Your Immigration Evaluation, Start to Finish

When an attorney tells a client to get a psychological evaluation, the client usually calls me with the same two feelings: hope, because the case is finally moving, and dread, because nobody has explained what this appointment actually is. So let me explain it the way I would across my desk, since I am the person who will sit with you and write the report.

Here is what I am actually doing when I evaluate you: I am turning your story into clinical evidence. USCIS officers and immigration judges read stacks of statements from family and friends. What they rarely get is a licensed clinician saying, in professional language, this person sat with me for hours, these are the symptoms I found, this is the diagnosis, and this is how it connects to the case. That document speaks in the system's own language, and it carries weight the letters cannot.

The cases that most often need one from me: asylum, where I document what happened to you and what return would mean; extreme hardship waivers under I-601 and I-601A, where I evaluate the citizen or resident family member who would be left to carry the consequences; VAWA self-petitions after abuse by a spouse, parent or adult child; U visas after a crime; T visas after trafficking; and cancellation of removal.

Now the part everyone is nervous about: the interview. You and I talk for somewhere between two and three hours, either at my Boca Raton office or over secure video. I ask about your life before, the events that brought you here, how you sleep, how you eat, what your days look like now, and who holds you up. It is slower and gentler than you are imagining. Nobody cross-examines you. When a memory gets heavy, we pause. And we speak English, Português or Español, whichever one your story lives in.

Then I write. My report takes me seven to fourteen days and covers your history, my clinical findings, any diagnosis that is supported, and my professional opinion tying those findings to the legal question your attorney is answering. If I diagnose post-traumatic stress, depression or an anxiety disorder, it is because the evidence in the room supports it, and I write it so a non-clinician can follow the reasoning. You get the report, and with your permission your attorney gets it directly.

How to get ready: jot down a rough timeline of the big events, know your family members' names and where they are, and be able to mention any counseling or medication you have had before. That is all. Do not rehearse. I am not grading your delivery; I am listening for your life.

People ask me what it costs and how fast it can go. It depends on the case, which is why the first phone call with me is free: you tell me the case type and the deadline, I quote you a flat number and a real turnaround. Most of the time I can interview you within a week or two and have the report in your hands within two weeks after that.

One last thing from me, clinician to human being. Telling a stranger the worst chapters of your life is a brave, exhausting thing. My job is not to judge your story. My job is to make sure the people deciding your case finally understand what it cost you. Call me and we will start.