News - Part 3Best Law Associates

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Best and Associates is a full service immigration law group. We are a small, all-lawyer firm dedicated to personalized services and high-caliber advocacy to solve your matter successfully, effeciently and at a reasonable price.

We help our clients achieve their goals and manage life's transitions, whether those involve sought-after professional opportunities or the sometimes unforeseen issues that may threaten one's immigration status.

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Immigration Lawyers in Philadelphia Can Help Same-Sex Married Couples

The Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) had both created a federal definition of marriage barring recognition of same sex couples as well as provided a federal legal basis for states to not legally recognize otherwise valid same-sex marriages performed within other states and foreign countries. During litigation challenging the validity of DOMA, the Obama administration, while required to continue to enforce DOMA, did exercise executive discretion by refusing to continue to defend the law’s constitutionality before the U.S. Supreme Court.
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Puzzled About the Reform Debate? Ask a Philadelphia Immigration Lawyer

Towards the end of 2013, residents of Philadelphia were among the many people across the nation who called on President Obama and the U.S. Congress to deliver on their promises to improve the country’s immigration system. As the calendar year changes with no reforms in sight, advocates are preparing to intensify their efforts to make their voices heard.
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Immigrants, Marriage Equality and DOMA

What is DOMA?
Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) was signed into law by Bill Clinton in 1996. DOMA imposed for federal purposes a heterosexual definition of marriage despite any state definition to the contrary. The typical and normal deference to state definitions was thereafter supplanted by this new federal mandate which for the better part of two decades controlled and barred Federal recognition of same-sex couples married legally abroad or in the growing number of states that enforced and protected marriage equality. The impact of DOMA was to prevent any immigration (or other federal) benefit from accruing to couples where they were otherwise legally married. A couple married in Massachusetts therefore could not file to get a greencard based on their marriage nor could they file jointly their federal tax returns or enjoy any of the oft-noted 1000+ federal benefits and obligations which legal matrimony traditionally entailed. After DOMA, for Federal purposes, same-sex marriages in the United States did not exist. >>Continue Reading

Comprehensive Immigration Reform: Soon to be a reality?

A group of bipartisan Senators have announced a framework to begin to fix our broken immigration laws. The following outline bodes well for most of the estimated 12 million out of status individuals currently living and working in the United States. The group of 8 Senators stated the following four “legislative pillars’ to comprehensive immigration reform. It is a good start!

Create a tough but fair path to citizenship for unauthorized immigrants currently living in the United States that is contingent upon securing our borders and tracking whether legal immigrants have left the country when required;

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“I almost gave up fighting to remain in the U.S. when I heard about a new immigration law office started by Joseph Best. He had won a bunch of cases for guys from Ghana. Best & Associates took care of everything. He dealt with my first lawyer who had made a lot of mistakes and charged a lot of money. He took over the case and fought for me both before the Immigration Service and in Immigration Court at the same time- for over two years. Eventually we won but only after proving a lot about what would happen to me and my family if I were deported and why I legally had the right to remain. No lawyer I worked with ever explained to me what was happening or took the time to carefully compile all evidence I needed to win. So instead of being deported to African-- I’m a citizen now. To think that I almost gave up and just left.… it’s amazing what a good lawyer can do!"
S.A. from Ghana/Ivory Coast.

Since the first arrivals of non-indigenous peoples to today, from the iconic Latina author Isabel Allende to the genius of Einstein, from Google Founder Sergei Brin to clothing pioneer Levi Strauss—immigrants have and still today find a home and thrive in what America alone still offers. In providing safe harbor to both the world’s oppressed and its seekers, we are the best versions of ourselves as we accommodate our newest arrivals and foster their varied energies and innovations. Our legacy of attracting the best and the brightest and them finding a settled place for them among us is the essence of American Exceptionalism, if the term is to be properly understood as an idea.