Elise S. Levasseur

Elise Levasseur, a member in Dickinson Wright’s Troy office, focuses her practice on immigration law. She is experienced in handling a number of immigration-related matters, such as permanent employment visas, nonimmigrant visas for business professionals, and citizenship applications. Elise has served as counsel to major corporations seeking entry of managerial and executive-level foreign personnel. Elise has also been recognized by Best Lawyers in America® in Immigration Law since 2009 and was awarded Lawyer of the Year in 2023.

• Experienced in the following areas:
  • Permanent employment-based immigrant visas for multinational executives and managers
  • Extraordinary ability aliens
  • Outstanding researchers and professors
  • Aliens with advanced degrees and skilled workers
  • National interest waivers
  • Alien labor certifications
  • Reduction-in-recruitment
  • Adjustment of status
  • Visa processing at U.S. Consulates
  • Nonimmigrant visas for business professionals
  • Intracompany transferees, investors, aliens of extraordinary ability, trainees, and skilled workers
  • Qualification and entry under the North American Free Trade Agreement
  • Visas for physicians and medical professionals
  • Applications for citizenship
  • Vehicle seizures
  • Employment verification & employer sanctions
  • Deferred inspection and admission
  • Immigration consequences of mergers and acquisitions
• Counsel to companies seeking employment of foreign nationals in the H-1B visa category who have attained the level of a Bachelor’s Degree by virtue of work experience.
• Counsel to companies encountering INS resistance to the entry to the United States of Canadian or Mexican citizens under North American Free Trade Agreement.
• Counsel to foreign national physicians seeking H-1B, O-1 and TN-1 nonimmigrant classification.
• Counsel to new businesses seeking work authorization for foreign personnel.
• Counsel on I-9 Audits and Notice of Intent to Fine Settlement.
• Counsel to major corporations encountering U.S. Consular Office resistance to issuance of E, L, H or other work-authorized visas.
• Counsel to major corporations seeking entry of specialized knowledge, managerial and executive level foreign personnel.

• Co-Author, “Stay Extended by Texas Court to Sept. 23 for Approval of Keeping Families Together Parole,” Dickinson Wright Immigration Blog, September 2024
• Co-Presenter, “Key Immigration Takeaways for Health Care Professionals: H-1B, J-1, and Conrad/National Interest Waivers,” Dickinson Wright Healthcare Webinar, October 2023
• Author, “OFLC Clarifies Telecommuting in the PERM Context for Both Prevailing Wage Requests and PERM Applications,” Dickinson Wright Immigration Insights and Issues Blog, July 2022
• Author, “USCIS Decouples EAD Card and Advance Parole Travel Documents to Speed EAD Card Processing for Adjustment Applicants,” Dickinson Wright Immigration Insights and Issues Blog, March 2022
• Author, “Am I An Essential Traveler Between Canada and the U.S. or Mexico and the U.S.?” Dickinson Wright Immigration Insights and Issues Blog, March 26, 2020
• Author, “Update on Coronavirus: Travel Restrictions and Quarantine Now Extended to Certain Travelers from Iran,” Dickinson Wright All Things HR Blog, March 9, 2020
• “Immigration Compliance: Eight Areas of Responsibility” (Presenter), Dickinson Wright Webinar, October, 2015.
• “New Focus on Immigration and Tax Criminal Prosecution: Employer I-9 Compliance More Imperative Than Ever”, Michigan Business Law Journal, Vol 28, Issue 3 (Fall 2008)
• Frequent lecturer on business immigration topics to American Society of Employers, American Payroll Society, Michigan Bar Association, and American Immigration Lawyers Association-Michigan Chapter