Christopher Stender Email & Phone Number

Christopher Stender, Esq., partner with Thomas Lappin in Stender & Lappin, PC, specializes in immigration law. Although he started practicing law as Assistant Chief Counsel for the San Diego District of the United States Immigration and Naturalization Service, he opened his own practice within three years. With offices in Phoenix, Arizona and San Diego, California, Christopher Stender now assists asylum seekers and other immigrants by defending them against deportation and removal, helping them to apply for citizenship and naturalization, and securing bonds, employee work permits, and business visas.Christopher Stender was instrumental in persuading a federal appeals court in San Francisco to block the deportation of a Nigerian immigrant who was ordered deported after serving a three-year prison sentence for drug dealing. The man had entered the U.S. on a visa and contracted HIV while employed by a Minnesota health center in 1994. He was granted legal residence in 2000 and arrested in Arizona two years later for selling marijuana. By presenting evidence that his client’s forced return to Nigeria would lead to both imprisonment and deliberate denial of life-sustaining HIV and AIDS medication, Christopher Stender convinced the immigration board that such punishment of prisoners with HIV and AIDS by Nigerian officials amounted to torture. To avoid such treatment, Christopher Stender’s client was allowed to remain a legal U.S. resident.In addition to making routine appearances before the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, Christopher Stender has also tried cases before the First, Fifth, and Eleventh Circuit Courts of Appeals and the Supreme Court of the United States. He earned his Juris Doctor from Syracuse University College of Law in 1990, and he speaks fluent Spanish and German. The firm’s website describes the full range of immigration legal services provided by the bilingual attorneys at Stender & Lappin, PC.

• Partner

  Stender Lappin Pc

  2007 - 2012 - Greater San Diego Area