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Immigration lawyer opens new Warrenton office
When Donna Lipinski started practicing immigration law two decades ago, she ran into many people who had a hard time understanding what it was she did. Nowadays, people are more familiar with immigration as an issue, but many still struggle to understand exactly what she does.A 2004 American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA) Advocacy Award recipient, Lipinski said that immigration lawyers work with individuals who have family members in another country with whom they would like to be reunited. They also work with companies that need employees and can’t find them in the U.S., and with individuals who have green cards and want to become citizens.
Immigration attorneys also work with people who are here illegally either because they entered the U.S. as tourists and violated their status by overstaying their visas or worked without permission, or because they entered country without a visa or without being inspected. Some people may be in the process of being deported. For some, there may be a way for them to get legal status.
Unlike criminal defense or some other types of law, immigration is a part of federal law, not Virginia law.
“A big part of what I want to do is to help people understand what the law is, why we are where we are, and what are the options for change,” Lipinski said. The current immigration law was written in 1952. There have been several piecemeal changes along the way, but there have been no large-scale overhauls even though America has changed dramatically.
“When I am able to sit down with a group and talk about what parts of our current immigration system are broken, I can almost see the lights go on as people experience that ‘ah-ha’ moment of understanding,” she said. “People are frequently shocked or, at minimum, surprised, at the inadequacy and sometimes the injustice of our current immigration laws.”
Lipinski’s life has taken her on an unusual journey that led her from a dairy farm in Wisconsin, where she was the middle child in a family with seven kids, to Mexico, where she worked as a teacher, to Minneapolis, where she built trucks on an assembly line for Ford.
“I became very involved in the union and in promoting worker’s rights,” Lipinski said. She and some other workers formed a group that ultimately sued Ford and the union. Her activities drew management attention.
“They would watch me, and they would time me on the line, and they would time me when I went to the bathroom, and they would send me to the back of the plant, where there was no one, and I would be totally isolated,” she recalled.
Lipinski attended several of the Ford lawsuit hearings. “I think that’s where I thought I might want to know more about the law, and I wanted to be a labor lawyer, and that’s what prompted me to go to law school,” she said.
Although labor motivated her to attend law school at Golden Gate University in San Francisco, eventually immigration became her passion. Lipinski spent several years in San Francisco and in Colorado, earning a 2006 Colorado Chapter of the American Immigration Lawyers Association Lifetime Achievement Award for her “endless advocacy and constant dedication to the cause of immigrant rights” and a 2000 AILA Presidential Award for her work on immigration reform.
Then she accepted a position in Washington in 2006. As the associate director of advocacy on family and due process issues for AILA, she lobbied Congress on policy issues related to family immigration, due process, civil liberties, detention and removal.
After working with members of Congress on the Hill and hearing debate on the Senate floor regarding numerous immigration proposals, she eventually grew weary of the inevitable politics and wanted to return to what she loved best.
Lipinski said she missed “talking with people, with individuals, with community groups, with faith-based organizations, with businesses, with employers, with business associations, with Chambers, with the media, and, of course, practicing law.”
Having grown up in a small town and in a rural area, Lipinski began to feel the call of the country. When driving around the state with a friend, she discovered the Blue Ridge, the Shenandoah Valley, Fauquier County and Warrenton, with its bustling Main Street.
“I am not sure that I can articulate precisely what captivated me about Warrenton, or Fauquier County,” Lipinski said. “I just know that I felt drawn to the town, to the country, to the people, so many of whom also seemed mesmerized by the beauty that is here.”
Unlike Washington or Northern Virginia, Fauquier does not yet have a large population of immigration attorneys, so the presence of her new practice on Main Street, Blue Ridge Immigration Law Center, PLLC, will provide a needed service to businesses and individuals here and in neighboring counties, as well as those from other areas.
In addition to fabulous views and business opportunities, Lipinski also found in Fauquier a friendly and welcoming community. “People give so much,” she said. And when people leave the area for a number of years and then come back, “everyone has the same kind of spark in their eye about how much they love their community.
“In Warrenton, I want to participate in my community, I want to be able to give back; I want to become involved, to volunteer, to do good work, just as my parents did in my community when I was growing up and as my siblings continue to do today.”
Lipinski can be reached at (540) 878-5740 or via email at Donna@BlueRidgeImmigration.com. The office is located at 9 N 3rd St., Suite 107, in Warrenton.
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