Immigration Fear or Fact? Raids, Rights and What Your Family Needs to Know

Abe Cardenas:
So in terms of fear, the fear, in my opinion, is over it's it's just too much.

Steve Alessi:
Yeah.

Abe Cardenas:
Because the chant if you're if you don't have any issues, you don't have any problems, the chances of you falling into this net that they're that they're casting is gonna be minimal, minimal at best.

Steve Alessi:
Hello, and welcome to another edition of the Family Business with the Alessis, where family is everybody's business. And today, Steve Alessis is coming at you. And I have a great guest that's joining us. His name is Abe Cardenas. Hello. Yes, he is from the Cardenas Law Firm. You're gonna love this today, especially as we deal with something that is hitting our South Florida community in a big way. So Abe, great to

Abe Cardenas:
have you. It's a real pleasure to be here. Real pleasure. I'm glad that you called me and let's talk. Let's get this out there because a lot of people need to hear this.

Steve Alessi:
Yes. Now we're dealing with the immigration issue today. Yeah.

Abe Cardenas:
Alright. Big hot topic right now. Yeah. With the the new administration, president, Trump's, approach to immigration, let's call it that. Yeah. There's a lot going on, a lot of press, a lot of, also a lot of misinformation. Yeah. A lot of I mean, I hate to say that the this past week, and I actually took the time to look at some of the things that are out there in the social media world, besides my stuff, what other people are saying, and some of it was just just made up.

Abe Cardenas:
Yeah. Just fear mongering, just Yep. Incredible. So let's let's discuss it. Let's do it.

Steve Alessi:
Okay. I'm looking at your business card here. You are a full service immigration and nationality law firm. That is true.

Abe Cardenas:
Which means what? It means that I practice immigration law, all over The United States as an immigration attorney. I take cases on all over the country, not just in Florida. Mhmm. Anywhere. I Yeah. I've flown all over the country. I've been traveling, doing this for a long time now. Alright.

Abe Cardenas:
I love it. I love doing it.

Steve Alessi:
Your your your firm's, core value is the future is Yeah. We have

Abe Cardenas:
our our, right. Your future is our mission. Yeah. That's the motto of our law firm. Your future is our mission. That's what we work at. We use the law. We know we know the law.

Abe Cardenas:
We know how to use it. We know how to apply it. And if you're in The United States Of America and you need an attorney because because your immigration status needs to be fixed Yeah. We know how to apply the law and use the law fervently to defend you and to Yeah. Try to make things right.

Steve Alessi:
Well, you've been in our church for a number of years. You enjoy a good cigar from time to time, and and you enjoy to get out in the garden.

Abe Cardenas:
But you

Steve Alessi:
evidently don't have much time for either of those.

Abe Cardenas:
Yeah. Lately, my garden's been suffering a little bit, but I'm gonna get back to it.

Steve Alessi:
Yeah. So here here in South Florida, we're we're all immigrants. Yep. And it's our community. And with the new administration's adherence to the laws and enacting some, new processes, It's creating a lot of anxiety and fear, which is to be expected in our community. So you're you're on the law side of it. We we see the humanity side when they come to church and there's really fear. You're on the law side of it.

Steve Alessi:
These people come to you and you also see the fear. So

Abe Cardenas:
Yeah.

Steve Alessi:
Let let's try to help people get a grip on some truths that they should be, really focusing on so that they don't have to be so afraid. So what what would you say to the person that comes to your office? Well, first of all, one one of

Abe Cardenas:
the things I started doing when when president Trump started his campaign for the second term is I would listen to what he said.

Steve Alessi:
Mhmm.

Abe Cardenas:
And when you listen to what he says, he's he predicted what he everything that's going on now Mhmm. Anybody who's been paying attention would say, well, you know, he he was just gonna do it. And what he's doing now, now I don't agree with everything that he's doing, naturally. I don't I don't approve of it. I don't agree with a lot of the things, but he's he's doing exactly what you said. He's trying to adhere to the law. The laws, the last time we had a reform was in 1996 under, president Clinton. Mhmm.

Abe Cardenas:
And those laws were harsh. I mean, they were brutal. I was an attorney at the time, and I remember walking into courtrooms and the judge, the government's attorney, and I would kinda look at each other and go, okay. Let's just let's continue this hearing just so that everybody gets a feel of what this new reform is all about. But it took away a lot of protections that were in the law before that. And, that's what's being applied. Finally, the laws are being applied as strictly as they are written. That's what at least the president is trying to do.

