I’m in Facebook: Will You “Like” Me Now?

Misgivings About Facebook

No way. I said I wouldn’t do it. I’m not going to get pressured into opening a Facebook account. I know friends whose lives revolve around Facebook and there is no way I’m going to get suckered into spending my waking hours reading posts as to where someone plans to spend the day, or what someone ate for breakfast yesterday. My life is too hectic for that. No way. No way. Anyway, who's going to be interested in the comings and goings of an over-worked immigration attorney? Yikes, once in awhile it's hard to get even a yawn from my family when I get home.

Caving In to Social Pressure

A week ago or so, I caved in. I’m not really sure why the social pressure got to me. Did I feel like an outcast? A weirdo? Anti-social? Did it make me feel friendless or unlikable not to have a Facebook account? After all, Facebook claims to have facilitated more than 100-billion “friendships” worldwide. Could it be that I felt out of touch with the rest of the world? Indeed, Facebook claims that more than 2.7 billion times every day its users post comments as well as extending “Likes” to new “Friends” and new websites. And there's more: Facebook says its users upload more than 250 million photos every day. How can you not be part of all that?

Now What?

So, now I have a Facebook account. When I pushed the last registration button the skies didn't open nor dead heavenly trumpets sound. Do I really feel as if I’m more a part of the human community. Anyway, now that I have a Facebook account, or FB (eff-bee) for short, what do I do with it? I guess I have to find the time to review numerous posts and comments and make my own. Many of my lawyer friends have Facebook accounts. Some are connected because they are real-life friends and they are comfortable having colleagues see what they post on Facebook. They share immigration news and articles and make each other laugh with comments that only immigration attorneys would fully comprehend. I can do that – post funny articles on Facebook. Hmm … is that it?

All the World's a Marketplace

A friend suggested that I try to market our law firm in Facebook. That seemed a novel idea, but it's not exactly new. Seems that Facebook is already a major venue to market products and services. Almost all of the big corporations and businesses are on Facebook. Indeed, many law firms are extolling their virtues on Facebook. That’s it – attorneys can post links to their own articles or to news articles on their Facebook page and comment on them as well. Why not generate positive PR for our firm – maybe even some revenue – while Facebooking?

Fuzzy Lines Between the Personal and the Professional

As I click and explore the potential of Facebook, I've encountered an interesting dilemma: Is there a way to separate my personal and professional life? The boundary between my private life and work can be potentially blurred by Facebook. Lawyers need to decide whether to maintain a separation or to personalize their professional lives. Personalizing the professional can have a humanizing effect, allowing stereotypically stiff lawyers to come to life in a friendly and approachable manner. I’ll need to think about this a little more.

Facebook Is Part of the Web, Where Secrets Can't Be Kept

The fuzziness extends to how to communicate and discuss legal issues with my Facebook “friends” and not form attorney-client relationships. I can’t be an attorney to a million people. Just as important is that fact that Facebook is a part of the Web and on the Web no secrets can be kept. As an attorney I hold many secrets regarding the lives of many people. If and when I engage in a discussion, though I may not name names or cite specific situations, I do fear that former or current clients could feel a little compromised if I discuss a legal circumstance that is close to home for them. Lawyers are bound ethically and legally to guard confidential client information. I must be – and will be – especially astute and careful when I deal with these matters on Facebook.

Winning Hearts and Changing Minds with Facebook

While I am becoming aware of the inherent risks of employing this new social media venue, I'm also becoming aware of the social benefits of this forum – social, as in society. Social media can win the hearts and minds of people and therefore have a significant impact on social policy. If I can influence policy for the good of the people I serve – as long as a I am careful in managing the inherent risks – then taking this plunge into the social media abyss may be worth it.

Join the Discussion and Perhaps “Like” Lazaro Immigration Law

So, from me in this new venture, you can expect to find discussions of the latest legal developments in immigration law, how the law can affect our lives, and what we can do to use everyday law to empower ourselves and maybe those less fortunate around us. Through our discussions, we may be able to help the young, immigrant “dreamers” stay in the United States, stop the government from illegally deporting families, re-unite a man and his wife, save our youngsters from the crueler aspects of this world and make it a better place. Please find Lazaro Law in Facebook and let’s begin the discussion. Who knows? With Facebook's help, I just may actually find myself a little bit more in touch with humanity. Maybe the pressure to join will have been worth it.

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What Is The Love of Money?

“For the love of money is the root of all evil ...” – 1 Timothy 6:10

Father Anthony, my parish priest, was emphatic last Sunday as he preached that greed is the cause of all problems. I'm pretty sure I heard him say that everything bad in this world is rooted in greed. An over-generalization? Perhaps.

