Immigration Lawyer Kathleen Martinez on Green Cards, Deportation Myths & Fighting ICE in Pink

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Welcome to the shit show.

Things are going to get weird.

It's your fade villain, Kale Wower.

And you're listening to Barely Famous.

It's Friday.

Welcome to another episode of Barely Famous Podcast.

Today I have a guest you may recognize from Instagram, TikTok, and all of the work in the immigration community.

I have Kathleen Martinez sitting with me and welcome to Barely Famous Podcast.

Thank you so much for having me.

Yeah.

No, I followed you a long time ago, but with all of the immigration

things that are happening, I got on TikTok and I was

saying how I felt about what's going on.

And people really felt like I was speaking out of turn.

And I don't think that they recognize how how much immigration impacts people who are not immigrants.

But I would just love to go from start to finish with you about, you know, how you started and where you are now.

Sure.

Yeah.

So, I mean, when I was in law school, or when I was in college, actually, I went to school with a lot of undocumented immigrants in LA.

And I really got to know them.

I didn't really know anything about immigration until I met someone that I was involved with.

You know, like whether it was my friends or my classmates or my coworkers, I really learned about their stories and I kind of became more empathetic and understanding to how they got here and why they were undocumented.

So I was definitely interested.

And then I worked randomly at a family law firm and a lot of my clients, I did a lot of CPS cases because it was just a job that I got, right?

And then they would ask me, like, hey, can you help me out on my green card or on my DACA?

You're already my lawyer.

And I was like, sure.

And then the more I did it, the more I loved immigration because I became a happy lawyer.

When you're a family lawyer, you're a not-so-happy lawyer.

I've heard.

You're dealing with like litigious divorces and CPS.

And, you know, it's really hard and really stressful.

But then I started making people happy.

I would get them green cards.

And I also fell in love with like immigrants as like as people, as clients, because they were so, they're the best clients.

They're so grateful, so humble, so kind, and so hardworking.

And just meeting people from multi, you know, from all walks of life, you learn so much from them that I'm like, this is why I'm a lawyer.

Like, this is how I want to spend all my time is helping people like this.

No, 100%.

And I think that there's so many misconceptions surrounding the immigration process and immigrants as a whole.

My whole life, I've had people in my ear talk about, you know, people that whether undocumented or documented, think that you don't contribute to society, don't pay taxes.

I'm pretty sure number one, America is built off immigration, right?

Like everything that we have to in today's society is because we are, our country was built off immigrants.

So that's number one.

Number two, whether you're documented or undocumented, you pay taxes.

Right.

And I think that so many people are like, they're freeloaders.

What are you talking about?

Where, when you go down the street, when people are going down the street, the people that are working the hardest in construction, landscaping, any, everywhere you look, they're immigrants.

Yeah, they're immigrants.

Like, what are you, I don't understand how you think they're not paying taxes.

I think it's, you know what I think it is?

I think the people who are very anti-immigration is because they've never met an immigrant.

They live in small areas where, you know, there's just not a lot of diversity.

They just don't know.

They're ignorant because of that.

And so instead of putting a face behind the name of an immigrant, they kind of see them, we call them the, we call it the boogeyman theory.

Jasmine Crockett talked about it a lot, where they don't know immigrants.

So they kind of look at them as criminals, like not humans, right?

They're like, you come here to commit crimes.

That's what I heard on Facebook in my small town in Idaho.

And that's how I'm going to believe.

And you'll put so many facts in front of them, so many statistics, and they just won't hear it because they don't really want to.

They've already decided.

So I think it's like just pure ignorance.

Like, but you're, it's so crazy if you really think about it.

Like, immigrants are not, you have to understand why immigrants come here, right?

They come here to contribute and to provide for their family, right?

Because they can't do it at home.

They're unable to, either for safety reasons, the economy, whatever.

They come here to literally to work.

Literally to work.

Yeah.

So when they hire me, they're like, I just want a work permit.

And because of the way that the immigration system is now,

I can't give it to them.

I'm like, I'm sorry.

There's no way you can get a work permit.

You have to get married.

That's about it.

So if you're coming here with your whole family, you're sort of screwed.

Like there's really no avenue for you.

And that's been the problem since like the 80s.

We don't have comprehensive immigration reform.

So.

So what is what is a typical, if there is such a thing, process in order to get a green card or a work visa or whatever it is?

How do people come here documented?

Right.

So, I mean, you either come here through an employer, which is very competitive.

You have to be in a lottery system for like an employment-based visa that'll eventually turn into a green card.

You have to have a certain degree.

It's usually like engineers from like Asia and India brought over by like tech companies.

Or you come here through family, right?

So you get married to a U.S.

citizen, 90-day fiancé kind of situation, or you have your parents have status.

They bring you over here.

But that's it.

You can't really earn your way to legal status.

Oh, you can't?

No.

I didn't know that you couldn't just earn your way here and just like apply for it.

Right.

And I think that's the problem is a lot of people think they say, why not just come here legally?

And they have to understand.

What is the legal status?

Like a Venn diagram.

Like you, you can't just apply.

You can't.

No.

Okay.

So what?

Yeah, I guess.

So what is the process?

You have to like have a job.

You have to have either an employer sponsor you after proving that you have like a master's degree or a graduate degree.

The employer has to prove that like they tried to get the job to everybody else in the United States and they couldn't find someone to fit it.

So it's a lot.

Like the employer has to say, I literally could not find an American citizen that's like that's eligible for this job.

So then they petition for someone from another country.

And it's usually because they're more educated, they know more than one language, they work twice as hard as Americans.

Let's be real, right?

If you're an employer, you want to hire an immigrant.

And so you bring them over here, but that even takes years.

