Morgan Principi’s Work with Pathways to Citizenship Transforming Lives Through Advocacy

My name is Morgan Principi. I’m a licensed California attorney and I work in the field of immigration, primarily on the more humanitarian side, not on the deportation defence side. And I’m happy to be here. Thank you for having me.

So I studied sociology and history in undergrad. I didn’t think about going to law school until I graduated undergrad. And it just kind of seemed like the right fit. I knew that I wanted to be an advocate. I did not know what area I wanted to advocate in. And my second year of law school, I took an immigration law course and it made no sense to me. And I was like, how do people navigate this? This is insane. You know, these laws are archaic and really hard to determine. And so it really fueled my passion for helping people navigate a very complex legal system here in the U.S.

So when I first finished law school, I did a lot of volunteering in the immigration areas with other nonprofits. I had a private practice at the time. And then in 2020, this little local nonprofit, I’m located in Solana Beach, California, kind of hounded me down and asked me to become their legal director. So we’re really small. There’s only five of us on staff. We do utilise a wonderful internship program, we have volunteer attorneys, but it’s slowly grown. So when I came on in 2020, obviously we all know what 2020 meant and the entire US immigration system shut down for about four or five months.

So we weren’t even able to file any sort of applications or do any immigration work. So we really just kind of became a resource hub for immigrants in our North County community here in San Diego, helping with people who are unable to pay rent, writing letters to landlords, just kind of being a more social organisation. Fortunately, in 2021, everything kind of ramped back up. We increased our services, the type of services that we provide. And then since that time, we have seen waves of certain types of populations. When Kabul fell in the August of 2021 there was a huge wave of Afghans that came in. Obviously the Ukrainian war brought a huge wave of Ukrainians in and we just kind of go where the need is and it’s exciting. It’s like building the plane as you’re flying, but we are one of these organisations that where we see a need, we dive in and just try to surf.

So when the organisation started back in like, I would say 2015 is when we really kind of got up and running, obviously before my time here. It was really focused on naturalisation. So the people who are taking that last step towards citizenship. Our organisation is called Pathways to Citizenship. And what we’ve done is just brought the pathway back further. So helping people earlier in the journey. But it used to be that target of just getting people over the finish line, getting them their citizenship. But now we are looking to go back further back in their journey and help them through the whole thing. So it’s been very exciting for me. I’ve helped people get asylum, which is a legal remedy that you can have that allows you to get a green card. I’m now filing for those green cards or lawful permanent residence is the legal term for it. Most people know it as a green card. And then once they have that green card, they can come and naturalise with us. So our target audience are refugees and immigrants that are on the pathway and wanting to hold their hands through the entire journey.

So we do temporary protected status. So I just did a workshop in El Cajon on Wednesday with Haitians because they are renewing their temporary protected status. So we do work with refugees on that type of immigration benefit. Unfortunately, that does not have a pathway to any sort of green card. We do a lot of adjustment of status for immediate family members.

If you’re married to a US citizen or you have a US citizen child over the age of 21, we help you obtain your green card through that. We do affirmative asylum. So like I said, we don’t do deportation defence, but if you come here on any sort of visa or you’re paroled in, we are able to help you with affirmative asylum. And we do DACA right now. Obviously you can’t initially apply for DACA. That’s on hold and has been on hold for a long time but we do all the docket renewals, we do green card replacement, it expires every 10 years, we help people renew their green card, and like I said, citizenship being the ultimate goal for our clients.

So, like I mentioned earlier, we do sometimes feel like we’re building the plane while we’re flying. And the one thing we do find the immigrant population can be very taken advantage of. A lot of people hold themselves out as immigration attorneys, but they actually do not understand the nuances of immigration law and they will take people’s money and nothing comes out of it. And it’s heartbreaking.

So, one of the challenges we face as an organisation because we give trustworthy advice and sometimes that advice is there’s nothing I can do for you. You have no remedy right now. because our clients trust us and we don’t really have to advertise. I mean, it’s all word of mouth, call Pathways to Citizenship. They will take care of you. But because we become that trusted person in their life, they come with us with everything. I had a client this morning that texted me because his son had a compound fracture in his arm and he doesn’t know how to kind of navigate the insurance issues with that kind of stuff. So we become a really safe spot, but with that, we are pulled in all these different directions. So as we’re growing and utilising more volunteers, we’re trying to find people that are interested in helping the immigrant and refugee population, but maybe they have a different specialty.

We’ve just recently talked to someone who used to be a physician and that maybe they can be our healthcare guidance for people. Like, okay, if you’re having this problem, call this volunteer of ours and they can kind of walk you through this because as much as we want to hold hands and help all of our clients through all aspects of their life, we are a legal organisation and don’t necessarily have the knowledge in different areas that these immigrants need because immigration is not just legal, it’s cultural, there’s all sorts of pieces to immigrating to the US.

So we are hoping to continue to utilise more volunteers, get ourselves more plugged in in kind of the different groups here in San Diego. Like I said, I did just do a workshop down in El Cajon with a, it’s called the Somali Family Rescue Agency, just trying to provide legal services within immigrant and refugee communities where they have other social services but not necessarily legal services and just trying to be able to provide that for these different organisations that like us are non -profit.

So for us, it’s just, it’s networking and getting involved in all the different forums and groups in our area and just, you know, contacting people, explaining, you know, these are the things we’re doing, send your community to us. It’s really networking. And that is, I feel really thankful for the San Diego kind of nonprofit sphere because people are very open and willing and refer out so community partnerships is really how we have been able to grow our business and will continue to grow as we move forward.

I would definitely say that immigration is a hot button issue and it’s very polarising, but we have laws, Pathways to Citizenship operates within those laws and don’t let the term immigration, no matter how you feel about it, give you a specific feeling about the people that are being served because they’re wonderful people, I feel so grateful that every day I come to work, I get to learn more. I mean, I feel like I’m always in school. I meet people from all over the globe, countries I’ve never even heard about, and being able to talk to them, understand their culture, it’s an amazing thing. So I would tell your listeners, get involved, learn about it, because it really, it provides a lot of insight and it’s a very, I find my work very fulfilling.

Awesome, thank you for having me.