I have a couple pieces of advice that I

routinely give to clients one piece of

advice is to my foreign National clients

I tell them you know listen to the

question that’s being asked of you

answer it succinctly and truthfully

you’d be surprised by how many people

want to elaborate on details that aren’t

necessary and that can really only take

them into sort of a downward spiral

sometimes so I think that piece of

advice is really helpful whether a

foreign National as is at an American

Embassy applying for a Visa if they are

at an interview at their local

immigration office or if they’re trying

to enter the United States through you

know CBP then the second piece of advice

that I give frequently is to my

corporate clients when they ask me about

this process and I tell them it really

is a marathon it’s not a Sprint it’s a

complex system it hasn’t been reformed

in many years there are things about it

that are otherworldly so you know in

order to embark on the sponsorship of

any type of visa for a foreign National

it takes patience it takes understanding

and I think also just an understanding

of the complexity of our system it’s not

something to be taken lightly you really

need to go into it with eyes wide open

well I think I have to give a lot of

credit to my parents my parents were

from these small towns in South Dakota

actually my father is from this really

large town of Miller South Dakota which

has about 3 000 people in it but

compared to my mother who was from a

really small farming Community he was a

big city boy and any event they both

were really people who instilled in my

siblings and myself this interest in

people from other places and other

cultures and they were always very

interested in meeting new people and

eating new foods and going to new places

and I think that that concept of not

being fearful of people from other

places have really embracing people from

all over the world and realizing that

everyone has something to offer

really came from them and then I’m

fortunate enough to have gone through a

public education system I’m originally

from Minnesota and in Minneapolis I grew

up uh during the 60s and the 70s so I

went to a very diverse public

Institution for both Junior High and

high school and because of that I

attended school with a population that

was very diverse I think over 50 percent

of my junior high and high school were

people of color and native peoples so

that was really sort of eye-opening and

encouraging experience for me to see

that there’s people from all different

kinds of backgrounds that there’s really

not just one way to be and that there’s

a lot of different paths that people

take it was really exciting and and very

freeing to be honest and it sort of

continued to cultivate my interest in

working with people a very diverse

backgrounds which I’ve been able to do

my entire legal career