By Emmanuel Olawale
(Being an excerpt of a speech titled "The Big Elephant In the Room: Immigration Reform" delivered at the Hispanic National Bar Association meeting, Columbus, Ohio, USA)
Columbus, OH: Immigration and its regulation is essential to the existence and
continuous growth of the United States because we are a nation of
immigrants. The foundation of this nation was built by immigrants, those
who arrived on their own volition and those who were brought here by
force either through slavery or human trafficking.
As we grow as a nation, over the centuries, there has always been new arrivals and each group of new immigrants faces discrimination and initial rejection. It used to be okay to discriminate against the Irish, then later the Germans, and at some point, the Italians.
The current wave of anti-immigrant sentiments are directed towards mostly Hispanic immigrants. However, what we fail to realize is that our current immigration problem is not a Hispanic problem, it is an American problem.
There are millions of undocumented immigrants from every continent on earth currently living in the United States, most are working under the shadows of legitimacy and being cheated by employers who knew their status before they hired them. Most have been present in the country for a long time and have built their lives and families here.
So we need comprehensive immigration reform to draw out these unrecognized and undocumented individuals living among us, working among us, raising their children, working our farmlands, cleaning our homes, bagging our groceries and contributing to our economy.
The ones that have been afforded temporary reprieves at the moment are children who were brought to the US while under the age of 16. President Obama's executive actions provided them with work authorizations and a promise that they will not be deported while their Deferred Action approval is valid and they have not committed any crime. This has allowed them to live their lives without the imminent threat and fear of being forcefully removed from the country they call home.
I have assisted so many of these DREAMers, most of them have compelling stories. I have a client who became an orphan at the age of 9. After the death of his parents, his aunt brought him to the United States with a visitors' visa. She enrolled him in school and he flourished. He graduated at the top of his High School class at the age of 16 and was offered admissions to several colleges. However, he could not accept the admissions because he was undocumented. He had to forgo the dream of college and began to work odd jobs where he was being paid slave wages. He learned to drive, but could not obtain a driver's license, not to mention register a car. Eight years later, when most of his contemporaries have graduated from colleges and some are in graduate schools and professional schools studying medicine and law. At the age of 24, he got a work permit under the executive action, he obtained his first driver's license and enrolled in college. He is now in his second year of college.
This story is the story of most immigrants. Most are people willing to work hard and willing to go the extra mile in their field of endeavors. These are people who need a hand up and not hand outs and they thrive when given the opportunity.
As an immigration attorney, I focus primarily on family-based immigration cases. I assist US citizens and permanent residents unite with their noncitizen spouses, children, parents and sometimes siblings. I also represent clients with asylum claims, those who have fled their home countries because of persecution, torture or unjust imprisonment as a result of their race, ethnicity, religious beliefs or political affiliations.
Sometimes, immigration law intertwines with criminal law. I call this crimmigration. Sometimes, some crimes when committed by immigrants (even permanent residents), are deemed deportable, whereas if the same were committed by an American, their punishment would not be banishment. For example if an immigrant is convicted of 2 crimes of moral turpitude regardless of the degree, he is deemed deportable. If let’s say, she goes to a store and shoplifts a bottle of soda and a piece of candy, both less than $3, under current law, they can be deported for these crimes even if there was no jail time served.
When representing the immigrant client, especially in criminal cases, it is important for criminal attorneys to consider the immigration consequences of certain pleas before they advise their clients to take the plea. Often times, clients are advised to plead guilty just because of the promise of no jail time. Some of these pleas can have dire consequences worse than jail time. So, when in doubt, contact an immigration attorney for clarification.
I had a client who pled guilty to 2 counts of petty theft for stealing merchandise at TJ Maxx, totaling less than $30 when he was 18 years old. The judge ordered him to complete community service and forbade him from returning to the store.
Nineteen years after these guilty pleas, he was still a permanent resident, married with kids and with a good job. Over the years, he has been squeaky clean with no other arrests or other criminal charges. Yet, immigration agents decided to deport him because of the 19 year old crimes, a stupid error he made when he was a teenager came back to torpedo his life almost two decades later.
Immigration agents locked him up in jail for 5 months before his family hired me. At that time, he had spent both Christmas and Easter in detention. I was able to step in and convince the same court that convicted him to vacate the 19 year old convictions because he was not properly advised of the immigration consequences of the pleas. The court agreed and vacated the guilty pleas. It was only after this, that immigration agents set him free.
Our current immigration laws need to be upgraded to conform to the reality of our time. Most of the laws on the books are obsolete and does not expedite the unification of families in all cases.
We have to uphold our laws and simultaneously extend compassion to the deserving aliens among us. We cannot claim to be the home of the brave and the land of the free by separating families, deporting parents of our citizen children, who are working hard, have not committed any crime and have made this country their home for years.
We need to come together to address the giant elephant in the room and understand that the immigration problem is not an ethnic problem, it's not a sectional problem, but our collective social and economic problem.
