 back to our show, everybody. We're the voice for the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce Hawaii. I'm your host, Barbara DeLuca, President and Co-Founder, along with my Vice President and Co-Founder Marisol Ruiz. Today's episode is real talk with immigration attorney Omar Arturo Paquerano Larios. His passion is bridging lives and building dreams or conectando vidas y construyendo sueños. So we have three fun facts about Omar. Número uno. He's a founder and managing attorney of Valor Immigration. We could talk about that in a minute. It's a Boti immigration law firm helping individuals to successfully navigate the complicated landscape of the U.S. immigration system. Número dos. He experienced firsthand the challenges faced by immigrants who come to this country seeking a better life. Omar immigrated to the U.S. with the help of his family and has helped other family members immigrate as well. Número tres. Omar obtained his first degree in law in El Salvador before coming to the United States in 2012, where he pursued a master of law degree at the University of Southern California. Okay, let's stop right there. Welcome to the show, Omar. Hola, Yaloja. I'm very happy to be here with you and get a chance to talk about a very important topic, which is immigration and the impact it has in our day-to-day lives and society. Thank you so much for being here. I'm especially thrilled for two reasons. I myself am a Salvadoran as well, while my mother is from El Salvador, so I'm happy about that. And also, I graduated from USC as well, so my fellow Trojan, I love it. We're going to get into, we don't have a lot of time. We're really excited that you're here before we get kind of into the details and the nitty-gritty of exactly what you do and the complications of immigration law and everything that it entails. Could you begin by just, you know, on a personal note talking about, talk about you, you know, where did you come from, all of your, the details that brought you to this point today. Give us some insight on who you are, please. I would love to. And thank you, Barbara, for the introduction. But as Barbara was mentioning, I was myself born in El Salvador. I lived there for them, you know, pretty much half of my life. I was able to come to the U.S. thanks to the help and efforts of some of my family, some of my relatives that came to the U.S. during the Civil War. And, you know, my family and I had the blessing of being able to come here to the U.S. and experiencing, you know, getting to know this country as, and all the opportunities, you know, that it gives to people. And like everybody else, we dreamed of one day being able to come here and that dream was able to materialize thanks to the help of my family. One of my aunts, who was a U.S. citizen, she married a citizen and became herself a citizen and she petitioned for my family. And that was, I guess, my first approach to immigration law was as a child because I was able to get my residency thanks to this petition that was filed on behalf of my family, right? So by the time I was able to immigrate, you know, even back then, it was taking a long, long time. I was already an adult by the time I got my green card. Sadly, some of my family was not able to come with me because they were already, they had already aged out. You know, I didn't understand much of what that meant at the time. But what I did know is by the time I was able to come here, it was just my father and myself. I was already an attorney and a solider at the time. And when I came here, you know, seeking a better life, that's what motivated me and drove me to come here to the U.S. And I just, you know, had to decide what I needed to do to be able to pursue my career here. So that's when USC came in, you know, I was able to do my master's there and also my Juris Doctor degree I got from Emory. And once I became an attorney, the life presented me the opportunity of being able to do this as my profession, right? To be able to help families stay united, to be able to maintain that family unity, which is one of the things that immigration law seeks to preserve. And, you know, that's what has led me to this path. You've accomplished so much in 12 short years since you've been here. That means it's been 12 years? Yes. I came here in 2012 when I was able to immigrate to the U.S. And a lot has happened since then. It's been a great journey. I've been able to help, you know, so many families. And one of the biggest takeaways of me being able to practice immigration specifically is, you know, touching these lives, not just the lives of the clients, but also for generations to come, you know, knowing that I have an impact on those families has been a great takeaway for me. Omar, you had said that you didn't understand when they were kind of petitioning for you, there's a phase out, I guess, like a certain, at a certain point, can you not petition, I mean, how does that work? And what is that age, I guess, cap? And then has it changed since then? It hasn't changed. So what happens is that there's different types of categories under which a person can immigrate. Most of the time, what you think about and what you hear is when citizens petition for their relatives, that's what's called an immediate relative petition. So what that means is that when the petition is approved, the person can immediately pursue their green card. But that's not the case for everybody, right? When you have what's known as the preference categories, which is what happens for the majority of the relationships, right? So think lawful permanent