HELPING LADY

LIBERTY’S PROMISES

Political asylum, work permits, family reunification, deportation—the lawyers dealing with these issues are also tending the torch of Lady Liberty

B Y  S H A R O N   K R U M

errill Cohen did not go to law school to become matchmak- er, but that doesn’t stop some nuptial- hungry clients from trying to press her into service. Potential brides and eager grooms call her in her office, 16 stories atop Madison Avenue, asking if she arranges marriages, and if so, could they skip the engagement and go straight to the wedding? The answer to both questions, says Cohen, one of New York's new breed of savvy immigration lawyers, is an unequivocal N-O. But the calls keep coming. “I say to them, ‘No, I don't, and I can't even wish you good luck if you do get married.’ It's a federal offense to marry fraudulently or broker marriages between aliens and Americans,” Cohen explains. “And I have had clients who subsequently tell me they married for a green card, and I refund their money. I can't work the case if I know that they have committed fraud.”

Merrill Cohen founded her own practice in 1994 after specializing in immigration law with several firms. She has handled asylum petitions  for clients from Africa, China, Egypt, Rwanda, Albania, some pro bono.

When poet Emma Lazarus wrote in the immortal poem The New Colossus, “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore, send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,” arranging shonky, shotgun, weddings between U.S. citizens and immigrants wasn't quite what she had in mind.

       But she did rightly intuit that New

KEN SHUNG

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