Elan I. Baret P.A.

About Elan I. Baret P.A. — immigration Fort Lauderdale Florida

Elan Baret has practiced immigration Fort Lauderdale law since 1999, operating as Baret Law Group at 3007 W Commercial Boulevard in Fort Lauderdale. His legal training spans three jurisdictions: a Bachelor of Laws (LL.B.) from the University of Manchester in England, a Juris Doctor from St. Thomas University School of Law in Miami, and admission to the Florida Bar, the New York Bar, and the Israeli Bar. That international legal background is an operational advantage for clients with cross-border family situations — Baret can assess how U.S. immigration decisions interact with foreign legal systems in a way most Florida immigration attorneys cannot.

He is a member of the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA) and the American Bar Association, and is fluent in Hebrew — which serves the Fort Lauderdale area’s Israeli and Israeli-American business community, a population that uses South Florida as a regional base. The firm concentrates on removal and deportation defense, permanent residence through family or employment, work permits, waivers, and citizenship. You can compare other options in the immigration law directory, but this firm’s trilingual bar admission is rare in Broward County.

What Clients Say

Clients with removal orders who came to Baret Law Group after a prior attorney failed to appear or filed late describe Baret as someone who takes damaged cases seriously — he reviews the prior representation record, identifies what was missed, and builds the motion to reopen around the procedural error rather than simply re-arguing the underlying facts. That ability to rescue a case that looked finished is the specific outcome that generates the most grateful client feedback.

immigration Fort Lauderdale — Practice Areas & Services

• Removal and deportation defense — Miami Immigration Court proceedings and BIA appeals for Broward County residents.
• Permanent residence through family — I-130 petitions with priority date tracking for relatives in Israel, Latin America, and beyond.
• Employment-based green cards — including labor certification (PERM) and I-140 petition preparation.
• Work permits — EAD applications tied to pending petitions or protected status.
• Waivers — I-601 and I-601A unlawful presence and criminal ground waivers.
• Naturalization — N-400 filings with Hebrew-language support for Israeli nationals seeking U.S. citizenship.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is a motion to reopen, and can it help if I already have a removal order from Miami Immigration Court?

A motion to reopen asks the immigration judge (or the Board of Immigration Appeals, on appeal) to reconsider a prior decision based on new evidence or legal arguments that were not available at the original hearing. For Broward County residents who received an in absentia removal order — common when someone missed a hearing date because they did not receive the notice — a motion to reopen filed promptly can vacate the order and restore your right to a full hearing. The standard deadlines are 90 days for a regular motion to reopen, or 180 days for in absentia orders if you can show exceptional circumstances caused the missed hearing. An experienced attorney reviews your full case record before recommending this path.

I have an I-601A provisional unlawful presence waiver pending. How does that affect my case in Broward County?

The I-601A provisional waiver allows certain immediate relatives of U.S. citizens who are already outside the U.S., or who will depart for consular processing, to apply for a waiver of the 3-year or 10-year unlawful presence bar before leaving — reducing the period of uncertainty abroad. For Broward County families where a spouse or parent accrued unlawful presence in Florida before departing for an immigrant visa interview, the I-601A significantly reduces the risk of a multi-year separation during the waiver adjudication period. USCIS typically processes these in 12 to 18 months; your Fort Lauderdale attorney should track the case and coordinate timing with the consular appointment.

Does having a pending I-130 petition protect a Broward County resident from removal?

Not automatically. A pending I-130 petition does not by itself halt removal proceedings or provide any immigration status. However, in some cases it can support a request for prosecutorial discretion — where ICE agrees to close or administratively defer a removal case while the petition works through the system — or provide the foundation for a cancellation of removal claim if the person has 10 years of continuous physical presence in the U.S. The Miami Immigration Court’s ~311,000-case backlog means many cases that might otherwise be aggressively pursued sit on extended continuances, but that is not a guaranteed outcome and should not be relied on as a strategy.