resident filing for their spouse, lawful permanent resident filing for their children, siblings, US citizens siblings filing for each other, that falls under what's known as a preference category. And what happens with that is that there's a waiting period between when the application is approved, the petition, and when you're able to actually obtain your green card. So what happens is that when you have a preference category, there's one person who's the main or principal beneficiary, right? In the case of my family, it was my father. My aunt had petitioned for him. But because the petition was what's called a preference category, there's what's called the derivative beneficiaries, which is the family members, right? The spouse, the children. So the reason why I got my green card is because my father was the principal beneficiary of that petition. But for these individuals that are called derivative beneficiaries, there's a provision that when they reach 21 years old, if they turn 21 years old before they're able to immigrate, then they age out. They're not able to obtain the green card at that point unless there's a... And this is a full topic that we could discuss for a moment. Oh, for sure. There's a protection that's called the CSPA, the Child Status Protection Act, which in certain circumstances allows children to preserve that age at a certain point in time before they turn 21 and they're able to immigrate even though they're waiting for a long time. But it's a very complex area of the law and many people that end up waiting a long time for their cases to be completed end up aging out of their derivative status, right? If they don't have any other way of getting a green card, then they lose the ability to do that. And that's it. So I'm just thinking, I mean, as you're speaking, listen, this part time that we have is nowhere going to be enough. So we're for sure going to have you back. We're excited to connect you. And we already did that yesterday with other members of the community. I myself personally, my wheels are spinning as I'm listening to you. I... I guess it can sound a little... I don't know. You're really, you know, you could be optimistic about the idea of coming here. But then unless you know the rules of the game, right? Unless you know the rules of the game, you don't know how to play it and what you need to do to have a successful, you know, migration over here. I personally, I'm so blessed my mother had the courage. She came from El Salvador during the Civil War. So I'm first generation American, a little bit different than, you know, your situation. But, you know, had she not done that and come here, I mean, I wouldn't have gone to SC. I wouldn't, you know, have all these fabulous opportunities and help all these other people. So, you know, regardless of what people say as far as immigration, I think it's a wonderful thing. But it's us, you know, in your field specifically, right? Is to advocate for people, educate them, teach them. Because I just had like this, my heart just sunk for a moment. My mother finally reunited. This is a personal note. And my mother just reunited with my... I have a brother in El Salvador. And I mean, he's older now. He's in his 40s. And my mother is really ill right now. They haven't reunited since he was a baby. And I'm like, oh, we can, you know, bring him over here. This is just my thinking. Let's bring him over here. And she's like, no es tan fácil, Marisol. I'm like, let's bring him. So she filed. I don't even know what exactly she did, but it's been years, you know. And I'm like, mom, how do you know the application got lost? How do you know that anybody's even working on it? Is anybody really advocating, right? So how does somebody navigate? And how do those questions really, really get answered? Or did we, you know, we put ourselves in a situation where, sorry, you're 40, you're not going to make it over here. I giggle, but it's, I mean, it's true. If you don't know, and you don't have anybody advocating for you, what do you do? Right? Yes, absolutely. And I think that is a very important point that you make here is that it's the immigration legal system is incredibly complex. There are so many different requirements, different rules that can change depending on on the specific circumstances of a person. Right? So some, I have, I've had so many clients, I can't, I can't, you know, I wouldn't even seem to give you a number of how many people I've had that have come to me that have maybe filed a petition on their own. They're like, hey, you know what, it's been, you know, three, four years, I'm a US citizen. I filed for my, for my child. They, they're thinking, you know, I'm a US citizen, I'm going to be able to get my child here, right? That's what they medically go to. What they don't, you know, what they don't know is that they're, when, when the children or adults, different rules apply, right? So right now, the wait for, for, for a child to immigrate through the petition of a US citizen, whose their parent can take up to 15, 20 years, depending on the circumstances. So I've had people come to me like, hey, you know, can you speed this up? Can you help me get this approved? And I'm like, the reason why you're not getting this approved, one is the processing times. Yes. But at the same time, you need to understand that even if this petition was approved today, this person would not be able to immigrate, right? Because under their preference category, their priority day is not going to become current for another 12, for 14 years. And the same happens between siblings, you