Abe Cardenas:
I will say this. Okay? Let's start with the concept of fear. Who really has to be afraid? It's people who have deportation orders, people who have criminal history, special depending on the criminal history. Now if you have, I don't know, you you you blew, you know, three red lights or something like that, we're not talking about that. We're talking about genuine criminal history, you know, any kind of any kind of fraud issues, any kind of theft issues, any kind of violence involved, drugs are fatal. Any kind of drug history, yeah, you're they're looking for you, and that's who the administration is really trying to target. Now the unfortunate thing is that, you know how the federal government is. Right? They they throw the net, and they're reaching to get these criminals and, you know, everything the president said he wanted to do.

Abe Cardenas:
But then you have people who were just here. They crossed the border. They're illegal. They've been part of our community, just like all over Florida is full of people who have no immigration status. Mhmm. But they don't have any criminal history. They don't have anything. They, in fact, many of them have been working and paying taxes and all that, and they fall into that net.

Abe Cardenas:
Now that's still a small minority of people. That's not a lot of people that fall into that, but they do. Right.

Steve Alessi:
Right.

Abe Cardenas:
So in terms of fear, the fear, in my opinion, is over it's it's just too much. Yeah. Because the chant if you're if you don't have any issues, you don't have any problems, the chances of you falling into this net that they're that they're casting is gonna be minimal, minimal at best. Naturally, if you are in removal proceedings, like you're in court. Right? Removal proceedings is where you're in an you're scheduled before a judge in immigration court. You better get an attorney. Yeah. In fact, I recommend anybody who has fear, the number one way to get rid of fear is just get an attorney.

Abe Cardenas:
I I was telling you before we started that you don't know how many people have come into my office, and they've been here for years, some of them decades, and they never ever spoke to an attorney. Mhmm. And they never figured out what they could do. And suddenly I'm talking to them and I go, well, you know, in your case, we could have done this, you know, five years ago, ten years ago. You have nothing to worry about. We're gonna do this, and we've fixed their situation. Right. But until you know, the way to get rid of fear

Steve Alessi:
Yeah.

Abe Cardenas:
One of the ways to get rid of fear is knowledge. Right?

Steve Alessi:
Yeah. Get that knowledge.

Abe Cardenas:
Get someone who knows how to explain things to you to make an analysis of your case because every case is different. One of the first things I do when I talk to someone is I I just extract information because I need to put everything in the right order and say, okay. In your case, we can do this. We can do this. We can do this. That's what, that's what my job is. That's what I try to do when I first do consultations. And one of the first ways to get rid of fear is to speak to an attorney.

Abe Cardenas:
Yeah. Yeah. And I say an attorney, I mean an attorney, not these, preparers that you find all over the place, you know, paralegals that they call themselves, notarios. You can't, they they don't know the law like an attorney like myself knows the law. Yeah.

Steve Alessi:
And we're gonna have your contact information in our notes of our show here so they can be able to contact you. You did say you're quite busy these days. Oh, yeah. But that's not a bad thing. This No. For such a time as this, Abe Yeah. Is on this planet to help your friends. Well, I'm from, the Alessi heritage is is from the Italian Right.

Steve Alessi:
Heritage, came from Italy. My great grandfather came through Ellis Island, came by himself for a number of trips to prepare his family.

Abe Cardenas:
They're on the list in in the book over there. You are.

Steve Alessi:
You can look them up. And the whole, we see it. Wow. But they they went through their own challenges. And you know, it's so far removed from me that I'm not as as an American, I'm not in touch with some of that anxiety and stress that now our immigrant community is feeling. So that's one of the reasons that is the reason I wanted to do this right away with you. Because I do think when I talk to you about this, and we get in our group, our counseling group, you know, what you bring to the table just brings down the fear Right. Of those that are listening.

Steve Alessi:
And even in the I know it's extreme. What what's happening could be so extreme as you see these buses being loaded up and then people in shackles being put on airplanes and then we're reading in the Herald and our other news sources that these people are being rejected by their own government and then tariffs are going to be placed on these governments if they don't do it right. And everybody immediately thinks that's me. At any moment, somebody's gonna come knocking on my door, even to the point that, our pastor Sam Rodriguez put on his feed. Please, pastor, some of you are sending misinformation out there because you're saying that that the government is gonna raid our churches.

