June and Chad

TRANSCRIPT:

Aanna Farhang (0:00): June, if you could please introduce yourself to everyone and your case.

June Treerat (0:07): Hi everyone my name is June Treerat. I don’t want to introduce you with my given name, it’s too long, but call me June. And my case, I just got a green card and I hired Erick to pretty much do everything for me. So I’m not sure how much I can introduce. Well, I, all I did was just filling out the forms and they would just get all the stuff sorted out for me. So, yeah, that’s a very brief introduction about my case. And it didn’t take that long given the COVID situation and whatnot. It took, I think about a year as far as I remember, but that’s just like, after we submitted, well, that’s pretty much the whole preparation and whatnot, but once we submitted the whole case, it took about six months also for USCIS to process and yeah. And after the interview a week after, while they sent me the green card, yeah.

Aanna (1:26): You can get a green card in multiple ways. So was it an adjustment of status case or was it an immigrant visa?

June (1:33): Cause I married to an American citizen. At first I thought about going through the career because I’m a scientist, but that would take even longer.

Aanna (1:50): Yeah. So were you working in the U.S. before?

June (1:54): Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I moved, I got a job why I started, I came to the U.S. I think in 2014 as a scientist, of course, but I started with Wash U in St. Louis. Yeah. That’s how I started. And as to why I wanted to come to the U.S. because of sciences. In the U.S. everything just happens in no one time. So I, I, and as a scientist, I would like to learn more about, you know, science pretty much everywhere else. And yeah.

Aanna (2:41):  So did you feel like coming to the U.S. was a better opportunity for you to expand in your career.

June (2:47): Yes, Yes, yes. A hundred percent for sure, because I love Australia, but science over there is very slow. Everything takes twice, at least twice longer to get done. And the way science in here works is the fact that everyone collaborates. If you’re an expert in this field, we collaborate instead of trying to learn everything from scratch, you know? So to me personally, I think this way works better and everything can just get done a lot faster in a more effective way.

Aanna Farhang (3:29):  Yeah. I think that’s a widespread notion too. Sometimes in the U.S. for a lot of fields. There’s just more expanded opportunities since work is such a priority and the American mindset.

June Treerat (3:40): Yeah.

Aanna Farhang (3:43): So I’m wondering, did you have any experience in terms of past case immigration cases with other law firms? So what was your experience?

June Treerat (3:52):  Oh, no, no, no. I just, when I knew I wanted to get the green card, sorted out, I started, well, just like everything else, I started Googling. And then I saw a field like law firms that I was interested in, but then I kind of looked at the, because I, I I’m a nerd in terms of like, I like to know everything, especially in this field that I have no idea about everything. So I would look up and I found that this firm has got so many good reviews from pretty much every customers, not just once, you know, and there was so many customers who would just, yeah.

And that’s why I decided to contact him. This is the, this was the first and the only one that I contacted because other firms I wasn’t interested in. So I decided to contact, I think back then when I started it was, who was the first one, Erin, I think. Yeah. When, when, when she, when she was with the phone. So I started talking to her and that’s it. The rest is history.

Aanna Farhang (5:13): Yeah.  What made the immigration system difficult for you to navigate? Especially since you were talking about just feeling overwhelmed by all the forms and a really big list of things to upload and send to USCIS. So I’m wondering, was that the only thing that made the system difficult to navigate, or could you go into what made it difficult to navigate?

June Treerat (5:36): Quite a few factors. But like I said, I, this is not the area that I’m familiar with. That’s the first thing. And also I’ve been so busy with work. I’ve always been busy and I know I can do science. Well, this is what I was born to be. That’s why I’d rather just hire, someone who knows about something that I actually no idea how to handle this. I can, I could potentially spend time to read and go through the whole process, but I, I could see myself making silly mistakes by not being able to understand things properly because that wasn’t, it’s, it’s not my thing. It’s not what I’m, what I’m familiar with. And it would take me longer to study do research and go through everything. Even then I could still make mistakes by not being able to understand everything properly. You know? So that’s, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s just time, basically time and pretty much time really, because I’d rather spend the same amount of time to focus on my real work signs that I know best.

Aanna Farhang (6:53): Yeah. That makes a lot of sense. I’m wondering since you looked at this from, and that was the first firm you contacted, was it nice to have a sort of a smaller team, like more community-based firm that was, it’s not like a corporate law firm where it’s more like, like charging you as much as they can just trying to basically, not being as much on the community side as I guess, Passage is with having like a smaller team and having less of a corporate focus. Was that a benefit in your opinion?

