Immigration and Firm News

Looking Back at 2025: Resilience, Results, and Renewed Resolve

As 2025 comes to a close, we want to pause to reflect on a year defined by resilience, hard work, and meaningful victories for the immigrant families we serve.

We also acknowledge, with honesty and care, the lingering challenges and traumas so many continue to carry from the Trump administration – policies and rhetoric that separated families, chilled communities, and sowed fear. Those scars are real. They inform our advocacy and renew our commitment to a practice grounded in dignity, due process, and humanity.

Yet amid those headwinds, this year brought hope and good news. Across our caseload, we saw approvals that changed lives and safeguarded futures:

  • Family unity: We celebrated approvals of family-based petitions and green cards that reunited spouses, parents, and children, here in the United States and through consular processing abroad. Carefully prepared waiver applications helped many overcome old obstacles and move forward together.
  • Stabilizing and securing long-term employment: We worked on hundreds of employment-based cases, securing approvals of temporary H-1B, E-2, R-1, TN, Q-1, P-1, and O-1 statuses for foreign national workers in the United States. We secured many employment-based green cards, including challenging extraordinary ability and national interest waiver (NIW) self-petitions.
  • Humanitarian relief: Survivors of crime and abuse received protection through U visas and VAWA self-petitions, opening the door to stability and healing. We secured humanitarian protections for people fleeing persecution, helping them rebuild safely in the United States. Children won Special Immigrant Juvenile Status, transforming uncertainty into opportunity.
  • Removal defense: In Immigration Court, we continued to fight against unjust policies and unsound case law that threatens the fabric of those who seek asylum protection in the United States.
  • Work and stability: Clients renewed DACA and Deferred Action, preserved work authorization, and gained time to plan their futures. We also saw approvals of employment authorization for survivors and applicants in long-pending matters that had previously stalled.
  • U.S. citizenship: One of the most joyful moments we share each year is helping clients take the Oath of Allegiance. New U.S. citizens – many of whom weathered years of obstacles – now claim all the rights and responsibilities of full membership in our civic life.

These outcomes were possible because of the extraordinary efforts of our entire community.

To our attorneys: your tireless legal work, rigorous preparation, and fearless advocacy made the difference.

To our paralegals, legal assistants, and administrative staff: your precision, compassion, and persistence turned complexity into clarity, kept cases moving, and supported clients at every step. To our interpreters and translators: thank you for ensuring language access and dignity in every interaction.

To our community partners and co-counsel: your collaboration expanded our reach and impact. And most of all, to our clients: your courage in the face of uncertainty, your patience through delays, and your trust in the process and in us fueled every success. You refused to be defined by the obstacles the Trump administration threw in your way, and your perseverance inspires us daily.

2025 taught us lasting lessons:

We deepened our compassion-led approach, strengthened client communication, and leveraged technology to streamline filings, remote appearances, and secure document exchange. We honed creative strategies for ever-shifting policies and timelines, doubling down on meticulous case development and storytelling that centers the human impact. Most importantly, we forged stronger community bonds grounded in shared purpose and mutual care.

Our pledge for 2026:

Looking ahead, we renew our commitment to fighting for what is just, moral, and humane, even in the face of an administration that often does the opposite. We will continue to insist on due process, family unity, and fairness; hold agencies accountable to the law; and pursue every remedy available so that our clients can live, work, and thrive in safety.

Our pledge for 2026 is simple: we will keep showing up, case by case, to protect our clients’ rights and their futures.

To everyone who walked with us this year – thank you. Your trust and teamwork are the foundation of everything we do. We are grateful for the lessons learned in 2025, the bonds we forged, and the victories that brought relief and joy to so many families.

We wish you a safe, healthy, and peaceful end to 2025, and renewed strength, hope, and solidarity as we enter 2026. If you or your loved ones need guidance in the new year, we are here – ready to listen, ready to help, and ready to fight for what is right.

Angela Cifor and Jennifer Casey

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