Category: Montana

We are proud to be featured in the Super Lawyers magazine for 2024.

The America His Father Believed In
Shahid Haque’s fight for a more equitable Montana for immigrants, by Amy White

Excerpt: His father, who grew up in a rural village, was one of few in the region to go to medical school in the U.K. before obtaining a visa to come to the U.S. in the mid-’70s. “He was a big believer in Reagan- era politics, the idea that we are a melting pot, and that immigration was improving the country,” Haque says. “We’ve lost sight of that, but my dad really believed in a land of opportunity where people of all races and cultures come together.”

. . .

[H]e’s noticed that people are often against immigration in the abstract only. “They’re against some unknown enemy they’re told exists,” he says. “But once they actually meet somebody, things change. I have farmers and ranchers as red as you can get who call me and want to talk about how we can help somebody through the immigration system because they know this person to be a hardworking, honest family man of good character. And what they’re surprised to learn is that oftentimes, there’s no good pathway to help because our immigration system doesn’t have an option.

I’d like us to get back to the real issue: Why are our immigration laws so restrictive? Why can’t we pass reform so that we can actually help people who would be a benefit to our country? I’d love to see the United States my father believed in.”

The Bozeman Daily Chronicle reports:

Montana Democrats supported the Supreme Court’s ruling Thursday that President Donald Trump’s push to end legal protections for about 700,000 young immigrants may not continue. Republican members of the state’s congressional delegation disagreed with the decision.

Trump sought to end Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, which allows “Dreamers” to continue to work and be protected from deportation. DACA was created in 2012 under the Obama administration and Trump included terminating DACA as part of his presidential campaign.

The court voted 5-4 to uphold the program, with Chief Justice John Roberts joining four more liberal justices in the majority.

There were 70 DACA recipients in Montana as of the end of 2019, according to data from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.

. . .

Montana joined several other states by making it clear that local law enforcement officials may not arrest and detain immigrants under federal immigration detainers.

The Montana Supreme Court ruled unanimously that the state had violated its own laws when a law enforcement officer in Lincoln County detained a man for possible immigration violations after his arrest on suspicion of burglary.

Agustin Ramon, a French and Mexican national, had attempted to post his $25,000 bail but was denied based on a federal immigration detainer request. He was detained for 48 hours after his two-day incarceration, then spent the next two months in jail in Lincoln County.

Ramon filed a lawsuit against Lincoln County sheriff Darren Short, represented by the ACLU of Montana, the ACLU and the Border Crossing Law Firm. While a state court judge sided with the county, Ramon eventually found success with the Montana Supreme Court.

Read the full article here.

We recently spoke with Dante Filpula Ankney of the Montana Kaimin about UM soccer coach Chris Citowicki’s immigration journey.

Citowicki’s application to become a citizen did not come without hardships, but it was comparably easier than what other immigrants have experienced in the United States.

Obtaining citizenship has become harder for all immigrants under President Trump and his administration, according to Shahid Haque, an immigration lawyer and founder of Border Crossing Law Firm in Helena.

In fact, during President Trump’s first year in office, there was an increase of petitions filed to become citizens, but the number of people who were actually granted citizenship decreased by more than 40,000, according to the 2017 Yearbook of Immigration Statistics.

At the same time, the number of deportations by ICE increased by over 15,000, according to the 2017 ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations Report.

Also in Trump’s first year in office, Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced that the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program would be repealed, and President Trump instituted an executive order that stopped travel to the U.S. for six Muslim majority countries, as well as all refugees for 120 days.

“You are facing an agency that is looking to deny your case if they can,” Haque said, “and are happy to deny your case if they can.”

According to Haque, marrying a U.S. citizen is one of the easier pathways to attain a green card and become a U.S. citizen. However, applicants are put through interviews that scrutinize the legitimacy of the marriage throughout the process.

When the interview finally took place, he and his wife were separated into different rooms. Citowicki recalls being nervous and unsure of the birth dates of his wife and two kids.

“Oh, my God I hope our answers match on each side,” Citowicki said.

Both Citowicki and his wife agreed that waiting for the green card approval was the most stressful part of becoming a citizen. Those seeking citizenship must have a green card for five years prior to the citizenship process, according to Haque.

After having a green card for more than five years and meeting all other qualifications, it should take 10 1/2 to 16 1/2 months at Helena to become a citizen after filing your paperwork according to the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.

