Robert C. Divine, leader of the Firm's Immigration practice group and a shareholder who works from the Firm's Washington, D.C. and Chattanooga offices, concentrates his practice in business immigration and litigation. He has extensive experience serving clients from throughout the world in the arrangement of all types of business-based temporary and permanent immigration status, including specialty occupations (H-1B, TN, E-3), individual and blanket international transferee programs (L-1), traders and investors (E-1/E-2, EB-5), medical workers, religious workers, labor certification, national interest waivers, and extraordinary ability aliens.

Mr. Divine has represented and assisted employers and other parties in some of the largest immigration enforcement investigations and prosecutions as well as private RICO actions. He provides strategic advice and training for employers in their immigration compliance efforts. Mr. Divine also has litigated significant business matters, including contract, commercial, product liability, antitrust, ERISA benefits, and business torts (including RICO, misrepresentation, Consumer Protection Act).

By presidential appointment, Mr. Divine served in Washington, D.C. from July 2004 until November 2006 as the first Chief Counsel of United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), the world's largest immigration services agency within the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. From July 2005 until July 2006, he served as Acting Director and then Acting Deputy Director of USCIS, spearheading the USCIS Transformation Program, testifying in Congress about the E-Verify system and intercountry adoptions, enhancing operational security, and increasing transparency of rules and procedures. In early 2004 he served as an expert retained to assist the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom in its congressionally mandated study on the expedited removal process. He has testified as an expert on immigration law for courts in the United States and abroad.

Mr. Divine is a frequent speaker on U.S. and international immigration rules, policies and procedures, and regularly appears before employers, investors, individuals, policy makers, other immigration lawyers, and foreign governments.  He also authors numerous alerts on immigration-related topics; to sign up for those alerts, click here.

Publications

• "Employment Updates: H-1B Fees and PERM Disqualifications," 85 No. 45 Interpreter Releases 3061 (November 17, 2008)
• Author of Immigration Practice (Juris Publishing, 2006-07 ed.), a 1,600 page practical treatise on all aspects of U.S. immigration law published originally in 1994 and completely revised and reprinted annually
• "10 Immigration Tips for Business Counsel," Business Law Today (August 1998)
• "Religion in Immigration Law," Immigration Briefings (Federal Publications, July 1998)
• "1990 Immigration Law: New Visas, Changed System," Tennessee Bar Journal (March/April 1991)
• "The New Immigration Law: Problems for Employers, Amnesty for Many," North Carolina Bar Association Bar Notes (June/July 1987)

Professional Honors & Activities

• Listed in The Best Lawyers in America® in Immigration Law
• Named to Business Tennessee magazine's "150 Best Lawyers" in the area of immigration law (2009, 2010)
• American Immigration Lawyers Association — Chair, Liaison Committee to U.S. Department of State
• AV® Peer Review Rated by Martindale-Hubbell
• "Big Brother" since 1978; past or present board member of Big Brothers Association, Boys Clubs, New Life Homes for [delinquent] Boys, Chattanooga Resource Foundation (ecumenical)

Admissions

• Tennessee, 1988
• North Carolina (Inactive)

Education

• Vanderbilt University School of Law, J.D., 1985
• University of North Carolina, B.A., 1982
• Phi Beta Kappa
• Morehead Scholar
• Chairman of Honor Court
• The McCallie School, 1978