Victory at the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals

2017-08-09 in Cases Won

On April 1, 2015, the attorneys at Chicago Immigration Advocates obtained a ruling from the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals reversing the Board of Immigration Appeals (“Board”) and ordering that the Board review the case again in light of the errors committed by the Respondent’s previous two attorneys. Tie Xia Chen v. Holder, 782 F.3d 373 (7th Cir. 2015). The Respondent hired two attorneys for his trial hearing who committed a multitude of errors, including, mistranslating an affidavit, recommending the Respondent to get documents he could not obtain, failing correct the record regarding the birth date of his child, among other mistakes.

According to the Seventh Circuit, the Board committed error when it refused to properly review the errors committed by the previous attorneys. The Court said “[t]he Board should determine if Chen’s attorneys incompetently neglected to offer evidence and arguments that might have resolved the inconsistencies identified by the IJ.” Id. at 377. In its opinion the Seventh Circuit acknowledged the strength of our argument when it said “[i]n a detailed brief, Chen methodically argued that each inconsistency or deficiency identified by the IJ could be attributed to counsel’s incompetence.” Id.

The case has been remanded to the Board and we are still awaiting its ruling.

James C. Ten Broeck Jr., the principal attorney, along with his associate attorneys, first filed a Motion to Reopen with the Board, in which these errors were pointed out and requested that the Board send the matter back to the Immigration Court. As required by rule, two complaints were filed with the Attorney Registration and Disciplinary Commission of Illinois (“ARDC”) against the ineffective attorneys.  When the Board denied the Motion, Chicago Immigration Advocates attorneys filed an appeal to the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals.  After two rounds of briefing and oral argument, the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals agreed that the case should be reversed.

We are very happy for our client that we were able to get this hard-fought result. We are confident that our Client will have an opportunity to present his case again and, this time, have the opportunity to present all of his evidence in a favorable light.