Joshua H. Wildes is an Associate Attorney at Wildes & Weinberg, P.C., a distinguished immigration law firm headquartered in New York City. He is duly admitted to practice law in the States of New York, New Jersey, and Florida, as well as before Immigration Courts across the United States. Josh is an active member of the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA). In 2024, he was recognized by Super Lawyers as a New York Metro Rising Star in the field of Immigration Law and was also formally qualified as an Expert Witness and Expert Consultant in Immigration Law by a Military Judge in a Court Martial proceeding.
Josh’s legal practice encompasses the full spectrum of United States immigration law, with particular emphasis on family-based immigration, employment-based petitions, humanitarian relief, litigation, consular processing, and business immigration matters. He has successfully represented clients in a wide array of both nonimmigrant and immigrant visa categories, including H-1B, E-1/E-2, L-1, O-1, P-1, J-1, TN, K-1, and R-1 petitions. His experience extends to adjustment of status and permanent residency applications involving Forms I-485, I-130, I-140, I-360, I-751, and related filings, as well as re-entry permits, returning resident (SB-1) visas, and naturalization applications (N-400). He has extensive experience representing individuals of extraordinary ability across diverse industries, including athletics, music, the visual and performing arts, digital media, medicine, business, academia, and more. Drawing upon his prior experience assisting Immigration Judges within the Department of Justice (see below), he is particularly well-equipped to manage complex litigation matters, including waiver applications and applications for relief from removal such as asylum, withholding of removal, cancellation of removal, and protection under the Convention Against Torture. Additionally, he represents clients before federal bodies, including U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), as well as U.S. immigration courts.
Prior to his current role, Josh accrued substantial experience in the field of immigration law, having previously worked at Wildes & Weinberg, an immigration law firm founded by his grandfather in 1959 that is now managed by his father, in different roles, including as the Director of Communications and as a Legal Intern since a young age. Josh’s grandfather, Leon Wildes, is best known for his representation of former Beatle John Lennon in his immigration matters, while his father, Michael Wildes, a former Federal Prosecutor and the Mayor of a town in New Jersey, represented icons such as Pele and Former First Lady Melania Trump. Josh, now a third-generation immigration lawyer, also served as a Legal Intern for the Department of Homeland Security’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Office of Chief Counsel (OCC), as well as for the Department of Justice’s U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York (EDNY – Civil Division). Following his graduation from law school, he was selected to participate in the Attorney General’s Honors Program—one of the most prestigious entry-level attorney recruitment programs in the nation—and was appointed as a Judicial Law Clerk with the Department of Justice’s Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR) at the Miami Immigration Court. In this capacity, Josh worked closely with numerous United States Immigration Judges, contributing to the adjudication of complex removal proceedings and the issuance of judicial decisions, and was eventually promoted to be an Attorney Advisor for the Court.
Josh graduated as the Valedictorian of the James Striar School at Yeshiva University and concurrently obtained a Bachelor’s Degree in Business Management and Marketing from the Sy Syms School of Business. Thereafter, he received his Juris Doctor (J.D.), cum laude, from Yeshiva University’s Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, where he concentrated his legal studies in international and immigration law. As a Staff Editor of Cardozo’s Arts and Entertainment Law Journal, his research explored the intersection between student athletes and immigration.