That can take like five to seven years, right?

Or you get married, right?

You get married to a U.S.

citizen.

But there's even, there's even a process for that too, right?

Like the government will track your marriage to make sure it's legit, to make sure that you guys are actually married for the right reasons and not because you're doing this to give someone citizenship.

Is that right?

Yeah, you have to prove that your marriage is real and that you're not committing marriage fraud, right?

Because that does happen.

Like marriage fraud does happen.

And I, I think it happens because people really just want to come here and they can't.

It's like nepotism.

Like, why do you have to marry into citizenship?

Why?

Like everyone's saying, earn your right to be here, contribute to the economy, then we'll welcome you here.

Why don't we give them the opportunity to do that?

Why do you have to get married?

It's so backwards.

Are there statistics that you know off the top of your head that are, you know, what percentage of immigrants are actually criminals?

Because obviously we know that does exist.

I don't know the statistics, but I know that it's way less than actual American citizens, like way less.

Right, because they're most of the immigrants are coming here to work really hard and to provide for their families.

And so the last thing they want to do is jeopardize that.

Why would you come here to commit crimes?

Like that rhetoric that they just come here to commit crimes, you could do that in your home country a lot easier.

A lot easier and get away with it.

So to me, that doesn't make sense.

And obviously that doesn't go for every single immigrant, but it's just like

use your brain.

But that's the problem.

A lot of Americans are uneducated, right?

And they're just ignorant.

And so they, and they also choose not to be educated about topics that they, that they don't want to be interested in, right?

Like it's interesting.

Like, I love your platform.

I love that you're interested in immigration because there's not a lot of women who look like you and I who are advocating for immigrants.

Right.

Well, and that's why I was saying people think that I speak out of turn.

Yeah.

But I mean, let's just use, I don't know, I actually saw this viral clip about a farmer, a white farmer, I believe he was in the Midwest, who voted against his own best interests, right?

Yeah.

And the woman interviewing him was like, what are you going to do if they come try to deport every single person on this farm that you have employed here?

You're screwed.

You're fucked.

You can't do this work by yourself.

Oh, they're already fucked.

Like farms, farms in like Bakersfield and California, like all of their employees are gone.

Like they're reporting that they're, they're, they're stressing, they're stressing to the Trump administration.

They're like, why are you doing this?

Because of all these ICE raids.

I've lost like half of my employees.

The state of Florida, I don't know if you heard about this, but they're considering some kind of proposal to lower the age of child labor because they're losing all of their employees because they're scaring them away with ice raids.

So Draw and DeSantis was like, well, why don't we like mess with the child labor law so that they can work overnight shifts during the school week so that they can like actually lower the age of like being eligible to work because we don't have anybody else to do it.

Okay, but

let's go back to, let's talk about that for a second because Most kids today are not willing to work the same way that other, like our generation has busted our asses since we could get a job, right?

Yeah.

Yeah.

My kids don't even want to pick up their laundry.

Oh, so these kids are not going to work the same way that immigrants work.

So yeah, good luck with that.

Yeah.

I mean, they obviously weren't thinking about their economy.

Like, but that's the problem is that they're, someone like Ron DeSantis is not thinking with his brain or his wallet even.

And you would think that he would think about, they usually vote with their wallet in mind.

But with this proposal, like you're just thinking with hatred.

You're just racist, right?

Like that, I mean, why are you scaring away immigrants who literally make your like economy survivable?

Children are not going to have these jobs.

They're not going to work as hard.

But logic is not, it's not a thing with these kind of people.

Like they're, they're, they're so, they have so much hatred and ignorance in their hearts that they're, they're not thinking about like, oh, you know, immigrants are better for their economy.

They're just like, I want them out because they're brown.

And I also think that they've, they see things on social media.

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So I talk about this a lot.

It's not new information.

My kids go to Spanish immersion school.

So their half day is English and half day is Spanish, which I have absolutely loved.

And I literally sought that out and applied them to for it.

I can't find that in Texas, by the way.

Which is interesting.

Yeah.

And that was something that I specifically sent my kids to this school for.

And so with that being said, there is a large Hispanic population and the kids are talking about it.

And my son came home crying.

So just going, circling back to like the whole conversation surrounding deportation and immigration is like, this is not just impacting immigrants and people are so caught up in the criminal aspect of it that it's just, I, I don't know how to get through to people who don't want to see it.

And I, yeah.

So sometimes I feel like I'm wasting my breath and like I'm wasting my time trying to talk about it.

But at the same time, I'm like,

I want to change their minds.

Yeah.

Maybe if they hear it from me as a white woman living in the suburbs, maybe they'll, maybe they'll at least just give me a chance, hear us out, hear what we're saying.

Yeah.

Do you think that because you are, you know, a woman in law and a woman that, you know, talks about immigration that, and you wear pink all the time, right?

Do you find it hard for people to take you seriously?

Oh, 100%.

Yeah.

I mean, and that was kind of my whole brand is like the legal field is so conservative and it's built towards white men, white conservative men, right?

So a lot of the women that have been, you know, that are in the field are, I call them pick me.

Like a lot of female lawyers are still trying to fit in so that they can take and seriously they can be taken seriously by male judges and male partners.

Right.

And so they don't want to be as feminine where I'm like the opposite where like, I'm like, I'm going to embrace it.

We need to change the field of law.

Like I'm, I want to be living proof that like you can look a certain way and just totally surprise people and be good at your job and win win cases in court you know what i mean real life elbows yeah literally but like you know it's interesting like what you said i kind of want to go back to like people might like have a different perspective or take you more seriously because of like your race it's true so a lot of my followers oddly are like old white men and i don't know why and i look at my analytics and i don't it doesn't make sense because all i do is like i am so liberal all i do is like immigration content at this point i barely even do anything else um but i think it's because they saw me They were like, oh, she's someone I can relate to, I can trust.

