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If there is a country in the world where concord, according to common calculation, would be least expected, it is America. Made up as it is of people from different nations, accustomed to different forms and habits of government, speaking different languages, and more different in their modes of worship, it would appear that the union of such a people was impracticable; but by the simple operation of constructing government on the principles of society and the rights of man, every difficulty retires, and all the parts are brought into cordial unison.
—Thomas Paine, Rights of Man
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The law is my profession, but immigration—that seems to be something that’s in my blood. Over the last two decades I’ve represented both the government and a wide variety of individuals and corporations in some of the highest-profile cases in my field. I’ve represented accused terrorists, people who fought terrorists, and victims of terrorists. My clients have stretched from government officials seeking asylum to Melania Trump. I’ve addressed Congress on immigration and national security topics, participated in a governor’s blue-ribbon advisory panel on immigration in New Jersey, and commented on legal aspects for MSNBC, CNN, Fox News, CBS, and NBC. As we justly claim on our firm’s website, Wildes & Weinberg is one of the best and most preeminent immigration law firms in New York, Florida, New Jersey, and California
Over time, I’ve seen my chosen line of work undermined by political gridlock, bureaucratic sluggishness, and bitter campaign invective. Stern experience has shown me that there is no such thing as a typical immigration case. But it’s also undeniable that a simple bedrock lies beneath every case—dreams. To borrow a concept from tort law, the United States of America is an attractive nuisance, with the hopes of sharing in the American Dream drawing people to these shores, whether it was the hundred or so pilgrims who founded the Plymouth colony, the twelve million people who came through Ellis Island, or the over eleven million illegal entrants today.
The basis of the “American experiment” can be found in the Declaration of Independence: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” Those sentiments not only introduced a new nation into the world but induced people from all over the globe to come to the United States and join the experiment. Immigration helped to build the United States into a prosperous, powerful, and stable nation, a safe haven compared to many countries around the globe. More than a million people became naturalized citizens in the last year, and more than 10 percent of the U.S. population are the children of immigrants.
The American Dream, whether of economic advancement, political freedom, or simple personal safety, continues to bring people into our nation, and the body of law covering their admission, how they may become citizens, whether and how long they can reside here, and whether they can or should be deported, has grown into a large and complicated body of scholarship. Practice in the field not only requires knowledge of the applicable statutes but also an understanding of such elements as family law, both here and abroad, criminal law, international law enforcement, espionage and, more recently, terror. Seeking safe haven in the United States continues to bring millions to our country, but the process of finding justice for those “huddled masses yearning to be free” becomes all the more complicated.
In writing Safe Haven in America: Battles to Open the Golden Door, I drew on nearly a quarter of a century of my practice in the immigration field. The cases I present, however, don’t merely involve legal principles. I wanted to show the human aspects of coming to the United States—the happiness of families and their children, the results of fighting criminality and corruption, the hopes of safely expressing political, religious, or social beliefs and, sometimes, the very stark difference between life and death.
Relating these cases also has a personal dimension. From my immigrant grandfather, my family has practiced the ancient Jewish tradition of tikkun olam (“fixing the world” in Hebrew). Helping my clients isn’t just a professional obligation; it is a moral and ethical imperative.
The immigrant experience isn’t all that far away in my family. My grandfather, Harry Wildes, came from Bialystock, Poland, to become a storekeeper in rural Pennsylvania. My German grandparents were able to migrate successfully to the United States despite the Holocaust. In my various law offices, I’ve always kept color copies of their German passports, carrying the letter “J” in bright red for “Jew” and the name “Israel” and “Sara” inscribed before and after every male or female name in case somebody had the audacity to erase the “J.” Framed next to the passports are letters stating when a German national took my grandfather’s paint company, indicating it was Juden Rein (purged of Jews), and copies of my grandfather’s business documents as he reconstituted himself in the United States.
These documents remind me that however bad situations may become, we’ve seen worse—and in recent history. I am struck by the portability of my forbears and the significance of being a proud Jew—the biblical people of the passport. They would be very proud to see that their son-inlaw and grandson forged a professional life helping others achieve their chosen dreams and a safe haven with the ability to travel and remain permanently in the United States.
I was closest to my maternal grandmother, Hilde Schoenwalter, who until her dying day took extraordinary pride in being a German national, even though she kept those travel documents hidden from view. She felt that I would never make it unless I learned the German language, and despite keeping the winds of war to herself, she took extraordinary pride in her American life. My mother, Ruth, was only one year old when she immigrated to the United States, and her United States citizenship documents sit on my desk every day of my professional life.
My father became one of the earlier pioneers of what has now become a robust and very important field of law in our nation. He produced many early scholarly works on immigration, refugees, and nationality legal issues. He developed a reputation for diligence and for getting approvals of highly sophisticated and complicated matters. In 1970 he was elected national president of the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA; previously known as “The American Immigration & Nationality Lawyers,” but much to the chagrin of its leadership they did not want to be known as “AINL”). Back then, there were three hundred, maybe four hundred lawyers practicing in the immigration field. Today there are more than 16,000. That alone shows how big the problem of immigration has become.
Thirty years ago our colleagues longed for a time when the old Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) would be split into two different departments, separating enforcement from adjudication. With creation of the Department of Homeland Security we now have a separate enforcement agency, ICE (Immigration Customs and Enforcement), which has become like a rudderless ship, out of control, with no limitation on its powers as it tramples upon rights and the privacy of citizens and noncitizens alike.
Hard-working new Americans, the backbone of our democracy, are under attack. Anti-immigration voices have been joined by hate groups until it is no longer possible for a candidate to espouse proper immigration laws. The political discourse has deteriorated to a point where candidates for public office are deemed weak on our nation’s security if they espouse the virtues of immigrant entrepreneurship. Local legislation is also encouraged to revoke support for “sanctuary cities,” and to give local police the power to enforce federal immigration laws. Sanctuary cities have come under attack from the federal level, which has begun withholding needed funds for highway maintenance from cities and states that authorize drivers’ licenses for immigrants.
This is not the time to sit idly by while these critical changes are being made that threaten our country. I wrote this book to step beyond the political shibboleths and to find a human dimension to this national problem. If readers draw only that much, I’ll count this work a success.