Anahita Farahani Immigration Attorney, Removal Defense and Humanitarian Relief Houston, 77006, United States [email protected] · (713) 555-0183
11 September 2026
Ms. Rosalba Alvarado Hiring Partner Brazos Immigration Law Houston, United States
Application for Senior Immigration Attorney, Brazos Immigration Law
Dear Ms. Alvarado,
I am applying for the Senior Immigration Attorney post at Brazos Immigration Law. I have spent eight years in removal defense and humanitarian relief before the Houston Immigration Court, the Board of Immigration Appeals and the Fifth Circuit. I am admitted in Texas, registered with EOIR, and admitted before the Southern District of Texas and the Fifth Circuit.
My practice is a litigation practice. I carry a standing docket of 110 to 130 removal matters, and I have tried 96 individual merits hearings on asylum, withholding and related protection claims, with relief granted in 61 percent across the period. I have briefed 22 appeals to the Board and 6 petitions for review to the Fifth Circuit, four of which produced remands. I supervise two associates and four paralegals on evidence assembly and deadline control.
Your posting describes a group expanding its appellate work, and that is the part of the practice I would most want to build. I also conduct intake, declaration drafting and hearing preparation in Persian and Spanish without an interpreter, which covers about 40 percent of my group's caseload and is often the difference between a declaration that holds up and one that does not.
I am a member of the AILA Texas chapter and can give a reference from a supervising partner and a former clinic director. I could start within eight weeks. Thank you for your time.
Sincerely, Anahita Farahani
Summary
An immigration lawyer cover letter names the benefits or proceedings you handle, the forums you appear in, your bar admission and EOIR registration, and one volume figure that could be checked. This guide gives you a full adaptable letter, the openings that work, how the letter changes between litigation and agency practice, and the confidentiality rule behind all of it.
Immigration Lawyer cover letter examples by experience level
An immigration lawyer cover letter is a one-page letter telling a hiring partner which immigration practice is yours, which forums you appear in, and what volume sits behind that.
The field splits into practices that barely overlap. A firm hiring for removal defense wants hearings and briefs; one hiring for employment-based work wants petition volume and agency timelines. A letter that could be sent to both is written for neither.
Guide to an immigration lawyer cover letter
This guide and the corresponding immigration lawyer cover letter example will cover:
- How to structure the letter, paragraph by paragraph
- Why your case types and forums belong in the opening line
- What volume evidence looks like when the work is confidential
- How the letter changes between litigation and agency practice
- The confidentiality rule behind the ethics screen
How to write an immigration lawyer cover letter
| Paragraph | Its job | Length |
|---|---|---|
| Opening | The role, your case types, your admissions and forums | 2 to 3 sentences |
| Evidence | Volume, outcomes in aggregate, the period covered | 4 to 5 sentences |
| Fit | Something specific about their practice, and what you would take on | 3 to 4 sentences |
| Close | Languages, availability, thank you | 2 sentences |
Name the practice in the first sentence
Immigration is federal practice, so admission rarely screens you out on geography: 8 CFR 1001.1(f) defines an attorney appearing before the immigration courts as a member in good standing of the bar of the highest court of any state, territory, possession or the District of Columbia, and the Department of Justice separately requires registration with EOIR to represent people before those courts and the Board of Immigration Appeals.
What screens you out is ambiguity about what you do. Write "eight years in removal defense and humanitarian relief before the Houston Immigration Court, the BIA and the Fifth Circuit" rather than "extensive immigration experience." If you are moving between practices, say so in one sentence and say what transfers.
An immigration lawyer cover letter example you can adapt
Dear Ms. Alvarado,
I am applying for the Senior Immigration Attorney post at Brazos Immigration Law. I have spent eight years in removal defense and humanitarian relief before the Houston Immigration Court, the Board of Immigration Appeals and the Fifth Circuit. I am admitted in Texas, registered with EOIR, and admitted before the Southern District of Texas and the Fifth Circuit.
My practice is a litigation practice. I carry a standing docket of 110 to 130 removal matters, and I have tried 96 individual merits hearings on asylum, withholding and related protection claims, with relief granted in 61 percent across the period. I have briefed 22 appeals to the Board and 6 petitions for review to the Fifth Circuit, four of which produced remands. I supervise two associates and four paralegals on evidence assembly and deadline control.
Your posting describes a group expanding its appellate work, and that is the part of the practice I would most want to build. I also conduct intake, declaration drafting and hearing preparation in Persian and Spanish without an interpreter, which covers about 40 percent of my group's caseload and is often the difference between a declaration that holds up and one that does not.
I am a member of the AILA Texas chapter and can give a reference from a supervising partner and a former clinic director. I could start within eight weeks. Thank you for your time.
