LOS ANGELES — What would you do if upon disembarking from a plane following a vacation abroad an immigration officer at the LAX tells you that your green card is null and void and that you are deportable? The obvious answer is that you would want to call the immigration lawyer that secured your green card. Right? Well, it depends who your lawyer is. In the case of Chilean Isaac Palma, his immigration lawyer was James G Beirne, and due to some sloppy submission of required documentations to the Immigration and Naturalization Service in the early 2000s, Palma’s green card was declared null and void, and he was ordered to go to Immigration Court.

Lucky for him, Palma was not summarily ordered to board the next outbound plane back to Chile and was allowed to be reunited with his American citizen wife, Lourdes, a native of Meycauwayan, Bulacan, who had made the family petition in his behalf. She had sought the legal assistance of Atty James G. Beirne on the recommendation of her brother who had a bankruptcy petition filed for him earlier by Beirne.

Palma had left for his native Chile once after receiving the green card, and breezed through Immigration section at LAX. But returning from his second trip to Chile in 2005, he was stopped by Immigration officers at LAX and was informed, much to his consternation, that the green card secured for him by Atty Beirne was null and void because Atty Beirne and his law office failed to send the INS all the needed documentation to support the petition. What followed next was the near total disarray of Palma’s family life.

He told PinoyWatchDog.com that he attempted more than six to seven times to see James G. Beirne at his Glendale, California office so that the attorney could right what he had done wrong, but “he was never in the office.” In one occasion, Palma went to his office on the off-chance that he might find Atty Beirne. After being told Beirne was not available to see Palma the disgruntled client found Beirne smoking a cigarette in the parking lot of the Wilson St. Building. “I told him that there is a need to rectify what he had done wrong with my case,” recalls Palma. “I’ve done my part of the agreement, writing the support letters, etc I even paid another $35 consultation fee,” Palma added. “I have nothing personal against Atty Beirne,” Palma told this writer. “I just wanted him to fix this case.”

Palma then related that during that meeting, Atty Beirneagreed to rectify the error, but he was asking for more money on top of the $7000.00 that he had paid for the green card that was declared null and void by the INS. Once, when he visited the Law Office of James G. Beirne again, Palma even talked to Ruby Sexon, the Beirne staff assistant who is a non-lawyer and does not have an immigration law training.

It was already 2007, and Atty Beirne has not lifted a finger to help his client. “He was missing something,” Palma said. “They committed a mistake; they should fix it.” But as luck or the lack of it, would have it, Palma was arrested for a DUI violation in 2007. He was taken to jail and locked up, and later on, an INS agent took him into custody. Left with no option to keep his freedom, he asked his wife to go and see Atty Beirne. Beirne demanded $1500.00. But Palma said that the INS released him on his own recognizance even without the help of Atty Beirne. When the couple sought the law office to demand a refund of the fees, Beirne offered to return only $200.00.

When the INS pressed for his deportation after his DUI arrest, Isaac and Lourdes sought a new attorney This time around, they hired Cuban-American lawyer Joseph Porto. Because of the erroneous Beirne petition, the new lawyer had to restructure the petition from square one. “Everything was redone. I had to go to court many times because Atty Beirnedid not complete the job,” Palma told PinoyWatchDog.com. In 2009, his new lawyer, Joseph Porto, finally secured him a valid green card.

Recently, he also filed a small claims to recover his $7,000.00 fee from Atty Beirne. During one of his court appearances, Palma said, he encountered Beirne near the court and he made him an offer to settle for $1000.00. Palma has wised up and turned down Beirne’s offer.

Palma related that at one point he noted that Beirne kept pushing for transferring the hearings for his claims to a court in the San Fernando Valley, apart from continuing to ask for postponements. “The point is, I was defending myself, and he is making it harder for me by asking for postponement until it reaches the statute of limitation. The moved to San Fernando Valley is to make it more difficult for me. But the judge overruled Beirne, and the hearings stayed in Los Angeles,” Palma revealed

Palma did not know about other damaged Beirneclients until recently hearing about PinoyWatchDog.com. He was more than glad to share his tale of woe to this journalist so that others would be warned how Attorney Beirne’s office messed up his life for a number of years.

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