Natalia Segermeister
Natalia de Lourdes Segermeister was born in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. At the age of six, she immigrated to the United States and spent her formative years living in Miami, Florida. In 2010, she became U.S. citizen. Ms. Segermeister attended the University of Florida in Gainesville for her undergraduate studies, where she graduated cum laude with a double major in Political Science and Criminology. After college, Natalia attended Georgetown University Law Center in Washington, DC. During law school, she focused her coursework on immigration issues and was awarded a Certificate in Refugee and Humanitarian Emergencies. She was also awarded a Pro Bono Pledge Certificate for providing pro bono legal services to the immigrant community in DC.
Ms. Segermeister is admitted to practice law in the State of New York and is a member of the New York State Bar Association (NYSBA) and the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA), and exclusively practices immigration law. Natalia is also fluent in Spanish and Portuguese, and has been residing in the DC metropolitan area since 2008 with her husband, Brandon, and dachshund, Bailey.
Ms. Segermeister has dedicated her career to assisting the immigrant community in the United States.
- She was an advocate with the Catholic Legal Immigration Network, Inc. (CLINIC), where she aided in the organization’s advocacy efforts by drafting legal analyses of anti-immigrant legislation, writing comments to proposed rules, answering specific client case queries by contacting the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services’ (USCIS) Ombudsman’s Office, and assisting with the Board of Immigration Appeals’ (BIA) Pro Bono Project to place immigration cases with pro bono counsel.
- In 2012, she worked as the Project Attorney at CLINIC for the Legal Orientation Program for Custodians of Unaccompanied Alien Children (LOPC), a program funded by the Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR), where she supervised orientations given throughout the country to custodians of children who entered the United States as unaccompanied minors. In her role as Project Attorney, Ms. Segermeister provided insight as to how to best explain the removal process and the rights of children during removal proceedings to adult custodians.
Ms. Segermeister provides direct services to her clients. She has experience successfully representing clients before the Asylum Office and USCIS, and has honed her litigation skills in removal proceedings before the immigration courts in Arlington and Baltimore, as well as New York, Texas, and California.
She has also assisted clients in securing a wide array of immigration benefits and filing various petitions including:
- Family-based petitions,
- Asylum/Withholding of Removal,
- Cancellation of Removal,
- VAWA,
- U Visas,
- TPS,
- DACA,
- SIJS,
- Extensions of status,
- Waivers,
- Adjustment,
- Citizenship, and
- Business immigration petitions (i.e. H, L, P, O, and PERMs).
Ms. Segermeister has also filed Mandamus actions against USCIS to demand agency action on petitions that the agency has failed to adjudicate. Throughout her career, both as a policy advocate and in private practice, Ms. Segermeister has demonstrated an unwavering concern for the rights of immigrants. As an immigrant herself, she has been able to provide a unique perspective and develop a great rapport with all of her clients.