Sincerely, Anahita Farahani
Openings that work
| Instead of | Use |
|---|---|
| I am writing to express my interest in your immigration attorney position | I am applying for the Senior Immigration Attorney post; my practice is removal defense |
| I am passionate about helping immigrant families | Eight years before the Houston Immigration Court, the BIA and the Fifth Circuit |
| I have handled a wide variety of immigration matters | 96 individual merits hearings tried, 22 BIA briefs, 6 petitions for review |
| I am a dedicated advocate for my clients | I supervise two associates and four paralegals on evidence and deadline control |
Evidence that survives confidentiality
Immigration files are confidential and usually privileged, which rules out the usual way lawyers show their work. Use aggregates.
| Kind of evidence | What it looks like in a sentence |
|---|---|
| Docket size | A standing docket of 110 to 130 removal matters |
| Hearings | 96 individual merits hearings tried over eight years |
| Appellate volume | 22 BIA briefs and 6 petitions for review, with 4 remands |
| Outcome rate | Relief granted in 61 percent of merits hearings |
Three of those is a letter. Five is a spreadsheet.
What must never appear
A client name. Initials. An A-number, a receipt number, a court case number. An individual's circumstances described specifically enough to identify them. A screenshot of a filing. A redacted brief that is still recognizable.
Hiring partners read a job application partly as an ethics screen, because the material you handle daily is exactly the material that must not travel. A candidate who describes a matter by case type, forum and outcome has shown the judgment the job requires. One who tells a memorable story about a person has shown the opposite.
Name the practice area and forums in the first two sentences. State bar admission and EOIR registration as separate facts. Give three aggregate numbers. Say what your languages are and where you use them professionally. Name one specific thing about their practice, from their own material.
Do not name a client, use initials, or give an A-number, receipt number or case number. Do not describe an individual matter in identifying detail. Do not claim a result in a way that implies a guarantee. Do not send a removal defense letter to a business immigration firm without rewriting it. Do not use the letter to argue about immigration policy; the reader is staffing a practice.
A large field where most respondents have no lawyer
The immigration courts held 3,141,306 pending cases at the end of July 2026, and only 22.8 percent of people had an attorney when a removal order was issued against them that month (TRAC, Syracuse University, July 2026).
The wider occupation is steady and well paid: 863,700 lawyer jobs in 2025, projected to grow 5 percent to 2035 with about 28,700 openings a year, and a median annual wage of $159,670 in May 2025 (BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook, 2025-35 projections and May 2025 wage data).
The American Immigration Lawyers Association reports more than 18,000 attorney members across 39 chapters (AILA, 2026), small relative to that caseload. Hearing volume accumulates fast here, and because it is checkable it is the most persuasive thing a letter can contain.
Litigation letters and agency letters
For a removal defense or appellate practice, write like a litigator: forums, hearings, briefs, motions, outcomes in aggregate. The reader wants to know whether you can stand up on a contested individual calendar without supervision.
For an employment-based or business immigration practice, write like someone who runs process at volume. In fiscal year 2025 the Department of Labor certified 138,093 permanent labor certification applications and denied 3,404, with 157,669 still pending on 30 September 2025 (DOL Office of Foreign Labor Certification, PERM Selected Statistics FY2025 Q4). That practice is measured in filings, timelines and audit responses, and the letter should be too.
For a family-based or naturalization practice, the metrics are filing volume, approval rates, request-for-evidence rates and interview appearances.
Length, format and sending it
One page, four paragraphs, 250 to 400 words. PDF, named for yourself and the role: anahita-farahani-immigration-attorney-cover-letter.pdf.
Address a named person. Firms publish their attorneys, and a generic salutation on an otherwise precise letter reads as a mail merge.
Keep every number identical to your resume. Our immigration lawyer resume example uses the same figures as the letter above.
Key takeaways
- Name your practice area and forums in the first two sentences.
- State bar admission and EOIR registration separately.
- Give three aggregate numbers: docket, hearings or filings, and an outcome rate.
- Write a litigation letter or an agency letter, not a general one.
- Say where you use your languages professionally.
- Keep client names, A-numbers, receipt numbers and case details out.
- Address a named person and stay on one page.
Write your immigration lawyer cover letter in 10 minutes.
Immigration lawyer cover letter questions, answered
How long should an immigration lawyer cover letter be?
One page, four paragraphs, 250 to 400 words. Legal hiring reads the letter as a writing sample, so concision counts more than coverage.
Do I need to be admitted in the state where the firm is?
Usually not for the immigration work itself. Under 8 CFR 1001.1(f) an attorney appearing before the immigration courts is a member in good standing of the bar of the highest court of any state, territory, possession or the District of Columbia, and EOIR registration is a separate federal requirement. State rules on maintaining an office still apply, so address it in a sentence.
What do I write with no immigration experience?
Write the clinic as practice: the case types, the matters you carried, the forums you appeared in and what you filed. Add externships with a judge, an agency or a legal services organization, professional-level language proficiency, and volunteer filing work. Then say plainly which practice you want, because the reader is staffing one.
Can I describe a case I worked on?
Only in aggregate and by type. Case type, forum, the legal question and the outcome is the permissible level. Names, initials, A-numbers, receipt numbers, case numbers and identifying circumstances are confidential and generally privileged, and including them signals the same will happen to the reader's files.
How do I write to a firm whose practice I do not know?
Read their own material first: which case types they list, which courts they name, whether they take employer clients. One accurate sentence about the practice is worth more than a paragraph of enthusiasm, and it cannot be reused in the next letter.