Why We Love Fighting The Good Fight
As far back as I can remember, I have thought of myself as the white-hatted sheriff (a la John Wayne) who is fighting the bad guys. The first major whipping I received in life was when I was in first grade and took it upon myself to defend another first grader who was being teased and bullied. Rather than learning to keep to myself after that fiasco, I seemingly continued to feel obliged to help the weak, the downtrodden, and the oppressed because when I look back, that act of assistance in first grade, was the first of many.
I did not choose immigration law, it chose me. Years after I had already started practicing law, I looked back and realized that, by happenstance, and by assistance in finding my first job in immigration by my mother ( another story altogether ) I had fallen into something that suited my character like no other career could. I have always valued helping the weak versus the strong, the David versus Goliath.
Sherif Shawn Sedaghat
I came to this country as an immigrant in 1979, in the aftermath of the Iranian Revolution. My “class” of people had no place in the new post-revolution Iran, and I was in desperate need of finding a new “home”. America for me was this home, but it took me more than a decade to finally become legal in this country and feel like I could finally exhale. Those were hard and uncertain years.
My senior associate Michelle Taheripour also comes from a similar background. She too came here after the Iranian Revolution and suffered through years of uncertainty with her immigration status, before she finally became a permanent resident and a United States citizen.
When this firm was founded more than 25 years ago, we had no idea that during this period we would see immigration as an increasingly political issue. With each administration, layers of law and regulation have been added to what was already a convoluted and complicated process. As a result, we have seen an underclass of “illegal aliens” (a term we hate) grow from a few hundred thousand to more than eleven million people. We have also seen rules related to immigration through marriage and work become more cumbersome and difficult, and those seeking the protection of the United States through asylum and refugee status having to jump through more hoops.
Unlike most other areas of law that deal with the life and liberty of citizens, immigrants have few rights under the law and the U.S. Constitution. This makes being an immigration lawyer, a challenging, frustrating and exhilarating career choice, but one that is also rewarding beyond any other. To be the only one standing between a human being and disaster, to be the hero that advocates for the one who has no voice, to espouse the cause of the fearful, to represent the entrepreneur who will have the next big idea only if given a chance, this is what motivates me, and my associates, and we are privileged to have dedicated our lives to it.