Vivian R. Khalaf is a founding partner of Khalaf & Abuzir, LLC, and its affiliate office in Ramallah, Palestine, “Agility Services”. Ms. Khalaf has over 20 years of immigration law experience and practices both family and business immigration. She is also well-versed in family law, with an emphasis on Islamic matrimonial issues. Born in Jerusalem, Vivian R. Khalaf obtained her B.A. degree from the University of Illinois at Chicago in 1987 and her J.D. from Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago-Kent College of Law in 1991. Ms. Khalaf is fluent in the Arabic language and represents a multitude of individuals and corporate clients from various regions in the Middle East. She has resided in both Palestine and Jordan and travels to the region on a regular basis. Ms. Khalaf is a member of the Illinois bar and the United States District Court–Northern District of Illinois.

As owner and Managing Director, Julie Aponte has successfully built and managed our business immigration firm for more than 20 years. Her successful practice includes representing employers of varying sizes, including a multinational employer with 145,000 employees. Julie provides strategic legal counsel for complex immigration matters for global multi-billion-dollar corporations and their professional and executive-level employees. Her extensive experience includes managing the high pace, high volume environment for business immigration services for multinational corporations with hundreds of immigration matters. Julie has had the honor of representing one multinational corporation with 70,000 employees for more than 26 years. Julie has mainly built her immigration law practice through networking and referrals. Julie leads hundreds of clients in successfully securing nonimmigrant work visas, including H-1B, E-1/E-2, L-1, TN visa classifications and navigating the complexities of employment-sponsored permanent residence processes. Julie also directs clients in ensuring compliance with U.S. regulations pertaining to business immigration laws, including prevailing wage requirements, Public Access File compliance, Audit File compliance as well as assisting clients in establishing corporate-wide processes and policies. In addition, Julie’s experience includes creating a firm-wide process for conducting an unprecedented audit project for the firm thousands of Form I-9 Employment Eligibility Verification documents to ensure corporate compliance and mitigate possible government sanctions. Her proactive strategies assist clients in achieving their goals of operational efficiencies and economic growth. Specifically, she prides herself in representing entrepreneurs in investing in U.S. start-ups through the E-2 Treaty Investor visa program. She has represented numerous business investors in obtaining E-2 Treaty Investor visas to develop their business ventures and start-ups in the U.S. As business immigration law touches a variety of industries, Julie has experience representing clients involved in the engineering, financial services, retail, telecommunications, manufacturing, IT consulting, and health care industries. Julie also represents hospitals with their employment-based sponsorship petitions for foreign graduate physicians and nurses. She assists them in achieving work authorization and permanent residence in the U.S. thereby directly benefiting industry shortage needs. Early in her career, she gained experience with Fragomen Del Rey, Bernsen & Loewy, LLP; Paul Hastings LLP (previously Paul, Hastings, Janofsky & Walker LLP); and Squire Patton Boggs (previously, Squire, Sanders & Dempsey LLP).

Chris is a Senior Attorney at J. Aponte & Associates, LLC and has been working in the area of business immigration law since 2013. Since 2013 and from the time he joined our firm in June 2021, Chris has gained extensive experience representing multinational corporations with hundreds of immigration matters. He creates detailed corporate policies and develops strategies for high volume immigration projects, including L-1 Blanket, H-1B, E-1/E-2, EB-1, EB-2 and EB-3 petition processes, and PERM applications. He advises corporate clients on developing compliance policies and processes for maintenance of Public Access Files and for PERM Audit files, completion of Form I-9 (Employment Eligibility Verification), and creates proactive employment-based immigration strategies for their employees. He has written complex immigration petitions and audit responses for filing with US Citizenship and Immigration Services, US Department of Labor, and US Department of State resulting in a high rate of successful applications. Chris provides clients with detailed, hands-on guidance in navigating the complexities of immigration law.