Fort Wayne Immigration Lawyer

Alternative Legal Services to Protect Your Rights

As a naturalized, green card, or visa-holder, you may have lingering concerns about your immigration status. There are many threats that can pose obstacles, but bankruptcy may surprisingly shield you. At Law Offices of Eugene Mogilevsky, I seek to use my knowledge of federal and Indiana rules and bankruptcy law. Many of the tools and solutions provided by federal law may apply to you.

While Indiana law may be very concerned with your immediate access to assets, income levels, and finances, federal bankruptcy rules will respond to immigration concerns with their own forms of protection. 

Whether you are seeking to separate yourself from financial obligations that could cast doubt on your ability to support yourself or have concerns about taxes, wages, and social security, I want to apply my knowledge as your Fort Wayne bankruptcy lawyer.

If you are concerned about your immigration law or your immigration status during bankruptcy, do not hesitate to contact us.

Your Bankruptcy May Not Impact Your Immigration Applications

Like many people facing bankruptcy, you may have piled unpaid bills, credit card debt, and overdue taxes. However, money troubles can be magnified if you are submitting an application to a government agency. The naturalization process, for example, assesses whether the applicant has been paying their taxes or has unpaid back taxes. If the applicant carries large credit card bills and other debt, their sense of financial responsibility can be put in a precarious position.

Some naturalization applicants worry they could be disqualified if, after filing for bankruptcy, their finances are reviewed. Even if bankruptcy is not mentioned among the disqualifying factors, the thinking goes, the bank will see you as a higher financial risk. In this case, discharging personal debt will improve your naturalization chances.

How Will Chapter 7 Bankruptcy Plan Impact Nationalization?

While Chapter 13 bankruptcy involves active repayment, Chapter 7 allows you to seek to wipe the slate clean from unsecured debt. You will have the benefit of the protection known as the automatic stay, as well as the promise that no government agencies will be present at your mandated creditor’s meetings.

Chapter 7 is typically the quicker and possible solution if you are facing severe and high-interest credit card debt, which is not far off from what we often call unsecured debt. If you meet qualification criteria, you will be given the opportunity to break the cycle of penalties, fees, high-interest, and the endless cycle of revolving debt. Additionally, the Chapter 7 discharge typically improves credit scores and your creditworthiness.

A bankruptcy court granting you a discharge after a Chapter 7 petition is successfully filed does not automatically improve your financial health. However, if you are poising yourself to apply for naturalization, it could help prove to immigration officials that you meet income, asset, and debt responsibilities. Most important of all, it can guarantee you do not have a government agency, your creditors, or your employer coming after your wages and banking accounts.

What Do I Need to Know About Wage and Social Security Garnishment?

A wage garnishment is a court order directing your employer to set aside a specific amount of your wages and income to satisfy a debt owed. If you are green card holder, visa recipient, or have attempted an application for naturalization, a wage garnishment can be a crippling experience. By federal law, domestic and international workers in the United States are entitled to wages, which include the right for a bank account and bank checks to be free from garnishment. However, like any other bankruptcy exemption, wage garnishment law will never interfere with the Internal Revenue Service’s {".

When the IRS garnishes your income and bank accounts, it doesn’t need to go through a judge’s approval. All it needs is the activation notice of levy. A new wave of green card applications and work visas is being discussed. By taking advantage of bankruptcy’s automatic stay, I may be able to halt your wage garnishment at once.

Bankruptcy will immediately serve as a kind of restraining order that is designed to end direct contact, assault, or injury. When you visit the bankruptcy court, you do not have to take action against your employer or seek an order from a separate judge, just as you do not have to go to your employer to stop the garnishment. 

A wage garnishment can not only prevent you from making your rent or mortgage payments, but can also prevent you from paying your taxes. Mishandling your taxes can prevent you from eventually filing for Chapter 7 and escaping your debts.

Since you have already become a debtor, the employer will no longer be able to report on their end that the debt is potentially collectable. They may likely be relieved when they see that the burden of repayment falls on the creditor to show the equity in the collateral.

Additional Factors to Keep in Mind

You must be prepared to prove to the court that the wage garnishment imposed has resulted in you being unable to provide for yourself longitudinally. A type of garnish known as state income tax or federal tax refund can be just as harmful. Since paychecks and tax refunds can be attached to your wages, you may find yourself forced to put your spouse’s and dependent's financial interests at risk.

By reaching the end of the bankruptcy process and making the successful transition from Chapter 13 to Chapter 7, I can protect your wages and ensure that they are being deposited into a court-supervised repository so that lenders' interests can be settled directly from the blocked account. Bank accounts can be equally intercepted or levied by the Social Security

Administration if you have an unpaid debt. Moving to a long-term care facility, facing child support obligations, or taking government benefits should give the state some reassurance of your financial stability and responsibility. Sometimes a financial charge can be hard to check. Public Retirement Income Roverh so pay your monthly expenses. However, state laws will vary depending on whether your bank account was partially or fully protected.

In some cases, just being retired, disabled, or elderly could be sufficient, while other exemption laws are targeted only to recently redundant wage earners. For Social Security recipients, the government must identify itself and the precise business purpose for garnishing wages.

The government will typically be required to wipe away 25% of the debtor’s wages. In some cases, bankruptcy may offer you the opportunity to recover wages that were garnished more than 90 days prior to filing for bankruptcy or after filing for bankruptcy.

If you are concerned about your immigration law or your immigration status during bankruptcy, do not hesitate to contact us.