Thread: Immigration attorneys brace for a wave of work

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/hea ... 55936.html

If federal legislation provides new paths for millions of immigrants to obtain legal status, local immigration lawyers expect a tsunami of business, and with it a rising tide of inadequate or unauthorized legal practice.

Congress is hammering out details on how some of the estimated 12 million immigrants in the country illegally might change their status. It's too early to tell exactly how legal work will boom, but it's not too soon to see that lawyers likely will enjoy a bonanza.

"If enacted in some similar form, this is going to keep lawyers busy for a long time," said Leigh Ganchan, a Houston immigration lawyer since 1999, who formerly worked for what then was the Immigration and Naturalization Service. "I believe there are a lot of people out there with an entrepreneurial sense who are now keeping an ear open and who are seriously considering jumping in the way of this new business."

The immigration proposal before the U.S. Senate, which Ganchan cautions has about 100 amendments attached, could keep lawyers busy in several ways.

The measure would create new ways for people to become guest workers and a complicated point system to be applied to new immigrant applicants.

The biggest boon for lawyers could come in the variety of ways people already in this country might seek legal status, based on factors including how long they have been here.

Ganchan said the final law is likely to be complicated because the debate is so hotly contested.

"It's a classic. Every time immigration comes to the forefront, so many people want to touch it," she said.

Charles Foster, who has practiced immigration law in Houston for more than 20 years, said the best predictor of what will happen is the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act that gave amnesty to some illegal immigrants.

"Once the 1986 law was enacted, a lot of individual attorneys turned to immigration law, not always understanding the consequences, sometimes assisting in filing fraudulent papers and offering poor representation," Foster recalled. "I know that as soon as any law passes, lawyers who are now under-utilized will think they can get into immigration quickly."

And, he said, the 1986 law aggravated the notario problem.

Notaries in Texas are people who can act as legal witnesses to the signing of documents. But in Hispanic communities, some notaries hung up shingles as notarios, which was misleading because it means something more significant in many Latin American countries.

There, notario usually describes a licensed lawyer, sometimes one with special authority. The word was so misused after 1986 that Texas passed legislation requiring notaries to advise clients if they are not lawyers. Foster fears the misleading use of the notario title will flourish again if a new immigration law passes.

Foster, Ganchan and other immigration lawyers do a lot of work for large companies that want to hire generally highly skilled foreigners to work in the U.S.

Any new immigration legislation likely would expand that client list to employers who use low-skilled workers.

"Lawyers only function where there is a legal system. Currently, there is no legal system for the low-income individuals," Foster said.

Employers likely will hire lawyers for some low-income immigrants. But others won't be covered by employers and probably will seek help from nonprofit legal aid services and clinics.

Joe Vail, a University of Houston Law Center professor who supervises the school's immigration clinic, said it now handles mostly cases involving asylum, children, women who have been victims of domestic violence and some family visas.

"Right now we get the poorest of the poor," said Vail.

He expects an onslaught of poor to working class folks coming to his clinic if a new immigration bill passes. And some will probably turn to notarios if clinics can't help.

"There will also be unauthorized practice of law, it's almost certain," he said, and desperate people will seek help from those who can't really provide it.

The lawyers agree that any new law also would mean work for appellate specialists, because whatever passed likely would be challenged in court.

Yeah, guess which side of the fence these lawyers are on.

I wouldn't advise them to get their legal pens ready quite yet, unless they want to follow these criminals across the border.