Abe Cardenas:
No. That's not the way it is. You know, there was a lot of what I've read, more than half of it turns out to be misinformation, incorrect. The other day, there was a report that the ICE went into a school and all that. No. It wasn't ICE. Yeah. It was actually the Secret Service because they were investigating somebody who made some terror threats, who happened to be a high school student.

Steve Alessi:
Wow.

Abe Cardenas:
And but the report some politician for it was in Chicago, if I'm not mistaken, got on, you know, on the mic in front of the cameras and said, no. Ice came to the school. And that's not right. That's not true. First of all, that's not their priority.

Steve Alessi:
Mhmm.

Abe Cardenas:
They have priorities, and their priority is criminals, people with removal orders, deportation orders. So the first thing I would tell people is chill. Wow. It's like, yeah. This this this president is turning things, you know, stirring things up. But the majority of the people, even who are here, without documentation, right, they're not they're they're fine. They're not gonna be, they're not looking for them. If you accidentally happen to stumble into their hands, it's because you were at the wrong place at the wrong time, something like that.

Steve Alessi:
Yeah. So help me out with this. If I'm coming from if I'm if I'm coming from Venezuela, what is my first act? I get here. I'm on the streets. I'm living with family members. What am I what am I doing next?

Abe Cardenas:
Well, first, you should talk to an attorney.

Steve Alessi:
Right.

Abe Cardenas:
Okay. You have to do most most of the people who are coming over the border and who were released. Right? Because a lot of them came over the border in the last, three or four years, and they were released. They should have done an asylum. Because 98% of the time, that is all they have. Nothing else.

Steve Alessi:
Mhmm.

Abe Cardenas:
That they need to file an asylum. And an asylum is what? As when you're asking the government of the United States for protection because you were in danger if you get sent back to your country.

Steve Alessi:
Got it.

Abe Cardenas:
That's in a nutshell what an asylum is. There are five reasons for that. Venezuela, Cuba, and all the the majority of the the of them fall under what's called political opinion, where you're against the government. Somehow you expressed an opinion against the government, and you were persecuted, in your country because of that. Mhmm. That's the first thing that they should do. Some folks who, like, enter on a tourist visa or something like that, and then they stay, they're they're just as, you know, without documentation as all the rest of them, but they have a different they might have extra abilities to fix something if they've been here for years and suddenly they get married or something like that. There are solutions for them.

Abe Cardenas:
But, the majority of people who cross the border and come here, or even if they don't cross the border, and they come from certain countries and they have nothing else like a family petition or anything like that, they must do an asylum. Now an asylum has you have to be careful because you can't just make up a story. You can't just file an asylum because you because for the sake of it, you have to have at least a a legitimate reason to file asylum. Because there is a law that says that if you file a fake asylum or what they consider a frivolous filing, you're toast. You will never ever, no matter what, even if you get married after that and have 10 US citizen kids, you're never gonna get anything. It's one of those unforgivable sins.

Chris Alessi:
Yeah.

Steve Alessi:
Alright. So then I I apply for my asylum. Mhmm. Then what?

Abe Cardenas:
Depending on how fast they act on the asylum. Then after that, you can apply for a work permit.

Steve Alessi:
Mhmm.

Abe Cardenas:
Generally, you have to wait five months. And that that kind of, like, gives you some breathing space because now you have a work permit. Now you can get a Social Security number. Now you can get a driver's license, and you becomes kind of part of society. Right?

Steve Alessi:
Mhmm.

Abe Cardenas:
And and here in in South Florida, there are hundreds of thousands of people who are in that quasi limbo situation where they have an asylum pending because they filed it, and they have the driver's license. They have Social Security numbers. They're working. They buy houses. They have cars. They have kids and everything. And five, ten, fifteen years go by, and the government never calls them. Why is that? Because they're bombed.

Abe Cardenas:
It's just Yeah. Everything is taking forever.

Steve Alessi:
So if if something happens in between that period, you filed or and then you have an accident or you get pulled over by the police.

