The Real "Caravans"

At 6:00 p.m., at the end of a very long work week, my wife was dead tired, and well into months of pain from a leg injury.  She ought to have sought treatment for the injury a long time ago, but has feared the possibility of a diagnosis and treatment that would prevent her from seeing law clients for weeks, if not longer.  On this particular day, she had hoped to spend some time catching up on work that was deferred by months of client appointments that seemed to have no end and whose beginning can probably be traced back to, say, roughly two years ago.

It wasn't meant to be, however.  The day of catch-up work had, instead, become a day of walk-in appointments.  Walk-ins are an experience she has gotten used to over the past 20-plus years and, until (again) about roughly two years ago, it had never been a significant source of stress.  Since then, it has grown to the point at which a heavy client day no longer consisted of six scheduled appointments, but something closer to six scheduled appointments and six walk-ins.

But, on this day, the walk-ins had come and gone, and it was 6:00.  She thought she could go home.  She turned off the downstairs lights in our office, dragged her injured leg back upstairs, and began to shut down the electronics in her office.  And that was when she heard it.

The sound of the outside office door, opening, and someone entering the lightless first floor.  It was yet another walk-in, determined to see her no matter what.

She very politely explained to him that she was getting ready to leave for the day, and that he would have to arrange to see her at another time.

He didn't move.

What else could she do?  She met with him, of course.

I said that all of this happened at the end of a long work week.

Did I mention that it happened at the end of a long work week that was, in fact, the end of a long calendar week?  And that the next work week would begin the very next day, on a Sunday?

Now, I am not describing all of this at this level of detail simply because it involves my wife, who (full disclosure) is also my partner in our law practice.  I am doing so because her practice area is immigration.  All of her clients are immigrants, in varying stages of documented status, from aspiring to expired.  All of her experiences, minus the part about the injured leg, are utterly common to virtually all American immigration lawyers in the first two years of the T**** nightmare.  And all of these clients, regardless of the status of their documentation, are painfully, needlessly scared to death.

To begin with, the overwhelming majority of undocumented immigrants in this country are not the so called "caravans" from Central America that T**** uses to whip up fear among his dwindling base of supporters.  (Actually, if you are willing to check more reliable sources of information that T****, the size of the current caravan is dwindling as well.)  They are individuals who entered the country in a documented status--a visitor, a student, an investor, a manager, a short-term worker, and yes, as a fiance(e).  These categories differ substantially from the ones used by those fleeing various forms of persecution and upheaval, as is the case with those coming from the south.

The people in these categories overstay their visas not because of any intention to do so, but due to an immigration system that is broken and expensive, and which we steadfastly refuse to reform, despite the general acknowledgement that it needs such reform.  Contrary to the venom spewing on a daily basis from what passes for T****'s mouth, these individuals are not "bad hombres."  They are people more concerned with trying to live their lives, for the sakes of themselves and their families, than with having any kind of criminal or political impact on the U.S..

Yet, because T**** found it personally and politically convenient to spread fear about the undocumented, they are now living in the shadows, afraid to come out and attempt to adjust their status in the U.S., afraid due to the threat of prosecution that is not warranted by the lives these people have led, or the expense that such prosecutions entail.  Even worse, immigrants who have "played by the rules," the ones we supposedly want to reward for doing so, are now being subjected to denials and delays in the processing of their papers that all but guarantees that it will be years before their status is finally resolved--and many years more before any of them will be able to naturalize and vote (and don't think for a moment that this latter aspect is an accident; voter suppression is a chameleon that can take many forms).

This is why the T**** nightmare is also the immigrants' nightmare.  It is also the nightmare of their esteemed counsels, always overworked and underpaid in any case, but never more so than now, and never more aware that one single, human mistake on their part might be the end of a person's life, or the lives of families.  As I noted previously, that produces pressure that has the potential to lead to self-destruction.  That fact alone, plus the awareness of doing battle on a daily basis with the most corrupt Administration in the history of the Republic, is why the members of the immigration bar are, in my 25 years of experience practicing law, the most unified and cooperative attorneys I have every had the privilege of meeting.

And the victories they win are not just victories for their clients; they are also victories for all of us, and the system that protects us even in the midst of the current darkness.  Ask our less-than-esteemed Attorney General if he would disagree with you.

So, then, those are the only two caravans that should concern you.  The caravan of the unjustly persecuted, and the caravan of those who defend them.  They are not your enemies.  That would be the current miserable occupant of the Oval Office.  Send him a warning on November 6.  And, at the same time, send both of the two caravans a message of well-deserved hope.

P.S.:  My wife got home safely.  She's seeing a doctor on Monday.  Thanks for asking.