She has blonde hair, blue eyes, and she's a lawyer.

So like, maybe I'm interested in what she's saying.

And maybe that's why, you know, like, and then they turn around, they call me a traitor.

So I'm like, oh, because so they initially trusted me for some reason.

Right.

And then they're like, why would someone like her advocate so hard for immigrants?

Right.

So at least I got them in the door.

And maybe some of them, I've changed their minds.

Like I do get some comments that like I'll post about certain cases, case studies and some of my cases and and some of my asylum clients that I win and I'll tell their stories on like a get ready with me video and they'll be like, I had no idea words like that.

So I'm like, maybe like you are the person like you can change their minds because they're not these type of people are probably not following, following like immigration attorneys or immigration advocates who are like not white, who don't look like them.

Right.

It doesn't impact them directly too.

And so I think there's so it's so layered.

There's so many layers to it it's like i think it's part of like how you know the people that are speaking on it how we look yeah um does it impact us you know they're fighting against implicit bias that they've grown up with like i was saying earlier um you know just people around me growing up saying certain things and i i didn't necessarily believe what i was hearing i just didn't know any better so i didn't really speak on it but now i

feel like we have the resources to look into it.

So I don't understand why people are not looking into it.

Right.

As far as ICE raiding schools, there's a lot of controversy.

Can you confirm that that is actually true?

I haven't seen any ICE.

I haven't heard of any ICE raids at schools.

Okay.

So here's what's going on.

What the Trump administration is doing is he promised mass deportation to all of his base, which is 11 million people.

Not going to happen, right?

Right.

So what he's doing is he's fear-mongering a lot to rely on people to self-deport so that his numbers can match his promises.

So he's doing all these commercials.

Have you seen the bizarre commercials?

They're like, you need to leave this country now or else.

And they're also like required, like, why would you put billions of dollars into like, into like, you know, commercials?

Like when you are, I thought you were doing ice raids.

Like, which one is it?

Right.

Either do it or like do some BS commercial that no one's going to buy.

They're also doing something called registration.

I don't know if you heard of that, but they're like, you need to sign up if you're undocumented or you will face criminal penalties.

It's not a crime to be undocumented.

Okay, so let's talk about that.

Yeah.

It is not a crime to be undocumented.

Right.

No one wants to hear that, by the way.

No, they don't.

No one.

Is it unethical?

Like, what is the problem?

It's a civil violation, which is the same thing as jaywalking, not paying your parking ticket, a landlord dispute.

White people do that every day.

Right.

And no one has a problem with that because they're white.

Right.

And it's just, you know, something like that.

Do you really care about a civil?

Like, do you actually, sometimes I'm like, do they really care that someone's here without documentation?

Do they?

I don't know.

I think they do because they think they don't contribute to society.

Yeah, they think they're taking something from them.

Correct.

Because they want to live off the government.

They don't want anybody else to.

And that's who's living off of these government programs are white people.

Yeah, I would agree with that.

So they're like, you're taking from my Medicaid.

And they're like, you need to earn your right to be here, but they're not earning it.

We're paying them.

But I think that's the misconception is that people, but where did that come from?

Where did that stem from?

You know, like, I just can't wrap my head around that.

Stupid people on Facebook.

Yeah.

But I mean, I don't get it.

I mean, some of the immigrants that I've known in my lifetime have been the most genuine, loving people that I've ever known.

Hardest working people,

hardest.

Oh, for sure.

Which is, I don't know if you watched Teen Mom ever, but one of the cast members, her brother-in-law, was working with an immigration attorney to get over to the United States from Costa Rica.

They had to go through the entire legal process.

They showed a little bit of a struggle,

but in my opinion, they didn't show the nitty-gritty part of it.

And so it, and obviously, when you are on TV, you have to chop and screw it so that it is, it goes from eight months to a one-week situation.

And so, and then also like her entire segment was not that.

It was just like a small portion of it.

And so I think things like that make it look so simple.

And to find out that you can't just apply to become an American citizen is, I think, will shock people.

They don't, I don't think that people realize that.

Can we talk about the cost of what it would be, what it is to immigrate one person?

Yeah.

So, I mean, mean, so if you're hiring a lawyer for like a marriage-based case, it depends on like whether you have a criminal history, how you enter the country.

But on average, it's going to be anywhere between like probably, it could be anywhere between like four and fifteen thousand, right?

Um, and so that's just like lawyers' fees typically.

If you're in removal proceedings, like they're actively deporting you, it could probably be a lot more than that, like twice that much.

Um, so it kind of depends on your case, but then the government has filing fees, right?

So, applications have like sometimes like $1,100 filing fees, and that's only one of the four applications that you have to file.

So I mean, you have to, you have to have a lot of money, but like, that's another misconception is they think immigrants don't have money.

They always pay.

They always have money saved because they're hard workers and they're financially responsible.

Like they don't come here just with no money, you know?

Like,

and when I was a family law attorney representing rich, petty divorced couples, like, they wouldn't pay me.

But like, immigrants always pay in full.

Right?

That's the sweetest thing I've ever ever heard.

Yeah.

Oh my gosh.

Because they're responsible and they work really hard, but like, and they're just, they're not entitled, you know?

Entitled people treat their lawyers horribly and they're usually cheap about it.

But like my clients are never entitled and they're so easy to work with.

How does that work with the jurisdiction for an immigrant if they live in another country and like legally representing?

them if they're not an if they're not a citizen.

