Arizona Immigration Laws

About Solomon Kanu

Hi. My name is Solomon Kanu. I was born in Nigeria. I have some education in Nigeria. Actually my elementary and secondary education was in Nigeria. I have undergrad and graduate school in India. Then I have law school, which is the juris doctor degree from the United States. That way I know what it is to be born in a third world country, go to school in another continent, come to United States, and be able to succeed here.

Legal Experience

I’ve been practicing law now for (14) years. When I came to United States in 1991, I came as a visitor. By 2001, I had gone form being a visitor to being a permanent resident to becoming a U.S. citizen to being a lawyer, opening my own law firm, and practicing law in Arizona. I know what it takes to get someone from one little place to much bigger place. I’m not an immigration lawyer. I’m the immigrants’ lawyer. The difference between me and a regular immigration lawyer is that sometimes they have to look at the books to do this, but I’ve been through this myself. I’ve been through being a visitor to going through becoming a permanent resident to becoming a U.S. citizen to helping a lot of people get there also.

Visa Experience

I do visas for people from nearly (50) countries of the world. I know people from Asia, from Australia, from Africa, England. I know people from– I’ve done a visa just the other day for someone from Germany. I’ve been around and I know what it takes to get people to where they want to be. Immigration law is very complex. It may look easy at the face, but the more you go the more you find that you need someone that has not only the experience and passion, but also the desire to actually help you get to where you want to get to in United States.

Kanu & Associates

I’m available for private consultation. I’m available on the internet. kanulaw.com is my URL. The phone numbers are listed on my website. I have done consultations by Skype, by phone, in person. I prefer in person, but I realize that I have clients in Germany and France and Australia and Pakistan. I do Skype consultations for people and I’m able to do their work regardless of the location. Immigration law is national, so where you are doesn’t really matter, but if you need to call right away the phone number is (602) 324-5320. Again, (602) 324-5320. Toll free is 1-855-KANU-LAW. 1-855-KANU-LAW.

By: Solomon Kanu

E1 & E2 Visas

The E1, E2 visas are very popular visas for visitors from all around the world. There is a requirement that United States have a treaty with the country where you are applying from, but there are so many countries that United States has a treaty with. You can find that list from my website – www.kanulaw.com. We’ve done E1, E2 for people from Pakistan, from Australia, from Germany. We’ve done E1, E2 for people from Britain and we’ve done E1, E2 for people from so many countries.

Visa Popularity

It’s a very popular visa for people that have money to spend in United States. When they raise these funds, they’re able to create jobs for themselves and create jobs for United States citizens and permanent residents to the extent that their businesses flourish and are doing well. They can stay on that visa for a very long time. There’s actually no end time as long as the business is doing well. It’s a very good visa for people. Canada uses it a lot to come to the United States. Mexico also uses it to come to United States to invest and do their work. It allows people to go back and forth to their home country. It’s a very stable visa for middle income people that have some money to invest in U.S.

By: Solomon Kanu

Asylum vs. Withholding

Asylum is for people that are running away from their country, coming into United States. And we have a lot of them all the time. Withholding is usually a situation where if the person does not qualify for asylum – and there are so many reasons why they may not qualify for asylum – then we give them withholding of removal, which in our matter was it.

Safety First

We will not send you back to your country until things improve or until we are sure that you will be safe if you went back to your country. We’ve done that many times. One of my favorite cases is for a young man from Guatemala who had been persecuted because of his religion. When he came back to United States, he was detained for months. Eventually we went to court, we were able to persuade the judge that people in his country stopping him from practicing his religion was enough reason for us to keep him here. Even though the government fought very vehemently to send him back, we were able to prevail and he’s still in United States now.

While he was detained, his wife had a baby. The wife, because of her own status, couldn’t even go to see him in jail. We fought very hard until he was released and he went home, reunited with the family. They are very happy now, they are doing very well.

Kanu & Associates

So we do asylum for people. If you are running away, if you are being persecuted because of your sexual orientation, because of your religion, because of your race, because of your political opinion, we are here to help you. We are here to make sure that those your fears, United States actually does understand those fears. I will give you the protection that you deserve.

By: Solomon Kanu

Religious Visas

Religious visas are visas that are carved out exclusively for people that are engaged in religious work. So they could be pastors. They could be rabbis. They could be imams coming from outside of the United States to do religious work here.

Religious Visas for Pastors

We’ve been very successful in doing that for people in the Catholic and Anglican church. We bring pastors and religious workers from all over the place. We insure when they come here and do what they say they’re going to do. It gives me a lot of joy each time I’m able to help a pastor concentrate on their pastoral work, because it’s very very difficult to come in and not know what to do. So we help all these churches. We help some of the dioceses in United States to bring pastors from all over the world, put them where they’re supposed to be. Ensure that the transition from being a religious worker to permanent residence because you do need to stay two years before you can apply for permanent residency when you come in on a religious visa. So we moved in from religious visa to permanent residency and eventually to U.S. citizenship. So it gives me so much joy when we do that.

