Returning from an errand to the post office, I was explaining to my mother some aspects of my new work as an immigration attorney.  After leaving a 32-year career as a municipal government attorney, the director of the non-profit No More A Stranger Foundation (NOMAS) asked if I would consider starting a new career and working for her as an immigration attorney.  (I had volunteered there for a couple of years.)  NOMAS helps people with their immigration applications to legalize their status, at no charge to the clients.  The work would be part-time and paid “low-bono” (not quite pro-bono, but nearly).  I help prepare applications for naturalization, green cards, work permits, asylum, human trafficking visas, crime victim visas, student visas, and many others.  I am having to learn immigration law from scratch, and the Administration’s frequent policy changes aren’t making the learning easy.  Immigrants, whether in the U.S. lawfully or not, face real financial and social hardships.  They contribute to the economy and community, but often have the lowest-paying jobs and suffer discrimination, bigotry, and isolation.  NOMAS attorneys (a few) and volunteers (many) do what we can to legalize the status of immigrants so they can have improved quality of life.  As a sidebar story, our local Wells Fargo branch closed.  Mom and I knew the manager, bankers, and tellers, and were sad to see them leave, and sad to see our convenient banking location shuttered.  Coming home from the post office, we sat in our car at a red light as I explained immigrant hardships.  Mom did not respond or react at all to my narrative.  But upon seeing the closed bank building, she sighed, “Poor bank.”  I thought Wells Fargo was anything but poor.  And I thought my immigrants were much more deserving of her sympathy.  But Mom felt what she felt, and understandably related more with and sympathized more with what she knew than with what she did not.  And the universe of what she knows is shrinking.  (If anyone would like to support the work of the No More A Stranger Foundation, or are looking for a worthy Giving Tuesday or year-end charity, you may make a donation at the NOMAS website.)