It’s an awful choice.

Facing deportation, many immigrants have only one defense against removal from the U.S.

Cancellation of removal.

With an emphasis on the hardship family members will suffer if the immigrant is deported, it requires immigrants with young children to make a painful decision at the outset of their cases.

Two options exist.

Take their children to a country foreign to them.

Leave them with relatives or friends in the U.S.

As a deportation defense lawyer, some days, you just don’t get any respect.

Especially from short-sighted allies.

A young woman, in her early 20s, walked into my office to talk about the DREAM Act. She had heard the news about Obama’s newest immigration proposal.

It reminded her about a meeting we had two years ago, when I told her about the DREAM Act as a possible solution for her immigration situation and to keep her eye out for it in the future, closer to the election.

Her optimism was blind.

When I told her that the current DREAM Act deferred prosecution proposal was not the real DREAM Act, she became upset. Not at the news, but at me.

The immigration prosecutorial discretion circus is coming to a city near you. But it’s unclear which performers are arriving and what acts will be carried out.

The proposed I-601 changes do not go far enough.

In early January, the administration announced plans to modify the unlawful presence waiver process.  The dreams of many immigrants soared.

I was cautiously optimistic, having been through several ups and downs with the Obama administration on immigration reform.

I am not ready to jump on the I-601 bandwagon.

I am not against streamlining the permanent residency application process.

I am not against promoting family unity.

I am not against revamping the unlawful presence bars.

Rather, I am opposed to the premature applause for the current I-601 proposal.

This blog post is Part 4 of our Mini-Series On Cancellation Of Removal for non-lawful permanent residents, an important component of our deportation defense services.

The limits of prosecutorial discretion have been revealed.

According to the New York Times, only 16% of immigrants facing deportation hearings at immigration court are being granted temporary refuge from immediate prosecution.

The suspended hearings can be reopened at any time.

Deportation proceedings in one year, two years, three years can begin anew.

This blog post is Part 3 of our Mini-Series On Cancellation Of Removal for non-lawful permanent residents, an important component of our deportation defense services.

“Torn Apart,” blared the Riverside Press Enterprise. A front page story, the article described a family’s ordeal, whose mother was deported to her home country a few weeks earlier.

The woman, age 31, had lived in the United States since age 2. She was brought here by her parents, along with her brother, in 1979 with valid border crossing cards. The family was supposed to leave. Instead, they stayed.

Today, the woman is married to a U.S. citizen. She has four U.S. citizen children, three from a previous relationship. Her parents are U.S. citizens.

Before she was deported, she sought Cancellation of Removal. She lost at her immigration trial, and then lost an appeal.

The story is common to most immigrant communities across the nation.

This blog post is Part 2 of our Mini-Series On Cancellation Of Removal for non-lawful permanent residents, an important component of our deportation defense services.

In 1996, as part of the Illegal immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act (IIRAIRA), Congress tightened the hardship formula in deportation court cases involving immigrants lacking legal authority to reside here.

The change, though creating a supposedly more rigorous standard of judicial review, did not eliminate that hardship factors must still be assessed under a totality of the circumstances test.

However, it did affect the permutation of direct and indirect hardship factors necessary for relief from removal.

This blog post is Part 1 of our Mini-Series On Cancellation Of Removal for non-lawful permanent residents, an important component of our deportation defense services.

Time and time again, immigrants facing deportation are baffled when I explain their family’s hardship may not be strong enough to win their Cancellation of Removal case.

“I’m the main breadwinner,” they explain. “If I’m not here, how will my wife be able to pay the house bills, feed my kids, and keep them clothed?”

“Isn’t this hardship?”

“Yes, it is,” I explain, “but for immigrants living here without permission, hardship under Cancellation of Removal means the worst of the worst situations.”