Yeah, so because they're coming here, it's it's it's immigration law is federal all over the like kind of all every every state but because they're coming here it's sort of like just federal immigration law so it doesn't matter where you are you're still working with like the American embassy okay yeah so you're not really dealing with like their jurisdiction in their country and then how do you balance like with your brand on social media versus you know practicing law how do you balance you know educating the general public with you know all of this information but not crossing the line over into legal advice oh yeah i mean it's hard it's definitely hard i have to be very general so i'm like, like, you know, on my bio, I said, this is not

legal advice, you know, but people don't really know what legal advice is, right?

They assume that everything's legal advice.

But legal advice would be like specifically talking to one person about their case and like telling them what to do.

Right.

So, I mean, my topics, I just try to be really like general.

Lately, I've had a lot of content because it's all breaking news.

All of it's breaking news.

All of it's breaking news.

So I just kind of like break news down now at this point because it's like, I don't really have to educate people anymore.

People are very educated on the internet about now, thankfully, but they're not educated about all the new.

I mean, it's a very humbling career for me because it's like the new president comes in and changes everything.

And now I have to relearn my like all of immigration law.

Right.

So I'm getting these new executive orders because Trump writes them every five seconds, every time someone offends him.

And he writes a new executive order.

And then I have to analyze it and be like, okay, this is what this means.

It's not that serious.

Someone's going to file a lawsuit.

They probably already did with the ACLU, and a judge is going to block it.

So I'll post on it later.

So the executive orders are not law.

No.

Just for anyone listening who doesn't understand what's going on, executive orders are not law.

They're just what his plans.

They're written temper tantrums for this president, that's for sure.

Um, I swear, like, every time he's mad, he just wrote one about how he's going after immigration and civil rights lawyers because they keep filing lawsuits to stop his executive orders.

And he, and he's like, We're gonna sanction you and discipline you, like, for what, doing our job?

Like, we don't owe you anything.

Like,

you guys know more than he does.

Yeah, he doesn't even know.

He's not even a lawyer.

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So

your husband

is your number one supporter.

For sure.

And can we talk about how you got started with your like your entire firm and working out of your garage?

Yeah, it's kind of crazy, right?

Yeah.

Yeah.

So when I got fired from a firm that was very conservative, where they didn't specifically tell me I was fired for wearing pink, but they kind of bullied me out and subtly told me that I didn't fit in and I wasn't getting taken seriously.

I just didn't fit in, right?

So I was like, I'm going to practice.

I'm going to like maybe.

do some cases on my own for now because I had a baby at home and I had another one on the way and it was the pandemic.

And then my husband's like, we have like the storage room in our, in our townhouse in Portland.

And he was like, let me turn this into a little office.

I was like, okay.

Like I couldn't even afford it.

Like I couldn't afford a nanny.

So my kids were, we did like a baby gate and it was like a pink carpet.

And I just like worked there.

And then I, you know, we painted like the wall pink so I could do some content.

And it, you know, it was cool.

I started doing immigration.

I really liked it.

But I didn't really like, I never actually expected to like.

blow up with my firm.

I expected to be very small.

But because of TikTok, I swear I just got on it at the right time early 2021.

And I was like, you know what?

No one really knows about immigration.

Like it's just not common.

No one knows that you can get a green card from being a victim of a crime.

I was like, so I really want to post about that and see if I can help people by educating them.

So I posted TikTok.

I was really scared.

And then it went viral and I just posted more.

And I got so many calls that I was like, I have to hire people.

You know, you have to play catch up.

Right.

So then I, you know, hired more people.

And it's still entirely virtual.

So all, I think we have about 45 employees.

All of them work from home.

So So I have little like, yeah.

So because most of them are like moms and students and parents.

And so I wanted to stay in that pandemic friendly kind of workplace.

Yeah.

Cause I really liked working from home because I had kids.

And I was like, no one has to go in an office with immigration.

All of it's like virtual anyway.

Right.

Yeah.

So I have satellite offices where I work and I meet clients, but all of my staff, they work from home.

And it's like, it's very mom-friendly.

We have a lot of moms like, and a lot of people who are in school or they can't afford like, you know, to drive the office every day.

It's really inconvenient.

So we have little satellite pink offices everywhere, but all of them actually work from home.

And you just had this idea to do that, do it that way, or it just kind of played out that way?

It kind of played out that way.

And we had thought about like, do we want to do a big in-person office?

But like my best employees work all over the country.

And they work from home.

I think they work when women and mothers can be with their children or, you know, they just work hard.

I have the same sort of situation with my network i everyone i hire first of all they're all women and second i let them work from home mostly you know with the exception of coming out on site a couple times a month um and that's if they can like they can't if they can't we're gonna figure it out and you're not gonna get fired you're not gonna get like written up you're not gonna understand a hundred percent and i never want someone i want someone to work as hard as they want and as hard as they can when where they're comfortable.

Yeah.

But what is that like to have like your a male supporter be your number one supporter in all of this?

Yeah, I mean, it's huge because like, you know, with my husband, he's sort of the opposite of how he was raised.

He was like, you know, he's born in Mexico and his family was very conservative and a little bit like Machista, right?

Like traditional, like his mom is that way.

But he's like the opposite.

He is like, he was the one that told me to make pink my brand.

He was, cause we were designing, like, I was doing my own like DIY website with like wigs.

And I was using like Google photos that I shouldn't be using of like an American flag.

It was horrible.

And he was like, you know what?

Why don't you just make make it all pink?

And I was like, oh, that's why I got fired.

I can't do that.

And he was like, he's like, do you think your clients care if your website's pink?

And I was like, no, probably not.

Only the men that I worked for gave a shit about me wearing pink.

Right.

