Delia de la Garza's Legal Blog

Imagine you were in love and you and your sweetheart decided to get married.  Forget about calling your parents for a big wedding, you just want to head down to the courthouse and do it!  Talk about getting the jitters! There is all this excitement and adreniline running thru you as you try to pick out something a little nice to get married in.  Your honey picks you up and you take one last look in the mirror.  You get in the car and when you see his beautiful smile, you realize that you are doing the right thing, this is the person you want to spend the rest of your life with.  When you get to the courthouse, you are refused a marriage license becuase of your immigration status!  What a blow!  Your whole life flashes in front of you, your hopes and dreams are crushed.  This is one of the daily struggles that immigrants were facing in Scranton, PA.  These are not the only daily struggles that immigrants face.  They cannot get licences, jobs, are refused service, housing, etc.  This only drives them more underground.  They end up working for people “under the table” and get exploited because they are not paid a reasonable wage or at all.  I get calls all the time about people who went to work in Louisiana to help rebuild New Orleans, who did not get paid.  Or, people who were arrested in Traffic Court by a Judge, who may or may not be a lawyer, because they don’t have any papers under some new law, according to him.  Imagine that!  This judge is enforcing some new law-that the public has yet to hear about.  I wonder what that new law is?