An Immigration Strategies and Procedural Considerations for Foreign Professionals workshop will be given Tuesday from 9 a.m. to 11 a.m. at Pollard Auditorium.
Susan E. Schultz, associate of Kramer, Rayson, Leake, Rodgers & Morgan law firm, will be conducting the workshop, which is sponsored by Oak Ridge National Laboratory and is open to UT students and faculty.
“Although I can’t teach them everything they should know about immigration in two hours, I can hopefully give them a better understanding of the immigration big picture,” Schultz said.
She plans to give tips and strategies on becoming a lawful permanent resident and concentrate on the specific needs of her audience, which she said should be foreign professionals, students, researchers and professors. Schultz will discuss immigration basics and how people with different areas of interest can progress through the system, recent legislative updates and their possible effects, strategies for pursuing U.S. Lawful Permanent Residency including some do’s and don’ts and possible pitfalls and issues for which immigrants should look out. At the end she will answer questions that were submitted to ORNL.
“They’ll come away with, hopefully, a better understanding of how the process works in general, and knowledge that will enable them to effectively work with an immigration professional providing them specific help in the future,” she said. “Having good information and planning to the extent you are able can ultimately save a great deal of time, money and worry.”
“This is not easy,” Julie Hendrix, immigration paralegal said. “There are whole processes involved and there are other things that unless you are an attorney or a specialist who has been working with immigration and who gets updates, because there are changes in legislation on a constant basis … on a daily basis that unless you are aware of these … you would miss something important and that could change your entire processing time.
“It could change the type of petition that you submit, it could even result in you being denied and not being able to process at all if you chose the wrong venue.”
“We want researchers to know we understand the importance of them being here, of their research. It’s important to this region, it’s important to the country, so we’re on their side and doing what we can, whatever way possible to help legislators understand the importance of these researchers.”
The Pollard Auditorium is at 210 Badger Ave. in Oak Ridge on the Oak Ridge Associated Universities campus.
