Amarillo College to host Immigration Workshop to shed light on recent changes

The workshop, which is being co-sponsored by Legal Aid of Northwest Texas, will be in the Oak Room, which is on the second floor of AC’s College Union Building.

Robin Malone, coordinator of the AC Legal Studies Program, said the event has been designed to help educate our students about current immigration policies and “which documents are needed to correctly sponsor someone into the country, what to do in order to ensure a student visa is intact, what is needed in order to enter this country — or leave and return — and other immigration issues.”

Amarillo immigration attorneys Shilpa Shaw and Felipe Zavala will be presenters at the workshop, as will Rebecca Soto, at AC who frequently serves as an interpreter for immigration court cases in Dallas.

Each of the presenters will share information about the law and their first-hand experience with recent courtroom interpretations. Each will take questions from the audience. Light refreshments will be served.

“There is a lot of confusion right now, a lot of instability in this area of the law due to the executive orders being signed,” Malone said. “Our goal is to allay anxiety by providing vital information related to issues like visas and immigration paperwork, sponsoring family members into the country, leaving and reentering the country, and other immigration concerns.

“We’ve seen a spike in immigration cases and we want people to understand what they can expect if their type of case goes to court,” she said. “We encourage anyone with questions or uncertainties about immigration law to attend this workshop and hear what our experts have to say.”