Immigration Lawyer for Cochran County and Morton
Cochran County, Texas · Immigration Law
No interstate.
No US highway.
Still your case.
You've been in Morton or out toward Whiteface a long time. The kids came up through Morton ISD or Whiteface CISD, you know the pumpjacks and the cotton keep this county going, and the green card is still in the drawer.
One will ask you to call a 202 area code. You're not trying to learn immigration law. You're trying to work out who's real.
Start with something checkable.
Call Gilda McDowell's office →
806-799-3379
The plain-English answer for Cochran County
Naturalization is how a permanent resident becomes a U.S. citizen. Anywhere in Cochran County, from Morton to Whiteface, your case runs through the same federal office, and it isn't in Texas.
- Under INA § 316(a), the five-year route needs five years of continuous residence, 913 days of physical presence, and three months in this district before filing.
- Married to a citizen? INA § 319(a) cuts that to three years and 548 days, if the marriage holds the whole time.
Fifty-five miles, and then three hundred more.
No US highway enters this county. SH 114 runs east and west, SH 214 runs north and south, and SH 125 comes in from the state line. SH 114 east is the road most people here take, and it puts you in Levelland in about half an hour and Lubbock not long after. That's the easy part. Fingerprints at Slide Road, then the examination hours north of that, in Edmond, Oklahoma. People assume a case like this gets heard at the county courthouse on North Main in Morton, because that's where county business happens. It isn't. Nothing in your federal file passes through that building, and two firms ranking above us publish the wrong federal office anyway. One says Dallas. One says San Antonio.
When USCIS resumes a personal investigation the people they may talk to are your landlord, your employer and the parents you stand next to at a Morton ISD pickup line, and out here that's a different set of witnesses than a Dallas firm is picturing.
No US highway enters this county
That is not a figure of speech. Cochran County has no US highway inside its lines at all, only SH 214, SH 114 and SH 125. Morton ISD enrolls 368 students and Whiteface CISD 298. The economy is oil plus irrigated cotton. The county seat is fifty-five miles from this office.
A county of fewer than three thousand people with two school districts and no US highway is the definition of a place national firms do not serve. Search this and you get directories and offices four hundred miles away. That is the entire reason this page exists. The drive is fifty-five miles on state highways and then, for the interview itself, three hundred and sixty-one more to Edmond. We would rather you know both numbers now.
How a citizenship case runs from here
- We read the file before you file anything. Applying reopens your whole immigration history under INA § 318, and since August 29, 2025 a voter registration you'd forgotten about is screened as a false claim to citizenship, which is answered with a Notice to Appear rather than a denial. Better we find that than an officer does.
- We count the days, not the years. 913 or 548, counted from your actual travel. Saying "about two and a half years" is how a case gets denied for somebody who drives down to see family every December.
- Biometrics come first. Slide Road in Lubbock, weekday morning, in and out. About 55 miles from Morton, and the shorter of the two drives by a long way.
- The examination is in Edmond. North into Oklahoma, 361 miles and a little over six and a half hours, and you're never required to bring a lawyer.
- We build the character record early. Two or more letters from U.S. citizens who aren't family can support waiving the neighborhood investigation altogether. Almost nobody writes about this.
The rest of what we handle here
Citizenship is where most people in this county start, and it's rarely where a family's questions end. Same office, same phone.
English and citizenship classes near Cochran County
Naturalization is the one filing here with a test attached. You have to read, write and speak English and answer civics questions, and for many long-settled residents that requirement, not the paperwork, is what has kept the application in a drawer. Which test you sit depends on the day you filed: before October 20, 2025 it's the 2008 version, 100 questions, and on or after it's the 2025 version, 128. A law office prepares the case. A classroom prepares the person.
Adult Education at Workforce Solutions
ESL day and evening classes and Spanish-language GED preparation, about thirty miles east on SH 114.
Region 17 adult education GED site
GED and adult basic education, evenings. Call to confirm class times.
Adult Education at Region 17
ESL from beginner to advanced, and it serves the rural counties around Lubbock, not just the city.
Questions we get from this county
The USCIS Oklahoma City Field Office, 3101 Technology Drive, Edmond, Oklahoma.
Every Cochran County ZIP returns that office, Morton and Whiteface alike. Dallas is the district, which is administrative and not an interview location, and confusing the two is why competitor pages get this wrong.
It changes the planning, not the case.
Two state highways and no federal route means every trip starts with thirty miles before you reach a road that moves. Build both appointments around that instead of discovering it the morning of.
It can, and any lawyer who tells you otherwise is selling you something.
It reopens your entire history, including the original residency filing. Since August 29, 2025 a voter registration you'd forgotten about is screened as a false claim to citizenship, and that's answered with a Notice to Appear.
Sometimes no, and we'll tell you that.
Plenty of people file a clean N-400 alone. What changes the answer: an arrest of any kind, long absences, a tax question, or anything you're unsure how to answer truthfully.
Yes.
That's a full day, fuel, and often a night away. Ask any firm you're considering whether they'll actually make that drive.
Cochran County.
Let's talk.
By the end you'll know whether your days add up, whether anything in your file is a problem, and whether now is the right time to file.
Get My Free Assessment →806-799-3379Confidential. No pressure. No obligation.
Serving Cochran County, Morton and Whiteface.