Managing Partner Michael Wildes and Senior Attorney Caroline Gabela-Monteiro are pleased to announce the approval of the O-1 petition filed on behalf of distinguished security and intelligence professional Maor Ben Hamu.
An internationally recognized security expert, Mr. Ben Hamu has built a distinguished career spanning more than two decades of leadership in intelligence operations, diplomatic security, executive protection, emergency management, and counterterrorism. Throughout his career, he has been entrusted with protecting government officials, diplomatic personnel, public institutions, and high-profile international events across multiple continents.
Over the course of his career, he has developed innovative security methodologies and operational protocols that have strengthened diplomatic security operations while enhancing threat assessment, emergency preparedness, and protective capabilities. His expertise has earned recognition from senior government officials and security leaders and has contributed to the advancement of security practices within the international diplomatic community.
He currently serves in a senior security leadership role at Yeshiva University, where he oversees campus security operations, emergency preparedness, intelligence coordination, and security training initiatives. In this capacity, he continues to strengthen the University’s security infrastructure while helping safeguard one of the nation’s leading institutions of higher education.
We congratulate Mr. Ben Hamu on this well-deserved achievement and look forward to his continued contributions to the fields of security, intelligence, emergency management, and public safety in the United States.
Wildes & Weinberg was founded in 1960 by Senior Partner, Leon Wildes. He was best known for his successful representation of former Beatle John Lennon and his wife Yoko Ono as they fought the Nixon Administration during a five year bitterly contested Deportation Proceeding.
Nearly three quarters of a century later, the firm continues to concentrate its practice in all aspects of U.S. immigration and nationality law, servicing the immigration requirements of prominent American and International firms, banks, industrial, financial, and manufacturing concerns, as well as law firms in connection with the personnel needs of their foreign national employees.
In addition, the firm has a distinguished clientele and has done substantial immigration work for performing artists, directors, writers, models, actors/actresses, athletes, fine artists, art dealers, curators, and literary agents. Most notable was Leon Wildes’ successful representation of former Beatle John Lennon and his artist wife, Yoko Ono in their deportation proceedings, the basis of which has inspired legislation, and has been portrayed in films, plays, and literary works worldwide. Some of the firm’s other distinguished clients include scholar Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks (z”l), as well as soccer icons Pele and Karim Benzema, Master Chef Jean-Georges, musicians Joe Cocker, Sinead O’ Connor and Boy George, as well as First Lady Melania Trump and her family.
Michael Wildes, the firm’s Managing Partner, is also currently serving his fifth term as Mayor of Englewood, New Jersey. He is the author of Safe Haven in America: Battles to Open the Golden Door (which draws on over a quarter of a century of his practice in the immigration field) and From Origin to Opportunity: Unlocking U.S. Immigration Law . Mr. Wildes is an Adjunct Professor at Columbia Law School and the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law in New York and serves as Counsel to Lincoln Center.
Despite difficulties currently being encountered in dealing with U.S. immigration authorities, the firm has maintained an extraordinary track record for success in its cases. The firm’s litigation group has expanded its efforts in filing Mandamus Actions and other Actions in Federal Courts throughout the nation.
In addition, Wildes & Weinberg’s multilingual staff is spread throughout its offices in New York City, Englewood, New Jersey, Miami, Florida, and by appointment only in Los Angeles, California and Tel Aviv, Israel, and are known for their experience and special expertise in processing each foreign national’s case with nothing less than the highest level of professionalism.
For more information on our firm please visit www.wildeslaw.com or contact Michael Wildes at michael@wildeslaw.com.