Immigration on the Mississippi Gulf Coast
Gulfport is a small city with an outsized federal footprint. Census Bureau estimates put the population near 73,000, with about 4 percent of residents born outside the United States and about 7 percent Hispanic or Latino, higher than the Mississippi average and growing with the coast's construction, seafood and casino workforce. Two installations shape the immigration work here: Keesler Air Force Base in neighboring Biloxi, home of the 81st Training Wing and Second Air Force, and the Naval Construction Battalion Center in Gulfport, home of the Atlantic Fleet Seabees, with about 4,000 active-duty personnel and their families.
Mississippi has no immigration court, no USCIS field office and no ICE detention facility near the coast, so a Gulfport case is a Louisiana case in practice. Non-detained removal cases are heard at the New Orleans Immigration Court on Canal Street. Green card and naturalization interviews are at the USCIS New Orleans Field Office on Poydras Street, and your biometrics notice will usually send you to the New Orleans Application Support Center in the same building. ICE's New Orleans field office covers the coast and lists no sub-office in Mississippi. People arrested on the coast are usually taken to Louisiana facilities such as Pine Prairie, Jena or Adams County in Natchez, where their cases are heard at the Oakdale or LaSalle detained courts. The Mexican consulate for Mississippi is also in New Orleans.
Keesler and NCBC Gulfport families
Airmen, sailors and Seabees stationed on the coast often have a spouse or parent without status. Parole in place gives the undocumented spouse, parent or child of a service member or veteran a lawful entry on paper, which in most cases opens the way to a green card without leaving the country. Service members themselves can naturalize through their service without the usual residence requirements, and the Jackson and New Orleans Application Support Centers see military personnel without an appointment. A deployment or a permanent change of station does not have to interrupt a pending case if it is planned for.
Our Gulfport office at 1617 25th Ave handles family petitions and adjustment of status, I-601A and I-601 waivers with interview preparation at our Ciudad Juárez office, naturalization, asylum, U visas, bond hearings for coast residents detained in Louisiana, and removal defense at the New Orleans court. We appear with clients at hearings and USCIS interviews in New Orleans. Consultations are available in Spanish. Call (228) 831-0025.