Abe Cardenas:
And, you remember, this we're talking about someone who came, did the asylum, got the work permit, now has a license and everything. If they have an accident, hopefully, they have insurance and everything. And they they're fitting into society almost as if they were born here, but the fact that eventually they're going to have to face the music with that pending asylum. Unless someone like me comes along and we find ways to solve problems for them, and the asylum then eventually just kinda like fades away. We we withdraw it or something like that.

Steve Alessi:
Mhmm. And then from from that standpoint then, I mean, a lot of this is you is it getting kind of backlogged?

Abe Cardenas:
Oh, yeah. Okay. Everything's backlogged. Everything.

Steve Alessi:
What what is this person doing? I mean, it's it's costing them money to with their attorney.

Abe Cardenas:
Once they once they file the asylum, we just literally sit and wait for for them to call them for the interview. Mhmm. Right? And that's what's taking years and years and years.

Steve Alessi:
Yeah. So how could our government then, because you always hear about, I guess, the thing that stirs up some of the fears, you always hear about that one person that seemed to fall in the cracks, that was at the wrong place at the wrong time, that was doing it right, but somehow or other, the horror story is they were sent back. There's always a reason why that happened. It's not just that they they were it was a big mistake.

Abe Cardenas:
Yeah. I'll give you an example. So part of when you do certain processes, right, certain applications, they send you to go get what are called biometrics, fingerprints. Right? And they do that in different parts here in Miami. Well, the other day, and this was unfortunately an attorney who posted that, oh, my client went to get fingerprinted, and he got detained, and he's being removed. Deported. Right? And all the other attorneys this was part of an attorney's forum, and, like, we started asking a bunch of questions. Well, it turns out that the guy who went to get fingerprinted was being fingerprinted for an application called six zero one a, which is like a waiver of forgiveness for something, which it then it also turns out that he had a criminal history, and he had a removal order and a a deportation order.

Abe Cardenas:
And, you know, in in my head and then all the other attorneys ganged up on him because it's like, dude, you can't just Yeah. Say something like that. And that's the kind that's the way these rumors get spread around that don't go get fingerprinted because you're gonna get, detained and deported. No. This guy is was a whole different ballgame as to why he got detained, and he's probably already been deported because he has a deportation order. And once you have a deportation order, there's there's only one thing an attorney can do, and that's called a stay of removal. And it's a last, you know, it's it's the hail Mary. Right? It's the the last ditch effort.

Abe Cardenas:
But you see what I'm saying? That's how misinformation happens. Yep. The majority of people who go not not that that word is insufficient. Almost every single person who goes goes get think to get fingerprinted, the biometrics, they don't have any problems.

Steve Alessi:
Yeah.

Abe Cardenas:
They don't they they go walk in and they walk out. Mhmm.

Steve Alessi:
So if you get injured, you're at a hospital, you don't have to worry about all of a sudden ice coming in right now.

Abe Cardenas:
Unless you have a deportation order, unless you have a, you know, a criminal history or something like that. And eventually and somehow the authorities find out, immigration authorities find out.

Steve Alessi:
Right.

Abe Cardenas:
Again, the chances of that happening are are are minimal. Mhmm. I'm not gonna sit here and say that it hasn't been known to happen.

Steve Alessi:
Right.

Abe Cardenas:
But it's a minimal, minimal thing. The majority of people just go on about their lives. They don't have the documentations. They're not legal in this country in in terms of their documents and immigration status. They just go on about their lives. Yeah. And, yeah, with fear and hopefully looking for a way to fix things, you know, speaking to professionals who know how to guide them. Right.

Abe Cardenas:
And here in South Florida, we have some really, really good professionals. Yeah. Really good attorneys, the ones that write the books. Yeah. Yeah. One So Yeah. One of the what the the one who writes what we couldn't consider the immigration bible literally is just maybe ten minutes from here. Yeah.

Abe Cardenas:
Smart guys from Brooklyn like Macomb. Yep. Yep. Very good. And, one of the smartest guy. He's he's he's a genius. Excellent. You know, we've got good people here, including me.

Steve Alessi:
Yeah. Yeah. You wrote a book yourself.

Abe Cardenas:
I yeah.

Steve Alessi:
Love that. Alright. So help me this. If I've been here, from foreign country five years, I haven't talked to an attorney, but I wanna go now. Will will that will that cause me any problems that I've I've been here without any kind of

Abe Cardenas:
It depends. Processing. Again, the the it all depends. The facts of each case, it might, but most likely, it might not.

Steve Alessi:
Mhmm.

