Matthew Thomas:
CLASS OF 1992
R. Nelson Snider High SchoolClass of 1992
Ft. wayne, IN
Arizona State University - LawClass of 2007
Tempe, AZ
Matthew's Story
Life
I have lived in Phoenix for about 13 years. After getting my undergraduate degree, I had a number of strange jobs, including bartending at a sleazy bar on the city's ho stroll, and writing an online newsletter for a wacky Y2K cult (my boss at that job is now a regular contributor on Fox news??!?). A few years ago, I decided on a whim to apply to law school and see what happens. I made it in, made it through and graduated in December 2006. I didn't have a particular goal in terms of employment; I just liked the research and writing aspect of it and had the overall desire to help people get through difficult problems. While in school, I interned at Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) as a law clerk and found this area of law to be very interesting and in tune with my life. Since Snider, I have befriended many immigrants and later studied abroad as an undergraduate which helped me become bilingual in Spanish. I like traveling and interacting with people from other cultures. Immigration seemed like a good fit, so I stuck with it. After ICE, I worked as a student attorney for a probono clinic at school where I worked on asylum cases for detained immigra...Expand for more
nt children. Then I got a job while still in school as a clerk for a big corporate firm, getting visas for scientists at the world's biggest tech companies so they can continue making us fancy gadgets that we really don't need. I learned a lot there, but realized I didn't want to be a number. I set out with a plan to do something on my own. I took the bar, passed and got my license in May and two weeks later opened in office. It was scary as hell at first, but I stuck with it. Another friend joined on board a month later and so far we've been doing fine. Our web site is thomasimmigration.com. I like my job and I'm doing what I wanted, helping people get through difficult problems.
I suppose I'm working in a controversial area. I never know how people will react and you'd think that I had just told some people that I exclusively perform partial birth abortions or something by their response. My clients, both legal and illegal, are the latest political scapegoat. But once the rhetoric subsides, I just hope I can get people to realize that most immigrants are good people just trying to survive (like are ancestors) and we need them for our economy to grow.
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