‘The Big Thing Now Is Fear’

John D. Perez owns a prominent immigration practice in Newark, where he focuses on deportation. Yes, he’s been busy lately.

“We used to say proudly, ‘Immigrants built the country,’ and now you have people who are being detained indiscriminately for no reason,” says Perez, who has practiced immigration law for 35 years.

The Trump administration’s immigration crackdown is reverberating through the communities Perez serves.

“The big thing now is fear,” Perez says. “They see what’s going on. Each community from each country, they have meetings, they watch each other’s backs. … ‘Am I going to be next? If I’m walking down the street—somebody could ask me for identification, and since I don’t have legal status—I’m on my way to work, and I have three kids and they’re gonna lock me up.’ I’m talking about really good people, hardworking people. Women who work two jobs—seven-to-three and five-to-midnight, sometimes five, seven days a week.”

And if they do get caught up in the crackdown? “I tell them the facts,” Perez continues. “This is what we’ll do, this is how we’re going to present it: the positives and the negatives. If the judge agrees, here’s the positive part; and if the judge disagrees, then here’s the alternative we’d have to try, rather than have your person—your father, your brother—locked up in jail. They are very appreciative of that.”

Alternatives can include voluntary departure or a petition for habeas corpus.

Perez has just spent the morning in a virtual bond hearing. “My client had entered the U.S. legally, and he simply overstayed,” Perez says. “He had no issues, very clean, we had some very positive stuff to show, and the judge agreed. … His family was on pins and needles, and when you go tell [a family] that your father, your brother, your husband is going to be released, it’s pandemonium
with happiness.”

He gives immigrants this general advice: “Don’t get into trouble, be an upstanding person, be sure you pay your taxes, don’t use a fake ID, don’t use fake Social Security numbers. Do everything that you can to make sure that, if and when we do have real immigration reform, you can say, ‘OK, I never got arrested for a DUI, I never used a fake ID, I pay my taxes.’”

Perez was born in Cleveland and grew up in Paterson, with parents who had fled Spain to escape Franco’s fascist regime. “The country was under martial law,” he says, “and my dad, Juan, desperately wanted to leave. He immigrated to the U.S., and then went back to get my mother, Isabel, and her sister.

“My mom had a scar on her forehead,” Perez adds. “She told us that, during the Franco regime, she joined a group of women trying to get food to people who were starving. They would pass food along a human chain through the sewer tunnels and distribute it to the people. One night, the police came storming in and everyone had to escape. She bashed her head on the sewer plate trying to get out.”

After his father died of a heart attack when Perez was just 2, Isabel put that determination to work to keep the family afloat. “It was a difficult life, even though my mom never complained,” he says. “She made sure we always had breakfast before she went to work. On a Tuesday morning, we’d go to the A&P store. The guy who ran the store knew my mom, and we’d walk out with bags of stale cakes and rolls, and he’d charge her a quarter. My mom was our foundation, and whatever I am today is a result of what she did for us.”

Perez was recruited by Arizona State University to play football, but his mother became ill, so he returned home and enrolled in William Paterson University. She passed away the next year. In 1987, he received his law degree at the University of Bridgeport. Perez began his career with the public defender’s office, but after opening his own general practice that same year, he kept thinking about his childhood experiences.

“I was raised by an immigrant, a single mom; she toiled in the factory and she was my inspiration,” he says. “Once I got into practice and I could support myself, I transitioned 100% into immigration law.

“Every time I look at someone who comes into the office, the first thing I think about is what would my mom think of this situation.” Perez pauses. “I never got a chance to say to her, ‘Hey, Mom, you know what, I’m going to represent immigrants and I’m going to make you proud.’”

Today, his sons, John Jr. and Bryan, also practice law at his office. What would Perez’s mother think of it?

“She would probably think and say, ‘Esto es un sueño hecho realidad,’” he says. Translation: “This is a dream come true.”