Immigration attorneys seeing business boom

With recent actions taken by the Trump administration regarding immigration foreigners are left with questions and many of them are seeking legal counsel.

ABC-7 spoke with three immigrant attorneys who said their clients, even those here legally have many concerns.

Attorneys say they’ve seen a 25 percent increase in business. One even telling ABC-7 they haven’t seen this many clients since the Reagan era.

For more than 100 years the city of El Paso has managed three international bridges connecting Mexico and the United States.

Last year, nearly 3 million people and more than 3 million cars passed through the bridges so it’s no surprise to see that El Paso has plenty of immigration attorney offices, some even touting “coming soon.”

But after many non-U.S. citizens heard this during the presidential debates by Donald Trump:

“We are going to secure the border and once the border is secured at a later date we’ll make a determination as to the rest but we have some bad hombres here and we’re going to get them out,” many worried.

After Trump was elected:

“We’ve had more clients than we’ve had in many many years,” said immigration attorney Daniel Caudillo.

Caudillo said with President Trump’s quick signing of executive orders and a recent announcement of rewriting immigration enforcement policies, many immigrants even those here legally are concerned.

“The phones are going off the hook in both of our offices. We are constantly scheduling appointments,” Caudillo said.

Caudillo told ABC-7 the services clients seek can be simple questions about visas and U.S. citizenship to more serious matters.

“From business immigration — where companies are looking to bring in employees, to individuals who are in detention and who have been detained by immigration and being placed into deportation proceedings,” Caudillo said.

Caudillo told ABC-7 an immigrant attorney’s priority is to protect the rights of those that seek their help.

“There are basic rights and due process that someone, that’s here undocumented, still has a right to go through and as much as the president wants to limit those due process rights, as an immigration attorney, we are not going to let that happen,” Caudillo said.

ABC-7 also asked one attorney about people scamming those seeking legal counsel.

One attorney said there hasn’t been an increase but has always been prevalent and urges those seeking help to make sure attorneys have their degrees and a certificate from the bar association.