Abe Cardenas:
The chances are that being here five years, is not a pro now if you only have a year to do an asylum, so if anybody out there knows anybody who just recently came, they only got a year to do an asylum. After that year, very limited probabilities of being able to file an asylum.

Steve Alessi:
And that's just one reason people would be able to file for them when they'll be here. Exactly. Okay. So they missed that one, but they've been here, they're working. There might be other things we can do for them.

Abe Cardenas:
Right. Depending on their situation.

Steve Alessi:
Yeah.

Abe Cardenas:
How they entered, how they came to The United States.

Steve Alessi:
I'm on vacation. I'm visiting family. I I I stay longer. You overstay. I overstay. What happens then?

Abe Cardenas:
Well, if you go back, you're toast. You're not you know, your your visa is canceled, and most likely, you're never gonna be able to come back for probably at least ten years. And even then, I wouldn't count on it.

Steve Alessi:
Mhmm. And so how do I resolve that?

Abe Cardenas:
There is no solution. Come

Steve Alessi:
on. Come on, attorney.

Abe Cardenas:
There might be waivers that you might be on. Let let's say that while you were here, you married somebody. You may be able to get a waiver, but there's this thing that if you if you enter The United States, the law and these are laws that are older than than me, and I'm old. Yeah. Okay? In fact, these laws stem back, no, they're older than me. Because these these these laws are from the fifties or forties, so they're well before me. And they're well before us. Yes.

Abe Cardenas:
But there's a law that says that if you come into The United States and you stay six six months, but less than a year, and then you leave, you have what's called a three year bar. Three year bar is like a punishment. For three years, you can't come back. And when and then after three years, you can try to come back legally by applying for this and that. But if you stay over a year, if you overstay for a year or more, there's a ten year punishment. Mhmm. So if you come here and you stay for ten years for a year, and then you leave, that that punishment automatically sticks to you. You're not gonna get the email, a letter, you know, a a fax, nothing.

Abe Cardenas:
It's just when they figure it out that you overstayed for that long or more, that's when it comes. And those are the things that we look at. These are the things that I I I explain to people. There are ways to overcome that, but it's it's difficult.

Steve Alessi:
Yeah. As you can But there's there's a possibility of it.

Abe Cardenas:
There are always possibilities.

Steve Alessi:
So the thought is if you're in that limbo and this thing right now with all this news and it's not going to get any better, it if it's causing you angst, contact the attorneys, come talk to you.

Abe Cardenas:
Come see me. Just get some conversations

Steve Alessi:
that are out there to help eliminate that fear. Now, is it expensive? The process?

Abe Cardenas:
The consultation is not expensive. Depending on what process applies to, yeah, it's not cheap. Yeah. But, you know, one of the things that I that that, still amazes me is I have people who came, they come to see me, and they spent and they tell me they tell me I spent $10.15. The other guy the the other day, some some guy came to see me, and he told me he spent $35,000 to get some some some of the, cartel people in Mexico to cross him into The United States. Thirty Five Grand. But the the going rate is anywhere between 10 and 20,000. Wow.

Abe Cardenas:
And then they come here, and they're only halfway in. Right? They're they made it. Maybe they got stopped at the border, and they had released them. Under the, you know, the Biden administration, it's a common thing. That was a very common thing. And then now they're on they they're only halfway done. They have to fight for their papers now, and that's when they're like, oh, but it's so expensive. And we don't charge anywhere.

Abe Cardenas:
No attorney that I know of here in South Florida charges anywhere near what these cartels charge them to smuggle them in. And, you know, that's not the time to start getting cheap. You you have to pay for good representation. You need at least get the consultation. After that, if you don't wanna do it, at least you're gonna know what you're what's within your through your reach, what you might be able to have to resolve your problem. But the whole idea, and I'm telling you, I have I have had people walk into my office and you just see it in their face. Right? The anguish, the worry, the the, you know, just that nonsleeping and all the everything that comes with that. And then I tell we have the, you know, the half hour, the hour consultation, and they walk out as I'm explaining things to them and how there's hope in their case and how they have solutions, it, like, melts away.

Abe Cardenas:
Mhmm. And I have seen physical transformations of people in my office, in the consultation rooms, just by talking to them. Yeah. The fear goes away. They tell me, my god. You you give me so so much peace. You you you you you you you your words are so comforting. I mean, they tell me things like that.

