Immigrant Family Spared From Deportation

Promsiri Family with Attorney Shusterman

Imagine living in the U.S. for almost your entire life, and then one day without any advance notice, you receive a letter in the mail from the Immigration Service that you are going to be deported to the country of your birth because of a technical mistake made by the government when they granted you a green card almost 35 years ago. This is exactly what happened to the Promsiri family.

The Promsiri family arrived in the United States from Thailand in 1971, and became permanent residents in the mid-1970s. The two boys, now professionals in their 40s, were only 3 and 10 years old when they first came to the U.S.

Although each member of the family applied to become naturalized as a U.S. citizen starting in 1983, the government never approved their applications.

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Then, one day in April 2009, almost 40 years after they had made the U.S. their country, they were served with Notices to Appear before an Immigration Judge to be deported back to Thailand!

The family visited our office to seek our assistance. We asked the government to exercise “prosecutorial discretion” to cancel the removal proceedings against the family. Our letter to the USCIS details the facts of their case.

To the family’s great relief, one week before their hearing before the Judge in June 2009, the government agreed to join with us in asking the Judge to terminate the removal proceedings and allow the Promsiri family to proceed with their applications for U.S. citizenship.

On September 25, all three members of the Promsiri family were sworn-in as citizens of the United States.

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