Immigration

Aggressive Advocacy and Focused Solutions

Driven by shifting political forces, the framework of policies and regulations that make up U.S. immigration law is in constant flux. Businesses of all sizes, and the millions of talented professionals who make up today’s modern workforce, face numerous challenges when attempting to navigate these complex laws. Our immigration lawyers are dedicated to helping clients confront and overcome those challenges. Relying on expertise that stems from decades of in-depth immigration experience, UB Greensfelder's Immigration Law Practice Group delivers comprehensive services and focused solutions for multinational corporations, health care institutions, small and mid-sized businesses, families, and individuals.

Business Immigration Enforcement Defense

Since January 20, 2025, the White House has issued Executive Orders that directly impact corporations, healthcare institutions, universities, and other entities. On a daily basis, clients are asking: What sort of activities can ICE conduct at companies, businesses, and hospitals? Is there a best practice for businesses in dealing with ICE enforcement? How should a business, hospital, school, or church respond if ICE arrives to arrest an employee, patient, student, or parishioner or is seeking information?

Our Immigration Group is providing answers and critical guidance.

We actively advise large and small businesses, major hospital systems, universities, and religious institutions on these and other cutting-edge questions in this fast-paced, ever-changing rigorous enforcement environment. We help clients minimize exposure to immigration enforcement, and we address it aggressively if and when it occurs. We represent clients before the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the Department of Justice (DOJ), and the Department of Labor (DOL), and defend businesses faced with civil and criminal enforcement actions, including large-scale government raids and audits. We advise clients at every stage of government enforcement actions, including representation from the initial investigation through resulting litigation. The UB Greensfelder immigration team is available for advice and, where necessary, aggressive defense of enforcement actions by DHS, DOJ, and DOL. It’s essential that employers strictly comply with all employment eligibility verification regulations. Our team also counsels corporate clients on ICE and DOL audits, employer sanction defense, wage violation defense, and Notices of Intent to Fine. 

Physician and Health Care Immigration

International medical graduates and foreign-born physicians make up a substantial component of the U.S. physician workforce. Essential to the health and vibrancy of our country, these physicians and the health care institutions they work with are faced with an overwhelming burden in the form of complex U.S. immigration laws and regulations. Due in part to UB Greensfelder’s deep experience representing health care institutions, our attorneys have particular expertise in representing clinical and research physicians in a variety of matters, including waivers of the J-1 two-year home residency requirement, O-1 “extraordinary ability” visas, EB-1 “extraordinary ability” and “outstanding researcher and professor” petitions, and EB-2 physician (PNIW) and standard national interest waivers (NIW).

Corporate Immigration and Visa Support

Companies must recruit, hire, and retain top talent to compete. Representing companies of all sizes based in the U.S. and abroad, UB Greensfelder’s immigration attorneys take a business-oriented approach to helping clients secure the talent that drives their businesses. Our attorneys take the time to understand client goals, and design practical, cost-effective strategies for managing global workforces that align with those goals.

We counsel clients on obtaining temporary employment visas, lawful permanent residence, and U.S. citizenship. We also provide employers with immigration advice related to mergers and acquisitions, corporate law, international tax, I-9 compliance, and other labor issues affecting the employment of foreign nationals. Our immigration attorneys routinely represent clients before the Department of Homeland Security’s key immigration bureaus – USCIS, ICE, CBP, the U.S. Department of Labor, the Department of State and its U.S. Consulates worldwide, and the Department of Justice.

Consular Practice

The rules and regulations governing visa eligibility and admission to the U.S. are complex. Our attorneys have years of experience successfully representing clients seeking nonimmigrant and immigrant visa waivers before U.S. embassies and consulates abroad. We have obtained waivers of inadmissibility for foreign nationals who have been found to be ineligible for entry to the U.S. based on fraud, past convictions, and other grounds of inadmissibility. We also counsel and represent U.S. citizens seeking to renounce their U.S. citizenship abroad.

Individual and Family Immigration

Many highly-qualified, individual professionals seek to pursue their goals and expand their professional horizons by working in the U.S. Passing through the maze of constantly shifting U.S. immigration laws and regulations can be a daunting task. Our attorneys routinely represent individuals in a wide variety of immigration, visa, and citizenship matters. We routinely represent private clients, including high net worth individuals, entertainers, artists, and technology professionals, and their family members, in applications for U.S. citizenship, naturalization, marriage and fiancé(e) petitions, and more.

Removal Defense

We are dedicated to the zealous representation of immigrants facing deportation, and have successfully represented countless individuals charged with serious immigration violations before the Executive Office for Immigration Review and federal district and appellate courts. We are experienced in all phases of immigration litigation, including trials, administrative appeals, and federal court litigation. Our attorneys have strong track records of success litigating numerous applications for cancellation of removal, 212(c) relief, adjustment of status, asylum, withholding of removal, and protection under the Convention Against Torture (CAT).

We assist clients with nonimmigrant and immigrant visa processing, including:

Nonimmigrant

• H-1B, H-1B1, H-2A, H-2B, and H-3 – Professional, skilled, and temporary workers and trainees;
• L-1A, L-1B, and Blanket L Petitions – Intracompany executives, managers, and specialized knowledge personnel;
• E-1 and E-2 – Treaty Trader and Treaty Investor visas;
• E-3 for Australian citizens who work in a specialty occupation;
• O-1 and O-1B Extraordinary Ability - Business executives, scientists, physicians, researchers, artists, and sports professionals;
• O-2 – Support personnel;
• TN-NAFTA – Canadians and Mexicans;
• B-1 and B-2 – Business visitors and tourists;
• F-1 – Foreign students;
• J-1 – Exchange visitors including foreign medical graduates;
• K-1 – Fiancés;
• P-1 – Athletes and performing groups;
• Q-1 – Cultural visitors; and
• R-1 – Religious workers.

Immigrant

• EB-1 – Priority workers including extraordinary ability, outstanding researchers and professors, and multinational executives and managers;
• EB-2 - Advanced degree professionals, including alien labor certification (PERM) and national interest waivers;
• EB-3 - Professionals and skilled workers, including alien labor certification (PERM); and
• EB-5 - Investors.