VAWA interview & drafting services

─ WHAT I DO

I identify acts that may amount to or contribute to battery or extreme cruelty or are of related special significance.

━━━━

─ HOW I DO IT

I broadly inventory attempted/completed crimes, dog whistles, frog boiling, lovebombing, reactive abuse, harm reduction, all acts USCIS will directly look at.

━━━━

─ MORE ON THIS

Many acts only qualify one as a VDV through a certain lens. While I look for such lenses in later stages, I identify potentially relevant acts early on.

Relevant acts don't need to be acts of abuse, they only need to be acts of a pattern of abuse, however protracted, pervasive and complex that pattern ay or may not be. Acts of special significance do include lovebombing and honeymoon phases: contrition, blame-shifting, avoidance, bargaining, apologies, gifts, etc.

─ WHAT I DO

I assert to what end the applicant wants their claim to be a VAWA one and what factors may interfere with proper adjudication.

━━━━

─ WHY I DO IT

The adjudication timeline often overlaps with the abuse timeline. I review past and foreseeable biases/interferences for substantive and procedural significance.

━━━━

─ MORE ON THIS

Proving abuse to the US federal government is a serious endeavor. It's not always the applicant's only pathway, and the interactions between adjudication timeline and relationship timeline greatly inform a lot more than which filing might be best.

They inform the applicant's ability to safeguard, gather, and compile evidence, the biases through which they will view their case and interpret their experience of it. They also inform what positive or adverse events may occur during adjudication that may interfere or tamper with it.

─ WHAT I DO

I assess the power dynamics at play against standards of coercive control and account for background factors of special significance.

━━━━

─ WHY I DO IT

Credible claims of abuse tend to show the abuser's endgame, the struggles that they seek to soothe through coercive control, and the cycle of abuse.

━━━━

─ MORE ON THIS

Context can taint any and every event.

Punching one's spouse unwittingly while sleepwalking, punching each other as mutual combatants, punching one's spouse in an act of reactive abuse, or punching them for having talked back, all are one same act but reflect sharply different realities for VAWA adjudication purposes.

Certain background factors such as the relation of each spouse to alcohol and drugs, their respective criminal background, the circumstances in which they met and in which their household merged greatly inform the significance and motivations of their individual actions toward each other and third parties.

─ WHAT I DO

I explore with your client how much of a paper trail they have to enhance the precision and probative value of their whole narrative.

━━━━

─ WHY I DO IT

The strongest personal statements are very falsifiable: the more specifics are provided that could easily be asserted, the truer your account will ring.

━━━━

─ MORE ON THIS

Both attorneys and clients don't always realize how much raw information they actually have, in part because the most precious sources of information are not straightforwardly usable exhibits, but rather memory hooks for the applicant to be able to establish their timeline in exquisite detail.

The personal statement does not always need to be designed as a short story, and can in many cases be viewed as a narrative-driven gateway to the evidentiary packet.

As such, it greatly benefits from a holistic and anecdote-friendly approach to timeline reconstruction.

An abundance of details adjacent to the abuse may greatly contribute to proving bona fides under the "Any credible evidence" standard, and also support the credibility of abuse claims therein and of evidence of limited probative value.

─ WHAT I DO

I connect the totality of the circumstances into chronological and behavioral patterns.

━━━━

─ WHY I DO IT

I weave the intertwined stories of the abuser and the immigrant into a single, coherent narrative, to highlight the psychosocial features of domestic violence.

━━━━

─ MORE ON THIS

Reliably demonstrating the sponsor's long-winded guilty state of mind, and the applicant's clean hands, ensures that measured allegations provided with sufficient details of probative value will be credible, minimizing a need for evidentiary heavy lifting.

That is why the overall trends within and around the relationship, the definition of narrative arcs, and an individual outlook on each spouse's broader (lifelong) trajectory.