Chuck: Linda, you’re a lawyer specializing in immigration. Can you tell me what an immigration lawyer does on a day to day basis?

Linda: There are a lot of pieces to the immigration puzzle for lawyers. There are lots of different types of cases. Sometimes we work with people who are trying to become residents of the United States who might be in unlawful status at the present time, or some who are even in lawful status and want to become permanent residents of the United States as green card holders. We work with people who have green cards and want to naturalize, in other words become citizens of the United States. We work with people who want to come here temporarily and work for a company, or to study, or to be a tourist. So there’s a whole range. There are people who are being sponsored for green cards by their family members. There are people who are being sponsored for green cards for temporary work authorization by their companies. There are people who are applying for asylum in the United States, women and men who have been battered by their spouses and are applying for status in the United States. There’s a whole panoply of business and family reasons for need of an immigration lawyer. One other thing I should mention. There are people who are subject to deportation and removal proceedings, some who are even here lawfully, who have committed a crime or in some way violated their status.

Chuck: So you practice on both sides of this, trying to get people legally in, and trying to keep people here that they’re trying to deport.

Linda: Yes!

Chuck: Can you tell me if this view by a layman, which is more of a feeling than a view, has any truth to it? To the average voter it looks as if our immigration policy is chaos. Is it chaos? Is it as chaotic as it appears? Or is there an organization to the processing of people into this country that’s rational and makes some sense to you?

Linda: (laughs). What a loaded question! Well, there is a system in place, and I think it was about 3 or 4 years ago the system was drastically changed. The thing to realize about immigration law is that it changes. It’s been changing very, very rapidly and constantly over the last 10 or 15 years. So it’s one of these fields where you blink and the law has changed. So that’s one important thing to realize about it. The second thing is, I think it was 2002 or 2003 -I’m always a little shaky on that particular date, the Immigration Service ceased to function as the organization it had been for many years. When The Department of Homeland Security took over the functions of the Immigration Service, the Immigration Service itself was split up into three different groups. You have the USCIS, (United States Citizenship and Immigration Service)-they are the ones who handle applications for people, for people that want to become citizens, residents who are trying to get temporary work visas. Then there is the enforcement side, Immigration and Custom Enforcement. They are the ones that are responsible for deporting people, basically, for those who are unlawfully in the United States. They have a big litigation unit of attorneys that work for them across the country. Then the third part is Customs Border Protection. They are the people responsible for airports and borders. They have to make sure that the people who come in are supposed to be coming in.

Chuck: By and large, are the immigrants that you deal with generally exploited while they’re here? What I mean by that, are they working for pennies on the dollar? Many of the people who are against immigration, or at least increased immigration for our country, always say that they are willing to do these jobs for next to nothing. Carpentry for example. Do you find your clients are bearing the brunt of a prejudice against them? Do they complain about how they’re treated by society in general here?

Linda: It depends. I have clients of which about half are documented. They’re here with lawful status. Maybe even more because I have a heavy base of deportation cases. So you really have to differentiate between immigrants who have some sort of lawful status or employment authorization and those who are totally unlawfully here. I would say generally that people who are lawfully here or have work authorizations have achieved employment and pay commensurate with their skill levels. A lot of them are in unions. From what I can see some of them do real well depending on their education and skill levels. Of course, people who are here in special positions with visas that are work related are usually paid real well. But people who are in totally undocumented status, who have no work authorization, often do end up getting paid a lot less. Also there have been situations of exploitation where an employer will have somebody work for him with no documents and then at the end of a week or two will say I’m not paying you. Tough luck. He can’t do anything about it. That was quite a good thing that Governor Spitzer did as Attorney General. A few years ago he filed a lawsuit on behalf of undocumented workers who were exploited in this way, who would work and at the end of it get no pay. That was kind of a long answer to a short question but the answer is “it depends”.

Chuck: I’m particularly interested in the politics of immigration. Before I get to that, I’m just wondering, has the politics affected the immigration system? Or does it work independently? What I mean by that is this: Do you feel there’s an increased pressure to deport immigrants compared to what there used to be? And are they responding to that pressure?

Linda: I think there is now. I guess I should go back 20 years when you had the last really big immigration reform, although we’ve had a number of major changes since then. Twenty years ago there was a big immigration program: amnesty. There was also an enforcement program change that made it illegal for employers to employ undocumented aliens after 1986. There was some enforcement but over the years it just got very lax. Part of the problem was and is that the immigration services are historically underfunded. They don’t have enough people to enforce. Now, over the last few months, since the immigration reform failed to pass Congress, there’s been a lot more enforcement. I know there’s been hiring of enforcement people all over the country. They have one program called Operation Predator which goes after people with convictions of child abuse or sexual molestation. They have these different programs and they are arresting people.

Chuck: I’m wondering about this immigration reform that just failed. Was it reasonable reform in your view?

Linda: A lot of us were really torn about how we should view the reform. It was very complicated. It did have provisions for some form of legalization although President Bush claimed it was not legalization. It seemed it would be some form of legalization for a lot of people. It also had a temporary worker program that was very controversial and I don’t think realistic. That was the part that I and a lot of people had problems with. The unions, for example, had problems with that particular part of it. There were a lot of other details that were problematic, but those were the main things that tended to bother people.