June Treerat (7:31): To me, when I look at things, like I said, I would do research about the other firms and I was looking around and whatnot, but I liked the philosophy of this firm in particular. They, I could, when I started looking like reading in the, “about us”, about the team, it felt like family. That make sense? Whereas, cause I, I just compare the way I used to work in bigger labs, where there were 30 people. It’s not about numbers, like how many people are in the lab, it’s about the philosophy and how you work, your, your ethics. That make sense? So I tend to look at things, not, not based on how big or how successful or whatnot, it’s just how I feel about the team. Yeah. So to me, I, I’m a weirdo in that case because I don’t look at success based on like in science, like how many papers, I mean, I’ll let experience that says, well, even how many people are in the lab, but yeah. So to me, I don’t, if corporate is good, I don’t mind going through those, but I wasn’t keen on going to that route. Whereas when I looked at the philosophy and how this firm has treated that customers, I prefer that. I hope that makes sense.

Aanna Farhang (9:16):  Definitely.  And lastly, you sort of, from what you’ve learned about your immigration case experience and through hiring passage, what insight would you pass on to people who are currently, or who are potentially looking at going through immigration cases?

Like how should they overcome some potential challenges that you had to go through.

June Treerat (9:38): Be more organized? That’s what will be my first be prepared and be organized and be ready for, because I, I, well, the thing is I knew that I was gonna, I was gonna do this. So I started preparing my stuff as soon as I knew. So I would, and I’m an organized person, I’m an organized freak. So organizing all the paperwork, which as, you know, it’s a lot, it’s a lot. And even that, I still came across with a lot of issues with time and with some requirements and some things that is so unpredictable. So to me, it’s just be patient. That is what I would suggest to people to be patient, be organized, to be prepared for anything. And also kind of collaborative with the firm basically listened to the suggestions and be, pretty much, try to follow up your case, not just, okay, I pay you for the case, you deal with it. Don’t just throw everything on them because in the end it’s your case. Yeah. I’ve heard that some people would just hire the phone and just throw everything in the firm and let them deal with it. I don’t like that personally, I would prefer to help them because we help each other. It’s like a team it’s not just, it’s not just hiring someone and just letting them do their job. Yeah. That’s one thing. But then your job as this is your case, you should be able to help them out as well. You know, and to faster, you can get things done for them, the better, the faster you get done. So to me, that’s just helping each other.

Aanna Farhang (11:43): Yeah. When you said teamwork, that really makes sense to me.

June Treerat (11:46): Yeah. Yeah. Because in the end, it’s your case, you know, you, you, it’s your case, so it’s kind of your, to be responsible and be, yeah. So being for me is more like being responsible. Yeah. But the thing is they, in my, from my case, they, I think I’m sure they’ve treated everyone equally. They knew what to do. And they, pretty much, like before the interview, like Erick had an interview with me and my husband, he pretty much has told us about what he knew, but I mean, in the interview, none of what we prepped got asked. What we got asked, like the interviews, she didn’t really ask what we were prepping for. Like, it was just so completely different. So yeah. That’s why my other suggestions to just be ready for anything unpredictable. So yeah. But I think because of the firm, they made everything so easy. Like super duper easy. It didn’t feel difficult. It didn’t feel like it was difficult at all. It’s just, it was just easy. It was like, but I’m not sure what other cases though. That’s a thing. Cause it depends on cases. But mine was just easy. It just took time. But that’s like, you know, that is kind of green card application. It takes forever.

Aanna Farhang (13:16): Yeah. Do you have anything else to add?

June Treerat (13:20): Hmm, no. Not, not that I can think of. I already I posted a reviews for the firm just to help them out because anything that I can support them, I will cause they, they need to be kind of acknowledged because they they’ve done a very good job. I know that Erick prefers to have smaller team, but I would, I would, I was told as a point that cause that’s that’s I don’t know. I think that’s, that’s, that’s great. It makes you feel better than trying to, you know, that’s just how I work. I prefer to have smaller team that everyone knows your job. Everyone helps each other make it makes you feel more welcome.

Aanna Farhang (14:16): Thank you so much, June.

June Treerat (14:19): I hope I answered what you’re looking for. I feel like I didn’t really answer.

Aanna Farhang (14:25):  No, that’s not true. It was great. Thank you.