Citowicki had renewed his green card once before and would have had to renew it again in 2022 if he didn’t become a citizen. Luckily, he did.

Many immigrants today have trouble obtaining a green card to set themselves up to become a citizen. According to Haque, it is not easy for immigrants to attain citizenship in the U.S. right now, and it’s even harder for refugees.

Refugees are people seeking asylum in another country because they have been displaced by possible persecution, war, or natural disaster in their own country. They have to register with the U.N. outside of their country to become a refugee, according to Soft Landing Missoula’s website.

According to Haque, it is difficult to prove that you are even a refugee in order to seek asylum, let alone start the process to become a permanent resident after you are given asylum.

Immigrants are like Citowicki: people choosing to enter a country on their own accords. They enter the U.S. through a visa that defines the amount of time you are allowed to stay.

Visas, green cards and citizenship all result in a lot of paperwork and headaches for applicants. One small misstep, one missing document, and your case could be denied. That is why, Haque said, an attorney is helpful, though not necessary.

Citowicki said he and his wife spent $5,000 to $6,000 on attorney fees to become a citizen, most of which was spent in the process of getting a green card.

In the end, from taking the first step at an Ontario, California Airport to the ceremony at Great Falls, Citowicki’s process to becoming a citizen took a year and a half.

His personal views on immigration are molded from his experiences growing up — living in a refugee camp as a child, bouncing around the world to find a home.

“People need to be given opportunities to start their lives again if they are coming from a place that isn’t treating them well,” Citowicki said, “and America gives you the opportunity to do that. It’s what this country has been doing forever.”

Please check out the whole article here.

The New Republic reports on the case of our client:

On October 10, Audemio was transferred back to Montana, where he passed through an ICE office in Helena en route to the Cascade County jail. At the ICE office, a Jefferson County investigator and an ICE agent interviewed him, with Blanca Chapa translating via speakerphone from Idaho. They kept Audemio in handcuffs, as if he were the suspect and not the victim. Describing his rape, Audemio broke down and cried. He asked for the attorney he’d hired with help from the Mexican Consulate in Boise, Idaho, but the officers told him his attorney was unavailable.

This was not true. In fact, Shahid Haque, a Helena, Montana-based immigration attorney, was in the building, but was not allowed to see Audemio until after the interview ended. Amid the ensuing media coverage of Audemio’s case—the alleged sexual assault of a deportee while in government custody was newsworthy—there was speculation that Audemio made up the rape story for the purpose of securing a U Visa. Haque told me Audemio didn’t even know what a U Visa was when he reported the incident. At the time, his most urgent concern was getting the HIV prophylactics that had been prescribed for him in Idaho.

A week later, Haque secured Audemio’s release on the order of supervision. In the following months, Audemio repeatedly offered to assist in the investigation—to look at mug shots or a lineup, to comment on testimony from his cellmates—but he would not hear from the investigators again. Still more concerning, when Haque acquired the security camera footage through a court order, he found there were gaps on the night of the assault totaling nearly three and a half hours, including a two-hour block from 2:13 to 4:10 a.m. that coincided with Audemio’s estimation of when the rape occurred. Jefferson County Attorney Matthew Johnson—who fought Haque’s efforts to obtain the evidence, on the grounds that releasing it would jeopardize the pending investigation—said the gaps resulted from motion-sensitive cameras turning off when there was no activity in the cell. “When the video skips,” Johnson said in an email to Haque dated November 7, 2013, “it is because there was no movement for a period of time.” This was a red flag: The video from Audemio’s pod cuts out for the first time at 10:30 p.m., while people are still milling around and very much awake.

Read the whole article here.

From the ACLU website:

Shahid Haque was the 2017 Jeannette Rankin Civil Liberties Award recipient.  Below is the speech he gave at the award reception on March 4:

“It’s been a privilege to play a role in the lives of over a thousand immigrants and their families here in the State of Montana.  It’s been my honor to advocate for a group of people who never cease to amaze me with their strength, resilience, generosity, and hard work.

My job has been to help my clients navigate a system that is so exceptionally difficult and complex, just to achieve something so basic: just keeping families together, helping them live their lives in this state that they chose and love (despite the fact that sometimes their state doesn’t seem to love them). Through that work, it’s been a unique pleasure to shape, in some small part, the makeup of the State of Montana.

