Immigration, along with reproductive rights, is one of the hot button issues of the 2024 presidential election in Pennsylvania and across the U.S.. It is true that people from other parts of the world have been arriving at the U.S. border in numbers that have at times overwhelmed the system for more than a decade. This has led to political rhetoric that claims these arrivals have made the country less stable, less prosperous, and less safe.
While statistics confirm that the number of people arriving outside the legal framework has surged in the past decade-plus, the claims of a resultant crime wave are much harder to find in the data.
Pa.-area lawyers who work on immigration issues also say that an overlooked aspect of the issue is that immigrants make positive contributions to the economy.
“By not letting more people in the U.S., we’re cutting off creation of secondary and tertiary jobs,” said Jonathan Grode, of Green and Spiegel in Philadelphia, where he is U.S. Practice Director and Managing Partner.
RELATED: Philadelphians come together to discuss immigration at WHYY Bridging Blocks event
Grode handles immigration cases for foreign doctors, engineers, scientists, and even athletes who want to come to the United States to work or even start a business.
According to Grode, research by the American Immigration Council finds that nearly half of today’s Fortune 500 companies were founded by either immigrants or the children of immigrants, including four of the top 12, such as Apple (founded by the son of a Syrian immigrant), Google (cofounded by a Russian immigrant), Amazon (founded by the son of a Cuban immigrant), and Costco (founded by the son of Canadian immigrants whose family had emigrated from Romania). These four companies alone posted a combined revenue of $1.4 trillion in fiscal year 2023, more than the gross domestic product of most western nations. Together, they employ more than 2 million people.
Jonathan Grode
“It is in our very DNA to create. And I think sometimes we as Americans overlook that and we don’t appreciate it. But for the rest of the world, the opportunity to start something from nothing is still, regardless of politics and presidents, global. The sentiment on immigration is at our very core, it’s who we are as Americans,” said Grode, who described the American dream as “enduring.”
A challenging process
The dream might be enduring, but so are the obstacles that abound in the immigration process. Most aspects — such as a green card, work visa, and naturalization — are painstaking processes. The difficulty in coming legally accounts for at least some of the extralegal traffic into the country. There have been multiple, failed efforts to rework the immigration process over the past 15 years.
“The odds are so stacked against individuals and the system is so complex, and often not in an individual’s native language,” said Lilah R. Thompson, Esq., Nationalities Service Center Supervising Attorney of the PA Immigrant Family Unity Project in Philadelphia.
“The most important thing I can do is to provide an individual dignity in the process by explaining how the system works, what options they may have, and what they would consider to be best for them based on their particular circumstances,” added Thompson, who helped to create the Lancaster County Refugee Coalition upon graduation from Franklin & Marshall College.
In the current politicization of immigration, it’s repeatedly claimed that immigrants commit crimes frequently. Several attorneys said that is not reflected in data.
Ricky Palladino
“For every immigrant who commits a crime, there are literally millions of others who are integral fabrics of our society,” said Ricky Palladino, an immigration lawyer in Philadelphia. “We are a nation of immigrants. While true, the better answer is that immigrants are essential to our way of life.”
Palladino says the concerns about immigration, and immigrants, is largely about unfamiliarity.
“I believe people have a fear of immigrants when they haven’t had a relationship with an immigrant. It’s simply fear of the unknown,” he said. “That fear dissipates when they meet an immigrant who is a caregiver to an elderly parent, a parent to their child’s school mate, or a doctor who cares for them in a time of need.”
Giving back
One immigrant who came to America now has a law practice that assists people who want to live or work in the U.S.
“I came to the United States as a teenager, having immigrated with my family from Trinidad and Tobago,” said Nigel Scott, who has a law practice in Philadelphia. “My personal experience has been extremely positive, but it’s not one that hasn’t been fraught with challenges. As an immigrant family, we were taken advantage of by unscrupulous characters who were more than happy to take our money in exchange for empty and irredeemable promises, before disappearing into the proverbial night.”
“I was blessed with opportunities, allowing me to legally and permanently make the U.S. my home, and achieve my share of the American dream,” said Scott. “So when I started working as an attorney, I always kept a small immigration portfolio and would handle matters based on personal referrals from friends and family.
“However, following the 2016 elections I expanded my immigration practice. I felt that as an immigrant, I had a lot to be thankful for and by helping other immigrants find legal pathways to settle in the U.S., it would be my way of giving back.”
Source link : http://www.bing.com/news/apiclick.aspx?ref=FexRss&aid=&tid=672533cffe6a40b4a258aa5b343ae0b8&url=https%3A%2F%2Fbillypenn.com%2F2024%2F11%2F01%2Fimmigration-lawyers-philadelphia-election-2024%2F&c=12106362956966192530&mkt=en-us
Author :
Publish date : 2024-11-01 08:35:00
Copyright for syndicated content belongs to the linked Source.