And I think it's because they were bad at their job and I was better.

And they didn't like that I didn't look like them and I was better at their job.

And you're a woman.

Yeah, and I'm a woman.

Like they just couldn't stand it.

Is your husband also in-law?

No, he's an engineer.

Oh, wow.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So he just was like, well, let's do this.

We're going to go full force.

Pink is the brand.

And I've seen him.

I'm pretty sure it's him in pictures.

Yeah.

He wears pink.

He bought a pink suit.

Like, he's so like, he does not care.

Like, he was like, and then I was, I was, I was like, how do I, I want to do my first billboard?

And he's like, you're going to do bright pink.

And I was like, in Dallas, which is very conservative.

Right.

Because, you know, all the billboards in Dallas are like Texas Hammer or like these PI attorneys.

Camo, all kinds of like.

It's just ridiculous.

Yeah.

And he was like, I'm going to make yours all pink.

And he's like, no one's going to miss that.

I'm like, that's, that's for sure.

You know, have my, have people seen it and like called you?

Yeah, and like the, it's funny because like half of my clients are women because there are a lot of marriage-based cases, right?

And the women are typically here or they're in other countries and they're other countries or they're seeing my billboards or they're seeing my brand and they followed me because they just like the pink.

And they're like, I could totally relate to that.

Like, I'm a girly girl.

I work in engineering.

I work in this field where like I really want to wear pink, but I feel like I can't.

And I love that you're doing it because I don't feel brave enough to do it.

So I kind of like live vicariously through you.

Right.

Yeah.

So then they're like, I trust her yeah like i relate to her so i want to hire her yeah and i think i seem more relatable to like the clients that way you know because like a lot of attorneys are very buttoned up very conservative and they're kind of mean yeah yeah especially to their clients condescending condescending one of the lawyers i had in over the last five to ten years

i he very intelligent very knew what he was doing but very arrogant right and there were certain aspects of it i i just couldn't do it.

Like I need to go for someone who would fight the same way that I'm fighting in this situation.

And it needed to be a woman.

It needed to be someone that was a little off the cuff, a little bit not buttoned up.

You feel like you could relate to you trust.

Yes.

Right.

Yeah.

And so I think that a lot of white men are missing the mark there.

They are.

By being completely unrelatable, being completely misogynistic, truly.

It's very misogynistic.

It's very arrogant.

Like the manager that I had had that fired me at my first firm, he had taken the bar like five times.

Like he should not have been the lawyer.

Right.

So did you take it five times?

Apparently in Texas.

And so when I passed, I remember the look on his face, he was like, I didn't think he'd pass.

He literally told me that.

Why?

Because of the way you look?

Oh, for sure, but he wasn't going to admit it.

And he like really liked me.

Like he was really helpful to me until I passed the bar.

And then he was like.

Trying to get me fired, telling on me for every mistake I made.

Like he just couldn't handle the thought of me taking his job.

And I knew it.

And that was like a lot of male lawyers that I worked for, they were like that.

And I I can't stand it.

Like, but a lot of it is I get a hate from a lot of female lawyers too, because I call them pick me.

They're just playing the game.

They want to be liked by those men too.

So they're like, what is she doing?

She sets us back because we're trying to be taken seriously.

And I almost don't blame them, you know?

But then they're on like Facebook groups and Reddit.

They're like, she's so cringe.

Like no one will take her seriously.

And I think it's because they.

They can't do it.

They can't pull it off because they don't own their own firms.

And that's what a lot of women do is they end up just having their own firms.

They don't make partner as often as men because they're like, you know, they're not respected for their time with their children, you know, and they can't be themselves.

And they're like, screw it.

I'm just going to like make my own table, which is exactly what I had to do.

So tell me when your firm opened its doors.

2020.

Okay.

So five years in.

Yeah.

And I mean, you're taken seriously by so many people.

And so now, now what?

What is the next step?

Just keep growing your firm or are you huge?

Yeah.

I just want to grow as much as possible because I really like, I don't have to, but I really like employing women.

Yeah.

You know, and I want to help more women out and I want to give them more jobs.

Yeah.

And I really like being a business owner and having a team.

I'm sure you feel the same way.

Oh, I love my team.

I feel bad for some of their first days on sex.

I'm like, you don't know what you're getting yourself into, Madison.

And, but outside of that, like, I love having my team.

I love the girls that I have.

I like everything about it.

And so it's been a really cool process.

But for you too, like, just to have your husband support all of this.

And how do your kids feel about it?

I mean, they're so cool.

Yeah.

I mean, they're little boys.

They're insane.

But they're going to be, you're raising young men to be appreciative of what women can do and how powerful women are.

And that's part of it too.

Like you're leading by example, whether you have those conversations or not.

You don't necessarily even have to have the conversations because your husband is supporting, like your kids are watching your husband support you through it and watching you do all of this.

And that is part of what we need in the next generation.

Yeah.

It's like, you know, we went on a vacation a couple of weeks ago and they were saying how grateful they were.

My kids were like, thank you, daddy, for bringing us to the hotel and he goes you need to thank mommy and i was like that's so nice like i'll cry right now right you know i that is wow that's so nice right because and he looked at me and i feel bad because i work all the time vacation and and i was like are you mad because my my dad would always get mad at my mom for doing the same thing and he was like no he was like you taking these calls is like the reason why we have these privileges and he was like i'll never stop you like that's what you want to do i'll never make you feel uncomfortable for like doing what you want to do and helping so many people.

I'm like, how did I get so lucky?

Truly.

How did you meet this man?

And where can other people find people like him?

Because what the heck?

I know.

In 2023, you earned the Quality Business Award.

And

what does that mean?

What is that?

Yeah.