Inside Trading and Ponzi Schemes

That morning the headlines read “Trader Draws Record Sentence” in reference to Mr. Raj. Rajaratnam. He was the hedge-fund manager recently sentenced to 11 years in prison for insider trading. The judge said during the sentencing that this billionaire’s crimes “reflect a virus in our business culture that needs to be eradicated.” This guy is one of the many billionaires now serving time in prison for white collar crime. Remember Bernard Madoff, the guy who scammed many in a multibillion dollar Ponzi scheme? He is serving 150 years. Jeffrey Skilling, the former Enron President, is now serving 24 years for fraud and insider trading.

Occupy Wall Street

Several days ago a crowd calling themselves “Occupy Wall Street” (O.S.W.) staged a sleep-over protest in front of the federal reserve bank here in San Francisco. The O.S.W. protest included people from all walks of life and belonging to all sorts of groups. A member of one of them handed me a flier inviting me to come and join them. The group is an anti-capitalist movement protesting the greed in corporate America. Similar protests were bubbling away across the nation, from New York to San Francisco, from Denver to D.C., and allegedly gaining momentum. They seemed to spring out of nowhere, overnight!

Foreclosures on the Rise

The electronic and ink news media are headlining foreclosures as banks get more aggressive with their debtors. Yes, foreclosure numbers are rising again. Pundits and laymen alike put the blame for the debacle squarely on the backs of the bankers and the brokers. They are the ones responsible for granting home loans too easily. Then they took those loans, bundled them up into securities, and resold them at inflated prices. And greedy investors bought them. All this activity put the housing market squarely in the hands of greedy sellers and home prices started to inflate far beyond the intrinsic value of the properties.

Greed Is Good

When Gordon Gecko declared that, “Greed is good.” in the movie Wall Street, he became the symbol of high-class greed – greed that was okay! – for the generations that followed. As I have mentioned before in this column, I have represented many clients who owned several houses. These are not rich people. They are just ordinary, hardworking, middle-class folks who found a way to purchase several houses. One gentleman worked for Wal-Mart and he owned 20 houses at one point. Of course, now he has lost all of them and is currently struggling to save the house that he lives in. Was avarice at play here?

Law School Teaches That Money Is Everything

The year when I entered law school in the early nineties, the series called “LA Law” was a hit. Our prime-time tubes showed lawyers driving luxurious Mercedes, wearing expensive suits and working in dazzling offices. It often championed themes such as “Winning At All Costs!” or “Money Is Everything!” That year applications to law school skyrocketed.

Big Business and Big Government

I've heard people argue that our current wars were caused by greed, that the worldwide sex slavery of women and children is caused by greed. I’ve read that greed is the reason that the country is controlled by the big business tycoons of the finance, insurance, agricultural, pharmaceutical, weapons and petroleum industries – not by the will of the people. Senators and Representatives are cheap – such a deal! –  when you have a billion dollars to spend.

Denying It

As Fr. Anthony continued, he seemed to be preaching that greed starts in the family. And then he pointed at the congregation. “We are greedy,” he proclaimed. “Look at our culture and what we as a people promote,” he continued. “Look at how you treat your children, look at your marriages,” he challenged us.

I understood that we cannot deny our responsibilities to teach our kids the fundamental value of giving and serving others. But I don't have to admit that my greed has any part of what's happening in today's world. I could have walked out of mass that Sunday. I’m not greedy. It’s not my problem. It’s those corporate giants. It’s the banks' fault. It’s those greedy billionaires, but certainly not me. I’m not greedy.

No Denying It

Hold on. Those bankers and brokers, those inside traders and fraudsters, those lawyers and the little guys scheming to get ahead at all costs; all of these people are members of my society. And a whole movement protesting the presence of greed in our financial and governmental institutions has appeared almost out of nowhere. All these phenomena are from the same milieu I'm a part of – American Culture. These greedy men didn't just appear; something made them the way they are. Something made it all acceptable. Come to think of it, would I have done any differently if certain “opportunities” had presented themselves? Without cutting myself any moral slack, I think I may have done the same. If I saw a way to get extra income for my family, to get the funds for the kid's college, I could have very well done the same.

Birthplace of Greed

Greed does begin at home. When we teach our children to go to school so that they can be wealthy in the future, we may be sending the wrong message. When we buy them the latest gadgets, the most fashionable clothes, and provide them with luxury, we may be setting them up to be greedy. Can we really blame Wall Streeters? We're just as greedy. We find it easy to blame it all on the greedy bankers. The economic downturn is their fault. And the greedy lawyers and the greedy little guys, too.

