“There Is Enough Room for Them Here”: Zachary Perez Speaks on Immigration Advocacy and Hope
by Celeste Acevedo, Immigration Attorney
Zachary Perez delivering remarks to the 27th Annual Partners for Justice Conference
At Sanabria & Associates, community advocacy and public service remain central to the firm's mission. That commitment was recently reflected when Senior Attorney Zachary Perez delivered remarks as a keynote speaker at the 27th Annual Partners for Justice Conference, where he spoke about the realities of immigration advocacy, the responsibilities of legal representation, and the importance of maintaining hope and integrity in the face of growing challenges within the immigration system.
A first-generation attorney and immigration advocate, Perez shared deeply personal reflections on his journey into law, connecting his family history and lived experiences to his current work representing immigrants in removal proceedings and humanitarian matters. Throughout his speech, Perez emphasized honesty, honor, and hope as guiding principles for attorneys practicing immigration law.
During his remarks, Perez reflected on the scope and significance of his work representing immigrants before the Immigration Court system:
“I can say sincerely that I have entries of appearance with immigration court filed in over 1,000 cases. 1,000 souls. All of those cases have exactly one thing in common:
There is enough room for them here.”
Below is a copy of Perez’s full remarks.
Dignity. Decency. Due Process.
Three principles against what it feels, charitably, like more than 3 million aggressions and abuses towards the clients I represent. Three principles.
I am a first-generation attorney. The American Bar Association has designated May 20, 2026 as the first National First Generation Attorney Day. To all my fellow first-generation attorneys, felicidades
My origin story goes back to the infamous golden escalator trip in June of 2015, well over a decade ago. At that time a man formally known as “just some guy”, one Donald Trump, made certain remarks concerning non-white people he considered, let’s say, inconvenient.
He said, literally:
“when Mexico sends its people, they’re bringing drugs, they’re bringing crime, they’re rapists”
At that time, I, like many struggling artists in New York City, worked a lot of side hustles. Catering. Bar tending. Running cables.
One of my gig employers sent a little inquiry around, offering cash to attend such remarks by the Mr. Donald Trump. It would have been an easy job and not a bad cash-grab but I declined. I booked another event. I was busy.
But I was listening that day to those targeted words. Those lies.
I heard those vicious remarks, heard them as a Mexican-American, and I thought, with little other prompting:
“well…if that’s the way its going to be, how about a life fighting for immigrants instead?”
I packed up my belongings, barely filled half a U-Haul, and left the city. And here I am now. Immigration attorney. So what does that mean? What is it for?
I am not an attorney by dint of claiming any intellectual mastery. Or certainly superiority. Before all of this, I was a stage actor. I told my parents I was going to run off and join the circus, and left it at that. I survived New York city, sure, but just barely.
The truth about me is that I am a fighter. A man in the trenches and for the trenches. The most I can aspire to in my professional work now, is one more grant. One more approval. One more life and family saved. These are the very real stakes we face today and is a cause, I can report, of the extreme burnout that characterizes so many in my line of work.
Now, when I became an attorney, an admitted member of the Maryland Bar, I called my grandmother. Guadalupe Lopez Perez, 95 years old. I will never forget what she said to me on the phone that day.
Through tears, she said, “Mijo, (my son) when I was a child, they would have never let someone with your name call themselves an attorney”
That was the day that I really learned what the words ‘first generation attorney’ mean
And what do I do now in my work as an attorney? Well, it largely stems from a principle I expect many readers to relate do:
I don’t like bullies.
And sadly, I think many of us recognize it’s a great time to be a bully. Being a bully pays well. Heck, if you violently attacked our capitol on Jan 6…you may be right now getting yourself in line for a $1.8 billion dollar slush fund, taxpayer money straight to so-called loyalists. So yes, it’s lucrative. Lazy. Long before I walked through the man-made disaster that is Alligator Alcatraz, I had to accept that we live on a planet where there is a limitless supply of humans willing to take a paycheck from a despot to harm others. It comes with the territory.
Our firm president Gunther Sanabria says we, as a firm, are an “ER for Immigration” and it really is not a stretch to say so. We are getting the first calls from families with emergencies and in danger. We work to capacity, and well beyond. That’s the mission.
I can say sincerely that I have an entrance of appearance with immigration court filed in over 1,000 cases. 1,000 souls. All of those cases have exactly one thing in common:
There is enough room for them here.
The truth about me is that I have ancestors that walked through Ellis Island and ancestors that walked through the southern border. You know which ones did it the “right” way?
All of them. Because they survived. They endured. They were Americans.
You see, my grandmother, God bless her soul, knows what it means for a Mexican to be called a rapist. And a murderer. She watched her brothers die and her husband go to war. She knows the cost of such easily said slurs by someone who has never, still to this very day, worked an honest or hard day’s work.
My grandmother remembers segregation, a subject some of our schools remain afraid to teach. It was never about affirmative action or DEI. It was about survival, plain and simple, despite the slurs, despite the oppression, and despite the lies.
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Because the truth, hard as it may be to swallow, is that this, all of this, was never about immigrants. It was never about immigration. It was and is about power. Raw. Intoxicating. And corrupting.
Power. Plain and simple.
As I wrap up my posts, I would like to leave you, the reader, with three sincere principles…three principles that I hope you can carry along into your own duties and, perhaps, take into representation of immigrants as I try to each day
Whether you are attending your first asylum hearing or your fiftieth merits hearing in immigration court, if you stick to these, you’re ready
First:
1). Honesty
I devoted much of this post today to the perils of deceit, and the damage of lies.
What’s the antidote to lies? Truth. Integrity.
Honesty is not always pretty, of course. I deliver so much bad news in this line of work. But as I am sure many other attorneys will innately relate to, a magic thing starts to happen when you complete the task of delivering a hot plate of scary intel to your client.
They start to trust you.
Keep an eye on this one. We don’t know what we don’t know, of course. And when we have the courage to share that with our clients, we can continue to advance their interests.
2) Honor.
Early in my career, a student considering my particular line of work challenged me: “how do you maintain your integrity and sense of self when you work for hire?”
As the kids say, I think he thought he really “cooked” with that conundrum.
But I didn’t even need to think long on that one, because I could easily say in reply:
I have never once sat down next to a client unworthy of relief.
It was true then. It is even more true now.
I tell many of the attorneys that I supervise and mentor: we are the lucky ones when we can fight. And fight we shall.
That doesn’t mean we won’t incur losses. That doesn’t mean we won’t, despite all our efforts, watch justice denied for those we represent and care about. It is acceptable to mourn losses. And it is even more acceptable to dust ourselves off and take the next battle.
One more grant. One more approval. That’s the credo I still abide by.
And that leads perfectly into my final point, my final principle, and my last message to you today:
3) Hope.
Please. Keep the hope. I implore you. I have seen it myself first hand: we shock the other side when they see how much we can care. Shock them.
Is it enough to change them? Perhaps not. Or at least do not get your hopes up about that. But I still have hope. No one will steal that hope, no matter how many masks they wear to try and do it.
Honesty. Honor. Hope.
If you can maintain that perspective and those principles, you are ready for this work.
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Perez with his parents, Teresa Perez and Dr. Lawrence Perez
With Sharon E. Goldsmith, Executive Director of the Maryland Pro Bono Resource Center