So I think it's like a business company in Texas.

And they kind of, I think they evaluate based on your reviews and your notoriety

and how clients see you.

which is really cool because a lot of other lawyer awards are mostly about like how other lawyers feel about you.

And not a lot of of lawyers like me.

So I don't get those awards, but I like getting like business awards.

Yeah.

I get a lot more awards and recognition based on my social media platform.

Okay.

Like my clients.

And those are the people I care about as my followers, my clients.

I don't really care about other lawyers.

So right.

Because you don't have to work with them, right?

Yeah.

Just the ones that you hire.

Yeah.

So I don't really care about people who I'm competing with.

You're not, are you really competing with anyone?

They might be competing with you, but you don't have to compete with them.

Maybe that's why they hate me so much.

100%.

100%.

Like just thinking outside the box and just being outside the box, I think is, I mean, it's intimidating to watch someone get, gain so much success from not

fitting in and conforming to what society wants of you.

And I, and sometimes like, I'll be at like, I'll reach out to other lawyers and I'll be like, you know, whatever I can do to help you, I'll see like younger lawyers or female lawyers.

And the younger ones are pretty nice to me.

Like they follow me.

They're cool with social media.

It's the older ones.

And you kind of expect that because they're like, I had to go to school where I had to act like a bully.

I had to to act like a man.

I had to look a certain way.

You don't have to do that.

I think they like, they're resentful of younger lawyers for doing that.

Like there's a whole discussion on TikTok about whether lawyers should be content creators because a lot of lawyers are like, don't do it.

Like you're going to get fired.

Your clients are going to take you seriously.

And the younger lawyers are like.

we need to change this.

Like we need to be able to make money off of content and have some kind of like artistic side of our life because the practice of law is so like, you know, stressful.

Like, why can't we have that?

You know?

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I feel like it makes the clients feel more comfortable and related to because I mean, when I first got, when I got my first attorney, it was 2011 and I was

18 years old.

And I just felt like I felt so judged.

I felt like attorneys were a specific way.

They came from very well-to-do families.

They had a a lot of money.

They were very intelligent and all the things that I couldn't be or I wasn't capable of.

And so it created a dynamic, like almost like a power, a power

trip.

You can't relate to them.

No, I couldn't relate to them and I felt so judged and I felt so intimidated and I felt so unintelligent.

But as time goes on and I noticed that a lot of lawyers that I talk to are just like me, right?

Like my undergrad is in communications, but I have met, I think you're the second, you have a bachelor of, you had a bachelor of arts.

Yeah.

And before you went to law school, I have another friend, Summer.

She's also in Texas.

Hers was communications.

And so like, so relatable, so real.

Right.

It's still achievable.

You don't have to be, look a certain way to be able to be an attorney.

And I feel like that is so inspiring.

Yeah.

And that's, that's the legal field.

It's very, the way it is, it's like, if you don't go to a top 20 school, then you don't work in big law, which is the really big firms.

It's very conservative.

And then you end up being like a slave to them.

You get paid a lot of money, but it's a very elitist like profession.

And I want to be the complete opposite of that.

Like, I want to be relatable.

I want my clients to have my cell phone number.

Like, I want to go out to drinks with them.

Like, I want to be their BFF because like I'm working so hard for them.

I want them to trust me.

And I also want them to see me as a human because sometimes when it's so stressful, like I want them to know that I'm like, I'm just a human being and I'm working really hard.

And I want them to see like how much I care about them.

Right.

Versus these like buttoned up lawyers who are just like assholes to their clients.

Yeah.

You know, I don't get it.

I have four attorneys on retainer all the time for various reasons.

I love that.

I don't because it costs a lot of money.

Like I love the attorneys, but it does cost a lot of money.

Two of them, I have their cell phone numbers.

One of them, one of them, we'll tech, one of them, we'll talk about a thousand pound sisters.

Like we just, I love her.

I love all my attorneys.

Two of them are women and I just love that.

And it's just the way that the cards were dealt that two of them are men.

They're great as well.

But one of them, I mean, she's so funny, but she called me on a Saturday and was like, hey, like I, I know it's so sorry to call you randomly on a Saturday, but like the truck, and she's like a mom and she works hard and she has her own.

Do you know what I mean?

Like it just creates a different type of dynamic than when I was hiring males.

Yes, because you can relate to them.

Yes.

I just, and I love that they, I don't know.

You see the human behind them.

Yeah.

You know, I don't know.

Men's brains work differently.

So I know that like with law and stuff, you have to follow law, but men's, they just don't, they're not thinking of how emotional certain things are when you hire an attorney.

And so especially in immigration, I would imagine like you as a woman can empathize or sympathize with, you know, the, the emotional side of the entire process.

Oh, yeah.

It's very stressful for the client.

They're going through so much and they're so scared right now because that's what the president's doing is trying to scare them.

My job is to be there for them and to kind of have thicker skin and just to walk them through it.

And from what I figured out is as much communication as possible.

I've worked with lawyers who they very much limit their conversation with their clients.

And they're like,

I don't want to talk to them.

I don't want to talk to them.

Like, I don't want them to use it against me.

And I'm like, they're paying you so much money to change their lives.

Talk to them.

Call them on the phone.

Like, be their therapist.

Like, we should be.

You know, we're changing their lives.

And they're paying us good money.

Like, we need to make it worthwhile.

It's a lot of money.

Like, if you could just like answer my call, I know you're busy, but like, if I'm going through something related to the case, I do, I would agree that.

And they get paid for those phone calls because they're hourly.

So that's what I'm saying.

Just like humanize it a little bit.

It's like nice to have attorneys like you that exist.

