YOU, ME AND THE LAW

You are a wanderer, adventurer, and dreamer who seeks to leave home to study, work, travel or settle in the United States. Or you are an employer, game for hiring such a wanderer and dreamer. Between you and your goal lies the deep, rocky, and perilous valley of United States immigration law.

United States immigration law is vast and complex. It is crafted and commandeered by eight gigantic government agencies, fueled by four government departments of juggernaut proportions, for corralling millions like you who attempt to enter the country every year. Hour by hour, layer upon layer of bills, statutes, regulations, and memoranda float out, swirl around, and envelop you swiftly as they are debated, enacted, amended, and quashed. If you venture out alone, you can get lost, or be found and restrained by iron-fisted enforcers. The consequences could be disastrous – loss of legal status, detention, separation from family, removal from the country, a permanent bar to reentry.

But if you go with an attorney who knows the terrain, she will pierce the fog and guide you to the new beginning you seek. Here is why that attorney should be me:

MY SERVICES ARE COMPREHENSIVE

My practice aims to cover the length and breadth of United States immigration law. The following is a sample:

  1. Green Cards through Family, Employment, Asylum, and Lottery;
  2. Temporary Visas for Tourists and Businessmen; Fiancé(e)s, Spouses, Parents, and Children; Professional, Skilled, Unskilled, Religious, Extraordinary Workers; Exchange Visitors and Trainees; Intra-Company Transferees; Traders and Investors; and Several Others;
  3. Extension and Change of Visa Status;
  4. Representation at Removal Proceedings in Immigration Court;
  5. Waivers to Cure Ineligibility for Green Card and Eligibility for Deportation;
  6. Special and Humanitarian Measures for Providing Status or Removing Obstacles to Green Card – TPS, 245(i), NACARA, CSPA, VAWA, Family Unity, I-130 Reinstatement;
  7. I-9 Compliance Advice for Employers.

Unless you prefer someone with narrower ambitions and expertise who provides fewer services, I am the attorney for you.

MY ATTENTION IS YOURS

I am a solo practitioner. I answer your first phone call and all your subsequent queries. I meet with you face to face. I prepare and present the case, fill out the forms and write the cover letter. If an appeal is necessary, I write the brief. I represent you before the immigration officer or immigration judge, or in federal court.

Unless you prefer your work done by a paralegal or associate, I am the attorney for you.

MY EXPERIENCE HAS WEIGHT

I have practiced law since 1988 and immigration law, exclusively, since 2001. As a member of the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA), I have privileged access to the collective experience of all its members and with their help, to the elusive and inscrutable immigration agencies.

Equipped with such experience and resources, I can identify and resolve all immigration issues, even those I have not encountered before. I can trace your case to the deepest cavern at earth’s farthest end where it was left to die by your non-expert efforts. I can rescue it and bring it back to life.

Unless you prefer a less experienced attorney or none at all, I’m the attorney for you.

MY PERSONALITY HAS DIMENSION

An immigrant to the U.S. myself, I gave up a future in my country for a future in another. I can empathize, therefore, with your loss and gain of home, and your immigration-related sorrows, frustrations, aspirations, and joys. Also, since I balance constantly the demands of two countries and cultures, I have grit, guts, and perseverance. I am not easily shocked, or put off, or scared away. Equally, I can put myself in the shoes of the “other” side and respect its concerns and arguments.

These personality traits allow me to pitch a case to the immigration authorities as the occasion demands, with sophistication and sensitivity, dexterity and diplomacy, and persistence and fervor. Unless you prefer a less colorful personality, I am the attorney for you.

MY PRESENCE EXTENDS WEST TO EAST

Like all other attorneys in the age of internet and overnight courier, I can represent you no matter where you are in the world. But unlike other attorneys, I can also represent you from and in India where I spend the summer every year in my hometown Calcutta, now renamed Kolkata. From there, several airlines can fly me to a city of your choice – Delhi, Mumbai, or Chennai, which (along with Kolkata) harbor the U.S. Consulates, or Bangalore and Hyderabad, from where India’s IT emissaries gallop out world-wide.

Both here in the U.S. and there (or here in India and there), you have a language choice. In addition to English, I speak Hindi, Urdu, and Bengali. If you seek communication in other languages, I can obtain suitable interpreters. Unless you insist that your attorney speak all the languages that I don’t, I am the attorney for you.

MY FEES ARE AFFORDABLE

My fees are reasonable. I was led to practice law by social idealism stoked by the inequalities I perceived between the rich and the poor in Calcutta. As a result, the fire in me burns to use law for providing services, fixing problems, righting wrong, and helping the underdog – which in the area of immigration law often includes foreign nationals from all classes. My consultations can be efficiently brief, or last until you begin glancing at your watch. My flat fee is rendered lower still by the extra hours I spend on each case.

Unless you believe that sky-high fees are a necessary component to good lawyering, I am the attorney for you.

MY EFFORTS WILL NOT DISAPPOINT YOU

Though no attorney can guarantee success, my professional services are strongly likely to bring positive results and my personal touch, to keep you warmly satisfied. In short, you will not find an attorney quite like me.

Sujata Winfield
Friedrich, Caspar David (1774-1840) >
Wanderer Above a Sea of Fog. Ca. 1817. Oil on canvas, 94,8 x 74,8 cm.
Photo Credit : Bildarchiv Preussischer Kulturbesitz / Art Resource, NY