[Please note: The Client’s name and case key details may have been altered to preserve the identity of the client. This Success Story is not intended to be an offer of service or case plan. Every case is unique. The Success Story is presented for information purposes only.]
In July of 2014, the [nap_names id=”FIRM-NAME-1″]. Wong team in Cleveland started working with Huiqing, a young man from China who came to the United States on a “B” visa and immediately applied for asylum based on religious persecution since he was a Christian.
To be sure, Huiqing was a very intelligent young man who had earned high marks as a math student. He well-represented himself at the initial asylum interview that was conducted in Chicago, but he realized that if he wanted his case to ultimately succeed, he must secure proper legal representation, so he turned to the Margaret W. Wong team for help.
Although he received money from home, Huiqing’s resources were diminishing so we arranged for him to receive an employment authorization document (EAD) so he could accept a job offer where he could put his math skills to good use.
We then reviewed all the documentation that he had submitted to DHS to amend and correct it although we were quite impressed with what he had done so far.
From what we read, it seemed that Huiqing’s main claim for religious persecution rested on an incident that involved him being approached by intimidating authorities outside of his church and then instructed to accompany them to what turned out to be an uncomfortable location where he was held for several days with minimum food/water before being released without being charged with anything.
Huiqing told us, however, that based on experiences that his other Christian friends had undergone, he knew that this was only the beginning of inevitable harassment. Therefore, we instructed Huiqing to contact the before-mentioned friends and obtain written testimonials from all of them as well as from family members as to how deeply committed Huiqing was to the practice of his faith.
Initially, the date for Huiqing’s next hearing was to be in 2017 but several months prior to the occasion, we received word that the engagement had been pushed back to April of 2019.
In the interim, we renewed Huiqing’s EAD and he excelled at his job, even receiving a couple of promotions. He also remained quite active in church activities.
By the assignation, we had put together quite a dossier of statements, affidavits, and commendations from people who knew Huiqing both in China and in the United States with those in China supporting his contention regarding religious persecution.
At the hearing, the DHS official didn’t believe a pattern of governmental badgering had been established but we were able to counter him point-for-point due to the evidence that our team was able to put together.
Accordingly, the hearing ended with asylum being granted to Huiqing and DHS stating that there would be no appeal. Needless to say, Huiqing was both overjoyed and relieved and we got ready for our next assignment which was to secure for him a green card.
So, in March of 2020, we filed an I-485 (Application for Legal Permanent Residency) but, due to the Covid-19 pandemic, an interview wasn’t possible until almost exactly a year later in 2021.
Compared to obtaining asylum for Huiqing, acquiring a green card was a relatively simple process because we already had most of the information that we needed combined with the fact that he had never worked illegally in the United States thanks to money from his parents as well as the EAD’s we had secured and renewed for him.
In terms of other criminal behavior, Huiqing had only amassed two parking tickets since his arrival in the United States which were long before paid off.
Thus, by April of 2021, Huiqing was a green card holder, and the [nap_names id=”FIRM-NAME-1″]. Wong team had the appropriate date marked off on our calendar to begin to help him apply for U.S. citizenship in 2023.