Greed and Grief

Sorry, it starts with me and you. We all have fanned the spark of greed, the flames of which are now engulfing this nation. As the economy sinks deeper into trouble, as joblessness increases and foreclosures remain high, we need to face a stark but sobering truth – this is a nation of greed. And yes, Fr. Anthony, all this greed is indeed causing all this grief.

Hardworking Immigrants in our midst

An American Businessman

As I see it, he’s a self-made man. He eschews credit cards and bank loans. He holds a strong home with a loving wife and a loved step-daughter. He owns two small businesses and will open another soon. He understands the legal intricacies of filing for zoning permits and incorporation papers. He has an internet presence promoting his businesses. Because of his entrepreneurial skills, he has benefited households and businesses within his community. He provides jobs and he needs services just as much as he supplies services. That’s the way business works, at least in the decent day-to-day business of our American homeland, aside from greedy Wall Street and socially corrupt corporate entities.

Revealing Article

Since I am an immigration attorney, readers have probably figured out that the paragraph above is somewhat loaded. Yes, the guy has been a “shadow” American for nearly twenty years. Yes, he is a Mexican by birth. But guess what else the guy does? He moves about using only buses and trains. He can’t get a driving license. This particular situation was revealed to me, though I have seen somewhat parallel lives in my own practice, in a recent article in “New York Times” by Nelson D. Schwartz. Entitled Transformation of a Town Underscores Immigrants Impact. It covered issues such as low wages and unskilled natural citizens being undercut regarding employment opportunities – the usual and understandable complaints. But, a lot of hope describing the promise of our American immigrants was there as well.

Taxes, Taxes, Taxes

No matter your citizenship status, payroll taxes, sales taxes, gas taxes, and the list goes on, cannot be avoided. And many low-income legal U.S. citizens do not pay income taxes. So how can one really complain that a person without papers doesn’t pay income taxes, or general taxes? Perhaps most telling were some of the readers’ responses that accompanied the article mentioned above. For one: “Larry,” from Brooklyn, New York, regarding the use of taxpayer identification numbers, as opposed to Social Security Numbers, said: “I have an undocumented friend from an unnamed country who has paid his taxes on several million dollars income over the years. Leaving people like this in limbo makes no sense at all.”

Communities Revived

Meanwhile, because of the influx of immigrants, many communities, once nearly dead, are now thriving. The article cites that a wave of legal and illegal Hispanic immigrants have transformed the small city of Port Chester in New York. Factories and mills had closed in the 80s and 90s and the population dwindled. “Bombed out” neighborhoods came alive again with immigrant-owned stores and markets. “Clare,” from White Plains, New York, commenting on the immigrant influx regarding her village said: “The immigrants that live here are family-oriented, hardworking people. Yes, some of them may be here illegally, but they do what they have to do to give their lives a chance. They go to church and enroll their children in the local schools and they work!! I love this Village and its multiplicity. We have to do something to help these people.”

Confronting Racism

Race has always been a highly charged issue in America, despite, or maybe because, it is one of the most racially diverse nations on the globe. Of course, Irish and Polish immigrants were reviled, despite their European heritage. One reader pointed out that just this year the Daily News, a New York paper, reported that over 50,000 undocumented Irish live in the five boroughs of the Big Apple and that one doesn’t hear much about them. She thinks the concern about illegal Hispanics is racism disguised as concern for the law. So, just how much does skin color play in this whole immigration dilemma? Probably a lot. The presence of Hispanic and other so-called “brown-skins” can have, and have had, an economically beneficial effect in many areas of the United States. Still, the ever-so-tasteful epithets are bandied about: beaners, spics, wetbacks, among them.

Jobs, Jobs, Jobs

However true it may be that immigrants, at some times and in some places, do indeed pull down employment opportunities in terms of availability and reduced wages, the benefits often outweigh the losses. Like it or not, they do indeed take or perform jobs for American businesses that legals really will just not take. One reader, “Michael,” of Wappingers Falls, New York, said: “Many illegals are lured by American businesses that require labor to survive. Here in the Hudson Valley … onion farmers on Pine Island and the [Hudson] apple orchards … require thousands of illegal immigrants to survive.” A reader who owned a roofing business said that he paid a good wage, but that out-of-work legals and college students off for the summer were often no-shows and usually quit within a week. His illegals, well-paid, always showed up and were happy to put in overtime. Go figure. Regular American citizens have changed.

The Senate Tinkers

Considering all the above, following the debate over acceptable immigration reform that is now happening on Capitol Hill is obfuscating. Senators eager to sustain or defeat any action are each adding their own little tags to the nascent legislation. Meanwhile, over 11 million undocumented immigrants, such as the ones described above, are in limbo. A degree of humanity seems to be lacking. Are these law makers really considering the most economically feasible and the most morally sound way to deal with these people and those who may follow them? Or are they just politicking? Are they just grandstanding to the baser instincts of their constituencies to garner more future votes and more campaign funds?

