Recent AAO Victories

Robert Pauw writes:

"1. Approval of Proyecto San Pablo application.  This is representative of about a dozen decisions that have just come out of the AAO.  Proyecto San Pablo is a legalization lawsuit we filed in 1989 concerning legalization denials based on an allegation of a prior deportation that broke “continuous residence”.  The government argued over and over (and ultimately won the argument) that the courts have no jurisdiction to rule on the “substantive” issue of whether an applicant can be approved if s/he gets a waiver of the prior deportation and/or shows that the prior deportation violated due process.  But we won on the “procedural” issue, where the court does have jurisdiction, with the court ordering USCIS to produce the prior deportation file for review or, if not, then USCIS cannot use the alleged prior deportation against the applicant.  25 years late, USCIS is finally approving these applications based on the procedural rule.

2. Approval of a 212(i) waiver (Ralph Hua in our office worked on this case).  Of note because the AAO rejects USCIS’s unsubstantiated allegations that the applicant (a Serbian) was involved in human rights abuses during the Bosnian-Serbian war.  The AAO relies on a very helpful expert declaration describing war-time conditions in Bosnia."

Gibbs Houston Pauw

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