Most people will only need a lawyer a handful of times in their life. Usually it is because they have a problem they can’t fix themselves or they are worried about something and aren’t sure where to turn or what the next step is. Often they have been trying to figure it out on their own for some time.

As an immigration lawyer, sometimes I get to help people with the happiest of problems – a couple has fallen in love and are getting married and they want to apply for a green card for the non-citizen partner and start to build a life together in America. Or a U.S. citizen wants to bring their elderly parent to the United States and can’t seem to work their way through the bureaucracy of the immigration system. Or a long-time permanent resident wants to finally become a U.S. citizen.

Sometimes I am able to help people find a good solution to a painful or frightening situation:

• the government has started deportation proceedings against a son or a husband and we discover that they are eligible for relief and can fight to stay with their family in America.
• Or a woman is married to an abusive husband who threatens to have her green card taken away if she leaves the marriage and I can explain to her that the immigration law protects her and offer her some hope and options.
• Or a teenage girl who fled her abusive mother is living a foster home and we can work with social services to get her permanent resident status through a visa for abused or neglected children.
• Or a high school graduate – who has been climbing in a van every night at midnight and riding an hour and half to work “catching chickens” in a poultry house in order support his U.S. citizen wife and child – realizes he is eligible for Deferred Action for Children Arrivals and can get a work permit and some security and better job.

Sometimes they are no easy solutions to people’s immigration situations. For many people that entered the country without a visa or had a visa but were convicted of a minor crime the law offers no options for remaining in the country lawfully. The only thing that I can do is explain the law and process to them and their families.

By far the most amazing part of my work is getting to meet so many truly courageous people. I am overwhelmed with admiration for the mothers and fathers and sons and daughters who leave their home towns and villages and walk across the desert so that they can work hard, support their families, and live without war and violence. I am moved beyond words by the mother who couldn’t swim that crossed the Rio Grande on an inner tube holding her baby over her head. Or the 22-year old construction worker who every week sends 70% of his paycheck back home to his mother in Mexico. They are heroes.

I am lucky to get to do the work that I do. I love visiting with people and helping them with their problems. We carry each other along in this world.