N-648 for Victims of Trafficking/Trauma for Naturalization Cases

Speakers: Yesenia Polanco, Attorney, Durham, NC

Speaker Qualifications:

Yesenia L. Polanco-Galdamez is the Principal Attorney of Polanco Law, P.C., a firm she founded in 2015. She has practiced immigration law, as well as criminal defense and family law related to immigrant clients, since 2009. She is an appointed member of the Raleigh-Durham Airport Authority board of directors and sits on the Durham Bar Association and 14th District Bar Associations board of directors. She earned her undergraduate degree at UNC Chapel Hill and her JD from the University of the District of Columbia David A. Clarke School of Law in 2008. Yesenia is an immigrant from El Salvador. She enjoys travel, yoga, dancing, laughing, good food, and down time with her family and her two cats.

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Do you have clients who have been victims of severe trafficking or other trauma? If they have struggled with illiteracy, English language, or test taking, what will you do when they have gotten through their residency stage? One of the goals as practitioners that we have is to help our clients become U.S. citizens one day so that they can become eligible to vote and participate fully in our system. One of the challenges we often see is that clients who have been sex or labor trafficked, or who were victims of other crimes like domestic violence, feel unable to proceed with citizenship due to fear of test taking, anxiety about having to go through an interview process, concerns about whether mental health or medical examinations will be required, and fear of how they will be treated by a USCIS officer if they attempt a medical exemption to the testing requirements for U.S. citizenship. Please join us for a discussion of potential options for the N-648 medical exemption and a round of questions and answers with our guest speaker, Yesenia Polanco, Esq., an immigration attorney whose growing practice is based in Durham, NC. Yesenia is an active member of the AILA Carolinas Chapter, AILA National, and works with immigrant victims in the T/U/VAWA and naturalization context, in addition to other areas of her immigration law practice.

During this session we will discuss:

• Basics of the N-648 process
• Identifying individuals who would be good candidates for the medical exemption to the English and/or Civics exam
• The N-400 interview and preparing a client who has an N-648 as a part of their process.
• Ethical considerations regarding coordination of the N-648 process for a naturalization case & explaining to medical providers what is needed for this process; ethically advocating for clients
• Discussion of what to do if USCIS does not want to allow naturalization to proceed; and ethically managing client expectations
• Q&A

*This session is expected to last 2 hours and we will be requesting 2 hours of CLE credit (requesting that 1 hour be ethics credit) for NC. For those outside of NC a certificate of attendance can be provided should they wish to seek their own CLE credit for their state. Therapists, social workers, paralegals and legal assistants are welcome to attend this session.

Rules on recording:

• This will not be recorded so please join us for the live virtual

• All participants must honor these rules as the discussion topics are sensitive and involve law enforcement issues.

• Third-party recordings or participant recordings are strictly forbidden.

North Carolina CLE will be requested by Helen Tarokic Law PLLC

• NC CLE credit will be requested since the organizer is based in North Carolina

• Attorneys licensed outside of NC can attend. A certificate of attendance will be provided upon request for those who need proof of attendance.

• Attorney-supervised paralegals may attend for educational purposes.

• Attorney-supervised means the paralegal must be employed by a licensed attorney and under regular supervision to prevent the unauthorized practice of law.

• Attorneys signing up paralegals take responsibility for their employee’s registration fees and participation in the program and agree to pay full and fair wages for time the paralegal trains in the seminar as part of work hours/on-the-job training.

This is an interdisciplinary seminar, so please be mindful that we will have individuals of various levels of knowledge attending and have law enforcement, therapists, and other anti-trafficking professionals in attendance. It will be an excellent opportunity for all.