Estate Planning to Address Deportation Concerns

We have had many callers to our firm recently with concerns about deportation. There are hundreds of news stories addressing the subject of deportation and estate planning. What do my kids do if I’m deported? For individuals with young children, who will take care of the kids? Who will be able to take care of my property or my house? Who will be able to access my bank accounts to pay the bills?

These are immediate concerns that would need to be addressed on short notice in case of deportation. So what can we do in advance to prepare for and address these possibilities?

Estate Planning documents, specifically a living trust and power of attorneys, thankfully can address all of these issues that come with possible deportation. You can plan through these possibilities, and through setting up your documents have peace of mind that regardless of what happens, you have a plan in place that will allow the people you want to be able to take care of things.

One of the most important documents to address for potential deportation are power of attorneys. These documents can be set up to designate your children or loved ones to be able to step in and deal with anything in your name. They would be able to conduct business on your behalf. They would be able to access bank/financial accounts, communicate with any businesses that have accounts in your name, pay your mortgage, pay your bills. They would also be able to liquidate and close accounts, sell vehicles, sell a house, and do anything else generally necessary to manage your affairs on your behalf.

The nice thing is that these documents can be set up to be effective immediately, meaning that these documents could be set up and already be in place before anything happens. One of the biggest concerns with deportation is that a client would not have notice or time to set up documents when it happens. By setting up power of attorneys in advance, to be effective immediately, these are no longer concerns.

Similarly, with clients who have a living trust, clients can designate co-trustees or alternate trustees who would be able to manage any assets held in trust on their behalf in the case of deportation. The goal in all of this planning is to effectively name someone you trust to be able to step in immediately and be able to take care of everything should you not be able to do so.

For clients with minor children who face deportation, multiple documents can be set up to address who would have authority to take care of the children. One of the common functions of a Will is to nominate who you would want to have act as guardian for your children should you be unable to do so. The guardianship process, however, requires going into court for that person to formally be appointed as the guardian. Guardianships are typically used to address long-term care situations.

For temporary situations, parents can set up a Power of Attorney for Child, where the parent can name someone to be able to make health and educational decisions for the child, so that the person would be able to deal with schools, doctors, and general day to day decisions for the child. While these documents are intended to be on a temporary basis, and are not as comprehensive as a guardianship, they can be very effective to be able to designate someone to take care of a child on a short term basis.

Planning for deportation or other unexpected possibilities in life is not ideal to think about, but having a plan in place and being prepared can be a huge help to you, your family, and children in such situations. At The Werner Law Firm, our estate planning lawyers have helped thousands of clients.

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