Since I’ve been doing this for almost a decade, I’ve gotten to see my clients at all kinds of different stages in their lives. I’ve often started representing clients when they were facing their worst and most vulnerable moment, when they are facing deportation from their home. You see people who aren’t criminals in handcuffs and a jumpsuit, maintaining their dignity as the proud fathers and mothers they are, hoping that they find their way out of this system that has swallowed them up. In those moments, you form a strange bond as your client places their trust in you to guide them through the Kafka-esque absurdity of our immigration court system and hopefully get them out.

On other occasions, I’ve begun representing clients under much happier circumstances. I’ve been part wedding planner, getting to know my clients as they start their new lives together as a married couple. I love hearing how my clients met, and what brought them together. That process is no less absurd, as we deal with endless technicalities and paperwork, and look for ways to document and prove the validity of two peoples’ love for one another to a government adjudicator.

No matter how our attorney/client relationship begins, I’ve enjoyed the fact that I’ve known many of my clients for approaching a decade now. I’ve seen the relief they feel when they get a piece of plastic we call a green card, which means they get to stay here.  Over the years I stay in contact with my clients because even after they get their permanent residence, I help them with  citizenship (years down the road), and I’ve often helped them petition for their parents to join them.

I’ve started to notice and appreciate the way the cycle of immigration continues, and how much it matters in a state like Montana, where so many people have never gotten to know someone from another country. I’ve realized that some of the xenophobia we see in Montana is based on a lack of exposure, and that with exposure comes understanding.

I’ve had many proud and happy moments as an immigration attorney, many of them involve asylum cases for people feeling from persecution in their home countries, for victims of domestic violence, for families who face exceptional hardships.

But despite my efforts, there have also been far too many people I haven’t been able to help, because our immigration laws are so arcane and restrictive, and only provide limited avenues for relief.

So I’d like to dedicate this award to all the undocumented people who have no path to alleviate their fears and are waiting and biding their time for laws to change, who live their lives here knowing that they stick out and that all it will take is one bad cop or one vindictive neighbor to risk being separated from their families. These people who check in with me every time they hear about a new policy designed to make them even more afraid, even less secure. They have been bearing this burden for far, far too long, but they are doing it with so much more grace than I could ever muster.

I want to dedicate this award to all of them, because it represents my promise to them, to keep fighting for them however I can, and to try and be a voice their concerns when they can’t do it themselves.

This year, more than any other year, immigrants in Montana are scared. They are going to need your support, in whatever form you can give it. This year, I invite you to join me in standing up to celebrate and support the immigrants living in every community throughout our state.

Thank you for his honor.”

Thanks to the efforts of the Border Crossing Law Firm, the Montana Supreme Court issued a unanimous decision striking down the entirety of an anti-immigrant law, which was placed on the 2012 ballot by the Montana legislature and approved by 80% of voters.  The law, known as LR-121, would have denied a wide variety of state services to so-called “illegal aliens,” including crime victim services, infant hearing screenings, and the ability to attend a public university.  It would have also required that state agencies report these applicants to immigration authorities.  The law defined “illegal aliens” so broadly that it included numerous Montanans who are in this country with valid legal status.

Before the law went into effect, the Border Crossing Law Firm challenged it as an unlawful state-level regulation of immigration that would have wrongly denied state services to non-citizens with valid immigration status.

MIJA was represented on a pro bono basis by attorneys Shahid Haque of the Border Crossing Law Firm, P.C., and Brian Miller of Morrison, Sherwood, Wilson, & Deola, PLLP during this over three-year lawsuit.

In 2014, a district court granted summary judgment in MIJA’s favor, and found that most of LR-121 was unconstitutional.  However, the district court allowed one provision, mandating reporting to immigration authorities, to stand.  The State of Montana appealed the district court decision to the Montana Supreme Court.  In its unanimous decision, the Montana Supreme Court went one step further than the district court and invalidated the reporting provision as well, rendering the entirety of the law unconstitutional.

“The law was a discriminatory attempt to drive immigrants out of the state, and would have unjustly targeted immigrants with valid federal immigration status,” Mr. Haque said.  “The Montana Supreme Court has sent a clear message that the state has no business attempting to create its own immigration enforcement schemes.”

“The legislature ignored its own legislative services division’s warnings that the law was unconstitutional, and wasted state resources defending this unconstitutional law,” Mr. Miller said. “The court’s decision protects vulnerable immigrant populations from discrimination by state agencies in the provision of important services.”

