Immigration Evaluations

An Immigration Evaluation is an assessment conducted by a licensed clinician to explain the mental health state of an individual and the family involved in immigration cases of various types.

Lawyers and immigration services typically request psychological evaluations to support your unique immigration case. The evaluation letters provide a mental health expertise perspective and opinion for your unique extreme hardship and/or your current emotional distress.

Process:

Hubbis Fabian LMFT evaluations consist of interviews with the applicant and/or their families of various immigration petitioners cases.

The evaluation includes several psychometric assessments. These assessments reveal the applicant's psychological symptoms based on the individual (biological-psychological, social-cultural, and spiritual) experiences, later interpreted to support their hardship case report. The assessment may vary depending on the applicant's particular immigration case.

Timeline:

Hubbis Fabian LMFT evaluations are client-centered and based on the client's comfortable pace. The report typically takes 2 to 5 weeks for the interview(s) and a completed report draft.

Example case:

Trauma-focused psychological evaluations, such as in the cases of U-visas, T-visas, Political Asylum, and VAWA, are focused on individuals or families being the victim of a crime(s). These evaluations are a combination of evidence of sustained trauma and distress experience that is substantiated in court-case in support of an immigration petition.

Investment:

Immigration Evaluation costs vary depending on the type of evaluation and the timeline needed. The average evaluation is between $2,500 to $4,000. *A payment plan may be requested.

Note: Expedited draft evaluations are possible for an additional charge with a 1-week turnaround.

Contact

Types of Immigration Evaluations

Extreme Hardship

Description:

A report detailing that deportation of a 'qualifying individual' would cause 'extreme hardship' to family members, for example, U.S. citizen children or spouses.

Evaluation:

I will focus on an examination of the psychological impact of deportation on the U.S. citizen or legal permanent resident spouses, children, or parents (i.e., qualifying individuals) of an immigrant or the psychological impact of leaving the United States to return to the immigrant's home country on any qualifying individual. The impact on the qualifying individual(s) must rise to the level of extreme hardship (Mercado et al., 2022).

Appointment Request

Cancellation of Removal

Description:

A report detailing the evaluation to support a deportation cancellation of an immigration removal order.

Evaluation:

In an immigration removal case, a nonpermanent resident must establish their removal would cause “extreme and unusual hardship” to a qualifying relative (i.e., their U.S. citizen or legal permanent resident spouse, child, or parent). When extreme psychological hardship is uncovered through a psychological evaluation, pending deportation may be canceled by the court (“cancelation of removal”) and legal permanent residence granted a “green card.” (Mercado et al., 2022).

Appointment Request

U-Visa

Description:

A U-visa immigration evaluation focuses on giving undocumented immigrants who have been victims of a serious crime the right to live in the United States by providing a report of the petitioner's mental state and emotional consequences of the crime experienced.

Evaluation:

The evaluation focuses on determining the impact suffered; whether an immigrant victim of a qualifying criminal activity has experienced substantial mental or physical abuse as a result of their victimization. Examples of serious crimes include but are not limited to the following: domestic violence, sexual abuse, rape, murder, torture, kidnapping, and stalking (Mercado et al., 2022).

Appointment Request

T-Visa

Description:

A report that accompanies a visa petition that provides victims of human trafficking with the right to live and work in the United States. The psychological evaluation describes how the victim of human trafficking was emotionally affected.

Evaluation:

The evaluation focuses on determining whether an individual who has been a victim of a severe form of human trafficking would experience extreme hardship involving unusual and severe harm if removed from the United States. A psychological evaluation can help highlight the specific hardship issues related to the case (Mercado et al., 2022).

Appointment Request

VAWA

Description:

Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) petition: allows spouses and children who are victims of domestic violence to obtain residency status. A mental health evaluation reports the consequences of emotional and physical abuse disorders based on the trauma experienced.

Evaluation:

The evaluation focuses on determining whether the immigrant suffered battering (i.e., including psychological abuse) or extreme cruelty after entering into a relationship with a U.S. citizen or legal permanent resident in good faith. The psychological evaluation helps to establish the psychological impact that the verbal, physical, or sexual abuse had on the individual (Mercado et al., 2022).

Appointment Request

Asylum

Description:

Political asylum petitions are provided to undocumented immigrants who are faced with forcibly fleeing their country as political refugees. The psychological immigration evaluations report the asylum seekers' stories recounting emotional evidence of the persecution.

Evaluation:

The evaluation focused on assessing for well-founded fear of persecution (i.e., fear of future persecution or trauma related to prior persecution) on account of membership to one or more of the five qualifying grounds (i.e., race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political orientation (Mercado et al., 2022).

Appointment Request

DACA

Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals

More information to come...

Immigration Resources

Extreme Hardship Considerations and Factors

https://www.uscis.gov/policy-manual/volume-9-part-b-chapter-5

List of Immigration Lawyers:

More to come...

References:

-Mercado, A., Antuña, C. S., Bailey, C., Garcini, L., Hass, G. A., Henderson, C., ... & Venta, A. (2022). Professional guidelines for psychological evaluations in immigration proceedings. Journal of Latinx Psychology, 10(4), 253.

-https://www.apa.org/topics/testing-assessment-measurement/understanding

Appointment Request