In this webinar, we will discuss the distinction between motions to terminate, remand, reconsider and reopen. We will discuss which motion to file depending on the posture of your case in immigration court. We will take a deep dive into motions to reopen including how to make effective equitable tolling and sua sponte arguments. In addition, we will discuss hurdles to overcome if your client has departed the United States after the vacatur. Lastly, we will learn how to successfully obtain a bond redetermination hearing in immigration court pending the motion to reopen with the BIA.
Presenters
Carla Gomez - Senior Staff Attorney, ILRC
Carla Gomez is a Senior Staff Attorney in San Francisco where she focuses on the intersection of criminal and immigration law, including post-conviction relief. Carla has over 20 years of criminal defense experience as both a federal and county public defender and has extensive experience as an immigration defense attorney.Prior to coming to the ILRC, Carla started her career as a Federal Public Defender in San Diego where she tried over 15 federal felony trials, argued several times before the Ninth Circuit resulting in published opinions including U.S. v. Ramirez, 273 F.3d 903, (9th Cir. 2001). Carla then became a San Francisco Public Defender where she practiced for over 15 years as a felony attorney, and, in 2017, she was part of the team that spearheaded the Immigration Unit.Carla has successfully defended the most challenging cases in immigration court where her clients with serious felonies have won asylum, withholding, the Convention Against Torture and readjustment of status. Her successful post-conviction relief practice throughout California including Monterey, San Mateo, San Joaquin, Sonoma, Kern, Fresno, Sacramento, and Pasadena has saved lawful permanent residents with aggravated felonies from deportation and allowed immigrants to adjust their status.Carla earned her undergraduate degree from U.C. Berkeley and her J.D. from the University of San Francisco where she participated in the United Nations Working Group on Migrant Farm Workers in Geneva. Carla is fluent in Spanish and conversant in French.
Merle Kahn - Partner, Law Office of Merle D. Kahn
Merle Kahn has been exclusively practicing immigration law for over twenty-five years. She has experience in removal defense, criminal immigration issues, asylum and refugee law, naturalization, and family-based immigration. She represents clients before the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, the Board of Immigration Appeals, USCIS, ICE, and the Superior Court of California.
She works with criminal prosecutors and criminal defense attorneys to craft criminal pleas that will not have adverse immigration consequences and works on post-conviction relief cases for immigrants. She is the creator and author of the acclaimed immigration blog, Top of the Ninth. She is a frequent presenter at Continuing Legal Education programs for the American Immigration Lawyers Association and provides legal advice and assistance for several non-profit organizations in the Bay Area. She is the founder and director of the Jewish Family Services/American Immigration Lawyers Association pro bono legal clinic for refugees.
Merle was previously a staff attorney at the Immigrant Legal Resource Center in San Francisco where she ran a legal hotline for immigration professionals, wrote practice manuals, and presented at legal education seminars on immigration law. She was an associate at the Law Offices of Angela M. Bean, where she focused her practice on removal defense and on Ninth Circuit litigation, and was an adjunct professor at Evergreen Community College and San Francisco City College where she taught immigration law.
Before entering the field of immigration law, Merle worked as a prosecutor for the Attorney Registration and Disciplinary Commission in Illinois, and as a law clerk for the District of Columbia Office of Bar Counsel where she investigated and prosecuted attorney misconduct.
Merle is a graduate of the George Washington University National Law Center in Washington DC and the University of Illinois in Champaign, Illinois where she graduated with High Distinction in English Literature. She is admitted to practice before the California Supreme Court, District of Columbia Bar, Illinois Supreme Court, Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, and U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. She is an active member of the American Immigration Lawyers Association.
Aruna Sury - Consultant, ILRC
Aruna Sury is an immigration attorney with vast experience in removal defense, immigration consequences of crimes, and federal appeals. She is based in Seattle, WA and provides consultation and litigation support to attorneys throughout the country. Through ILRC’s Attorney of the Day program, Aruna provides legal guidance to criminal defense and immigration counsel. She regularly contributes to ILRC publications by authoring and updating content that enables practitioners to provide high quality representation to their clients. Aruna also presents ILRC trainings and CLE courses on a variety of topics.
Since obtaining her law degree from the University of Texas at Austin in 2001, Aruna has dedicated her career to the areas of immigration and civil rights in various settings in San Francisco, Seattle, and Austin. She has worked in law firm and solo practice environments as well as in non-profit and public organizations, including Washington Defender Association, University of Washington, Kids in Need of Defense, and Political Asylum Project of Austin (now American Gateways). Aruna’s personal interest is in immigrants’ due process rights, particularly the right to effective counsel and expansive access to judicial review. She has secured published and unpublished Ninth Circuit decisions in these and other areas. She has also successfully litigated cases in the First, Fourth, Fifth, and Eleventh Circuits.