Joseph Reina

Joe has been licensed since 1987 and Board Certified in Immigration and Nationality Law since 2000. A statewide survey of attorneys, conducted and published by The Texas Lawyer, ranks Joe among the five best immigration lawyers in the State. He has appeared in Best Lawyers in America since 2001, and in Texas Monthly’s “Super Lawyers” repeatedly for over 20 years, including 2024. 

Joe has succeeded in countless deportation cases, many of which presented extraordinary challenges, on behalf of green-card holders facing deportation over criminal convictions and criminal aliens applying for green cards. For example, he won a waiver and preserved permanent residence of a client arrested at the border smuggling 307 grams of heroin into the United States. In another case, Mr. Reina secured a green card for an individual who spent ten years in federal prison for an armed bank robbery. In yet another, he won permanent residence for an alien with seven drunk-driving convictions. Joe has won the deportation cases of dozens of others convicted of similarly serious offenses. His cases also include the precedent decisions, Deanda-Romo, 23 I&N Dec. 597 (BIA 2003) and Quilantan, 25 I&N Dec. 285 (BIA 2010).   

Mr. Reina has also filed numerous successful federal lawsuits against U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services as well as against the Department of State and has achieved “about-face” reversals of originally adverse decisions, despite consular nonreviewability.  He has also represented numerous athletes, including players of the National Football League. Joe also handled the visa application that brought the world’s foremost expert on Velásquez to the Meadows Museum of Southern Methodist University.

At the request of the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA), Joe authored a chapter of an important legal reference, The Waivers Book – Advanced Issues in Immigration Law Practice. He has authored well over thirty articles on immigration law, including Coming to America:  The “Immigration Dartboard” – A Graphic Presentation of Immigrant and Nonimmigrant Avenues into the United States, 14 Bender’s Immigration Bulletin 672 (June 1, 2009) and “Hyperequities”: 212(c) and Cancellation of Removal After Matter of Jean, 7 Bender’s Immigration Bulletin 1549 (Dec. 15, 2002). 

Mr. Reina has spoken across the United States and abroad on immigration law and policy and has been consulted as an expert on immigration law on radio and television here and abroad. Both state and federal courts have relied on his expert testimony and the Department of Homeland Security itself has called Mr. Reina as an expert witness.

From 2005 to 2006, Mr. Reina was chairman of the Texas, Oklahoma, and New Mexico Chapter of AILA. In 2003 and 2004, he served on the National Liaison Committee of AILA to the Executive Office for Immigration Review. From January 2005 to April 2006, Mr. Reina was officially retained as counsel to the Consulate of Mexico in Dallas on matters involving U.S. immigration law. He also served six years on the immigration and nationality law examination committee of the Texas Board of Legal Specialization.

Joe has served as an adjunct professor of immigration law at Texas A&M University School of Law in Fort Worth, Texas. He speaks at immigration law conferences frequently and has helped train the staff of non-profit immigration-service providers. He has been recognized by Catholic Charities of Dallas for his mentoring of lawyers helping detained aliens resisting deportation. 

Mr. Reina graduated from Georgetown University (School of Foreign Service) in 1984 and from the University of Houston Law School in 1987, which he attended on an academic scholarship. He also completed programs at the University of Bourgogne (1982) and the University of Salamanca (1984). He is fluent in French, Italian, and Spanish.  

Joe is also a SCUBA instructor, whose marine photography appears at www.fluctuat-nec-mergitur.com.  A licensed pilot, he occasionally flies himself to court appearances and other professional engagements.