know, petitions between siblings, you know, if the, if the petitioner is a US citizen and their child is over 21, if they're married, it's the worst. The wait time currently for siblings, right? Petitioning for, for their brothers or sisters is, is 20 years, a little bit over 20 years essentially for Mexico. So it's definitely a lot of things that need to be considered before we move forward, right? Because if they file this petition, you know what, they, they, they, it costs them easily $535 just for the petition itself. But more than that is the waste opportunities. Because I've had clients that have, have filed this way and they actually didn't consider that maybe there was an alternate path that they could have pursued that would have allowed them to come here sooner. So definitely, that's a great point. And it's one of the reasons why it's important to seek counsel, right? Seek advice. And not just seek counsel, not, not, not seek any advice, right? Because I know that, you know, sometimes we like to talk to the primo, the, everybody has their own story to tell. And they do it in, you know, out of a good place, right? They want to help. But we need to keep in mind that all circumstances are different. Every case is different. And we have to consider so many different little details that can affect whether a case can move forward. So that's one of the main reasons why you would want to get on the chart. Well, okay. Let me, let me poke the bear here a little bit. Would it make a difference because I'm thinking if I'm from the Netherlands and, you know, I have family in the Netherlands and I'm petitioning, I'm American citizen and it's my son. Highly doubt. And maybe I'm, you know, I, I don't want to. That's right in my mind, Marty Solby. You know, it's like, is it going to take somebody from petitioning, you know, somebody from the Netherlands 20 years? Or is it dependent on the country? You know, El Salvador versus India versus, you know, England. That was my question because he made a good point. I mean, he mentioned Mexico particularly. But I, from what I understand, and we can delve into this in another show because we have 15 minutes left and so much to cover. There's different pathways. The citizenship depending on where you're from, like Cuba, like I, you know, that's, that could be a whole another conversation. Definitely. Yes. And to answer your question, of course, we can't go into the inner workings of USCIS and how they allocate and how many, if there's really, if they follow this, right? But what I can tell you is that generally the countries that have the most number of petitions, they tend to have longer wait times. And that's why I mentioned Mexico specifically because Mexico and Philippines, for example, in China, India, these are the countries that typically see the most number of petitions coming in and therefore their wait times are isolated. They're individualized because they tend to be longer, right? Because the reason why the wait is long is because there's an allocation of a maximum number of visas that are given each year, immigrant visas. So the more applicants that come from a country apply each year, the longer that wait is going to be. So when you go, there's a way that you can see this, it's called the visa bulletin. And in the visa bulletin, it'll give you a date depending on whether it's Mexico, Philippines, China, India, or all other chargeability categories, which basically means any other country. So to answer your question, there shouldn't be a preference over, for example, Netherlands versus UK or El Salvador, but if you are considering these countries like Philippines or China or India, then definitely the wait is going to be longer for those. Okay, so it's as far as like take a number, so to speak, right? Take a number and get in line. Yes. Oh my goodness. So this is a two-part question. What brought you to Oahu? And what area were you practicing before and what led you to immigration law? That's a very interesting question. So let me start with the short one. So the reason why I came to Oahu was because of work. Before I started my own practice, which I did very recently in November, I was working for a nonprofit here in Hawaii that's called the Legal Clinic. And I just saw it as an opportunity. I've always had the dream, the vision of being able to start my own practice. But this opportunity presented itself for me to come here and help out a community. And just it was such a wonderful opportunity that was presented to me that I just couldn't say no. And I had a wonderful time there. I was able to help out, you know, do outreach efforts to the neighbor islands. And it was actually that position that allowed me to see what the need is out here. There's so much need here in Hawaii that is not being met, and specifically with the Hispanic community. So it was my identifying that need that is not being met of the Latinos being able to get help from an attorney that speaks their language, that understands their journey, right, is what pushed me to say like, now it's the moment right now. Now is the time that I need to do this. In terms of how I started practicing immigration law, I would have to say it was a combination of multiple things. One of them was my exposure to this as a kid, right, like I mentioned to you before, I lived the immigration process myself. My uncle, my wife's, my, sorry, my aunt's husband who he was an immigration attorney. And he's the one who helped us at the beginning. And I was able to visit them and I saw him, the kind of work he did, the kind of clients