With backlogs increasing at Asylum Offices across the nation and fewer applicants being selected for interviews under Priority 1 scheduling, more clients (and potential clients) are looking for options to secure permanent residence or other status earlier. Our panel of experts will discuss options, strategies, and challenges for these applicants.

Featured Topics

• What Are Important Considerations, Challenges, and Advantages for Maintaining Your Client’s Nonimmigrant Status
• Your Client Is a Beneficiary of an Approved I-140, I-130 Petition, or the Diversity Visa Lottery: Can Your Client Adjust Status?
• Is Travel on Advance Parole an Option While the I-589 Application Is Pending?
• Pursuing Ways to Circumvent the Backlog, Including Expedited Processing Requests or Derivative Applications
• Options for Your Client’s Family Members to Come to the United States: Humanitarian Parole, a Nonimmigrant Visa, etc.

Free Downloadable Seminar Recording Included with Live Registration Included with registration, participants in the live seminar will receive a free downloadable recording of the seminar. It will be available in participant's Agora Digital Library approximately 4-7 business days from the seminar date.

Faculty

Dree K. Collopy, AILA Asylum and Refugee Committee Chair, AILA Author, AILA's Asylum Primer: A Practical Guide to U.S. Asylum Law and Procedure, 8th Ed., Washington, DC

Dree K. Collopy is a partner of Benach Collopy LLP. She serves as Chair of AILA’s Asylum and Refugee Committee, authors AILA’s Asylum Primer, and was honored with the Joseph Minsky Award in 2014. Dree frequently lectures and publishes on cutting edge immigration issues and is an adjunct professor at American University’s Washington College of Law. She earned her J.D. from The Catholic University of America Columbus School of Law and B.A. from Grinnell College.

Amy Maldonado, East Lansing, MI

Amy Maldonado is a solo practitioner at the Law Office of Amy Maldonado. Ms. Maldonado has been invited to speak at several AILA national and regional conferences, the FBA Immigration Law Conference, the ABA Children’s Rights Litigation Committee and PLI. She has been recognized for her pro bono federal litigation service on behalf of detained immigrant families. Ms. Maldonado received her J.D. from the University of Pennsylvania Law School (1998).

Karin Tolgu, Seattle, WA

Karin Tolgu is a solo practitioner in Seattle, WA. Her firm handles a variety of complex immigration issues, including asylum, T- and U- visas, waivers, removal defense, family-based applications, and naturalization. Karin speaks Estonian, Spanish, and some Russian. She is an active member of the Washington Chapter of AILA who dedicates some of her time to pro bono representation; she is a frequent speaker on the subject of immigration law at AILA events and community forums.