview and cannot come back.

The order the questions have to run in

So before anyone books a flight, the analysis has to run in a particular order. First, does a qualifying relative exist, meaning a U.S. citizen or permanent resident spouse, or a U.S. citizen or permanent resident parent? If yes, the I-601A path may be real. If no, stop and look for a way to adjust status inside the country instead.

Second, how much unlawful presence actually accrued? Protected status, being a minor, and certain pending applications all change the count, and sometimes the total is under 180 days and there is no bar at all.

Third, and this is the trap that catches people who cleared the first two questions, the I-601A waives unlawful presence and nothing else. It does not touch a prior finding of misrepresentation under INA § 212(a)(6)(C)(i), a criminal ground, or a prior removal order.

An approved provisional waiver is not a clearance certificate. Applicants read it as one, travel, and are refused abroad on a ground the waiver never covered. Every other ground of inadmissibility has to be identified and addressed before anyone leaves.

Fourth, is there a way to fix the entry so that no departure is necessary at all? INA § 245(i) grandfathering, authorized travel for someone holding a protected status, or a lawful entry that people forget they had as a child can each change the answer entirely.

The order of those questions is not academic. Run them in the wrong order and a family gets separated for a decade over paperwork.

This week: Write down every U.S. citizen and permanent resident in your immediate family and how they are related to you. Add up your time in the country by entry and exit. Pull any old denial or removal paperwork. Those three things decide the answer.

Get a second opinion before you buy the ticket. A wrong answer here costs a decade. Call or text 512.761.8479.

I understand that a deadline like this one does not feel like a legal problem. It feels like the ground moving under a family that did everything asked of it for 20 years.

What a citizen child can and cannot do

So let me be direct about what is still realistic. If you have a son or daughter who is a U.S. citizen aged 21 or older, that child can file an I-130 for you, and a parent is an immediate relative, so a visa is available with no waiting line. The petition is not the obstacle.

Your entry is. If you came into the country without inspection, you generally cannot adjust status inside the United States under INA § 245(a), and the Supreme Court held in Sanchez v. Mayorkas, 593 U.S. 409 (2021), that a grant of TPS is not an admission. TPS by itself does not fix the entry.

Authorized travel is the fix

What can fix it is authorized travel. Apply for travel authorization, leave the country, and get inspected when you come back. USCIS then treats you as inspected and admitted under INA § 244(f)(4). That has been the policy since July 1, 2022. That cures the entry defect and opens the door to adjusting status here rather than leaving the country for a consular interview.

Now the part nobody wants to say. If you do not already have travel authorization, be realistic. These applications are not decided in a few weeks, and the trip has to be finished while your TPS is still good. For most people reading this today, that window has effectively closed.

If you already have the document in hand, talk to a lawyer this week. Not next month. And do not leave the country until someone has looked at your specific case. If TPS ends while you are outside, you may not get back in.

Why a consular interview is not a safe fallback

Do not assume that leaving for a consular interview later is a safe fallback. Departing can trigger the ten year unlawful presence bar, and the waiver for that bar requires extreme hardship to a U.S. citizen or permanent resident spouse or parent. A U.S. citizen child does not count. Families discover that only after someone is already abroad.

The question to ask today

One question costs nothing and sometimes changes everything. Did anyone ever file a visa petition or a labor certification for you on or before April 30, 2001? If so, INA § 245(i) may let you adjust status here despite the entry, on payment of a penalty fee. Spend ten minutes on the old paperwork.

Immigration dates move. Terminations get enjoined, extended, and re-noticed, sometimes within the same week. Do not act on what you read here without confirming where the designation stands today for your specific situation.

This week: Find out whether you already hold travel authorization. Ask every relative and former employer whether papers were filed for you before April 30, 2001. Gather your TPS approval notices and work permits in one folder. Then call.

If your family is affected by this date, do not spend the remaining days guessing. Call or text 512.761.8479 and I will tell you in one conversation which options are actually open to you.

The past year has brought unusually frequent changes to filing fees, processing rules, vetting procedures, travel restrictions, and how certain applications are decided. Many changes arrived through executive action; some were paused or reinstated by the courts within weeks. If your plan relies on what the rule was six months ago, your plan may already be out of date.

My approach is simple: I do not advise from memory. Before I tell you what is safe to do, I check the current state of the law for your specific situation and country of origin: the fee that applies today, the vetting procedure in effect this month, the processing posture at your particular office.

Because immigration is federal law, I represent clients nationwide, not just in Texas. I regularly assist clients in the Chicago metropolitan area and have helped people referred from Dallas, Houston, and beyond. I speak English and Spanish, and my staff also assists clients in Hindi and Urdu, because immigration is stressful enough without a language barrier.

If your plan depends on a rule you read about months ago, have it checked against today’s law. Call or text 512.761.8479.

One of the most common calls my office gets starts the same way: “I talked to two immigration lawyers and they told me opposite things. Who is right?” The honest answer is that the disagreement itself is the diagnosis. When experienced lawyers split, it almost always means your case turns on a specific detail that general advice glosses over: an exact date on your I-94 record, how you entered the country, or precisely what a form requested.

That is why I start every consultation by pinning down the facts before offering an opinion. I pull the actual receipt notices, the I-94 history, and the filings, because in immigration a single date can be the difference between a safe path and a bar that separates a family for years.

It is also why I urge people to talk to a lawyer at least once before filing anything with USCIS on their own. Many of the problems I am hired to fix began as well-intentioned do-it-yourself filings that triggered a request for evidence, a denial, or a referral to immigration court. In the current enforcement climate, the stakes for a misstep are higher than they used to be. A single consultation before you file can save you years.

Before you file anything with USCIS, let’s talk through it once. Call or text 512.761.8479 to schedule a consultation.