Biography
Jesica Nieves Meléndez is an immigration attorney at Vasquez Law Firm with more than 14 years of legal experience. She has represented clients in individual immigration hearings in California and other states, handling removal defense before the Executive Office for Immigration Review as well as applications before USCIS, including adjustment of status, family petitions, waivers, work permits, citizenship, and consular processing. Most recently, as an Immigration Associate Attorney at Kostiv & Associates in Los Angeles, she drafted complex briefs on asylum, withholding of removal, and Convention Against Torture (CAT) claims and appeared in immigration courts in Los Angeles, Santa Ana, San Francisco, and Indianapolis. Before that, she served as Senior Attorney at ERA Advisory Group, representing government agencies and private clients in administrative, appellate, and family law matters, and spent seven years in the Office of Legal Affairs of Puerto Rico's Employee Retirement System, handling foreclosures, bankruptcy, and disability claims. Licensed in Puerto Rico since 2012 and a sworn Notary Public since 2013, Jesica earned her J.D. magna cum laude from the University of Puerto Rico School of Law.