Lea Nehme

Immigrants are at the heart of American culture. Very few people know that fact as well as Lea Nehme. Originally from Beirut, Lebanon, Lea herself is both an American immigrant and an immigration attorney. Now the founder of Cedar International Law Group, her perspective on the American immigrant experience is unique.

At the age of two, along with her parents and older brother, Lea escaped the Lebanese Civil War, a violent conflict between the Lebanese Front and the Lebanese National Movement that lasted from 1975 until 1990. They were among the nearly one million people who fled the war in search of safety. Ultimately, despite not speaking English at the time, they settled in Los Angeles.

However, their journey was far from over. Fearing violence and persecution if they returned to Lebanon, Lea and her family overstayed their tourist visas and remained in the U.S. without legal status for twelve years. They lived in constant fear of losing everything, including each other if they were taken away from the only home they knew, until they finally found an immigration attorney willing to fight for them.

That attorney offered Lea and her family a way to a green card: deportation proceedings. For decades, the U.S. had a program called Suspension of Deportation, in which people without legal status could ask an immigration judge to allow them to remain in the country, as long as they had been in the U.S. continuously for seven years, could prove they would face extreme hardship if deported, and demonstrated good moral character. With her attorney's guidance and testimony from their community, Lea and her family were granted legal status and later became American citizens. Theirs was the last Suspension of Deportation case in Los Angeles County before the program was eliminated in 1997.

Inspired by that experience, Lea decided to become a lawyer herself. She considered pursuing other fields, including workers' rights and human rights, but during her time at the University of California, Berkeley School of Law, she completed an externship at the Tahirih Justice Center, helping women and children escape gender-based violence, and did pro bono work for the American Civil Liberties Union. This solidified her desire to become an immigration attorney. And upon graduating from law school, her first job was at the same firm that had once fought for her family.

For more than twelve years, including six years as a partner in a law firm, Lea gained invaluable experience in legal immigration, specializing in employment, investor, and family-based immigration cases, while continuing to hone her capabilities in asylum and humanitarian matters. Knowing firsthand what immigrants need most from their attorney, Lea founded Cedar International Law Group in 2026.

Named for the Cedar of Lebanon, a symbol of strength and resilience, Cedar International Law Group is the fruition of Lea's knowledge and commitment to her fellow American immigrants. She offers steady and clear guidance, understanding from personal experience the consequences of delays, miscommunications, and uncertainty.

To Lea, clients aren't data points or dollars. They're her life's work.