The Border Crossing Law Firm, P.C. is proud to continue its advocacy for immigrants in Montana through successful legal challenges to the state’s unconstitutional conduct.

(Originally published in the Montana Lawyer, June/July 2015 Issue)

Representing Immigrant Victims of Domestic Abuse:

Abusive spouses’ manipulation of the system and misguided police enforcement cause additional troubles for immigrant survivors of abuse.

By Shahid Haque

Attorney, Border Crossing Law Firm, P.C.

Every immigration case implicates matters of family unity or separation, and can dramatically impact a client’s livelihood and quality of life.  Immigration matters involving domestic violence and abuse are often the most challenging — but also the most important — types of cases for immigration practitioners.  In my practice, I have assisted dozens of immigrant victims of domestic abuse, including both male and female victims.  In this article, I will discuss some of the common characteristics of these abusive relationships and the difficulties these victims can experience — particularly when law enforcement works against the victim instead of providing support.

How Our Immigration System Provides Opportunities for Abusive Spouses

Immigrant victims of domestic abuse may enter the country on a marriage or fiancé(e) visa, enter the country illegally, or “overstay” a visa. The victim may be married to a U.S. citizen, a permanent resident, or another person who is undocumented. All of these factors play into the type of relief that may be available to the victim.

Abusive U.S. citizens often use their spouse’s immigration status as a way to exert undue control. Often the immigrant spouse is isolated from society, unable to easily leave home because he or she lacks a driver’s license, prevented from using a phone or computer to connect to friends and family, and prohibited from forming friendships with others. The abuse may manifest as physical violence or extreme emotional cruelty. The abuse is often furthered by threats of deportation if the immigrant spouse ever reports the abuse.  Often, there are children in the household, and the abused spouse doesn’t dare report the abuse to police because of the risk of being deported and leaving the children in the hands of the abuser.

There are many ways that an abusive spouse can use someone’s immigration status as a constant threat.  This type of control is possible because our immigration system provides unfortunate opportunities for U.S. citizens to manipulate their partners’ ability to obtain legal immigration status. For instance, when a U.S. citizen applies for a fiancé(e) visa, the partner enters on a visa that expires unless they get married within 90 days.  Sometimes the U.S. citizen deliberately refuses to get married, leaving the immigrant partner undocumented and unprotected by our immigration laws, but dependent on the abuser.

Even when a couple gets married, the U.S. citizen spouse can still wield control over the immigrant spouse. When a couple has been married for less than two years, the immigrant spouse only gets a two-year “conditional” green card. During that time, immigrant spouses could lose their status if they get divorced or separated, giving the abuser undue control during that time period. Just before the “conditional” green card expires, the couple is expected to jointly file a petition to prove that the marriage is ongoing and is genuine. If an abusive spouse intentionally misses that deadline, the immigrant spouse can be at risk of being removed (i.e. deported) from the U.S. An immigrant can request a “waiver” of the requirement to file a joint petition after the two-year period, but faces a high burden of proof to show the marriage was genuine, and many abused spouses are either unaware of this or afraid to do so.

I have seen many instances in which a U.S. citizen spouse has forced the immigrant spouse to work despite simultaneously refusing to fix the spouse’s immigration status, which puts the immigrant spouse in the position of working without government authorization — often at low wages and without proper workplace protections. It also places the immigrant spouse at higher risk of being detected and arrested by immigration authorities.

Police Need to Be Vigilant and Understanding About Immigrant Victims of Abuse

It is critically important that police be aware of these dynamics and work to protect immigrant victims of domestic abuse. However, sometimes police and immigration officials have worked against abuse victims and helped the abusers. This is due, in part, to the manner in which immigration violations have been “criminalized” in our culture. Despite the fact that most immigration violations are civil in nature, local police have incorrectly viewed them as being serious crimes, and have overlooked the more serious issues of abuse that should be their focus.

A few years back, a female client of mine was strangled in public and police were called to the scene. The male abuser was convicted of partner/family member assault. Although they had been married for many years, and she had no impediment to getting a green card through marriage, the husband refused to follow through with a petition. He had not held a job for years, and he had forced his spouse to purchase a fake green card to obtain employment to support both him and their children.  But, after his conviction, he “tipped” immigration authorities that she was undocumented and had a fake green card.