Chuck: Why do you think this is happening, and this is only viewing it politically from the outside? It seems to me that the issue of immigration has reached the level of hysteria in the last few years. You see all kinds of demagoguing, putting up walls, and really crazy attitudes. And of course the politicians are right there ready to take advantage of that. Why is that happening now when it didn’t happen ten years ago, fifteen years ago, or twenty years ago? What’s changed?

Linda: Well, I really don’t know. We’re not in economic high times right now. I think Lou Dobbs has very ferociously stirred up immigration. I’m not an historian and I can’t site you chapter and verse, but I think immigrants are often blamed for a country’s problems and used as a scapegoat. I think that’s part of the problem. They’re convenient. People like Lou Dobbs can paint it in black and white terms. But it’s not a black or white issue. For instance we have a Republican President who has actually tried very hard for this reform. He worked to make this bill go through. While it was flawed, it was not without some good points. It wasn’t a 100% sound bill. He tried very hard to make this happen. John McCain also worked for it.

Chuck: Some would say that it destroyed his presidential candidacy.

Linda: Right. Yeah.

Chuck: So I’m wondering about the power of this issue. It seems to me that the Republicans always find a way, or an issue in a campaign, to get war and peace off the front page, to get your economic well-being off the front page. The last time it was gay marriage.

Linda: Um-Hmm.

Chuck: It’s always something. They’re very good at this. I have the feeling that for 2008 this is it. Immigration.

Linda: It might very well be, but the thing about this issue is that it’s not just Democrats-Republicans. Not everybody in the Democratic Party is necessarily for all aspects of immigration. Not everybody in the Republican party is necessarily against it. I don’t see it as black and white an issue as the gay marriage issue. You see someone like Bush who’s willing to give status to immigrants. That makes it a little bit different. I think also that where in the country people live makes a difference too. I think people in the border states have a lot different experience or I should say I know they have a lot different experience with immigration than, let’s say the people in Pennsylvania do. There are a lot of physical problems with a border that we don’t have.

Chuck: Do you have any confidence that the politicians will solve this issue in a rational manner?

Linda: Well, there are politicians trying. I just don’t know if they have sufficient strength in the political climate right now which makes it very risky for almost anybody to come out for more immigrant rights. There was a wonderful bill that you might have heard of called the DREAM Act. It was introduced 3 or 4 years ago. It’s a really modest bill. It would give kids who are undocumented a path. Kids who were brought here by their parents through no choice of their own before they were 15, and if they’ve been here for a period of 5 years, under this program would need to graduate from high school and either go to college or into the military. Over a period of time they would be able to become permanent residents of the United States. It was a modest bill. It was capped to people who had come to the country before they were 15 by the time of passage of the bill. So it wasn’t going to go on forever. I think it had bi-partisan support. Chuck Hagel, who’s very Republican, was very much in favor and might have been a co-sponsor, I’m not sure. A lot of bi-partisan support was trying to get this passed for years and still it went down in flames in the Senate on a cloture vote about a month or a month and a half ago! It’s such a real good bill and it’s for kids! People are not voting for it. Senators are very nervous. Even a modest bill like this can’t get anywhere. I think it has to do with today’s climate. Reagan, 20 years ago, passed a much larger and more ambitious bill.

Chuck: Yeah! Times have changed.

Linda: Yeah, and we can’t even get something done for kids.

Chuck: I want to ask you about an incident somewhat related to immigration that occurred not long ago. In a recent presidential debate, Hillary Clinton seemed to endorse a plan, put up by Governor Spitzer, to allow immigrants to get driver’s licenses in New York State.

Linda: Um-Hmm

Chuck: When I read what Spitzer was proposing, it seemed quite reasonable to me. Apparently it’s the third rail in American politics for Democrats the way Social Security is for Republicans. Because of the uproar caused by that debate, and I don’t know what went on between Hillary and Spitzer, but he (Spitzer) withdrew the plan, and Hillary immediately did a 180 degree flip-flop in the next debate saying she’s not for it. How did that go over in your community of immigration professionals?

Linda: Well, this is a really interesting thing because I would say that pre 9/11 and shortly thereafter, before the ID act was passed, people in New York State had to show that they resided at a certain location. Everybody that gets a license has to show proof of where they’re living. They need an address to get a driver’s license. People could get drivers’ licenses even if not a resident of the United States. So was it really an issue? Starting about, again I’ve been doing this so long that time starts to blur, 3 or 4 years ago it started getting more and more difficult for people to get drivers’ licenses. Now it’s even more difficult for everybody to get drivers’ licenses. If people didn’t have their correct work authorization, their green card, or proof of citizenship they weren’t able to get licenses as they were just a few years ago. So when I think when we now talk about giving licenses to undocumented people, it’s not anything new. It’s what was happening up to just a few years ago.

Chuck: I didn’t realize that.

Linda: It’s just that for a period of time it hasn’t been happening. What Governor Spitzer was putting into play, I think, was the right thing for all of us. It makes the roads safer for all of us. I think if you have licensed drivers driving on the roadways as opposed to unlicensed and therefore uninsured motorists. We’re all better off.

