Real-Life Communication
Communication skills are essential in this career, says Michael
Greene. He is an immigration lawyer. "You have to be a good communicator.
Otherwise, you are going to be useless because this is all about advocacy,"
he says.
Immigration lawyers have to be able to make their arguments
in both written and oral form, Greene says. "It is probably more written than
oral, but it depends on which area [of immigration law] you are in," he says.
The ability to speak and write in other languages is also good.
You
are an immigration lawyer. You represent a client from Montserrat, a small
nation in the Caribbean Sea. She is an elderly woman. Her name is Mary Bristol.
She recently lost her home. It is buried under ash from a volcano that has
plagued her small island for five years.
She now lives in the U.S.
with her daughter and her family. She then decides to apply for permanent
residency. But under existing regulations, she cannot live in the U.S. during
the application process. She has to apply from outside the country.
It
is now your job to file a submission before the immigration board. You have
to convince its members that your client should be allowed to stay in the
U.S. on humanitarian grounds as her application goes through the system.
Here
are the facts and arguments you have to include in your argument:
- She has enough money to support herself
- She could file her application from Canada, where she is a citizen
- But she has not lived in Canada for years
- She requires some attention, medical and otherwise, because of her age
- Her son cannot care for her because he suffers from a serious illness
- The name of the volcano is Soufriere Hills. It started erupting five years
ago, after centuries of inactivity