GIBBS • HOUSTON • PAUW • 1000 Second Avenue • Suite 1600 • Seattle, WA 98104 • Phone (206) 682-1080 • 

Seattle Times, 12/5/2005. To view this article, click here.

"Chief Judge Robert Lasnik of the U.S. District Court in Seattle is considering the terms of a settlement in a class-action lawsuit immigrants filed in 2004 against U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (by Gibbs Houston Pauw).

The best-known case of citizenship denial is that of Kichul Lee of Federal Way, whose moral transgression involved collecting three dozen more shellfish than state law allowed along a Washington beach.

Last February, Lasnik ordered the immigration agency to grant citizenship to Lee and three others in the lawsuit, even as the suit progressed. "

In this case, Kitchel Lee along with hundreds of other class members, were granted citizenship thanks to the class action lawsuit brought by Gibbs Houston Pauw. See more about GHP class action cases on our class action page by clicking here.

To see another article, released when this case was first filed, please click here.

The 40-year-old had longed for what he calls 'the big title' — immigration status that will make it easy for him to travel back to the country he fled during the first Gulf War and visit family he's not seen in 15 years.

He is among hundreds of permanent residents the U.S. government now concedes were wrongly denied citizenship sometime between 1998 and 2004 because of minor infractions (thanks to the class action lawsuit brought by Gibbs Houston Pauw)."

"Robert Gibbs, a Seattle attorney who represents the defendants, said as many as 1,000 immigrants could have been wrongly denied citizenship after May 1998.

'We're real happy with the progress so far,' Gibbs said, although 'we still have a ways to go to make sure all the people wrongly denied citizenship get their cases corrected.'"

Seattle P.I. 07/25/1999

"A trip across the U.S.-Canadian border that has cost some owners their cars is now less risky, thanks to a ruling issued yesterday in U.S. District Court"

"The (INS appeals) process [was] a joke in terms of the way it's run" said Bob Pauw about the procedure that allowed thousands of vehicles to be seized, alleging that the owners were illegally transporting people into the United States. But thanks to the class action lawsuit brought by Bob Pauw that law was changed.

 Seattle Times, 10/10/1996

Robert Gibbs represents several clients in a class action case that would provide due process for thousands of immigrants to whom it had been denied.

"A federal judge in Seattle has ordered the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service to reopen hearing for thousands of illegal immigrants, including many who already have been deported, because they were given deficient legal notices written only in English."

The News Tribune, 03/10/1989

"On Wednesday, the 30-year-old Seattle man [Houshmand], and possibly thousands of other illegal aliens won a significant round in their fight. U.S. District Court Judge Barbara Rothstein in Seattle ruled that foreigners like Houshmans...can apply for amnesty under the Immigration Reform and Control Act. "

"The issue is highly technical, a complex chapter in this dense area of immigration law. But for Houshmand, who asked that his last name not be used, Rothstein's decision gives him a shot at what he's been hoping for: freedom in the United States."