Abe Cardenas:
The other day, someone actually complimented me, and they it was a way I I didn't understand it at first because she said it in Spanish. She said, You're an attorney of as, with vocation. And I didn't understand it because I'm I'm not Catholic. But when it was put to I asked then I asked other people, and they explained to me, well, vocation is like a priest, like someone who does it from the heart. They dedicated their life to it. And then all of a sudden, I understood, oh, like a priest who, you know, they they reject, certain, getting married and things like that, and they devote themselves completely to the church. That's what they meant by vocation. And because she saw it in the way I was talking to her.

Abe Cardenas:
Sweet. And, you know, she said, you're an attorney by vocation, you know, with vocation. And it's true because I do it from the heart. I love what I do. I love helping. I love giving solutions. I hate losing.

Steve Alessi:
Well, you're you really are, positioned for such a time as this because this is, these are good people. Our church community is is made up with so many. Yeah.

Abe Cardenas:
We have a good church community.

Steve Alessi:
And and I have this this saying, and I was reminded of it last night at our counseling session that you missed. Roger was saying, you know, I remember pastor Steve saying when I was younger, you can't go wrong by doing right. That's true. And when it comes to this situation, some of that fear right away, when you're doing right, then then you gotta reject that fear. And it and rejected means you just you recognize what it is, but you know because of even your faith in God that you don't have to allow that fear to overwhelm you because you still know God has a plan. But the key there is this, you gotta do it right. And there are laws and there are attorneys

Abe Cardenas:
Yeah.

Steve Alessi:
That could help you do it right. Because if you're doing it right, it eliminates even more fear. Now, I mean, even in the Bible from a biblical perspective, they're they're when it comes to even the nation of Israel, they tell them, I mean, there's always borders. Israel goes into the promised land. He gave them borders and he told them to protect those borders. To this day, we see the borders in Israel with Palestine and Gaza, all all that that is going on. It's all because of borders that have been established. Borders are put in place or fences are put in place to to that need to be respected.

Steve Alessi:
Yeah. So so it's not a come free, come come one, come all. There there has to be laws that are in place, borders, fences that are in place for protection that need to be respected. But with every fence or gate or fence, there is a gate. There's a gate.

Abe Cardenas:
There's a door. There's a way in.

Steve Alessi:
There you go. There's that entrance point.

Abe Cardenas:
Right.

Steve Alessi:
And that's where it's done right. When even as a believer, it it's not this blind, ignorance. I'm I'm doing it. No. Or even this this this blind innocence. No. I I've gotta do it right. I've gotta know how to go about becoming a legal citizen here That's

Abe Cardenas:
right.

Steve Alessi:
In our country. We're all immigrants. We've come from somewhere that maybe just the, again, my Alessi name. It didn't originate here, but people had to do it right. And we just want to make sure that your voice, your expertise for people that are kinda wandering, not knowing what to do, there is a voice that they can lean into. Yeah.

Abe Cardenas:
We're we're here to help. We you know, people like me, attorneys like me, are here to help, and and there there's so much there are so many solutions. There are people who are walking around with solutions, and they don't even know it because they never bothered to to talk to anybody. Yeah. But the fear has got to go down. I wasn't I was telling you before we started that the Bible says how many times in the Bible? I think it's it's 365 times in the Bible, one for every day of the year. Be not afraid. Yeah.

Abe Cardenas:
Be not afraid. Yeah. And even if you are afraid, you overcome it by, hey. It's in the lord's hands. Right? Yeah. That's the

Steve Alessi:
way to do it. You know, I told you a story, and we'll start to bring this in for a close. But years and years ago, her name was Mariela, and, she had come from Argentina. And she was, being encouraged by a council to get married. Not my kind of counsel.

Abe Cardenas:
No. Not your kind.

Steve Alessi:
To get married. That if she got married, then she would have Yeah. Citizenship. Right? A fake marriage. Right? Fake marriage. Fake. And it was gonna cost her about, I think, and I I I could be wrong, but I don't know, 8 to $10,000

Abe Cardenas:
or something. That was a going rate many years ago. Many years ago. Now it's like 15,000 Yeah. Or more.

