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ResourcesVisa & Immigration LawVisa NewsCoronavirus (COVID-19): Separating the Real Lawyers from the Fakes

Coronavirus (COVID-19): Separating the Real Lawyers from the Fakes

Transcript of the above video:

This Coronavirus thing is impacting us all in different ways and unfortunately it is simply something that we all wish never happened. It is just not a pleasant set of circumstances. Everybody in many ways is in sort a limbo. Both their personal lives are put on hold as well as a professional lives and it just isn't great.

It is having a tremendous impact on Immigration Systems. In Thailand for example there have been substantial ramifications to the Thai Immigration system and we have made many videos on this channel talking about that. Also, there have been substantial ramifications for the US Immigration System. USCIS has closed certain offices for certain services. Embassies outside the United States has suspended visa interviews which is having the knock-on impact of basically no visas being issued at the moment. Folks traveling in and out of the United States or trying to get into the United States or if after you know this video is being made in a certain time and at the time folks are watching this, it may not even be particularly possible to get in and out of the United States very easily or get to other countries very easily due to various travel bans. Overall, this is having a huge impact on people's day-to-day lives and it is having a tremendous impact on Immigration in many different ways and in many different countries.

I am making this video because this is the time, this is where the rubber hits the road, where you really see the difference between real lawyers and fake lawyers. I know they are going to be those that are going to watch this video and say "why is he talking about this in the middle of Coronavirus?" Well because I see the damage that these fake Law Firms, some of them call themselves a Law Firm, others of them especially in the US Immigration context, "We are just a service. We just help you fill out the forms."  in the end they are just giving out advice and often times their advice leads to injury, it leads to folks cases being processed incorrectly, it leads to people seeking visa benefits they shouldn't be seeking, it sometimes leads to lying which leads to a finding of Fraud and Misrepresentation on the part of either Department of State or Department of Homeland Security which can have tremendous substantial ongoing ramifications to people down the road. 

The reason I am making this video is if you are seeking for example, Immigration services to the United States, seek out a competent legal professional; someone who is licensed because situations like Coronavirus create these unprecedented circumstances that need to be worked through and unfortunately someone who is simply a fake who “fills out the forms” and “that is all we are doing for you”, they are not going to be any help if your case gets caught up at an Embassy that is not processing cases out and is not going to be able to provide a lot of strategy with how best to deal with that. There are strategies for dealing with for example an Embassy coming back online after a prolonged shutdown. So Coronavirus for lack of better term isn't my first rodeo with at least the US Embassy in Bangkok being shut down or not processing in the way that it usually processes. Prior Government shutdowns have resulted in the Visa units not processing cases out. I also went during the experience of the Redshirt demonstrations here in Thailand some ten years ago. I also saw the Embassy at least truncate their Visa services and then at one point due to a transfer of their facilities, I saw an interruption of Visa services and we had to deal with the aftermath of that.  That is what a practitioner does. Someone who is trained and qualified to handle these things and then on top of that has "time in harness" for lack of better term dealing with this stuff is going to be someone who you are going to want in your corner when the "you-know-what" hits the fan; when problems arise unforeseen that come out of the blue and just dramatically impact one's case.

It is unfortunate set of circumstances we are dealing with here with Coronavirus. We are going to get through it. It is going to come back on line where cases are going to process through but in the aftermath of that we are going to be dealing with the backlog at both Department Homeland Security and I suspect the National Visa Center as well as the various Embassies for example the ones I deal with most frequently, the US Embassy here in Bangkok, or the US Embassy up in Vientiane, Laos, as well as the US Embassy in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. We are going to be dealing with ramifications and all of those posts and in all of those agencies and you are going to want someone who knows how to deal with that. In a Thai

Immigration context, it is probably a good idea to have someone who has dealt with this for years and years, been through the entire process, has qualifications in the legal field to provide assistance and insight rather than just someone who really doesn't know what they are doing and is just kind of faking their way through things. Now that all is great when times are good, but when something unforeseen arises that causes everything to go haywire that is not the person you want assisting you. You want someone who knows what they are doing. 

So again, I am going to get off my soapbox now but I wanted to make this video because unfortunately as all this has been going down, I have seen folks have really negative consequences or they are dealing with really negative consequences from dealing with people who aren't qualified to provide the Legal and Immigration Services they claim to be able to provide.