Angelo A. Paparelli

Paparelli specializes in immigration and nationality law, representing clients in employment-based immigration matters. After decades as an authority in the field, this year he was inducted as a Fellow of the College of Labor & Employment Lawyers.

Thanks to the Trump administration immigration policy reforms--including his June 22 "pause" barring many categories of foreign workers and limiting visas through the rest of 2020--Paparelli said he's busier than ever.

"I've been involved in nothing short of a war on legal immigration at the federal level. They use machetes, scimitars and guillotines. The president's latest edict basically shut down the employment-based work visa system in the primary categories for H1-B knowledge workers, even including transferees from companies' affiliate offices abroad. These people are the heart and soul of what makes legal immigration work in the United States. And the proclamation was ambiguously worded--it will trigger lawsuits."

Paparelli said he's been advising clients on whether they should sue individually over the issue. "The precursor to this issue was the Trump travel ban, in which people sued all over the country and the suits were consolidated before they reached the Supreme Court." At the high court the ban was affirmed 5-4 in June 2018. "My hope is that this outcome will be different."

He based his optimism for a successful challenge to the visa pause on the president's words. "He based it on the premise that an emergency has arisen," citing the pandemic, Paparelli said. "But in May he said that the unemployment numbers have improved. So if the situation is improving, why is this an emergency?" Paparelli also took recent Supreme Court rulings to signal a positive outcome for any case against the visa order.

He pointed out that both the win for DACA recipients in Department of Homeland Security v. Regents of the University of California and the veterans' benefits ruling last year in Kisor v. Wilkie were based on process arguments. "When an administrative agency or the president creates surprise or disturbs settled reliance interests, that gets the court's disapproval. Even Justice Thomas' dissent in DACA said that presidential decrees that are unlawful should be disregarded."

Paparelli said no one so far has engaged him to prepare a challenge to the visa restrictions order. "But I'm drafting complaints in my mind all the time. There's a timidity in immigration law that's hard to overcome. Challenges sound unpatriotic to some. But when you don't stand up for yourself, your rights fall by the wayside."

He plans to keep fighting, but he conceded it's not easy. "I entered the practice of law because I wanted to help people. Now it's harder to help, and it's heartbreaking."

-- John Roemer