Filing a Detained Client’s First Federal Habeas Petition: Admission, Case Opening, and District General Order Deadlines

Caridad Pastor, Founder | Pastor & Associates P.C.

Caridad Pastor founded Pastor & Associates P.C., where she and her team defend immigrants in complex removal proceedings and take on the federal appeals and denaturalization matters that many other firms choose not to handle. She is admitted to eight United States District Courts across Michigan, New York, the District of Columbia, Maryland, and Texas, as well as the U.S. Supreme Court and the U.S. Courts of Appeals for the Second, Sixth, and D.C. Circuits.

• Education & Credentials

Ms. Pastor earned her J.D. from New York University School of Law in 1989, where she was a Root-Tilden Snow Scholar. She is admitted to the bars of Michigan and New York. Her federal admissions include the U.S. District Courts for the Eastern and Western Districts of Michigan, the Eastern and Southern Districts of New York, the District of Columbia, the District of Maryland, and the Northern and Eastern Districts of Texas; the U.S. Courts of Appeals for the Second, Sixth, and D.C. Circuits; and the U.S. Supreme Court. Her languages include Spanish, French, and Italian.

• Recognition & Leadership

Ms. Pastor has been listed in Who’s Who Among Hispanic Americans and recognized by Super Lawyers. She is an Honored Member of the International Executives Guild and a founding member of the National Campaign for Tolerance, which has recognized her on its Wall of Tolerance.

• Professional Involvement

As the founder of Pastor & Associates P.C., Ms. Pastor leads a team whose practice concentrates on immigration and naturalization law, including removal defense, federal appeals, and denaturalization matters. She is a founding member of the National Campaign for Tolerance.

• Experience

Ms. Pastor’s practice centers on assertive defense for immigrants facing high-stakes matters, including complex removal proceedings and the federal appeals and denaturalization cases that many firms decline. She also represents professionals working to protect their future in the United States while keeping their families together and managing demanding careers, with representation tailored to each client’s circumstances.

Matthew K. Borowski, Founding Partner | Borowski Witmer Immigration Lawyers

Matthew K. Borowski is an attorney at Borowski Witmer Immigration Lawyers who won an order in a federal court habeas corpus action blocking the Trump administration’s detention policy for undocumented immigrants. He is admitted to seventeen United States District Courts — among them the Western District of Pennsylvania and all four districts of New York — and to six U.S. Courts of Appeals, and his practice concentrates on immigration, criminal defense, and appellate work.

• Education & Credentials

Mr. Borowski holds a Juris Doctor from the Drexel University Earle Mack School of Law, where he graduated cum laude in 2012 and studied appellate practice and procedure. He is admitted to the bars of New York, Virginia, and Ontario, Canada. His federal admissions span the U.S. District Courts for the Western, Northern, Southern, and Eastern Districts of New York; the Eastern and Western Districts of Virginia; the District of Maryland; the District of Columbia; the Western District of Pennsylvania; the Western, Southern, Northern, and Eastern Districts of Texas; the Southern and Northern Districts of Indiana; the District of Colorado; and the District of New Mexico, along with the U.S. Courts of Appeals for the Second, Third, Fourth, Fifth, Ninth, and Eleventh Circuits.

• Recognition & Leadership

Mr. Borowski has won several high-profile immigration cases that received significant media coverage. The Buffalo News has reported on firm clients detained in ICE enforcement despite no criminal background and pending court dates, and has quoted him on humanitarian parole denials at the Buffalo Federal Detention Facility; the Toronto Star has quoted him on the effect of U.S. immigration policy on Canadians. He has also been featured for representing a Dreamer whose status was revoked despite dropped criminal charges and for winning a Syrian asylum case.

• Professional Involvement

Mr. Borowski is a member of the American Immigration Lawyers Association and the Law Society of Ontario (formerly the Law Society of Upper Canada). Earlier in his career he worked at Philadelphia’s Nationalities Service Center, a non-profit immigrant aid organization, on asylum, waiver, visa, and deportation-defense matters, and at South Jersey Legal Services in Vineland, New Jersey, on contract, landlord/tenant, consumer-law, and other civil matters.

• Experience

Mr. Borowski’s practice concentrates on immigration, criminal defense, and appellate work, including the federal court habeas corpus action in which he won an order blocking the Trump administration’s detention policy for undocumented immigrants. He has practiced before federal and state courts in complex immigration and criminal appeals, represented individuals in removal proceedings in the Immigration Courts and before the Board of Immigration Appeals, and appeared in Immigration Courts throughout the nation and in courts throughout New York State. A first-generation American and the child of immigrants, he became a lawyer to give a voice to people whose rights might otherwise be overlooked.

SESSION 1 – Getting Admitted and Opening an Immigration Habeas Case Without a Dismissal | Caridad Pastor | 2:30pm – 3:30pm

This session covers the petitioner-side opening hour of an immigration habeas case: choosing an admission route, getting same-day ECF access, verifying under § 2242, coding NOS 463 with each district’s add-ons, serving the government, and redacting exhibits for a public docket. The audience is removal-defense lawyers who have never opened a civil case in CM/ECF, and the anchor is Ico-Choc, where a petition filed without admission was dismissed after seven weeks.

BREAK | 3:30pm – 3:40pm

SESSION 2 – Running the First Days of an Immigration Habeas Case Under District General Orders | Matthew K. Borowski | 3:40pm – 4:40pm

This session teaches immigration habeas practitioners, from the petitioner’s side, how to run the first 14 days of a detained client’s § 2241 case under district general orders. The hour covers calendaring from the docketed notice in C.D. Cal. and W.D. Wash., the magistrate-judge consent decision, the choice among the standard schedule, a joint motion to expedite and a TRO, and the reply, transfer and superseded-order traps. The audience is immigration lawyers new to district court.