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Florida immigration attorney

Two different kinds of case, and the first question is which one you are in

Immigration work splits in two. One half is applying for something — a petition for a relative, a green card, citizenship, a work permit. The other half is defending against something the government has already started, which means a charging document, an immigration judge and a hearing date. Jose A. Dapena handles both, from offices in Miami, Homestead and Tampa. Which half you are in determines everything about what happens next, including how fast you need to act.

Talk to an immigration attorney Miami (305) 662-4323 Tampa (813) 930-5422

Quick answers about immigration in Florida

How do I know if I am in removal proceedings?
You were served a Notice to Appear, Form I-862. It names a court and, usually, a date. If you have one, a deadline is already running whether or not anything has been scheduled yet.
Where is my immigration hearing?
Florida has three immigration courts: Miami, Miami Krome and Orlando. There is none in Tampa. Which one hears your case follows the DHS office that issued your charging document, not where you live, so the Notice to Appear is what answers this — not your address.
Is there a deadline to apply for asylum?
Yes. One year from your last arrival in the United States, with narrow exceptions for changed or extraordinary circumstances. 8 U.S.C. § 1158(a)(2).
Can a detained person be released?
Sometimes. An immigration judge can set bond in many cases, but some are subject to mandatory detention under 8 U.S.C. § 1226(c), where no bond is available. Which category applies turns on the charge and the record.
Can I still renew DACA?
Yes. USCIS continues to accept and process renewals. It accepts first-time requests but is not processing them, under a 2021 federal court injunction as modified by the Fifth Circuit in January 2025.
Does my country still have TPS?
Four designations are in force: El Salvador, Lebanon, Sudan and Ukraine. Venezuela and Haiti have been terminated, along with several others. If your TPS has ended, the question is no longer how to re-register — it is what you still qualify for.
Does a criminal charge affect an immigration case?
Often decisively, and not in the way state court treats it. A plea that looks minor in county court can be a removable offense, and it can be one that bars relief. This is the reason to have both sides looked at by the same office before anything is signed.

01 What the firm handles

Immigration matters DAPENALAW handles

Both halves of the practice: the applications people choose to file, and the cases the government starts. The two are listed together because a great many people turn out to be in both at once.

02 Which case are you in

Applying for something, or defending against something

Almost every immigration question people bring to this office is really one of two questions, and they behave nothing alike. Knowing which one you are in is the difference between having time and not having it.

If you are applying, you are the one who starts the case. You choose when to file, you can wait while a document is obtained or a sponsor’s income is sorted out, and the main risk is filing something weak or filing in the wrong category. The pressure is real but it is mostly a pressure of waiting — priority dates, processing times, an interview that gets scheduled months out.

If you are defending, the government started the case, and the clock is the government’s. There is a charging document — a Notice to Appear, Form I-862 — and an immigration court. Missing a hearing can produce an order of removal entered in your absence. Relief that would have been available can be lost by a deadline or by a plea entered in a completely different courthouse.

Plenty of people are in both at once: a pending family petition and a removal case running alongside it. That is not unusual and it is not hopeless, but the two have to be managed against each other rather than separately, because what helps one can damage the other.

03 Where the case is heard

Florida has three immigration courts, and none of them is in Tampa

Immigration court is federal and it is entirely separate from the state courts where a divorce or an injury case is heard. In Florida there are three, and the Executive Office for Immigration Review lists what each one controls:

Miami Immigration Court, at One River View Square, 333 South Miami Avenue, Suite 700, Miami, hears cases on charging documents from the Miami DHS district office and its sub-offices, other than Orlando’s.

Miami Krome Immigration Court, at the Krome North Service Processing Center, 18201 SW 12th Street, hears cases for people detained at Krome and at the other detention facilities under its control, including Broward Transitional Center and Glades.

Orlando Immigration Court, at 500 North Orange Avenue, Suite 1100, hears cases on charging documents from the Orlando DHS sub-office.

The part people get wrong: which court you are assigned to follows the DHS office that issued your charging document, not the county you live in. Someone in Tampa is very often in the Orlando court — but not always, and the way to know is to read the Notice to Appear rather than to guess from an address. Getting this wrong is how a hearing gets missed, and a missed hearing can end in a removal order entered without you there.

04 What changed

DACA and TPS do not say what they said two years ago

Two programs that a great deal of South Florida relies on have moved, and most of what is published about them is out of date. This matters more here than almost anywhere else in the country.

DACA. USCIS continues to accept and process renewal requests. It also continues to accept first-time requests — but it is not processing them, because a July 2021 injunction out of the Southern District of Texas, as modified by the Fifth Circuit in January 2025, prohibits the government from granting initial DACA and the work permit that goes with it. So a renewal is worth filing and worth filing early; a first-time request is a different conversation, and one worth having before anything is submitted.

TPS. Four designations are currently in force: El Salvador, Lebanon, Sudan and Ukraine. Venezuela and Haiti have been terminated — Venezuela’s 2023 designation ended on October 3, 2025 and its 2021 designation on November 7, 2025, and Haiti’s termination took effect on July 27, 2026. Honduras, Nepal and Nicaragua were terminated in 2025 with litigation still running.

