Navigating high stakes: The challenges and rewards of practicing immigration law

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By Teri Saylor

Maryam Khan understands firsthand the fear and uncertainty that go along with being an immigrant in America these days.

She’s been there herself.

Khan, a staff attorney in the immigration and refugee rights project at the North Carolina Justice Center in Raleigh, came to the United States with her parents two decades ago and last year became a naturalized citizen.

“I was able to vote in my first U.S. election,” she said.

With roots in Pakistan, Khan came to the United States via Canada, where she also holds a citizenship. And while her path to U.S. citizenship was long, hard, and expensive, she didn’t face the same hardships as her clients who arrive here for humanitarian reasons or seeking asylum.

“My father is a physician,” she said. “I came here under his immigration status, which was arranged through his employment, so we were lucky enough to be business immigrants.”

Over the last 100 years, immigrating to the United States has become difficult and complicated, according to a 2023 report by the Cato Institute, and “today, fewer than 1 percent of people who want to move permanently to the United States can do so legally.”

In recent years, the United States has granted green cards to about 1 million immigrants annually. This amounts to about 0.3 percent of the U.S. population, the Cato Institute reported.

The process has been especially fraught since the Trump administration took office, promising the largest mass deportation in U.S history and targeting the more than 10 million unauthorized migrants living in the United States. Legal immigration has also been curtailed by the termination of temporary protected status and humanitarian parole protections.

The North Carolina Justice Center (NCJC) helps immigrant clients through direct legal representation in immigration and civil cases. They handle issues from wage theft and predatory contracts to wrongful denials of public benefits, aiming to ensure fair access to justice and public services for immigrant communities.

“We are trying to meet the needs of the immigrant community as they arise, but unfortunately, we’re so limited with funding and staffing as many nonprofits are right now,” Khan said. “We’re one of the few organizations that people can turn to seeking a legal immigration status.”

Khan says clients who are facing uncertainty are fearful, and even those who have a protected status are still afraid of still getting swooped up in a raid or that the discretion of the Department of Homeland Security won’t be exercised favorably for them.

“Everyone’s scared,” she said. “Green card holders are scared and some clients who are naturalized US citizens don’t feel 100 percent confident because of instances where people are being wrongfully detained by immigration agents.”

Immigration attorneys, paralegals and support staff have been scrambling to help clients navigate the ever-changing policies.

“Our days are extremely busy, and not one day is the same as the day before,” says Norma Perez, a paralegal at Helen Tarokic Law in Wilmington.

After initial intake at law firms, immigration paralegals are often the first line of contact when it comes to representing clients who have traveled to the Carolinas from other countries.

And with that comes an often-overloaded to-do list, regular daily tasks that are sometimes derailed by emergencies.

Outside of the typical tasks that come with any practice – organizing documents, communicating with clients and preparing cases, immigration paralegals and attorneys deal with federal, state and local agencies. They conduct often emotionally fraught conversations with individuals worried about how the focus on immigration will impact them and their families.

“There was a time last year when we were getting phone calls every five minutes from people who were super concerned about what was going to happen,” Perez said. “It was our job to do everything in our power to support them and help them feel safe.”

By the end of 2025, much of the initial panic had eased up, Tarokic Law attorney Taiyyaba Qureshi said, and today, the firm is close to business as usual.

“We do have clients who are concerned, but we remind them that immigration laws are still in place, visas are still being approved, cases are still ongoing in court, and we’re still here to help,” she said.

Immigration is sitting on the front burner, and across the country, attorneys and paralegals are trying to meet their clients where they are. Many immigration professionals bring heightened empathy from their own lived experiences.

Qureshi was born in New York after her parents arrived from Pakistan in the 1980s as students at Cornell. Her parents moved to Raleigh when she was 2 years old. She earned both her undergraduate degree and law degree at the University of North Carolina, aiming for a career in public service. Her first love was civil rights, and she later transitioned to immigration law.

At the Helen Tarokic Law firm, Qureshi provides humanitarian immigration services, helping get special visas for victims of human trafficking other serious crimes as well as exploring Immigration options for victims and survivors of domestic violence. The firm also assists clients with work visas, green cards, pathways to naturalization, deferred action, delayed or denied applications and various special circumstances.

