Attorney Benjamin Chi-Jen Hu's Legal Cases

Immigration

Secured border admission for Green Card residents returning to the US beyond their authorized 6-month absence

Aug 01, 2023

OUTCOME: Success in securing admission for all re-entering clients

Under standard US residence laws, the Lawful Permanent Resident status (LPR or "Green Card") requires that the holder makes the US their primary residence - a determination that relies on many factors, ... including physical presence in the US, personal and participatory ties to the US, and compliance with tax laws. When an LPR returns to the US after more than 6 months of absence, the border inspectors are directed to perform an on-the-spot determination of whether the LPR has abandoned their resident intent. Numerous returning residents, from Family-Based LPRs to EB-5 Investor Immigrant LPRs, were unable to return to the US to fulfill this residence requirement during the pandemic and political circumstances. Our firm provided bespoke support, working with each client to help them fulfill their LPR requirements as far as possible, and assembling a dossier presenting legal and documentary justification for any shortcomings in the record. Carrying this dossier through Customs and Border Protection, the clients were able to immediately provide evidence to support their case under CPB inquiry. For residents who may have invested very significant sums in order to acquire their LPR in the first place, this assurance helped them reenter the US and resume their residence here, refuting any claim of abandonment of residence.

Immigration

An I-130 for an US citizen's family in Afghanistan results in record-speed approvals

Jun 12, 2023

OUTCOME: Approval of I-130 in five weeks of adjudication.

Family immigration cases can be among the most rewarding cases for an immigration lawyer. Each case features a deserving relative already within the USA, either as a citizen or a Lawful Permanent Resid ... ent (LPR), and the attorney's task is to reunite the family members so they may build a new American life together. In most such cases, the family must exercise patience - with wait times of a year or more before the long-awaited reunion. In a recent case, the US citizen was a naturalized Afghan immigrant. They had provided valuable assistance to the nation-building efforts in recent years in Afghanistan. But with the changing political situations back home, their past aid was now placing their family members at risk. Our leading counsel documented the US citizen's previous aid to coalition forces in their nation building efforts, as well as the personal risks undertaken by the petitioner and their extended family - risks that the family continued to take every day in their desperate changed circumstances. The USCIS agreed with our arguments, approving the case in record time - after a mere five weeks of adjudication, opening the path to reunion for a family who had already risked so much.

Immigration

EB-2 National Interest Waiver approval for Exceptional Ability dental expert

Mar 03, 2023

OUTCOME: Successful petition for EB-2 Exceptional Ability (National Interest Waiver) - green card granted.

The candidate was a talented prosthodontist and dental expert, with a track record for rescuing patients with severe cases which confounded standard clinical dentists. Our firm's leading counsel de ... monstrated that he met the necessary factors under the EB-2 Exceptional Ability requirements, and that taken as a whole, the candidate satisfied the new Dhanasar test to establish National Interest in his talents, so that he was exempt from the Dept. of Labor's PERM Labor Certification requirements.

Immigration

Helping an investor immigrant's relative overcome criminal history bar to entry

Jul 01, 2018

OUTCOME: Approval of EB-5, approval of I-601 waiver of inadmissibility.

When a case features difficult facts in the applicant's personal background, it's important to start off with a strong strategy right from the beginning. A married couple planned to invest in EB-5, but ... one spouse had been imprisoned for several years for events that occurred in early adulthood, nearly four decades earlier. We knew this history would make immigration very difficult for that individual - but the other spouse could proceed as the EB-5 investor without obstruction, due to a spotless police history. We prepared and filed the EB-5 petition, securing an approval for the unblemished spouse, and prepared them for a visa interview together - warning them that the previously-jailed spouse would be refused. This indeed came to pass, and immediately after the visa interview denial, we prepared and filed an I-601 waiver of inadmissibility, with the approved EB-5 spouse as the Qualifying Relative. Our narrative made use of financial, medical, and emotional facets of their hardship caused by this suffering (including the broader familial difficulties within the US). After two years of adjudication, the case was approved, and the spouse successfully received their immigrant visa. Their early-adulthood transgressions of four decades past were forgiven and they began their new life with their family in America.

Benjamin Chi-Jen Hu's Legal Cases (4)

Secured border admission for Green Card residents returning to the US beyond their authorized 6-month absence

An I-130 for an US citizen's family in Afghanistan results in record-speed approvals

EB-2 National Interest Waiver approval for Exceptional Ability dental expert

Helping an investor immigrant's relative overcome criminal history bar to entry