he did. And I always said to myself, you know, it must be cool to do that. I would want to do that when I grow up. Eventually, you know, when I started practicing at the very beginning of my career, I started doing something completely different. I was doing, I was a litigator doing international commercial arbitration, which was very interesting. But at some point, I, life presented me the opportunity of being able to help my wife in this case, get her green card. And when I was able to do that, and I saw how complex it was, and I'm like, there's, you know, I'm pretty sure that there's a lot of need for people to get guidance and understand how this process works. And that's what kind of motivated me to make that shift in my career. And it's the best decision that I've made career-wise in my life. The level of satisfaction that I get from being able to help my clients get their families to come here and stay together. It's, you know, professionally, there's nothing more that I can ask. So that's how I ended up in immigration. I think that covers both of that. You've made so much progress in the past 12 years. Where do you see your firm in five years right now? That's a great question. So, I mean, right now, what I see for my firm is I would really want to increase the reach, right? I want to be able to make the best use right now. Technology gives us these platforms that allow us to increase our reach exponentially. So I want to be able to not only serve the communities here in Hawaii, but also be able to extend my reach out to California, at some point, Virginia, and Texas, and then just grow as a firm, be able to get more attorneys that can work with me and we can help as many people as we can, right? Because the need exists. You know, I have a great working relationship with the nonprofits. I continue to have a good working relationship with them here, but there's, you know, there's still a lot of need for more immigration attorneys. So I just want to make sure that I'm able to do my part to make sure that we are meeting that need. You don't just serve like as far when I'm thinking immigration because you're the Latino in Salvador and you speak Spanish, right? I mean, do you serve like, you know, can you talk a little bit about clients that you serve, countries, like a little bit about that? It's not just Latinos, right? No, no, definitely not. Although I do have to say I have a lot of Latino clients and I think they're, you know, they're wonderful. I love to, you know, part of the reason why I decided to embark on this adventure now was because I wanted to serve the Latin community, but I have clients from the Philippines. I have clients from Japan. When I was with the legal clinic, you know, I've served clients from Russia, from Nepal, from Philippines, from China, you know, definitely that has been a great experience that I've had here because when I was in California, I think my practice was a little bit more skewed towards the Latino community, you know, and I had a lot of clients from Mexico and Honduras and Salvador, but here in Hawaii, I've been able to kind of expand that and, you know, learning about a lot of different other circumstances that normally you don't observe, right, in the clients that are from Latin countries that you have to address, right, with people that are coming from different backgrounds. Right, it's definitely a melting pot and it keeps you on your game because you're consistently learning, you know, new, I guess, laws and about where they're from and the process. What are some hot topics in immigration right now? Oh, this would be something that, you know, we could probably have an entire 30 minutes discussing this, but if I had to pick some stuff that I wanted to talk about today, one of them is, which is very time sensitive and whenever I see people right when I encounter somebody right now, I do my best to try to make them aware of this, is that there has been a fee increase across the board that has been, it's been discussed for over a year now, but they hadn't implemented a final rule until very recently, we got the notification that the notice and comment period was over and it's going to come into effect starting April 1st. So there's a lot of different fees because every time that you file something with USCIS and affirmative form of relief, there's a fee that you have to pay most of the time, I would say, there's some exceptions, but most of the time you have to pay a processing fee and they can be quite hefty and for a lot of these, they're going to increase starting April 1st of this year. So the reason why I bring it up is because I know that sometimes people are like sort of on defense or kind of thinking about doing it, definitely that might be a factor that you want to consider that the fees are going to increase and specifically for, for example, the adjustment of status application. Currently, the fees for that are 1225 if you consider the biometrics fee and you're able to file for an employment authorization document and a travel document as well, and you didn't have to pay for those extra forms, now you're going to have to start paying for those. So the cost of filing for these applications is going to come close to $3,000 now that we want to factor in all these different forms that you didn't have to pay before and now you will. Are there any nonprofits that are out there that you can get help from to help cover those fees or like a scholarship or something? So there's nonprofits here in Hawaii that some of them, for example, the legal clinic, if you meet certain eligibility