Immigration law determines whether a person is an alien, the rights, duties, and obligations associated with being an alien in the United States, and how aliens gain residence or citizenship within the United States. It also provides the means by which certain aliens can become legally naturalized citizens with full rights of citizenship. Immigration law serves as a gatekeeper for the border of the nation, determining who may enter, how long they may stay, and when they must leave. Immigration lawyers represent persons seeking temporary and permanent residency (green cards) status in the U.S., those interested in obtaining U.S. citizenship through a process called naturalization, and clients facing deportation and removal. Immigration attorneys may also represent businesses seeking to secure temporary visa status for foreign employees.
Atlantic Beach, a city in Duval County, Florida, is the northernmost of the Jacksonville Beaches communities. When the majority of communities in Duval County consolidated with Jacksonville, Florida in 1968, Atlantic Beach, along with Jacksonville Beach, Neptune Beach, and Baldwin, Florida, remained quasi-independent. Like the other towns, it maintains its own municipal government but its residents vote in the Jacksonville mayoral election and have representation on the Jacksonville city council. The population was 13,368 at the 2000 census. According to the U. S Census estimates of 2005, the city had a population of 13,436. Development of Atlantic Beach took off around 1900 after Henry Flagler built the Mayport stop of his East Coast Railway to the north of the town. The Atlantic Beach Corporation bought and developed most of the land in what is now Atlantic Beach in 1915, and the town was incorporated in 1926. The town was expanded in the 1987 when it annexed Seminole Beach, which had previously been within the city limits of Jacksonville. The current mayor is John Meserve, who is also the manager of Fleet Landing, a veteran's retirement community in the town.