For a very large number of people in Miami-Dade that is not a technical update. It is the end of a work permit and the end of a protection from removal, and the right question stops being how to re-register and becomes what else you qualify for — a family petition, an asylum claim that may still be within its deadline, a U visa, a waiver. Those are not automatic and not everyone has one. But the answer is almost never nothing, and the worst outcome is finding out after a charging document arrives.

05 Criminal and immigration together

Why a plea in county court can decide an immigration case

This office handles criminal defense as well as immigration, and the reason that combination matters is specific rather than promotional. A disposition that a state court treats as a minor matter — a withhold of adjudication, a plea to a lesser charge, a sentence of time served — can be something else entirely under federal immigration law. Some convictions make a person removable. Some bar relief that would otherwise have been available, which can be the more serious consequence of the two.

The practical point is about sequence. Those consequences attach when the plea is entered, and after that they are very hard to undo. A charge that is still open is a different situation from a conviction that has been entered, and someone who is not a citizen should have both sides of that looked at before anything is signed — not afterward.

06 How this office works

What a consultation here actually involves

The first thing is documents, because immigration cases are decided on the record rather than on the account. Any charging document, any notice from the immigration court or USCIS, any receipt notice, any prior filing — including ones that were denied — and anything from a criminal case, open or closed. Bring it even if it is incomplete, and even if some of it is in another language.

The second is dates. When you last entered, how you entered, how long you have been here without a break, when anything was filed before. More immigration outcomes turn on dates than on anything else, and a date nobody wrote down is a date that gets reconstructed badly later.

The consultation is with Jose A. Dapena. Immigration matters are billed hourly, and government filing fees and other third-party costs are separate from the attorney’s fee. Payment plans are available. The rate is stated before anything is signed.

07 The law

The federal statutes an immigration case turns on

Immigration is federal, so none of this is Florida law. Where a date or a program status is involved, read the government source rather than an article — this is the area of law where published guidance goes stale fastest.

  • 8 U.S.C. § 1229a

    Removal proceedings

    The proceeding itself — what an immigration judge decides, and what happens if you are not there.

  • 8 U.S.C. § 1226

    Detention and bond

    When release on bond is possible, and subsection (c), where detention is mandatory and it is not.

  • 8 U.S.C. § 1158

    Asylum

    Eligibility, and the one-year filing deadline in subsection (a)(2) with its exceptions.

  • 8 U.S.C. § 1182(a)(9)(B)

    Unlawful presence bars

    The three- and ten-year bars that a waiver exists to address.

  • 8 U.S.C. § 1255

    Adjustment of status

    Who may become a permanent resident here rather than at a consulate abroad.

  • 8 U.S.C. § 1254a

    Temporary Protected Status

    How a designation is made, extended and terminated, and what it gives while it lasts.

  • 8 U.S.C. § 1427

    Naturalization requirements

    Continuous residence, physical presence and good moral character.

Immigration questions, answered

I missed my immigration hearing. Is it over?

Not necessarily, but it is urgent. A hearing missed without a good reason can produce a removal order entered in absentia. There is a procedure for asking the court to reopen, and it has its own deadlines and its own standards depending on why the hearing was missed and whether notice was properly given.

What matters is how quickly it is addressed. The options narrow with time, and some of them close entirely.

Can I be deported if I have a pending application?

A pending application does not by itself stop a removal case. They are two separate tracks — one at USCIS, one in immigration court — and the court does not pause simply because something is filed elsewhere.

What can be done is to ask the court to account for it, which depends on what is pending and how far along it is. That is a strategy question, and it is the main reason the two should not be handled by two offices that do not speak to each other.

How long does a removal case take?

Longer than people expect — immigration court backlogs are measured in years rather than months, and a case can be pending for a long time before it is decided.

That is not only bad news. Time is sometimes what makes relief possible: a priority date becomes current, a child turns twenty-one, a period of continuous presence is completed. But it only helps if the case is being managed toward something.

Do I have to speak English in immigration court?

No. The court provides an interpreter for the hearing, at no cost to you. What is filed goes in English, and a document in another language is filed with a certified translation — which is ordinary and expected, not a problem.

Is it safe to go to an immigration appointment?

This is the question people most often will not ask out loud, and it deserves a straight answer rather than reassurance. It depends entirely on the individual record — what is filed, what is pending, whether there is a prior order, whether there is anything criminal. For many people an appointment is routine. For some it is not, and that should be known in advance rather than discovered at a window.

That assessment is specific to one person’s file. It is one of the main things a consultation is for.

What does this cost?

Immigration matters are billed hourly, and that is separate from government filing fees, which are set by USCIS or the court and are paid to them rather than to the firm. Payment plans are available. The rate and the likely range are stated at the consultation, before anything is signed.

08 Sources

Official government resources

This page is general information about federal immigration law, not legal advice about your case. Program statuses and designations change; the government sources cited here are authoritative and this page is not. Immigration is not handled on a contingency fee; fees are set out in writing before any work begins. Published by Jose A. Dapena, P.A. Last reviewed October 2026.

Talk to a Florida immigration attorney

Bring whatever you have, including what you think is incomplete. Immigration matters are billed hourly, government filing fees are separate, and the terms are explained before anything is signed.

Miami (305) 662-4323 Homestead (786) 900-0184 Tampa (813) 930-5422