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Parastoo Zahedi knows what it is like to immigrate to the United States. Her own experiences in coming here from Iran has been a key reason why she became an immigration attorney: she wanted to help other attain the American dream and she has done so in many different ways. Since graduating from Georgetown Law School in 1988, Parastoo has become a recognized expert in immigration law and her law practice represents clients in a wide spectrum of matters including: Adjustment of status (green card processing) and naturalization, asylum and refugee status, detention and bond, cancellation of removal, waivers of inadmissibility, immigration consequences of criminal convictions, Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) petitions, and federal court litigation. She has also handled business immigration matters in the context of obtaining both nonimmigrant visas(L1A/L1B, H1B/H3, H2B, O, P, E) as well as immigrant petitions for all employment categories including the Extraordinary Ability category.

Parastoo has served as a leader in the American Immigration Lawyers Association community in different capacities and has been awarded for her pro bono work. She has also published numerous articles on a variety of immigration issues and spoken on them as well.

In this episode, Parastoo discusses her path to the U.S. and her journey into immigration law and how she manages this practice in the environment we live in today.

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Anatoly "Tola" Molotkov is a writer, composer, filmmaker and visual artist, and a co-founder of the Inflectionist poetry movement. He was born in St. Petersburg, Russia and immigrated to the U.S. in 1990 while writing predominantly in Russian at that time. He gradually learned to read and write in English while reading books like J.D. Salinger's "The Catcher in the Rye." A few years after arriving in the U.S., Tola transitioned to writing completely in English and he is now the author of several novels, short story and poetry collections. He is the winner of the 2008 E. M. Koeppel Short Fiction Award for his story "Round Trip", which was nominated for a Pushcart. In this episode of Immigration Ain't Easy, we discuss Tola's journey to the U.S., the process by which he immigrated and his path to becoming a published writer.

Tola's other fiction and poetry has appeared in over twenty publications, both in print and online. His most recent novel, A Bag Full of Stones, is a literary crime story that examines the targeting of immigrants via right-wing violence in 2019 America. The book will be published on May 29, 2025, and can be ordered here: https://www.amazon.com/Bag-Full-Stones-Molotkov-ebook/dp/B0DQSLPF78

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Babak Akhlaghi has waited well over a decade to finally see his brother, Kaveh, arrive in the United States. The wait has been excruciating, unnecessary and a prime example of how the U.S. immigration system fails the best and brightest. Kaveh Akhlaghi is a renowned architect based in Iran who has seen his ability to get a work visa inexplicably delayed year-after-year and resulted in repeated federal litigation. Babak, who works in Washington DC as a patent attorney, has not lost hope that Kaveh will someday receive his O-1 extraordinary ability visa.

Assisting Kaveh throughout this frustrating process is Amy Maldonado, a nationally recognized immigration attorney. Along with providing details about Kaveh's case, Amy speaks to me about her own career and how she inadvertently became one of the top sports immigration attorneys in our field representing numerous major league baseball franchises and their players. While Kaveh's case still remains incomplete, and the current administration makes the future even more murky, both Amy and Babak hold out hope that he will someday arrive on these shores.