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Family-Based
Date and Time:
04/10/2024 11:00am to 12:30pm PDT
Recorded Date:
04/10/2024
Place:
Online
Registration Deadline:
Wednesday, April 10, 2024 - 11:00am
MCLE:
1.5 CA & TX
Recording, $125.00
Level: Beginner / Intermediate
This webinar will focus entirely on marriage based I-130 petitions. Join us to learn what is considered a valid and bona-fide marriage for immigration purposes, what evidence is required for a marriage-based petition,  how to prepare clients and navigate through common issues encountered with USCIS and special marriage related “rules” in the statute, regulations and caselaw.

Presenters

Ann Block, Senior Staff Attorney - ILRC

Ann Block is a part-time Senior Special Projects Attorney with the ILRC based in Davis and San Francisco. She has been with the ILRC part-time since 2009 on a contract basis, and in 2019 transitioned to a staff position.  She also maintains a part-time private practice in Davis, California. Ann has expertise in family immigration, naturalization and citizenship, VAWA and U visas, asylum, removal defense, as well as extensive experience with immigration consequences of criminal convictions. She provides technical assistance through the ILRC’s Attorney of the Day program, mentoring and assisting nonprofit attorneys and staff, public defenders and private attorneys with a wide variety of immigration law questions and cases.

She has contributed to several ILRC manuals, including Defending Immigrants in the Ninth Circuit; Naturalization & U.S. Citizenship; Inadmissibility and Deportability; The VAWA Manual; The “U” Visa; Hardship in Immigration Law; Families and Immigration; Inadmissibility and Deportability; FOIA Requests and Other Background Checks; Removal Defense: Defending Immigrants in Immigration Court; and A Guide for Immigration Advocates/  Ann has authored articles, presented webinars, led the ILRC 40 hour basic immigration law training, and has served as a panelist on a number of immigration issues for the ILRC, the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA) and the National Immigration Project of the National Lawyers Guild (NIPNLG).

Prior to the ILRC, Ann gained extensive private and nonprofit experience as a staff attorney with Park & Associates, Catholic Charities in San Mateo, the International Institute of San Francisco, and her own solo private practice. Ann has additional teaching experience as a former adjunct professor at McGeorge School of Law, supervising the Immigration Clinic and teaching the podium course on Immigration Law.  She has also served on the California State Bar’s Immigration and Nationality Law Commission (INLAC), the entity that certifies attorneys as immigration law specialists, including as both vice-chair and chair of INLAC.

Ann earned her law degree from the University of California at Davis where she represented clients through the prison law and immigration law clinics. She received her undergraduate degree from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln where she double-majored in psychology and political science. Ann is admitted to the bar in California and is conversant in Spanish, with working knowledge of written French.

Carolina Castaneda, Staff Attorney & Lead Fellowship Trainer - ILRC

Carolina Castaneda joined the ILRC in February of 2023. After ten years in private practice, seven of those running her own immigration firm in Merced, California, Carolina brings extensive practical experience to the ILRC. She has represented detained and non-detained individuals in removal proceedings before the Executive Office for Immigration Review. She also has ample experience filing and representing clients before USCIS with cases spanning from the areas of DACA, advance parole, naturalization, SIJS, U visas, family-based adjustment of status, and consular processing. Carolina has also represented clients before the Board of Immigration Appeals and the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.

Prior to joining the ILRC, Carolina worked at the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights (CHIRLA), where she represented clients in removal proceedings and provided trainings to attorneys and staff. As an immigrant and Central Vally resident, Carolina strives to use her legal education and experience to positively impact, strengthen, and extend legal capacity in underserved immigrant communities.

Carolina received her J.D. from Loyola Law School, Los Angeles, and her undergraduate degree from the University of California, Irvine, where she majored in Criminology, Law, and Society. Carolina is admitted to the State Bar of California and the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. She is fluent in Spanish.