Steve Alessi:
Crazy. And, she was in our church. Now we didn't know she was dealing with that advice, but she would take a bus to get to the church because she was working on Miami Beach. And so one day she shows up to the office, and she has an envelope filled with cash. Wow. And she says, I was on my way to get married. I was following the advice of my attorney to go and get married. And it was an arranged marriage situation just to give her that.

Steve Alessi:
Right? And she says, but as I was going, the Lord spoke to me and said, who do you trust more? A man you're gonna marry that you don't know? Or you're gonna trust me? And she said, Lord, I'm gonna trust you. And she came to church to give that offering. Money that she was going to use to get married, she gave that offering. That

Abe Cardenas:
was her seed.

Steve Alessi:
And sure enough, the Lord opened the door for her. And, a few years later, she met a young a gentleman. He wasn't a young man. She met a good gentleman, Greg, and the two of them ended up getting married. And to this day, she's got some beautiful kids, and she was a tremendous blessing to so many. Doing it right. Doing it right. Trusting God.

Abe Cardenas:
In my office, no. We will never I will never never have will say, hey. Go get married and, you know, let's do fake paperwork and everything. No. No. No. That's first of all, that's a federal felony.

Steve Alessi:
It is.

Abe Cardenas:
And when they catch you, you know what they do? They stick you in the back room, the two big, you know, in, immigration ICE investigators. And the first thing they wanna know is, did the attorney know? Did the attorney know? Why? Because they wanna get the attorney. Sure. I don't do that. I I work as ethically as the you know, as possible. Certainly, we use the law. We use the law

Steve Alessi:
Yes.

Abe Cardenas:
As much as we can to help people, but 100% ethically. I kicked people out of my office when they come to me with these fake marriages and stuff. And the one thing you will always get from our office and from me and for what it's worth, the majority of the immigration attorneys I know

Steve Alessi:
Yeah.

Abe Cardenas:
Is we will tell you, you come to my office and you have a possibility, I'm gonna tell you. If you come to my office and you have no possibility, I'm gonna tell you. You're gonna get that. You are not gonna get anyone who's gonna try to squeeze a dime out of you be when there's nothing I can do for you.

Steve Alessi:
Yeah.

Abe Cardenas:
That's another thing that that I'd say to people so that they can drop the guard and be, you know, be a little more fearless.

Steve Alessi:
Yeah.

Abe Cardenas:
Because, there might be a solution for you. You never know.

Steve Alessi:
Yeah. Well, I think you can help so many just by being with us today, putting some fires out

Abe Cardenas:
Right.

Steve Alessi:
With some truth and, what is law. So I thank you so much for doing that. I mean, you may be on the road as you're listening to this podcast. Slow down for a minute. I'm a give you a phone number, but you're gonna be able to find it in our show notes. This is Abraham, Abe Cardenas of the Cardenas Law Firm. And, here's the phone number. Okay? Take down this number.

Steve Alessi:
(786) 347-1605. 7 8 6 3 4 7 1 6 0 5. If it's an emergency, there's a emergency line in WhatsApp. (786) 674-4357. 7 8 6 6 7 4 4 3 5 7. You want to be able to get the right kind of information. I trust Abe. He's been a real brother in the house.

Steve Alessi:
He's one of our goodfellas. He's one of us. And, yes, got the ring and, been to our camp, and, we trust him. And this is just so important. Thank you giving us an hour. You just got out of court. You're here to help us get the word out, and we're gonna get this posted right away so that our South Florida community, which by the way Yeah. I'm very grateful that our mayor here in Doral, Mayor Fraga, councilman, and the women they have been, sending letters to our president Yes.

Steve Alessi:
Letting them know about our Venezuelan community.

Abe Cardenas:
Oh, I've been sending I've been I've started a letter writing campaign because, like I said, I don't agree with everything Yeah. Certainly. And, yeah. I think it's important if anybody out there's listening, letter writing is still a thing. Yes. Okay? It's still now it's easier because you can get on the internet and write a message and it'll go to the president, to a senator, or to a congress congressman, congresswoman, here in in South Florida or anywhere for that matter.

Steve Alessi:
And I I would say because so many of our government leaders are elected officials, our councilmen, as well as our mayors and our senators and and and state senators and such, they are Latino. And they themselves have their deep personal convictions.

