Hollister high grad works as immigration lawyer in SF
Paula Solorio still remembers the whirring of immigration
helicopters and the scrambling of farm workers as she was cutting
apricots alongside her mother in a shed south of Bolado Park years
ago.
Hollister high grad works as immigration lawyer in SF
Paula Solorio still remembers the whirring of immigration helicopters and the scrambling of farm workers as she was cutting apricots alongside her mother in a shed south of Bolado Park years ago.
“I remember asking my mother why they have to hide and we didn’t,” said Solorio, 50, a Hollister native who now is an immigration lawyer in San Francisco. “She must have explained it to me at the time. I remember feeling that it was fundamentally unfair that we were working side by side but some people were scared” of being swept up in an immigration raid.
On Sept. 19 at Paine’s Restaurant, Solorio will be honored at the 18th annual Hispanic Women in Action Reception sponsored by the San Benito County chapter of the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC).
As a partner in the law firm Fellom & Solorio, the Sacred Heart and San Benito High School graduate works with four other lawyers to manage more than 1,500 cases dealing with all aspects of immigration law, from political asylum and deportation defense to naturalization and family reunification.
Solorio is a frequent speaker on deportation defense and family-related immigration matters at state and national conferences. In 2001, she won the Phillip Burton Immigration and Civil Rights Award for Lawyering, and she is a mentor attorney with the San Francisco Lawyers’ Committee.
Local LULAC Vice President Marian Cruz said Solorio was a natural choice for this year’s honor because, “We try to honor people that are local and have come back to serve their community,” Cruz said. “Paula has come back to Hollister several times. She made herself available to the community. She works in San Francisco but is gracious enough to provide people with [immigration] information that isn’t always readily available here.”
Cruz said money raised during the annual Hispanic Women in Action Reception funds scholarships that LULAC awards to local high school graduates every year.
Solorio said that after earning her law degree from Stanford University in 1990, she worked in a large law firm. But it was when she began doing pro bono work with immigrants that, “I realized this is what I wanted to do.”
“We represent people from all over the world; Turkey, Burma, the Eastern Bloc, Africa, Asia, and primarily Central and Latin America,” Solorio said.
The firm aids political refugees, most of whom do not speak English, with complex asylum claims.
Solorio and other members of her firm volunteer as pro bono counsel in immigration court and volunteer with the La Raza Centro Legal immigration project.
“We see people from everywhere,” Solorio added. “They are primarily indigent, so we try to steer them to a volunteer agency that can help them.”
Last week, Solorio’s firm met with the staff of Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Ca.) to discuss the federal government’s crackdown on immigration.
“In essence, it’s a deportation-only policy,” Solorio said. “When immigration and customs enforcement agents make arrests, they make people sign sheets that are pre-checked that those arrested waive their right to a hearing. We’re seeing a violation of due process rights.”
Solorio considers immigration rights issues like this to be “our new civil rights movement.”
She said the profile of an immigrant, contrary to the negative stereotypes often brought up during debates on immigration reform, is “someone who is industrious, smart, and hard working. Our economy is sputtering and people are looking for scapegoats. Unfortunately, undocumented immigrants are an easy target.”
There are “of course some bad apples,” Solorio added, but she said that many employers have contacted her firm looking to help their valued employees without work authorization become citizens.
The keynote speaker for the 18th annual Hispanic Women in Action Reception is Christine Chavez, granddaughter of Cesar Chavez, former leader of the United Farm Workers. Los Angeles City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo is a special guest of the event. The event will be held Friday, Sept. 19 at 6 p.m. in the Paine’s Restaurant banquet room, 421 East St. in Hollister. To reserve tickets at $40 per person, remit payment to San Benito County LULAC, P.O. Box 1446 in Hollister, 95024-1446. For more information, call 636-5321.
