[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 March of 2020, Annchi, a woman from China, came to [nap_names id=”FIRM-NAME-1″]. Wong’s office in New York seeking our help because she was afraid that she would soon be subjected to deportation.
Annchi had come to the United States about one year prior on a fiance visa to marry a man named Warren who she had been corresponding with for several years and really believed she was in love with.
Warren, however, turned out to have sociopathic tendencies and, though, he never physically touched her, continually practiced psychological abuse, which was well-documented by both her psychologist, who she had been seeing over the past several months, and her physician whose records indicated that anxiety and stress had been taking its toll on her physical well-being.
What’s more, Annchi was very aware that Warren had been engaged in illegal activities such as tax avoidance and insurance fraud and kept careful notes on what she had witnessed.
Right after she married Warren, Annchi, at her new husband’s insistence, had gone to an attorney friend of his, to apply for a marriage-based green card but, due to her separation from Warren, she believed that she might have missed her interview notice. Besides, due to Warren’s relationship with the attorney, she wasn’t comfortable working with him anymore and had secured her own divorce lawyer but was afraid that if she went ahead with the proceedings, she might soon be forced to return to China which she didn’t want to do.
After hearing her story, our team advised Annchi to tell her divorce attorney to file for divorce immediately. We then filed an I-360 (Petition for Amerasian, Widow(er), or Special Immigrant) because Annchi qualified as a spouse of an abusive U.S. citizen under the Violence Against Women Act of 1994.
Accordingly, we also filed an I-765 (Application for Employment Document), an I-131 (Application for Travel Document) as well as re-filed the I-485 (Application for Legal Permanent Residency) because the attorney friend of Warren who had filed the first petition refused to return our phone calls.
To Annchi’s great relief, the I-360 petition was approved in August of 2020 as were the I-765 and the I-131 just two months later. Because she now had an employment document, Annchi was able to accept a job offer as a bilingual interpreter for a New York firm that did a lot of business with counterparts in China.
Meanwhile Annchi obtained a divorce and, due to her meticulous notetaking, criminal proceedings against Warren were initiated. Along these lines, law enforcement officials were so pleased with Annchi’s detailed accounts of her ex-husband’s wrong doings that they offered to help her obtain a U visa which is reserved for foreign-born people who are willing to assist law enforcement in the investigation/prosecution of suspects.
Although Annchi certainly qualified for a U visa, it proved to be unnecessary because in January of 2020, she attended her USCIS interview accompanied by a member of [nap_names id=”FIRM-NAME-1″]. Wong’s legal team which resulted in the immediate approval of a green card.