Chuck: They still have to get to work. They’re not going to stop driving.

Linda: It’s not so much an issue in New York City because so many people don’t drive, but clearly in the rest of the country it is. Here it is. You can’t walk to work. There’s no public transportation. So that’s a real issue. Spitzer got a lot of fire for this. Actually, at one point, he basically said that everybody should get licenses. The immigrants really were very happy. Sometimes people don’t have the documentation to get a license that they’re actually entitled to. So people were very happy. Then he backtracked maybe a month later and made it more restrictive with different levels of licenses. Then he abadoned it altogether. So much controversy about it.

Chuck: Talk to me a few minutes, if you will, about the morality of the issue. How do you come down on it? What are your own feelings about immigration? What would be the right thing to do?

Linda: What I think would be the right thing to do?

Chuck: Yes.

Linda: I and a lot of other people have some modest things we think should be done. About eleven years ago there was a set of laws that came into being, AEDTA and IIRIA, that made things drastically harder for people to obtain status in the United States. The rules really got tightened. They even changed the whole vocabulary about deportation hearings. They switched everything around. It was a very drastic change. One of the things they did in this law was make it illegal for people to come back legally if they have lived illegally in the United States for more than a year. If they did that they were not allowed to come back and get a green card and live legally in the United States. If they left the United States as illegals they would have to wait ten years to be able to apply for legal status and a green card. That could be waived only in cases where exceptional hardship could be shown if they were not allowed back in. As a result a lot of people who would have regularized their status couldn’t. If they left they’d have to wait ten years. They’re not able to leave. It’s sort of like being imprisoned. Well, I wouldn’t say imprisoned-that’s not really the right word. But they are stuck. They need to be here to work to support their family. They can’t do anything to regularize their status. Because they have to leave the country in order to do that, then they have to stay out for ten years. So getting rid of that particular law, with the ten year rule, would do a lot towards freeing up a lot of people to actually becoming permanent residents.

Chuck: So the ten year rule is a major culprit.

Linda: Yes. It’s called the three and ten year laws. Then there’s another law called 245-I. That’s a section of the law. That’s a law that allows people, even though they’re in unlawful status in the United States, to become permanent residents without having to go back. So they wouldn’t have to worry about that change in the law. That law came into being I think in 1995 or 1996. It was removed in 2001. We’ve been trying to get it put back in. If those two things were changed, the ten year rule and 245-I, it would make it so many could achieve permanent resident status. Basically it would be just taking us back to where we were before 1994.

Chuck: Do you think there’s a racist aspect to the immigration debate in this country? Because when I listen to people like Lou Dobbs and Patrick Buchanan who advocate a wall or some such border with Mexico but don’t advocate that same wall with Canada, I’m wondering if there’s a veiled or not so veiled racism behind the politics?

Linda: Well, I think a lot of people have a concern about their American culture being overly influenced by people seeking status. Is that racist? Perhaps. But a lot of it is just cultural. Not wanting your culture being overtaken by another group of people. So that’s out there. There’s a lot more concern about Mexico than Canada. But by the same token, there’s a lot more immigration, legal or illegal, from Mexico than there is from Canada.

Chuck: You’ll never catch me saying anything nice about George Bush, but is it fair to say that his immigration push was one of the more reasonable things he’s done?

Linda: Yes. Again, it wasn’t the perfect bill at all, but it was an attempt. We had a big debate about it in the immigration community. Some were against it. Others said that at least it’s something. It brings them out of the shadows and provides a path to legal status. For George Bush it was an attempt. He grew up in an area with lots of Mexican immigrants. Perhaps he has a better understanding of the problem than some give him credit for.

Chuck: I’ve heard ungodly stories about how some businesses treat the undocumented workers. Some have company houses where they jam the entire staff of a restaurant into one house. Then they send a bus to pick them up in the morning. They work all three shifts-breakfast, lunch and dinner, sleeping in kitchen cabinets between meals. Long hours. Seven days a week. Peanuts for pay. Whenever I hear Americans discuss immigration the hostility is always towards the immigrants. Not the companies and the people who are exploiting them. Why do you think that is?

Linda: I think a lot of people don’t understand that this type of thing happens. They don’t really see it. They don’t know about it. I think there’s a fear that some of those jobs are taken from Americans.

Chuck: Pretend that you’re an advisor to the voters. What should they listen for from the candidates on immigration? What should they steer clear of?

Linda: Well, I think they should steer clear of people who are fear-mongering. I think that’s really not helpful to anybody. They should remember that most of us are either immigrants or our parents and grandparents were immigrants. Some areas, especially around New York have actually experienced some kind of rebirth because of immigrants. Many of these neighborhoods have an international flavor. I’d like to see somebody running for president talk about the positives of immigration. To state that it’s not a black or white issue. We need candidates who present balanced solutions. Ones that balance the need for enforcement and addresses the immigrants that are already here. Not to listen to the unrealistic proposals to deport all of them. Many immigrant families are integral to their communities.

Chuck: Thank you Linda.

Linda: You’re welcome.

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