Religious Visa Lawyer

It is one of the areas that I do sometimes do for less than my normal price because I have a some kind of special interest in helping religious workers, pastors, and other people that do religious work. I would never forget one of the people we helped from Romania that does his chanting in the Orthodox church– in the Romanian Orthodox church. By the time we were done to when my office with flowers just to thank me for what I did. But I said, “Well I charged you money. Why are you paying me?” They said, “You don’t know what you did for us.” Our church would have fallen apart but for this man. So it gives me joy when this churches can stay together because the pastors or the rabbis are there.

By: Solomon Kanu

The American History really controls the inflow, the immigrants of our people. But in the past 20 or 30 years, that’s where I lucked out because I came right at the height of the economic boom off of America. But now it’s difficult because now with the– because H1B law is only 65 number. In my days I was H1B. That’s unlimited numbers. The filing fee in my days is like $25. Now it’s just a filing fee of H1B is $1500. Anybody who hires more than 25 people, the $500 anti-fraud, $320 for the H1. If you have family and married, that’s another $300 including wife and kids. So if you have five kids and one husband, you still– it’s under the one filing fee of $340 so H1B.

So things have really changed. If you have Masters, if you have a net of $20,000– so by April first all these numbers that you stop. So both as an immigration lawyer and as clients, we are very in tuned to the timing of the year. The H2s are the Mexicans. On H2s they come to America by February, March, or April because that’s when all the seasonal work is coming, and they leave because Christmas is a big holiday in South America and Central America. So they normally go home at that time and come back.   Then a lot of foreign students now because they all economically more powerful than we were when I came.  When I came just a one-way airfare from the Far East is three, four thousand U.S. The exchange rate in those days is eight to one. Now it’s still eight to one. In China now six to one, 6.4 to 1. So in my days it cost like thousands of dollars to fly over on 90 day, 30 day boat ride. So we’d never go home. Even for New Years we’d pay– even though you’re willing to pay to stand in line in the dormitories to make a long distance call. One long distance call for one year. But we write letters. Of course in those days there’s no Google. The phone is still circular phone. It’s not a punch phone.

So I look back and I’m so glad of this program because it really makes me think how times have changed. But the work remains the same.   To be a great anything, Minister, lawyer, doctor, cook, dry cleaner, you really have to be the best of the best. If not you won’t survive in America. It’s not like 30, 40 years ago. All of us expected a job. The unemployment rate was about one or two percent. Now it’s like– they say 7%. I think it’s like 15% now unemployment. You’re not good you’re not going to get a job. If you get a job you won’t be happy. So why work when you’re not happy and you really are not accomplishing your dreams.

By: Margaret Wong

601 Waiver

In the past, we had what we call a 601 waiver. Those are waivers for people that have overstayed in United States, for people that have done some little thing here and there. Those waivers require that the immigrant go back to their home country, apply there, wait for it to be done there before they can come back.

601A Waiver

In 2014, we had a different waiver, which is called the 601A. Very good waiver. It now allows for people to file for this pardon here in United States, get it approved before you go to Mexico or go to your home country. That way the families stay together before the immigrant goes for the visa in their home country. The problem with that waiver was that the hardship was only for people married to U.S. citizens. The new waiver has been– the executive action expanded that waiver such that it’s no longer just people married to United States citizens. People married to United States, family, residents can qualify. People that have children here can qualify. They can also their children to show hardship because this is a waiver that you can get when you can show that if you move back to your country that either your child, your spouse, or your parent will suffer.

Now this waiver that was only for spouses of U.S. citizens has been expanded to include the parents and the children. Again, it’s very welcome. It’s quite expansive. It allows people to kind of pay for the mistakes they’ve made, but have a second life, which is what this country’s all about.

By: Solomon Kanu

By: Margaret Wong

By: Solomon Kanu

Hi, I’m Scott Bratton, I’m a partner at Margaret Wong & Associates. I’ve practiced immigration law for the past 13 years representing immigrants throughout the United States. I specialize in federal litigation, removal defense, and other complex issues involving immigration law. I’m the head of the Removal Defense and Litigation departments at Margaret Wong & Associates. I also teach immigration law at Cleveland State University.

I handle complicated immigration matters ranging from removal defense to federal litigation and adjustment of status and naturalization cases. Our firm represents immigrants throughout the United States in all aspects of other immigration cases. We passionately represent individuals in trying to help them obtain their dream of citizenship, non-immigrant status or lawful permanent resident status. If you have any questions, please contact me, and I’ll be happy to talk to you about your case.

By: Scott Bratton