Professional Profile

Maria Mejia-Opaciuch has over 20 years practicing in the area of U.S. Immigration and Nationality Law. She has for the past fifteen years represented clients large and small, including Fortune 100 companies, and assisted them with their immigration programs and policies. She has extensive experience working with Human Resources staffing in bringing in Foreign National employees and keeping them in the United States with valid employment authorization.  She also counsels individuals in meeting their immigration needs to work and remain in the United States legally. She also has experience advising and helping with Naturalization Applications.  Ms. Mejia-Opaciuch began her legal career in the U.S. Department of Justice Honors Program as a Trial Attorney with the legacy INS in New York City.

Representative Matters

Serving as in-house Immigration Counsel for a large pharmaceutical corporation and also as an Alternate Responsible Officer for a large Corporation’s In-House J-1 Program
 
Conducted mock I-9 and DOL- immigration related audits for corporations

Memberships and Affiliations

American Immigration Lawyer’s Association, National and South Florida Chapter

Articles, Publications and Lectures

• Speaker at ACIP Annual June Conferences and Lorman Conferences
• Inside the Minds: Employing Highly Skilled Foreign Nationals - "Guiding Clients Through the Employment Process When Hiring Foreign Nationals"

Awards and Recognition

1987 Dubroff AILA Writing Award

Education

J.D., Brooklyn Law School, 1987
B.A., New York University

Bar Admissions

New York

Court Admissions

New York Supreme Court

Languages

Fluent in Spanish, working knowledge of Italian and French