An Open Letter to the Immigration Forum Readers

From: Steve Qi/Law Offices of Steve Qi & Associates

On 4/3/06, there are several postings on the forum that accused my law firm, and me in particular, of some unsubstantiated conducts. Since the writers are anonymous, I would not be able to confront them individually. Due to the fact that the accusations are of particularly malicious nature, I feel the obligation to address them in an open forum in the form of an open letter, so that those who got misled would have a clear picture. It was also at the urge of one of my existing clients who alerted me of these postings as he himself knows based on his dealings with our law firm that these accusations are totally untrue. I would like to add that last time it was also one of my clients who alerted me of a previous defamation posting.

Now, let’s address the postings.

First, to the person who calls herself “full of hatred (满腔仇恨)”, I think I know who you are because our clients’ NIW cases seldom got denied. Since there is no longer an attorney-client relationship, I am not bond by the privilege because you broke it by naming me as your lawyer and piled all these accusation on my firm and me.

You paid our firm $1,500 attorney’s fee for filing an NIW application (I-140) with USCIS, we prepared all the requisite documents AND I-485 for you and your family. USCIS issued an RFE for the I-485, asking for documents that pertain to elements in the I-140 petition. In my more than ten years of immigration practice, this does not happen very often, but nonetheless happened occasionally. We asked you to prepare some specific documents required by the USCIS, you waited until the last minute to provide us with the documents that doesn’t really meet the requirement by the USCIS. Since that’s all you have, we did our best to prepare the RFE based on whatever was available. Thereafter, the I-140 and I-485 were denied based on the fact that you didn’t meet the requirement of “substantial achievement” prong of the NIW requirements as some of the specific materials requested by RFE were not provided (not like what you said that NIW denied based on the reason of OR). I also have to mention that we did the RFE for you FREE OF CHARGE, as we have done for all of our clients who have RFE!

In the title of your letter, you accused me of defrauding you. Now please tell me what are the facts indicating any deceit or fraud? Did we prepare fraudulent documents for you? Did we write something about you that are factually fraudulent? Did we misrepresent ourselves to you in any way? Did we “guarantee” that your case will be approved? If there is nothing to these effects, you have committed defamation, an actionable tortuous conduct, and I am legally entitled to sue you for monetary damages.

Of more serious nature is your threat of killing. There is a crime called “terrorist threat” which could very well land you in jail. I am not kidding! Ask your local attorney for advises and you will get the clear picture of the consequence of what you said on an open forum.

My suggestion to “full of hatred” is that get another lawyer to re-file your case when you have stronger evidence to show your achievement. This denial is not the end of your career, nor your life. Instead of hating your lawyer who has done everything trying to help you, you should channel your anger at being denied to something more productive.

In my more than ten years of immigration practice, I have probably dealt with over several thousands of clients in their applications for in various EB cases, particularly in NIW and EB1 categories. I have been most proud of our fellow countrymen who have attained very high level of academic and intellectual achievements in the U.S., and I can proudly say that the United States benefits more from immigrants like my clients from China than from south of the border. During my numerous trips to over a hundred universities in the country, I have always been trying to drive home a point on this. I feel privileged to serve this group of people whom I often referred to as an elite part of the generation. But people like this “full of hatred” simply shocked me and strikes me as one of the extraordinary, not in the sense of EB11, of course.

Getting denied by USCIS on an application is not something I would love to see either. But let’s face it, this is certainly not the first case that was denied, and honestly wouldn’t be the last case either. That’s why we never say anything to the effect of “guaranteeing” the result. What we do claim truthfully is that way over ninety percent (90%) of our accepted cases got approved, including many difficult cases and cases that were previous denied but got approved after we re-filed them. That’s why people come to me and my law firm because of our high success rate and expertise in the area.

Second, the postings on the same day by “Playxyzzz” about his experience with my law firm. This is pure defamation at its lowest point. This is word for word reproduction of a piece that surfaced more than several months ago on the same forum, and got forwarded to another web-based forum, quite possibly by the same person. The same piece appeared couple of months ago on the same website (wenxuecity.com), except this time the name of the accused became Jerry Zhang of Zhang & Associates. Both of us were very indignant about this kind of low tactics of defamation. Now, here it comes yet again. Only this time, I am not going to hold back. There is no factual basis to whatever the allegations in the letter. Everything in the letter is pure fabrication. If you are really my client, please have the guts and dignity to come forward with your real name.

It turned out that the same person who wrote this piece also dispensed legal advices on immigration matters. I doubt very much this person could be an attorney, based on the street language he is using. If he is not an attorney, then he is practicing law without a license, the consequence of which I don’t want to mention here. I understand there are quite a few DIY experts out there, the legitimacy and knowledge of whom I don’t want to comment and I have no intention of competing with these people. But when you are trying to resort to vicious personal attacks on attorneys who are conducting legitimate legal business, you are crossing the line.

I hope this is the first time AND the last time I have ever had to address something like this. The false accusation is purely absurd, that’s why I chose to ignore it the first time. But now, with its malicious intent trying to undermine my business and reputation, I can’t keep on ignoring any more and must defend myself in a righteous manner, otherwise a lie will become truth if repeated a thousand of times! To say that I am “appalled” by how low the forum has been dragged down to by a few persons is an understatement. Readers and clients are certainly entitled to their opinions. After all, this is America, and everyone has a right to the freedom of speech. Then again, America is also the most developed country in the world in law and order, and that’s why it can be such a great country and the most powerful one.


免费咨询,请致电子邮件信箱[e-mail]

所有跟帖： 

• 真有大律师光顾!回复：An Open Letter to the Immigration Forum Rea -3x3x3x- ♂ (745 bytes) () 04/05/2006 postreply 13:05:35

• 道歉,好象有教律师耍花招之嫌回复：真有大律师光顾!回复：An Open Le -3x3x3x- ♂ (22 bytes) () 04/05/2006 postreply 13:36:46

• Lawyer should take SOME of the responsibilities for the denial, -非要我注册- ♂ (0 bytes) () 04/05/2006 postreply 13:13:10

• 不管咋说，一个案子换六个人搞怎么也说不过去吧？ -▄︻┻┳═一***- ♂ (0 bytes) () 04/05/2006 postreply 13:13:45

• 昨天那个"满腔仇恨"确实气坏了,在这守了大半天,可以理解. -todays- ♀ (0 bytes) () 04/05/2006 postreply 13:27:28

• threat, in law, declaration of intent to injure another by doing -全威律师1980- ♂ (203 bytes) () 04/05/2006 postreply 13:36:13

• 你肯定是律师!回复：threat, in law, declaration of intent to inju -3x3x3x- ♂ (20 bytes) () 04/05/2006 postreply 13:38:20

• when you have time to write such a long letter -11061- ♂ (120 bytes) () 04/05/2006 postreply 13:54:19

• 你也有不满?回复：when you have time to write such a long letter -3x3x3x- ♂ (0 bytes) () 04/05/2006 postreply 13:56:14

• 这是说小白兔和二分钱吗?复：An Open Letter to the Immigration For -3x3x3x- ♂ (329 bytes) () 04/05/2006 postreply 13:55:24

• where is my post?再发一遍 -doIhaveto- ♂ (132 bytes) () 04/05/2006 postreply 14:01:58

• 是不是该把移民论坛改名为威胁论坛? -DoIhaveto- ♂ (38 bytes) () 04/05/2006 postreply 14:18:35

• 此地无银三百两！一看就是狡辩之词！这样的律师行最好关门。 -一点通- ♀ (0 bytes) () 04/06/2006 postreply 09:23:11