“The work is so beautiful, Qureshi said. “Being able to get to know someone’s story deeply and be part of their healing.”

According to the Pew Research Center, as of June 2025, 51.9 million immigrants lived in the United States, making up 15.4 percent of the nation’s population.

Compare this to a fraction of immigration attorneys. According to IBIS World, an online platform that tracks data on a variety of business sectors, there were 57,810 people employed in immigration law professions as of December 2025, and the American Immigration Lawyers Association reports having just over 18,000 members.

Reid Taulz, senior director of the AILA Practice and Professionalism Center in Washington, D.C. says immigration law professionals, both attorneys and paralegals, are feeling stressed out, primarily due to the many policy changes they’ve seen over the past year.

The Immigration Policy Tracking Project is a project of Professor Lucas Guttentag, maintained by Stanford and Yale law students and a team of leading national immigration experts. The project provides a complete compendium of Trump administration policies, and by the end of December 2025, the site had recorded at least one new policy or update nearly every day, which Guttentag described as an “an avalanche of initiatives, actions, policy changes, and lawsuits” in a 2025 interview for the Berkeley Journal of Criminal Law

Taulz says the AILA views part of its role as helping immigration practices help their clients navigate in this climate of constant change.

He says he is seeing delays in processes like the time it takes to approve some petitions and applications making it hard for law firms to set expectations for their clients or even hit crucial deadlines.

For Perez, one of the most challenging aspects of her job is navigating those policy changes.

“Prior to filing, we have to make sure the forms are up to date, fees have not changed, and that procedures are still the same as they were yesterday because they can shift quickly,” she said. “And of course we have to avoid mistakes because even an error like using an outdated form could delay a case or be reason enough to issue a denial.”

Perez was born in Raleigh and was raised in south Florida. Both her parents came to the United States with agriculture visas in the 1970s and were married here.

In 1999, she moved back to North Carolina. She became an immigration paralegal in 2011 and joined Helen Tarokic Law in 2023.

Despite the stress that comes with immigration practice, Taulz reports that job satisfaction remains high.

“Two thirds of our members say they get a high level of satisfaction from their work while only five percent report low satisfaction,” he said.

Focusing on clients helps, Qureshi said.

“We must provide emotional support to our clients to try to reduce their anxiety if possible, and while it sometimes feels emotionally draining, overall, it’s worth it,” she said. “While some days can be stressful, when we receive an approval or a client gets a work authorization, it’s a reason to celebrate.”

At Moore and Van Allen, with offices in Charlotte and Charleston, immigration attorney Amanda Franklin reports high job satisfaction too.

Prior to earning her law degree, she worked as a paralegal. She says her immigration practice helps her fulfill her personal mission of helping people in a “real and meaningful way.”

As a business immigration attorney, she handles the full spectrum of employment-based nonimmigrant and immigrant visas.

“There is nothing more rewarding than helping someone achieve their dreams, whether that’s starting a business in the United States, getting a green card, or becoming a U.S. citizen,” she said.

Odilia Sanchez is also an immigration paralegal at Helen Tarocl law firm. Her parents brought her to the United States from Oxaca, Mexico when she was a year old. Her DACA status gives her special empathy for her clients, many of whom she has built relationships with, especially when their cases take years to resolve.

“It was really challenging for me when I was younger because I didn’t get DACA until after high school,” she said. “It was a relief that I could get a driver’s license and a social security card to have the ability to work.”

Sanchez’s favorite aspect of her job is giving clients good news that their cases have been resolved, they can receive a green card, or get their visas approved after years of waiting.

“We have clients who were with us even before I started working here in 2021,” she said. “One of my first clients finally became a resident, and seeing that happen was rewarding because he had been waiting on a decision for over five years.”

Khan says her work is energizing, especially in today’s climate.

“Our clients are some of the most vulnerable folks in the state as far as immigration status goes,” she says. “I believe that even on hard days, which come more frequently than not lately, the work I do matters.”

She says the value immigrants bring to their communities and nation as a whole keeps her focused on helping them achieve justice.

“Immigrants are integral to the fabric of the United States, and we wouldn’t have this country in its current iteration without their labor and advocacy,” she said. “Our work strengthens that access to justice for families, communities and the rule of law itself.”