( Emmanuel Olawale is a trial lawyer who has successfully litigated several personal injury, immigration, and other civil cases. He is based in Columbus, Ohio)
(Being an excerpt of a speech titled "The Big Elephant In the Room: Immigration Reform" delivered at the Hispanic National Bar Association meeting, Columbus, Ohio, USA)
As we grow as a nation, over the centuries, there has always been new arrivals and each group of new immigrants faces discrimination and initial rejection. It used to be okay to discriminate against the Irish, then later the Germans, and at some point, the Italians.
The current wave of anti-immigrant sentiments are directed towards mostly Hispanic immigrants. However, what we fail to realize is that our current immigration problem is not a Hispanic problem, it is an American problem.
There are millions of undocumented immigrants from every continent on earth currently living in the United States, most are working under the shadows of legitimacy and being cheated by employers who knew their status before they hired them. Most have been present in the country for a long time and have built their lives and families here.
So we need comprehensive immigration reform to draw out these unrecognized and undocumented individuals living among us, working among us, raising their children, working our farmlands, cleaning our homes, bagging our groceries and contributing to our economy.
The ones that have been afforded temporary reprieves at the moment are children who were brought to the US while under the age of 16. President Obama's executive actions provided them with work authorizations and a promise that they will not be deported while their Deferred Action approval is valid and they have not committed any crime. This has allowed them to live their lives without the imminent threat and fear of being forcefully removed from the country they call home.
I have assisted so many of these DREAMers, most of them have compelling stories. I have a client who became an orphan at the age of 9. After the death of his parents, his aunt brought him to the United States with a visitors' visa. She enrolled him in school and he flourished. He graduated at the top of his High School class at the age of 16 and was offered admissions to several colleges. However, he could not accept the admissions because he was undocumented. He had to forgo the dream of college and began to work odd jobs where he was being paid slave wages. He learned to drive, but could not obtain a driver's license, not to mention register a car. Eight years later, when most of his contemporaries have graduated from colleges and some are in graduate schools and professional schools studying medicine and law. At the age of 24, he got a work permit under the executive action, he obtained his first driver's license and enrolled in college. He is now in his second year of college.
This story is the story of most immigrants. Most are people willing to work hard and willing to go the extra mile in their field of endeavors. These are people who need a hand up and not hand outs and they thrive when given the opportunity.
As an immigration attorney, I focus primarily on family-based immigration cases. I assist US citizens and permanent residents unite with their noncitizen spouses, children, parents and sometimes siblings. I also represent clients with asylum claims, those who have fled their home countries because of persecution, torture or unjust imprisonment as a result of their race, ethnicity, religious beliefs or political affiliations.
Sometimes, immigration law intertwines with criminal law. I call this crimmigration. Sometimes, some crimes when committed by immigrants (even permanent residents), are deemed deportable, whereas if the same were committed by an American, their punishment would not be banishment. For example if an immigrant is convicted of 2 crimes of moral turpitude regardless of the degree, he is deemed deportable. If let’s say, she goes to a store and shoplifts a bottle of soda and a piece of candy, both less than $3, under current law, they can be deported for these crimes even if there was no jail time served.
When representing the immigrant client, especially in criminal cases, it is important for criminal attorneys to consider the immigration consequences of certain pleas before they advise their clients to take the plea. Often times, clients are advised to plead guilty just because of the promise of no jail time. Some of these pleas can have dire consequences worse than jail time. So, when in doubt, contact an immigration attorney for clarification.
I had a client who pled guilty to 2 counts of petty theft for stealing merchandise at TJ Maxx, totaling less than $30 when he was 18 years old. The judge ordered him to complete community service and forbade him from returning to the store.
Nineteen years after these guilty pleas, he was still a permanent resident, married with kids and with a good job. Over the years, he has been squeaky clean with no other arrests or other criminal charges. Yet, immigration agents decided to deport him because of the 19 year old crimes, a stupid error he made when he was a teenager came back to torpedo his life almost two decades later.
Immigration agents locked him up in jail for 5 months before his family hired me. At that time, he had spent both Christmas and Easter in detention. I was able to step in and convince the same court that convicted him to vacate the 19 year old convictions because he was not properly advised of the immigration consequences of the pleas. The court agreed and vacated the guilty pleas. It was only after this, that immigration agents set him free.
Our current immigration laws need to be upgraded to conform to the reality of our time. Most of the laws on the books are obsolete and does not expedite the unification of families in all cases.
We have to uphold our laws and simultaneously extend compassion to the deserving aliens among us. We cannot claim to be the home of the brave and the land of the free by separating families, deporting parents of our citizen children, who are working hard, have not committed any crime and have made this country their home for years.
We need to come together to address the giant elephant in the room and understand that the immigration problem is not an ethnic problem, it's not a sectional problem, but our collective social and economic problem.
( Emmanuel Olawale is a trial lawyer who has successfully litigated several personal injury, immigration, and other civil cases. He is based in Columbus, Ohio)
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