And and i i think that you set the bar you know where it should be so i i love that and in um 2022 you were recognized for the elite lawyer recognition is that also in texas or is that like that's i think that's national that's incredible yeah thank you how do you feel about that very cool yeah i mean i feel like those awards like i i'm definitely the face but honestly my my team is the reason why we're successful so we have like 45 employees and they work day and night and they're not the face like i'm the face so i do get more recognition but it's it's really because of them.

Like they work so hard.

Are there, I know that you were touching on talking about the immigration laws being federal, but like, are there different processes by state?

No.

So it's, I mean, sometimes you have to, you have to look into the criminal history.

As when you're looking at a client, like, can I get you the green card with criminal history?

It depends on the crimes, the criminal laws in that state that they were convicted in or arrested in.

Okay.

Like there's this crazy rule in immigration where you don't have to be convicted of a crime for immigration to use it against you.

So if you've been wrongfully arrested and then DA dropped the charges, if they have a reason to believe that you committed that crime, they could use it against you, which is crazy.

That's like essentially double jeopardy, though.

Right.

So I have to go into that interview with them and be like, do not admit it.

I was in an interview where they asked, the interview asked her, this client, he was like, did you get arrested of this crime?

And he goes, yes.

Then he goes, did you commit the crime?

And he kind of looked at me and I was like, and he didn't know what to say.

And I was like, he didn't commit the crime.

I prepped him for this because he just got wrongfully arrested right but the officer is trying to trick him into saying that he committed the crime so he could use it against him and deny him right

but he didn't he never committed the crime he was wrongfully arrested they dropped the charges for a reason so then i looked at him and i was like remember the only one who can determine whether you committed a crime or not is a judge in a criminal court not you you can't determine that so answer the question thinking about that and the officer looked at me like she was pissed well i mean you're not wrong and i was like you're not trying to get my client to lie like are you kidding?

You know, it's so scary.

Like, being on a witness stand without being an immigrant and without having a criminal record is absolutely terrifying.

And I have fucked up and been like, oh, that wasn't the answer they were looking for.

And I didn't say anything wrong.

So, just like, as a white woman who doesn't have a criminal history, that's absolutely terrifying.

I cannot imagine being an immigrant or trying to become an American citizen and having to go up there.

on a witness stand in another language.

Yes.

Yeah.

I just had Amanda Knox on the podcast and she was talking about that and, you know, know having to do all this stuff in italian when she was over there yeah and being tricked because it was another language that she was oh my god you had amanda knox yeah i did a whole thesis in law school on her you did i'm obsessed with amanda knox yes like yeah she was that episode today it's it's out right now that's crazy um i mean being tricked in another language is i can't even imagine and then your entire life could shift based on you know those those answers yeah in a different language and they were trying to get him to admit that he committed a crime.

And they kept going back to say, because he was like, I'm confused.

And he goes, well, remember, you said yes to being arrested.

So now I'm asking you, did you commit it?

So he was trying to bait him into saying that he committed a crime.

And thank God I was at that interview because sometimes they choose not to have me there.

And I was like, remember, you can't determine if you committed a crime.

Only a judge can.

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Why would they not want you to be there for an interview for immigration when you are their attorney?

I mean, sometimes, like, you know, I have to fly out, which is fine, but sometimes they're like, they have easy cases.

So it's like, if they don't have any criminal history, they're like, it's not really necessary.

We can't say a lot at these interviews.

But if they sometimes they choose to have me there, sometimes they're like, I don't need you there because they have an easy case.

And I'll tell them.

I'll be like, you're going to get approved.

But some of these, like with criminal history, like, I want to be there for that reason because I know what some of these officers are doing.

It also depends on where you're interviewing at.

If you're interviewing in Dallas, I'm going to be there.

You know, if you're interviewing in Portland, Oregon, I probably don't need to be there.

They're probably going to be fair.

Okay.

I wonder what, like, the Northeast, if it's fair or not.

It's pretty fair in the Northeast.

Is it?

Yeah.

Like, if you're in the South, yeah.

Odds are against you already, even if you have an easy case.

I've seen that a lot, especially under Trump.

You know, because like USCIS, the governing agency for like approvals for green cards, their boss is Trump.

So I don't know if you follow like USCIS or Border Patrol on Instagram.

No.

It's like, it's crazy.

Like their posts are so racist.

They're so crazy.

And under Biden, they would be like, apply for naturalization.

Let's celebrate immigrants.

And now it's like, get out.

It's like all those ad campaigns by a government agency who's supposed to be an unbiased adjudicator.

And they're posting like celebrating arresting people at their interview at a green card.

So yeah, they posted I was gonna say I saw you see my post on that I think so I think I did yeah when they were celebrating someone coming in to apply for a green card at an interview and the ICE came in and detained them and arrested them they posted a picture and put it on their actual government Instagram page.

Your TikTok videos and your Instagram videos for people who don't know you you spread information useful and educational information about immigration and other things with law.

What can people expect to see on your page?

Advocating people on how to get a green card, educating people who are hateful about immigrants on how immigration works, how difficult legal immigration is, who immigrants are, putting a name to the face, you know, like explaining that, or a face-to-face, explaining like how much they contribute to the economy, how they aren't criminals, like how good of a person you have to be to be vetted through the system as it is.

And just really like the power of education, I think you can reach a lot of people if they're willing to understand and willing to hear it.

And it has to be controversial.

That's the only way it goes viral, right?

Like when you really put it simply for them with numbers to show like how wrong they are, they're not going to like it, but it'll still go viral and it'll reach a lot of people either way.

So what I say is I was like, my first line will be like, you don't think immigrants contribute?

And then I'll list all the ways that they contribute with numbers, just simple numbers.

