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Jenkens & Gilchrist

Firm locations: Austin, Chicago, Dallas, Houston, Los Angeles, Pasadena, San Antonio and Washington D.C.

Pro Bono Attorneys: Steve Ladik and Paige Taylor

About Jenkens & Gilchrist

Founded in 1951 in Dallas, Texas, Jenkens & Gilchrist provides legal counsel in more than twenty areas of practice to industries and business leaders around the world. With eight strategic bases from which to operate Washington, D.C. in the eastern United States, Chicago in the central, Austin, Dallas, Houston and San Antonio in the south, and Los Angeles and Pasadena on the west coast the Jenkens team is able to provide clients with a unique combination of national resources with personalized service.

Maria’s Story

In 2005, Steve Ladik and Paige Taylor, shareholders in Jenkens & Gilchrist’s Immigration Department, undertook representation of “Maria,”* a 13-year-old girl from El Salvador referred by the National Center for Refugee and Immigrant Children (Center). The firm had already hosted the Center’s training sessions for interested pro bono attorneys in Dallas and San Antonio, Texas. When Mr. Ladik and Ms. Taylor heard the heart-wrenching facts of Maria’s case, they immediately recognized the importance of the Center's pro bono representation program.

The child’s mother and father had been living in Houston in Temporary Protected Status (“TPS”) for some time. Maria, however, could not qualify for TPS and had been residing in El Salvador with a relative for years. Once that relative was married, the relative no longer wanted responsibility for Maria and told her to leave her house. At thirteen, Maria had no one else to help her and was completely alone in El Salvador. On her own she made her way to Guatemala, then Mexico, and ultimately to the United States. For anyone—but especially a 13-year-old—this was an astonishing feat. Upon reaching the United States border, she walked across the Rio Grande River. The border authorities apprehended her and held her in a detention center for minors in Harlingen, Texas. After one week, her parents came and took custody of her. She will reside with them in Houston until her removal hearings in the immigration court are completed.

With no one to care for her in her home country and no legal right to stay with her parents who have Temporary Protected Status, Maria has fallen through the cracks of our immigration system. Maria’s pro bono attorneys, however, determined that her grandmother is a U.S. citizen and had filed an immigrant visa petition for the Maria’s mother in the 1990’s. If this petition can be reactivated, Maria’s mother may be able to adjust status in the United States and Maria could receive derivative immigrant status.

Mr. Ladik and Ms. Taylor appeared before the Immigration Judge and obtained a continuance to allow enough time to explore this avenue of relief. The case demanded not only creative legal thinking but also a tremendous time commitment from the pro bono attorneys, who were based in Dallas but were traveling to Harlingen for court and Houston where Maria lived. As of February 2006, the case was still pending, but Maria and her parents had some hope that she will be able to remain with her family.