Isabel Machado

Like her clients, Isabel Machado is herself an immigrant. Her first language is Portuguese. She immigrated to the United States at the age of 6 as a derivative beneficiary after her U.S. citizen aunt (also Isabel) submitted a family-based petition on behalf of her brother, Ms. Machado’s father. A legal permanent resident throughout her childhood, Ms. Machado filed her application to become a naturalized U.S. citizen on her 18th birthday, the first day she became eligible to do so. She acted as interpreter for her parents throughout her childhood and even accompanied her mother to her English and citizenship classes. Later, after graduating college and spending two years in her home country, she immigrated her husband, who she had met while living abroad. In other words, Ms. Machado was exposed to the immigration process and has had first-hand experience since long before she became an immigration lawyer.

Ms. Machado concentrates her practice in the areas of family- and employment-based immigration, including inadmissibility waivers and deportation defense. She has a vast family immigration practice and possesses considerable experience in preparing and defending employment-based nonimmigrant visa petitions and permanent resident applications through labor certification. She has also handled many citizenship matters, including automatic acquisition and derivation for children born outside the United States.

Isabel has helped reunite countless families by successfully obtaining waivers of inadmissibility and has helped many others avoid deportation to stay with their families. She has represented clients before most or all of the Department of Homeland Security agencies, including U.S. CIS, the U.S. Department of Labor, the Administrative Appeals Office, thje Board of Immigration Appeals, the Federal Courts of Appeals for the fifth and Ninth Circuits.

In addition to her expansive family-based practice, Ms. Machado is well versed in both immigrant and non-immigrant employment-based petitions. She has represented clients from a variety of industries, including agriculture, production and manufacturing, information technologies, medicine, and academia.

Ms. Machado received a bachelor’s degree in Political Science and Soviet Studies from Assumption College in Worcester, Massachusetts. She was subsequently awarded her Juris Doctor by New England School of Law in Boston and is a member in good standing of the Massachusetts Bar Association. In addition to the Mass Bar, she is also a member of the Federal Bar Association and she is admitted to practice before the Federal Courts of Appeal for the Fifth and Ninth Circuits.