Reeves Immigration Law Group

Two immigrants turned lawyers are leaders on the roster of Reeves Immigration Law Group, including its president, Meixuan "May" Zhang, who immigrated from China and works from the firm's Pasadena headquarters, and Flomy Javier Diza, who came from the Philippines. Diza rose from paralegal to supervising attorney in the San Francisco office.

Zhang's interest in immigration as a practice area arose as she was attending Loyola Law School in the early 2000s. At last, she said, her eight-year path toward a green card began to make sense. She arrived in the U.S. at age 24 on a work visa, sponsored by an import-export company that later folded. She was able to change her status to that of an international student, got her MBA, graduated from law school with honors and finally married a U.S. citizen.

"I didn't understand my own case completely until I'd practiced for a couple of years," she said. Her perplexity is emblematic of the convoluted labyrinth of U.S. immigration and nationality laws. She works hard to achieve clarity when advising clients today. "I want them to understand exactly what's happening with their case, because my attorney never explained it to me."

The firm was founded in 1980 by the late Robert L. Reeves, who died in 2016. Currently it has 11 lawyers with outposts staffed by paralegals in Manila, the Philippines, and Qingdao, China.

Devin M. Connolly, the Reeves Group's vice president and managing attorney, said the practice of immigration law has been increasingly challenging since 2016 as the Trump administration has made immigrants unwelcome. "They've done their best to limit immigration, starting with building the wall and then cutting even legal immigrants by restricting green cards and employment-based visas. We'd been pretty busy, then Covid hit, leading to a lot of fear and concern out there, growing with every presidential proclamation."

"Then there were the travel bans and DACA limits," Zhang added, referring to the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program attacked by Trump. The firm has helped 50 DACA participants. "But we haven't laid anyone off and there have been no payroll cuts and no hour cuts."

A Reeves Group spokesman said that over the past 12 months the firm has aided 215 clients in obtaining green cards via adjustment of status petitions and petitions to remove conditions. In other immigration categories Reeves has assisted 46 with immigrant visas, 78 in naturalization proceedings, 10 with fiancé or fiancée visas and 15 with waivers of inadmissibility. Reeves lawyers have filed for 100 work permits, 13 H-1B visas, 10 intra-company transfers and 130 labor certifications.

For several clients, the Reeves Group has obtained extraordinary results. One man, a pharmacist, fled Iran in 1987 and obtained legal permanent residency but then was convicted and served four months in prison for mishandling prescription drugs. When he sought U.S. citizenship in 2017 he was first recommended for approval but then rejected based on what the government described as an aggravated felony conviction.

Connolly was the lead lawyer on the man's case. "When we helped him apply we acknowledged there were prior crimes, but argued they were not automatically disqualifying," he said. In the intervening decades the man contributed to his community and had no further troubles with the law. "He made mistakes but was of good moral character," Connolly said. In January 2020 he filed a complaint in U.S. District Court against the Department of Homeland Security and other agencies seeking judicial review of the government's rejection. "What swayed the court was that legally he was not in fact ineligible." Ultimately the government approved the man's petition and he became a naturalized U.S. citizen in July. "We were very excited about the outcome," Connolly said.

In another case, despite the Covid crisis and the closure of U.S. embassies, Reeves Group paralegals in the Philippines were able to obtain visas for a mother engaged to a U.S. citizen and her minor child who was about to turn 21, which would have changed her status and likely delayed her application for years. "We kept the family together," Connolly said.

-- John Roemer