Immigration Law & Procedure

Ron Wada is Senior Counsel, Tafapolsky & Smith LLP, San Francisco, California. He specializes in preparing immigrant visa petitions for first preference extraordinary ability, outstanding researcher/professor, and multinational manager and executive categories as well as the second preference national interest waiver category, and the nonimmigrant O-1 visa category for individuals with extraordinary ability. He also has primary responsibility for overseeing appeals and troubleshooting difficult cases. Ron's diverse immigration law background includes nonimmigrant visas, immigrant employment-based first and second preference petitions, labor certifications, consular visa processing, naturalization and denaturalization, asylum, and removal defense. He has extensive appellate brief writing experience, has published a best-selling book on degree equivalency for employment-based green card applications, and has authored a variety of articles on topics in his areas of expertise in the legal journal, Bender's Immigration Bulletin. He has appeared in oral argument before the federal Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals and has been a participant in the Board of Immigration Appeals Pro Bono Project. Mr. Wada is a member of the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA), and has served on numerous AILA national committees to help resolve immigration law issues having nationwide impact. He received AILA's 2011 Edith Lowenstein Award for advancing the practice of immigration law, an AILA Presidential Commendation in 2006, as well as AILA's Edward L. Dubroff Memorial Award for Excellence in Research and Writing in the Field of Immigration Law. He has received the top A/V rating for attorneys issued by Martindale-Hubble, and has been selected for inclusion in the Best Lawyers in America. He has been a member of the editorial board for Bender’s Immigration Bulletin since 2000. Mr. Wada holds a J.D. degree from the University of Colorado, a Ph.D. in Environmental Science & Engineering from UCLA, and a Bachelor's degree in Physics from California State University, Los Angeles. He is admitted to practice law before the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, the U.S. District Court, District of Colorado, and the Colorado Supreme Court.

Stanley Mailman (1930-2016) after twenty-five years as co-author of Immigration Law and Procedure . His entire professional career has been dedicated to the practice of Immigration law. He has served the Immigration bar in numerous capacities: past president of the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA) and of the Consular Law Society; former member of the boards of the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights and the International Rescue Committee; twice chair of the New York chapter of AILA; director of the American Foreign Law Association; service on the AILA board of governors. A frequent contributor to professional and scholarly journals, he wrote an Immigration column for the New York Law Journal from 1976 to 2006. His accomplishments have been recognized by awards from his colleagues in AILA and by listings in Who's Who in American Law and The Best Lawyers in America. Stanley Mailman is a graduate of Cornell University (B.A., J.D. ), and of New York University Law School (LL.M., International Law).

Shoba Sivaprasad Wadhia is a nationally respected immigration scholar, law professor, author, and attorney. She joined Penn State Dickinson Law as a Clinical Professor of Law in 2008 and was named Samuel Weiss Faculty Scholar in 2013.

Professor Wadhia’s scholarship has focused on the role of prosecutorial discretion in immigration law and policy, and the intersection of immigration, race, and national security. Her work has more than 550 citations in law reviews or publications as well as several federal courts, including the Fourth, Fifth, Seventh, and Ninth Circuit Courts of Appeals.  Professor Wadhia has published in Duke Law Journal, Emory Law Journal, Texas Law Review, Washington and Lee Law Review, Harvard Latino Law Review, Administrative Law Review, Howard Law Journal, Georgetown Immigration Law Journal, University of Colorado Law Review, Cambridge University Press, and Columbia Journal of Race and Law, among others. She is the author of two award-winning academic press books by New York University Press; and co-author of a textbook on Immigration & Nationality Law by Carolina Academic Press. 

Professor Wadhia has served as an expert witness, testified before Congress, and authored amicus briefs in her research areas. From 2019-2022, she served as the inaugural editor-in-chief of the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA) Law Journal and, in 2019, served as the Enlund Scholar in Residence at DePaul University School of Law. Professor Wadhia was elected to the American Law Institute in 2021.

Professor Wadhia has taught law courses in immigration since 2005 and received the Elmer Fried Excellence in Teaching Award from the American Immigration Lawyers Association in 2019. She founded the Center for Immigrants’ Rights Clinic (CIRC) at Penn State Dickinson Law in 2008.

In 2023, Professor Wadhia was appointed by President Biden as the Officer for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. Wadhia received the DHS Outstanding Service Medal from the Secretary in 2024 at the end of her tenure.

Professor Wadhia is a first-generation American and lawyer who began her career as an immigration attorney in private practice, where she represented individuals and families in citizenship, employment, family, humanitarian, and removal defense matters. After 9/11, she spent several years in the non-profit setting, drafting legislation, building coalitions with government officials and stakeholders, and developing policy on immigration law and policy reform.

Professor Wadhia holds a J.D. from Georgetown University Law Center and a B.A. from Indiana University Bloomington.

Stephen Yale-Loehr (syl@millermayer.com) is a former co-author of Immigration Law & Procedure, the leading immigration law treatise, published by LexisNexis Matthew Bender. He also is Professor of Immigration Law Practice at Cornell University Law School, and is of counsel at Miller Mayer, LLP, in Ithaca, New York, where he advises many universities, businesses, and J exchange visitors. He also is a founding member of the Alliance of Business Immigration Lawyers. He also founded and was the first president of the Invest In the USA (IIUSA), a trade association of EB-5 immigrant investor regional centers. From 1994-1996, he was a Senior Associate for the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington, D.C., where he co-authored a book proposing a new way to select economic immigrants. He is a non-resident fellow at the Migration Policy Institute in Washington, DC. He graduated from Cornell Law School in 1981, cum laude, where he was Editor-in-Chief of the Cornell International Law Journal. In 2001, he received AILA’s Elmer Fried award for excellence in teaching. In 2004, he received AILA’s Edith Lowenstein award for excellence in the practice of immigration law. He is listed in Who’s Who in America, The Chambers Global Guide, New York Super Lawyers, and the International Who’s Who of Business Lawyers.