Immigration authorities took the bait. They launched an investigation and a few months after the abusive spouse’s tip, they had arrested my client, taken her into custody, and issued a final order of deportation against her. They apparently did not take note of the fact that at the time the abusive ex-spouse “tipped” them, he had already pleaded guilty to Partner/Family Member Assault, had a permanent restraining order against him, and the Missoula County Attorney’s office had just brought misdemeanor and felony charges against him for violations of the order of protection. To make matters worse, the U.S. Attorney’s Office brought charges against her in federal court for possession of a fake green card, and she pleaded guilty. Now, that conviction is posing an obstacle to getting immigration relief as an abuse victim.

Types of Relief Available

The options available to immigrant victims of domestic abuse vary considerably depending on the circumstances, and have detailed requirements. Without delving into the minutiae of each type of relief, the following are some of the possibilities.

The Violence Against Women Act provides opportunities for the spouse of a U.S. citizen or permanent resident to “self petition” for lawful immigration status when he or she is the victim of physical abuse of extreme emotional cruelty.  The petition must be filed while still married or within a year of divorce.  “Good moral character” is a requirement, and is sometimes a real obstacle.  In the example referenced above, U.S
. Citizenship and Immigration Services agrees that my client was the victim of abuse, but is asserting that her criminal conviction for possession of a fake green card shows bad moral character.  We continue to fight her case and argue that they have their priorities wrong.

When the victim of abuse cooperates with law enforcement in the prosecution of an abusive spouse, he or she may also pursue a “U” visa.  This application must be certified by a Judge, prosecutor, or law enforcement officer.  While many law enforcement officers are reluctant to certify due to unfamiliarity with the U visa, this visa provides a pathway to permanent residency and citizenship, and should be seriously considered.

Victims of human trafficking, whose situations may differ considerably from abused immigrant spouses of U.S. citizens, may pursue a “T visa” under the Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act.

In some rare instances, an immigrant victim of domestic abuse can pursue asylum.  Refugees who flee from their home countries to escape persecution on account of race, religion, political beliefs or particular social group can ask for asylum in the U.S.  It is a difficult form of relief to win due to its high burden of proof.  However, we recently won asylum for a woman from Mexico who fled the country to escape her husband’s severe violence and cruelty. We were able to demonstrate that she was viewed as the property of her husband, that she had reported the abuse to police and been ignored, and that she had fled multiple times only to be captured and returned to her husband. Under these rare circumstances, the immigration judge agreed that the abuse amounted to persecution on account of her “particular social group” and that she had a reasonable fear of returning to Mexico.

“Mail Order” Brides?

Sometimes, we hear of immigrant victims of domestic violence referred to as “mail order brides.” Except in the rarest instances, the term is really a misnomer, as it is not representative of most relationships or the manner in which most immigrant spouses came to the United States. In addition, it has some offensive and sexist undertones. First, it implies that the legal burden to get a visa for a spouse is easy. That is certainly not true, as one who goes through normal immigration channels to obtain entry on a fiancé(e) or marriage visa has to prove a genuine relationship, and this can often be difficult. In our practice, we have often dealt with legitimate marriage petitions that get wrongly denied because they don’t fit into traditional stereotypes.

The term also implies that the women who enter the U.S. as immigrants are complicit in wanting to enter into fake marriages just for the visa. In my experience, the immigrant spouse has typically wanted to enter into a genuine and legitimate relationship, but the relationship ends because of abuse or misconduct by the U.S. citizen.

While there are instances in which women have literally posed in magazines, been trafficked into the country, and ultimately sold into marriage, the broad usage of the term goes much farther than this limited scenario. Language is important because it shapes perspective and policy. The term is currently being used to malign legitimate relationships that may appear “suspicious” to someone based on their own preconceived ideas, but is actually just a form of stereotyping. Therefore, I encourage readers to either limit the term to the small instances where it would be correct, or simply stop using the term.

Concluding Thoughts

If you are interested in helping immigrant victims of domestic abuse, opportunities are often available to assist. Please feel free to contact me. We hope to create a list of volunteer attorneys we can turn to for assistance with these important cases.

Shahid Haque is an immigration attorney and founder of the Border Crossing Law Firm, P.C., and also serves as President of the Montana Immigrant Justice Alliance, a non-profit group advocating for the rights of immigrants. He will be teaching immigration law at the University of Montana School of Law starting in the Fall semester.