Seasons Greetings and Happy Holidays!

A Word from Alison Yew
It's been quite a year again! There is never a boring day in immigration law. Despite the news, rumors, changes in law and policy by this administration, courts' injunctions, replacements of US department and agency leaders, we are not discouraged, and we remain strong and steadfast for you. Humanity will prevail, and maybe not tomorrow, but we must keep our sights on what has always made this nation great -- our diversity, our resolve, our hope in times of despair, our unity, our belief in the human race.

For those of you counting, I did miss sending a year-end newsletter at the end of 2018. Yes, it was a crazy year then too. But some of you know that my father had a freak accident just right after our Christmas dinner with the family last year -- he fainted while standing on the sidewalk with my brother waiting for my brother-in-law to bring the car around. When he fell, he hit his head on the concrete and was in the hospital for a long time. He's now at a nursing home, because he needs 24-hour care, but he's regained most of his physical strength. He is 83, so we are not too upset that he is a bit weaker and needs help getting around. He has brain damage in the form of memory loss and other loss of serious brain functions, but over all, he is as well as someone his age sustaining this type of serious accident can be. He calls and makes jokes and sometimes even makes a lot of sense, even though we know he has memory issues. Since all this happened in Southern California, that is where I have been every weekend this past year.

I am telling this not to make anyone sad, but to give shout-outs to all of you, for your unqualified support and understanding when we had to move your appointments around while I suddenly needed to be in Southern California 24/7. Many of you offered your blessings and prayers, which touched me very much, and my family and me certainly needed and appreciated them. And, if after reading this, you feel we didn't miss a beat, then I can only attribute that to my great staff, Michael Breismeister (associate attorney) and Veronica Huston (administrative assistant). They took the bull by the horns during those rough months, and kept the office running and your cases processed.

In other office news, we continue to help you process your family and employment based green cards, helping you and your families live and work in the U.S. We handled a few humanitarian immigration reliefs, such as getting an asylum grant for a Venezuelan professor who had protested against Nicolas Maduro, asylum grant for a Mexican woman whose husband beat her for years even while she was pregnant, DACA for some deserving young folks, and relief from a 20+year deportation order on unconstitutional grounds, to name a few. We continue to be in awe at the level of intelligence and education of our clients, even humbled when their Ph.D.s are so specialized we have to Google their work so we can understand it in lay-person terms. This is contrary to any presumption that immigrants take away our jobs and devalue our economy, because, frankly, not many can or will do my clients' jobs. I truly believe immigrants make our nation great.

In the upcoming year 2020, we anticipate more changes in U.S. immigration, such as USCIS fee increases and perhaps DACA being terminated. Our commitment to you remains unchanged.

For more information about our practice areas, visit our website at www.yewlegal.com. Also follow our blogs for news and updates in immigration law.
Personnel Updates
Come by and say "hi" to us!
Michael Breismeister : Michael Breismeister is an attorney who joined us in June 2018, and has a background in both immigration and criminal law. While he joined us 1.5 years ago as a full time associate, he was already working for you behind the scenes as a contract attorney since 2017. He handles all of our office's case-types and represents you at USCIS interviews and immigration court, among other legal representations. If you read some of the work we have done for you and are impressed by how much research went into your case, we can thank Michael for his exceptional research and writing skills.
Veronica Huston: Coming up on two years is our administrative assistant, Veronica Huston. She has an art degree from San Jose State University. She has law school desires, but we love her in her current position. If you've noticed the office running a bit more smoothly with automated booking of your appointments and email confirmations, fillable checklists, consistent follow ups, we owe this to Veronica and her creations.

Alison Yew : In case you missed the announcement, I am now a certified specialist in immigration and nationality law, as certified by the State Bar of California. As of the writing of this, there are only two of us in Santa Clara County who has this state bar certification. Also, I've been added to the California Super Lawyers list in immigration law, a selection given only to 5% of the state's licensed attorneys.

I am honored for the recognition, but only because it helps me serve all of you and my community better. I continue to devote 100% of our practice to immigration law, so we can offer you the best representation possible
Lugene Youssef: Recently, we were honored to be asked to host a high school intern, Lugene Youssef, as part of her independent studies. At first, we weren't sure what we could assign to her. But maybe high school seniors are just smarter and more capable than when I was in high school, because Lugene picked up office procedures quickly and helped us with data entry to assist Veronica with transitioning our office to become more streamlined and automated.
Service Spotlight
Sports Visas, Ps, Os, EB-1As
We try to keep you all up to date on recent news in immigration and also inform you of our specialty case types. Check out our blogs on our website. Today, we feature our specialty area in sports immigration . If you are an athlete or a coach, and you've been offered to come to the U.S. to compete or train (or coach) in your area of athletic endeavor, there could be a visa for this. Our practice areas section discusses the possibility of a P-1A and/or O-1A for temporary/non-immigrant intent, or a green card under the extraordinary ability category, EB-1A . We encourage you to view our practice areas on our website for more information, or contact us to schedule an appointment.