criteria, they will provide you the legal services free of cost, but they will not cover the fees. Now, some forms do have a fee waiver. USCIS allows you to file for a fee waiver if you fall under a certain level of income, but it's not available for all of the forms, right? So, for example, in the case of the adjustment of status application, only certain categories of immigrants will be able to file for a fee waiver, but most of the applicants will have to cover that fee. Is it legal to offer assistance? Would it be considered like a gift or can somebody else pay for your fees? Somebody can pay for your fees. I've had a lot of clients who then they perhaps are not in the best position financially and they have received assistance from their family members, but you do have to understand that when you have this circumstance, all you have to do is make clear that the client is the person who you are representing as an attorney, even if somebody else is paying for the fees, but in terms of confidentiality and communications, the relationship is going to be between the attorney and the person who's filing for the relief. And really quickly, sorry, before you get into a couple more hot topics, are most of the applications, I mean, I know like back in the day, everything was paper turn in, right? Like with the advancements of technology and everything, is it still that way or are things done more like everything electronically, a hybrid? Do you, can you switch a little bit on that? Yes, definitely. It's a little bit of a hybrid currently. USCIS is pushing for filing electronically whenever possible, but unfortunately, there's a lot of forms that they haven't, they haven't, they haven't made this possibility yet. So for example, things such as the I-90, the replacement of a green card, the N-400 naturalization form, even I-130s can be filed electronically, but some forms, for example, the adjustment of status form cannot be filed online. So if you, if you, if you want to file something, you just have that, you have to make sure and then USCIS as a website, which can clearly, it has a list of all the different forms that can be filed online, but definitely if you have the choice between finding online and paper, you definitely want to go with the online application. Right. USCIS will process these a lot faster. Interesting. Yeah, so not as easy. What are some other hot topics? Well, another very important change that has happened and this is one of the things with immigration law, it's dynamic, changes all the time. There has been a recent ban that was implemented, which is sort of like a rehash of a ban that was implemented during the previous administration that affects people who are seeking asylum. Right. So it's very important nowadays, if you entered the US after May of 2023 and you think you qualify for asylum, please make sure that you reach out to an attorney because there are some new rules that have come into place that have basically disqualify a lot of individuals from being able to apply for asylum. What they're trying to do is they're trying to create some order in how people are coming in. So they created this process that's called CBP1, but which is working progress is what I would say, but what they've done is that they've created a new ban where if people didn't come in through the country using that process, meaning if they cross the border at any other point of inspection and did not fall through the process, save some very few exceptions, they will automatically be barred from being able to obtain asylum even if they otherwise meet the eligibility requirements. Wow. So you're forced to kind of go down that path of entry, right? Correct. Wow. Before we end, we have a couple minutes left. We just want to end this with what is the most important thing to you as becoming a United States citizen? One of the most important things to me, that's a great question. And I guess I'm going to turn this into a message of, for me, one of the greatest things that I've been able to do is to make my voice be heard through the electoral process, through voting, right? Because for me, immigration is such an important topic, and it's one topic that I want to see all the politicians that I'm a constituent for, that I want them to make it a priority, right? And the only way that we can do this is through the exercise of our vote. So definitely one of the biggest benefits for me personally is being able to vote and holding politicians accountable and being able to do that through the voting process. Oh, and how can our viewers contact you? Thank you. So, well, you can reach out to me via email. My email is omarv at valorlaw.com. You can also, I have a LinkedIn page. My website is currently under construction, but it should be ready to go hopefully by next week. It's been hitting the ground running and getting everything ready to go, but you can also reach out to me directly by WhatsApp or email. I'm easily accessible. Thank you so much for joining us today. Marisol, do you want to say anything? Yeah, you're, Omar, prepare yourself. We're gonna keep you busy. We're gonna have you do workshops with us, putting you out there in the community, yeah, exposing you in your services, actually sharing. Excellent. I look forward to that. I'm looking forward. Well, thank you, Omar. Thank you so much for joining us today, and thank you, Marisol, and thank you, Think Tech, Hawaii for hosting the show, and we'll be back in two more weeks. Adios, Geloja. If you liked this show, why don't you give us a like or subscribe to our channel? Thanks so much.