Bloggerlife.blog

05/30/2025

Today’s blog

Lynn Murphy Mark

Life may change

At my work it is time for the summer interns to join us. They are law school students, mostly from Washington University and some from Saint Louis University. They work full time until August, or whenever the new semester starts. My colleague, Amanda, interviews the few that are interested in immigration law – most of them are choosing more “exciting” departments like Family Law or Housing or Child Legal Alliance. Some summers we don’t get an intern at all. 

Not this year. We have a second year student from Wash U who only wanted to work in immigration, so we welcomed her warmly this week. She now occupies my former cubby since I am ensconced in a real office. I thought I would miss being out in the open in the cubby warren, but I am enjoying having enough space to put all my things. My window looks out over Busch Stadiium. Not enough to see any action, but enough to remind me how much I enjoy being there. And I smile to myself each time I remember that I can park in our garage for free on game nights. That’s a savings of $20 – $30  right there!

Back to Greta. Before the summer is over, I’ll know more about her and where she comes from and where she hopes to go. I remember that, with our last intern who came from Wyoming, Beena and I decided we needed to introduce her to the joys of Indian food since she’d never had an opportunity to sample this wonderful food while growing up in a distant state. We took her to Flavors of India, a great place on Manchester, and she enjoyed the fare there.

Back to Greta again. I had an extra half hour so she came in to my office so I could explain to her what an Accredited Representative is allowed to do with the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services. Basically I am allowed to do everything that an Immigration attorney does, short of appearing in court with a client. That’s fine with me. There are enough mind-bending tasks for me to do without having to worry about appearing in front of his honor the judge!

She asked what kind of cases I have. I pointed out different clients on the whiteboard where all my people are listed and went over the different cases that I am in charge of. I told her about the quote from Hebrews in the Bible: “Let mutual love continue. Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it”. (Hebrews 13:1). So, on my board there are at least 50 angels. 

She asked how we communicate with our clients. Since COVID struck we do far fewer in person appointments. The miracle of technology and USPS and FedEx means we rarely meet with clients in our offices anymore. My exception to that rule is whenever I have a Spanish speaking client who needs to give me a lot of information. That is hard to do over the phone, so I meet with them and can get what I need in less than an hour. And it gives them an opportunity to ask questions that they may not remember to ask over the phone. Our receptionist has been so impressed by the rapid fire Spanish that we speak that she has decided to learn Spanish. That will be such a gift since many callers to Legal Services are Spanish speakers only.

Greta noticed the two FedEx envelopes on my desk and asked about those cases. I explained what each envelope contained. At the end of my day, I told her, I stop at the FedEx mailbox downstairs to deposit the envelopes. It’s always a good ending to the work day.

The other day as I slipped a FedEx file into the pick-up box I said a little prayer for the client. A thought occurred to me. Each time I FedEx something to USCIS, someone’s life will be changed. It may take an inordinately long time, but I am proud to say that up in the Immigration Law Program office, we are in the business of changing lives.