Abe Cardenas:
Some of them are immigrants and some of them are first generation immigrants where their parents were the ones that migrated Yep. To The United

Steve Alessi:
the president of the issue. Yeah. And they're and they're gonna let their voices be known. So what we're sensing right now because of some so much of this is new, that there this thing's gonna balance itself out a little bit more even as it's pertaining to, Venezuela and what is going on. That's true. It's gonna balance itself out a little bit. The pendulum is swung swung one way too far to just letting anybody and that body come into America, now it's swinging the other way. It's gonna find its way to something that's more settled.

Steve Alessi:
You you hit on something that I that I wanted to say, and and it it it I forgot

Abe Cardenas:
to mention it. And that is listening to Trump, he said that he was going to do things that are gonna be very favorable to people who've been here a long time, paying their taxes, no criminal history, things like that. And he just mentioned it last weekend. He mentioned that he wants to expand the ability of people to come here, you know, people who with good qualifications to come here to work, not just the engineers, but he's and I'm quoting him. Even like professional waiters and things like that. He I think he's gonna shock us. Yeah. I think he's gonna shock us as much as he shocked us with the the first two weeks of his his administration in terms of immigration.

Abe Cardenas:
I think he's gonna shock us and that he's gonna do something very favorable. And I say that to, again, calm people down. Give it time. I think I think you hit it right on the head where he, you know, he swung this you know, he's clearing out. He's saying all this stuff about everybody coming in like this. This is his his attitude. Right? Yeah. But I think, and I'm hoping and praying that and I'm hoping and praying that he does, that he, I I really believe he's gonna do something very good for a lot of people, including our Venezuelan community who just got their TPS withdrawn, you know, all that kind of stuff.

Steve Alessi:
Yeah. And it's we gotta clean out some of the riffraff, the criminals, the illegals, all of that. I know even illegals, it's it's a bad term to use these days.

Abe Cardenas:
Yeah. I I try to explain it. It's not that you are illegal. It's that you are in this country without documents, and therefore, you're undocumented status. You're undocumented. Yeah.

Steve Alessi:
Yeah. So he's he's cleaning house. We need the house cleaned because of so many people being hurt by so many of these bad characters that have come to our country. But we do believe, I do believe that because America is a good country, it's a good nation, and our politicians do want the best for us, we're gonna find it being a much more pleasant environment for our immigrants because our immigrant community hey, I love Miami. Okay? Two. Because of our immigrant community. What it brings to our community to have every one of these different Latin American countries represented is so fun.

Abe Cardenas:
It is.

Steve Alessi:
It's enriching. So it's we're pro immigrants here at Metro, pro immigrants as a nation. It's just got to be through the gates, not jumping over the

Abe Cardenas:
fence. Right. And that's what what I think this president is trying to do. Let's hope that he does good things for, for our community. Yeah. Let's let you know, we're praying. We gotta pray. We gotta pray a lot of prayer.

Abe Cardenas:
Yep. And that he does good things for for our community, him and his administration.

Steve Alessi:
And we're gonna be very positive. I hear I hope that was, experienced by the listeners and viewers today. They they sense that there's there's good in coming their way. Yeah. Something bad can turn out for good in the right environment. So it's a very positive feel. So thanks for your time. Appreciate you.

Abe Cardenas:
My pleasure to be here.

Steve Alessi:
You're a good man, brother, for real. All right. I hope today's, episode of the family business with the Alessis has been an encouragement to you, especially as you that are in our community dealing with your immigration status. Listen, we're for you. We're praying for you. And we thank God the best is still yet to come in your life. So thanks for joining us today.

Chris Alessi:
You've just enjoyed another episode of the Family Business Podcast with the Alessis, and we can't thank you enough for being a part of our podience today. Now that you've learned more about us, here's how you can join in in the family business. First, make sure you're following our podcast right now, and download this episode so you can hear it at any time. Second, think of someone you know that might need or enjoy this episode and share it with them. You'll be helping them and helping us to spread the word about the family business. Third, go to alesseefamilybusiness.com and tap the ask the a lessee's button. This is really cool. You can use it to record a voicemail comment or question, and we can add your voice to our conversations.

Chris Alessi:
Finally, while you're on our page, tap the reviews tab and you'll see a link to leave a review on Apple Podcasts. Podcasts. We love reading your reviews, and we might even share them on the show. Thanks again for joining us, and we'll see you next time at the Family Business with

Abe Cardenas:
the

Chris Alessi:
Alessis, because family is everybody's business.