From Fact-Finding to Rights-Fighting—Katie Coyle on Reform, Resilience, and the Potential for Digital Immigration
Logan Cookingham
August 12th 2025
She still keeps colored sticky notes on most case files. “Every color is a different story,” Katie Coyle says, acknowledging the neon tabs that line her desk in a Queen’s boutique immigration firm. Over a decade ago she imagined those tabs would be post it story leads in a newsroom; today they flag affidavits, medical reports, and sworn statements for her clients fighting for status. What never changed, she insists, is the impulse behind the notes: Each person has a unique and personal story to share, no one is just a statistic.
Coyle’s first professional credential was a bachelor’s in journalism, not a law degree. “I loved researching story ideas,” she recalls, “but everything I wrote about left me wanting to do more.” That restlessness sent her back to school for a J.D. equivalent in Ireland and, later, a master’s in international law at NYU.
New York exposed her to immigration on two levels at once: academic policy debates by day, and the visceral realization that she was now an immigrant. “That switch in perspective changes everything,” she says. “Suddenly I understood the anxiety of waiting for an approval notice, watching the mailbox like it holds your future.”
Clinical work and pro-bono shifts with Catholic Charities cemented her direction. Even within the sprawling U.S. system, she noticed, “no two ‘identical’ visa categories ever look the same once you hear the full back-story.” That variability—frustrating to many—felt familiar to Katie who thrived on nuance.
A Comparative Lens: From to Dublin to Abu Dhabi and London to New York
Before committing to law school, Coyle spent a year as a teacher for young children in Abu Dhabi. Through this experience in an international school, she met families from countries across the world and this first piqued her interest in immigration.
She also later worked in a UK based immigration team within the High-Net-Worth division of a law firm also known nationally for their personal injury work. Here she had a chance to see a broad scope of UK immigration matters, from the spouses of workers at multinational companies to humanitarian based cases. The U.K. option of “discretionary leave to remain” for medical claims for example, she notes, doesn’t exist in the United States.
“Working across jurisdictions showed me how policy choices translate into human outcomes,” she explains. It also made her résumé unusual enough to attract her current firm—a place where business-visa strategists and humanitarian litigators share the hallway printer. “They valued transferable skills over local pedigree,” she says, “and gave me room to focus on the litigation that matters most to me.”
Why the U.S. System Feels Stuck—and How It Could Move
Ask Coyle what frustrates her clients most, and she answers without hesitation: uncertainty. Quotas written for a different era, a lottery that ignores merit, processing backlogs that stretch into years. She admires the U.K.’s promise of permanent residence after five consecutive years on a skilled worker visa— “it rewards people who’ve already contributed to the country”—and wonders why Congress hasn’t created a similar pathway or modernized American thresholds in decades.
Technology, she argues, is the low-hanging fruit. “In 2025 we are still overnighting some paper forms and praying FedEx beats a deadline,” she laughs. Further digitization of filings and case histories would slash anxiety and error alike. Artificial intelligence? Useful, but only with human oversight. “An auto-generated motion is harmless—until it cites the wrong statute. Lawyers will never be optional.”
Counsel for the Anxious: Document, Detail, and Don’t Go It Alone
Coyle’s signature advice fits on a single line: “Document everything.” A seemingly minor error on a tourist visa can derail a green-card interview ten years later, she warns, so immigrants should store every submission and triple-check every fact. Beyond paperwork, she urges clients to protect their mental health. “Waiting five, six, seven years for a decision is emotionally corrosive. Find community. Talk to someone. Hope is easier to maintain when it’s shared.”
She extends the same counsel to colleagues: empathy as a professional discipline. “We deal in statutes, but our clients live in stories, if we lose sight of that we’ll never write briefs persuasive enough to matter.”
Looking Ahead: A Crossroads Demanding Convergence
Coyle maintains that today’s gridlock goes beyond any one administration. “Labels change every four years,” she says, “yet the real challenge is societal division about what actually needs fixing.” She envisions a future where bipartisan consensus returns—where updates to quotas, merit metrics, and digital infrastructure are regarded as pragmatic housekeeping, not ideological warfare.
Until then, she keeps the sticky notes close, color-coding cases as they come to her desk. Some will become courtroom victories, others have a longer road ahead, but all, she believes, belong to a greater narrative of resilience. “Anyone who reaches the finish line has a war story,” she tells clients. “Immigrants don’t just survive — they rise, rebuild, and they persist. The journey is not easy, but it is important to remember you are not alone.”
Q & A HIGHLIGHTS
Q: What single mistake haunts immigrants most years later?
A: “A careless answer on an old short-term visa. People forget what they wrote; USCIS never does. Accuracy from day one is non-negotiable.”
Q: How do you personally manage the emotional weight of clients’ stories?
A: “I debrief with peers, exercise, and keep a gratitude journal. If I burn out, I’m no good to the next client.”
Q: Will AI really change immigration law practice?
A: “Yes—by automating drudge work, not replacing judgment. Think of it as a super-assistant that still needs guidance and supervision.”
Q: Biggest lesson from working in four countries?
A: “Each country should look to each other for examples of what works to what doesn’t. The UK’s discretionary leave to remain does not exist in the US, while the US has more options regarding family unity such as sponsoring parents without special care needs. A single humane clause can change a person’s entire future.”
Q: Your elevator pitch for comprehensive U.S. reform?
A: “Modernize quotas, decrease waiting times, digitize filings, offer a five-year path to permanence for lawful residents, and make merit count more than lotteries.”