Real “American” People

We’re dealing with real live people here, not votes, not numbers on a chart, not colors or races. Or, as one reader said, and I’m paraphrasing: People who work hard, fix up neighborhoods, start businesses, and send neatly dressed kids to school every day. Isn’t that worthy of a hand? Ain’t that American?

The Immigrant, Hope in the Land of the Hopeless

Although the Americas include Canada, Mexico, and the nations of South America, we are the only nation in the Western Hemisphere that includes “America” in its official name. So, citizens of the U.S., born or naturalized, get to call themselves “American” – and usually do so with a certain amount of pride. And that pride is justified.

America's Promise

In a recent New York Times article examining India's surging economy, consider what Saurabh Srivastava, co-founder of the National Association of Software and Service Companies in India, had to say about America: “What is happening in America is a loss of self-confidence. We don't want America to lose self-confidence. Who else is there to take over America's moral leadership? America's leadership was never built on military armament. It was because of ideas, imagination, and meritocracy. If America turns away from its core values, there is nobody to take that leadership. Do we want China as the world's moral leader? No. We desperately want America to succeed.”

America's Problems

No matter how encouraging those words may sound, they also point out the social and financial problems that have beset our nation. Problems that fall on every American's shoulders , natural or naturalized, and even on the undocumented immigrant community. Those folks may exist in the shadows, but by living and working here they are de facto citizens and their hopes hang on America's success just as with any American.

Most every American is feeling the impact during these times of economic uncertainty. The problems caused by financial insecurity manifest themselves in ways far beyond the purse strings. Dwindling cash flow has led to home foreclosures, autos repossessed, and bankruptcy filings. Of course, those things can lead to alcoholism, battered partners, and neglected or abused children. Then comes divorce, child custody battles, and in some sad cases, even suicide.

America's Immigrants

The immigrant community, including the undocumented, often gets more than their fair share of these problems. Pretty much in the same way some companies reduce their workforce – last hired, first fired. In spite of its reliance on immigration through the decades, Americans with odd last names – right now, those of Hispanic and Filipino or Arabic heritage – are usually the first to feel the brunt of hard times and the last to experience any good times. These groups are presently marginalized because of their surnames, our porous Mexican border, and fear of Muslim fanatics.

No matter how marginalized a person may feel, no matter how bumpy their financial road, American is still a land of opportunity. Believing that they are powerless and hopeless in the face of the economic onslaught, many immigrants often throw up their hands and shrug their shoulders. They come to believe that foreclosure, car repossession, or even divorce are inevitable consequences of forces beyond their control.

America's Hope

That is simply not true. Fate is often a cruel master, but it can be reversed, if not altogether thwarted. Consider these words by The Buddha: “We are what we think. All that we are arises with our own thoughts. With our thoughts we make our world.” As in the past, immigrants can become part of the force behind economic and social revival. Taking the words of Buddha to heart, immigrants can secure themselves in the American dream by making that dream happen all over again. Each immigrant success story is a success for America. And, as the economists say, “A rising tide lifts all boats.”

America's Positive Side

Sometimes it's hard to accept the advice of America's self-help gurus. The likes of Tony Robbins, Wayne Dyers, Ben Carson, and Wallace D. Wattles prescribe the power of positive thinking to overcome financial and personal problems – that positive thought is the way to riches and happiness. The cynic may note that these folks are getting rich on the hopes of others who desire riches and happiness. But hold on a minute. Didn't your mother and countless others always tell you to eat your vegetables? Why? Because vegetables are good for you – it's time-proven advice.

If our immigrant population would take to heart the sayings of Buddha, perhaps along with those of guys like Mr. Robbins, they could find themselves on the crest of a new economic and cultural change for the better. Any American should have goals for their lives. Mr. Robbins says to ask yourself what you truly want in life – fortune, fame, loving friends and family. He goes on to say that frustration is an exciting signal, that it shows you that you could be doing better. Probably Mr. Robbins doesn't believe he is a present-day Buddha, and this in no way is meant to persuade folks to go plop down hundreds of dollars on a self-help course, but there is some truth to the messages rendered.

America's New Pioneers

You cannot scoff at the power of positive thinking. Our immigrants may have once been tired, poor, homeless, tempest-tossed, and yearning to be free. Now they are in America, they are Americans, and America is counting on them to help build a new America. They need to help rescue our nation from its hopeless lack of self-confidence that so worries the other great nations of the world. And, they can do it. Our new citizens can become our new pioneers on a new frontier with new-found self-confidence.