Like how much they contributed, how much, how estimated, how much money it's going to be, the estimated cost of deportation compared to how much they contribute.

So I think

that was what I wanted to talk about.

The ASMR video that somebody posted about the mass deportation that was happening.

I'm not understanding that.

And so everyone's like cheering and celebrating them leaving.

And we're like watching this ASMR video of them in chains and shackles, literally their ankles and their wrists.

They had not committed crimes.

And this is what people don't know.

This is another good idea for a video.

Immigrants actually have constitutional rights.

And

my comments will always be like, you're wrong.

And I'm like, okay.

But like, if you look up the Constitution, it doesn't specify that you need legal status to be able to be entitled to those rights.

So as long as you're physically in the United States, you're entitled to certain constitutional rights.

And the most important one is due process, which means you're entitled to your day in court.

You're entitled for a judge to analyze your case and determine if you're actually deportable or not.

So what is that going to cost, right?

So all of the people who were mass deported and are being held or that were not criminals and are not criminals.

So expensive.

So now we're paying for them to do, like taxpayer dollars are paying for those trials to determine whether or not they get to stay here or not.

Did you hear about Guantanamo Bay?

Yes.

Okay.

Let's talk about it.

Right.

So they were using military planes, which cost, I think, $20,000 an hour.

They don't need to use military planes, by the way.

They're doing that for show.

Cause it's all about media.

They spent all that money sending them to Cuba and then they figured out they couldn't afford it.

So they quietly shipped all them back a couple of weeks ago.

And now they're in like Alabama or something.

What was the point?

You wasted so much money to send them to Cuba for what?

To just to send them back?

And who paid for that?

We did.

Taxpayers pay for that.

And this is like his supporters are all about money, right?

I think, but they're like, immigrants cost us.

That's their whole rhetoric is that they take from us.

Actually, like Trump is taking from us to just

golfing.

Yeah, like while he's golfing in Mar-a-Lago, like, but if you put numbers to them, like, they just don't, they don't want to hear it.

They don't want to understand it because it's not what they've been told, you know.

They don't want to hear it, and that's the craziest part.

But, like, sometimes I'll just do videos like that.

I'm like, hey, here's a breakdown, by the way, of how much it cost you and taxpayers to literally the most useless, pointless deportation.

There's no reason to use military planes, $20,000 an hour.

There's no reason to send them to Guantanamo Bay.

So, the whole point of that executive order by that judge when he like stopped Trump from utilizing the Alien Act, Alien Enemies Act, is because he's like, I don't even know if these people are deportable.

I don't know if they're criminals.

Some of them may be.

I still need to determine if they're deportable.

I need to give them a removal order.

You will explain exactly how much money we're wasting on this mass deportation efforts.

And they just don't, it's like you're speaking another language.

They don't want to hear it.

They don't want to open their mind to it.

I think like they have to lose so much money to understand.

It has to affect them personally until they don't, until they see it and make the connection that they're losing money themselves.

They will understand it.

Like I have a lot, I have some friends in our neighborhood they'll call me and be like hey so how do i keep get my keep my nanny from being deported but they voted for trump you know how do i keep my nanny from being deported

they are coming here to work to make money to most likely send money back to their families and they're getting treated like dirt they don't get paid enough yeah that does happen a lot of exploitation and a lot of these these people who are anti-immigrant they'll be like so you're advocating you want to keep immigrants here so you want you're advocating for slave labor i'm like you're the ones doing the slave labor i'm like, you're the ones calling me being like, how do I keep my nanny and how much do I have to pay her?

Is it a lot?

How do I keep her from being deported?

But I voted to get her deported.

And a lot of these people vote with their own interests in mind.

Where I grew up, I think the population was 4,000.

I didn't see, you know, an immigrant or a black person until I was in fourth grade.

So I.

I've seen both sides of this.

And so now that I'm older, I'm able to educate myself more because I did have implicit bias.

Yeah.

And I recognize that.

And so I think for so many white people, they don't understand that they have implicit bias.

They don't know it.

And Trump just actually got rid of the refugee program entirely.

And he also stopped their green card applications from being approved.

He paused all of them.

So they've been approved refugee status.

The government has approved their asylum status, which is very hard because about 95% of asylum cases get denied.

And now he's like, actually, you can't get a green card.

Why?

We already vetted them.

They don't have, you can't have a criminal history and get approved for asylum.

You have to work, you get

work authorization, you have to pay taxes to get asylum.

What's the point?

And he paused that because he was like, I don't know, we need to vet them more.

We need to look for more fraud.

It's just,

it's incomprehensible.

It's unreal.

So now they can't get green cards.

They're stuck.

They're in limbo.

But he has done that with a lot of people with temporary protective status.

So Biden did these programs where, depending on how dangerous their home country was, he would give people parole into the country and work authorization for like two years.

And typically, a president would keep renewing it.

But Trump just like ended all those programs.

So Biden allowed all these people to come in legally.

And they've been working, they've been paying taxes.

And Trump just gave them until like April 24th to leave.

He gave them 30 days.

And then you're like, you're deportable.

So like, they've set up shot here.

They have a life here.

They've worked.

Some of them have bought homes, right?

But now they're just gone.

That's how bad our system is.

Most of it is so temporary and it can be ripped away from you depending on who's president.

They just change it.

Well, I'm voting Kathleen for president.

Thank you so much for coming on Barely Famous podcast and talking about such an important topic.

I really appreciate it.

Thank you.

Thank you for having me.

Where can people find you?

TikTok, social media, your website.

Where can people hire you?

All over the internet.

We'll link it all in the bio.

Chronically online.

Yeah, we'll link it all in the bio.

Thank you so much.

Appreciate it.

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