For Haeun Lee, 18, and her family, the past few months have been an immigration rollercoaster, but their wild ride finally ended on August 23, when Haeun finally obtained an immigrant visa to return to the United States.
“We have righted an injustice that was done and reunited a family here in our community, who are very happy to be together once again,” said Congressmember Gary Ackerman.
Lee, also known as Joanne Lee, was issued a voluntary departure order by an immigration judge on July 29 after her green card application was mishandled by an immigration broker. She left the United States on August 13 and returned to her family’s native South Korea where she applied for re-entry to the U.S. as a lawful permanent resident. However, she faced a bureaucratic hurdle in re-entering the country.
“I thought the world was going to end and I wasn’t going to be able to see my family and friends,” said Haeun, a recent graduate of Townsend Harris High School at Queens College in Flushing.
David Kim, the family’s pro-bono attorney from the law firm of Bretz & Coven, LLP, contacted Ackerman on August 20 to intervene. With his help, Haeun was able to obtain an immigrant visa three days later.
“This is the fastest outcome I ever got in any case, and that would not have been possible without the Congressman’s intervention,” Kim said.
Haeun stayed in South Korea with her grandparents for 10 days before returning to the U.S. as a lawful permanent resident and arrived back in Queens to rejoin her family. The family, who live in Bayside, includes Haeun’s mother Yoojung Choi Lee; her father Bong Chang Lee; 6-year-old brother Jason; and 16-year-old sister Hayoung.
Haeun thanked her lawyers, the Korean American Community Center of New York and the Korean Association of Greater New York for their help.
“You hardly knew me, but you gladly volunteered your time to help me when I was so helpless,” Haeun said.
She originally arrived in the U.S. with her mother and sister when she was 10 years old. They came to New York on a tourist visa to obtain better treatment for her sister who is disabled. Her father eventually followed and received a green card. Her brother was born in Queens.
Ackerman used Haeun dilemma to call for passage of the DREAM Act, the bill that was recently blocked in Congress by Senate Republicans. The measure would enable children of undocumented immigrants, who have been in the U.S. five years at the time of enactment, to earn permanent legal status by completing college or military service requirements.
“We will work to get it passed,” Ackerman said.
After all the immigration chaos, Haeun was able to attend City College of the City University of New York (CUNY) and is majoring in biomedical engineering. She coincidentally wrote an essay last year about the DREAM Act, which was chosen for publication in the Harvard Educational Review.
“I just hope that my extraordinary story helps to encourage other students like me in my situation,” Haeun said.
