America at 250: My immigrant clients believe in U.S. system. We should too.

After the 9/11 attacks, things got worse. He was required to get a green card, and then the letters started arriving. Letters informing him that he was subject to deportation to a country he left at the age of 4 — a country of which he had no memory and to which he had no allegiance.

Trevor was nearly 80 years old when his daughter, a colleague at my law firm in Savannah, told his story. Our team asked her to bring in whatever paperwork her father had saved.

Within a couple of months, on Jan. 24, 2019, Trevor Shattuck stood in an immigration office, raised his right hand, pledged allegiance to the U.S. and officially became what he had always been: an American. He was moved to tears.

The law didn’t need to be reinvented for Trevor. He didn’t require new legislation. No court needed to weigh in. The capacity to make things right was already there, sitting inside the system, waiting for someone to take the time to find it.

That space, between what the law can do and what people want it to do, is where I have spent most of my career.

The law for my clients is more concrete and personal

Credit: Rebecca Galloway Photography

Credit: Rebecca Galloway Photography

Right now, that gap feels wider than ever. Georgia ranks among the top states in the country for immigration enforcement, and the people I represent, many of whom have lived and worked here for years, are navigating a level of daily uncertainty that is hard to overstate.

And yet, what I keep coming back to is not the fear. It’s the faith that my clients bring to a system most of us inherited without a second thought.

I have practiced immigration law in Georgia for 35 years. Among my clients are physicians who came to serve communities that desperately needed them.

In 2025, Georgia was projected to have 1,800 unfilled primary care openings, most of them in rural communities where the need is most urgent.

I have watched immigrant doctors navigate visa waivers, renewals and green cards to earn the right to keep serving those communities when no one else would. They did everything right, and when the system worked the way it was supposed to, it honored that.

As our country marks its 250th birthday, the debates will be loud and familiar. But the law is, for me and the people I represent, more concrete and personal.

What my clients have taught me is that people who earn their way into a legal system treat it differently than people who take it for granted. They notice when it works. And they notice, very acutely, when it doesn’t.

They know when a process is honest and necessary and when it is arbitrary. They arrive with a clarity about fairness that seems, with time, to become dulled in the rest of us.

Credit: Handout

Credit: Handout

Immigration system’s credibility is earned case by case

There is something clarifying about sitting across from someone who chooses to be here, who is trusting you to help them navigate it. The paperwork is real. The delays are real. The gaps between what is ideal and what actually happens can be maddening.

But also real is the moment when Trevor Shattuck walked out of that immigration office, his head held high with pride. It’s real for every person who has looked at the system from the outside, decided it was worth trusting and was right to do so.

Two hundred fifty years is a long time for anything to hold together.

The rule of law requires lawyers, judges, clerks, administrators and everyday people who take it seriously to make it work.

Credit: Handout

Credit: Handout

Its credibility is not guaranteed simply because it’s old or being celebrated. It’s earned case by case, in the small moments about which we don’t always hear.

My clients came here because they believed this system was worth trusting. We owe it to them, and to every generation that follows, to make sure they’re right.

T. Mills Fleming is an immigration and healthcare attorney at HunterMaclean in Savannah, where he serves on the Georgia Judicial Nominating Commission and the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals Committee on Lawyer Qualifications and Conduct.

The AJC is inviting readers to answer this question: “What are your hopes, concerns and reflection on the United States turning 250 this July 4?” Email letters of 250 words or fewer with your name and city/town to david.plazas@ajc.com. Use the subject line “America at 250.” Also, send letters to the editor of 250 words or fewer with your name, city or town and contact information to letters@ajc.com.