Former Berkeley law student sues UC over immigration error that cost him ‘dream job’

BERKELEY — When former UC Berkeley law student Henrique Faria landed at a New York airport in 2018, instead of heading to his dream job at a prestigious accounting firm, he was handcuffed, arrested, and escorted to a plane leading him back to Brazil.

In the lawsuit, Faria says that he was a student at Berkeley’s law school LL.M program, an advanced law program, to study international tax law. Faria was already a practicing lawyer in Brazil, but wanted to expand his knowledge of international and comparative law, so turned to the well-known UC Berkeley law school for the one-year program.

After studying there from 2017 to 2018, he landed a job at Ernest & Young, one of the top accounting firms, in New York City and was to start in September 2018, with plans to take the New York State bar exam that following February. He leased an apartment in that city, and made plans to leave Berkeley. All he needed was for the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services to give him an employment authorization document for practical training — something he was allowed under his F-1 visa to study here in the U.S.

As part of his program at UC Berkeley Law, the university promised to process his application for work authorization through the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.

The Berkeley International Office initiated the process for that authorization on Faria’s behalf. Faria was to submit an application for approval, but the university office erroneously told him the application deadline was May 9, 2018. The date was actually May 6, 2018, and only the university knew the correct date, as it was communicated to them through a secure system with the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, which Faria did not have access to, according to his attorney.

So when Faria submitted his application on May 4, it arrived May 8 — two days after the actual deadline. His application was denied.

The University of California’s Director of Berkeley International Office, Ivor Emmanuel, admitted the error, shown in documents provided with the lawsuit. He sent a letter on Faria’s behalf to Ernst & Young, and even the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services in August 2018, but to no avail.

When Faria reached out to the school, begging for help, the director told him there wasn’t much the university could do and advised him to go back home to Brazil and wait. By then, he was running out of money, and in debt from his New York apartment and living expenses in Berkeley.

On his way home to Brazil, at a New York airport, he was met by immigration authorities who arrested him.

An image of Henrique Faria’s ankle shackled after his arrest in New York in September 2018. (Courtesy Henrique Faria through his attorneys)
“The defendant’s wrongful conduct caused irreparable harm to his career, the loss of his dream job, ongoing and permanent damage to his reputation, his humiliating arrest and detention in feet and handcuffs; and his police-escorted boarding flight to Brazil, as if he were an international criminal,” the lawsuit says.

The university declined to comment on the case beyond court filings. “Speaking generally regarding our process, the campus makes its best effort to support its students who are navigating the complexities of the immigration system,” according to a university representative.

The university is claiming “legal immunity” as a public school in this case — but one of Faria’s attorneys, Gary Aguirre, of San Diego, said in an interview he believes that claim is not morally or legally justified. He argues the university is in a for-profit money-making arrangement, inviting international students to come study in the United States in a special program and charging them twice the amount of a stateside student.

“The rationale for asserting immunity is inapplicable here,” he said.

It took the university two months before they noticed Faria’s immigration documents were not processed, Aguirre said. During that time, they could have remedied the situation by allowing him to come back as a student, placing him in another program, he said.

But instead, they told him there was nothing more they could do.

“They essentially washed their hands of it,” he said.

Faria’s other attorney, Julia Annes Stedile, noted how much of a “rock star” student Faria was, and how he was on his way to greatness. He was one of only two students in his 250-person class to land a job in New York City.
“He was on his way to achieve extraordinary things. Especially for a Brazilian attorney, the doors were opening for him to have an international career. … He was going to be a rock star among international tax attorneys,” she said.

Instead, now he is back in Brazil, and jobless, worse off than he was before he left for UC Berkeley, she said.

The lawsuit asks for an unspecified amount in lost wages and benefits, and other damages, including severe emotional distress.

The lawsuit was argued before an Alameda County Superior Court judge in late January, who will make a ruling at a later date.