Be a part of the Portland Renaissance! Chamber members are leading the way in building a rejuvenated, prosperous Portland. JOIN TODAY! other in the firm’s Slack channel. “We have to keep things in perspective and keep positive and focus on solutions. And you have to have hobbies and exercise a lot, meditate, all of the good stuff to keep yourself healthy.” There’s also the matter of minding the store. “In law school, they certainly don’t teach you how to run a business,” Widman says. Doing good work helps, as it leads to word-of-mouth referrals and good reviews—and being located across from USCIS also helps draw interest in the firm, along with traditional marketing. “People don’t get into immigration law because it’s lucrative, and that makes the people who do this work really enjoyable. It’s often a labor of love,” he says. “There are a lot of fearful people, especially about travel,” Widman says. “And there are a lot of legitimate fears, because the Supreme Court has said that the Fourth Amendment, which protects all of us from unreasonable search and seizure — the protections are not the same at the border when you’re traveling, compared to if you were stopped by the police in the middle of the U.S.” That has led to travelers from other countries — and U.S. citizens — being put into “secondary inspection,” a “kind of purgatory where they can hold you for a while,” Widman says. And—as with economic policy, including tariff news that seems to change hourly, and international relations — there’s “a lot of uncertainty in immigration policy,” he says. While Widman says he spends a fair amount of time reassuring clients that the judiciary isn’t going away and that the administrative branch can’t simply do whatever it wants, there is still a more foundational concern about due process. “The scary part is when the executive branch is ignoring the judges’ clear rules, —that should make us all fearful. A true constitutional crisis is when the three branches are not following their clear roles. Thankfully there has been pushback, thanks to the press, who are highlighting that; I saw lots of town halls with citizens speaking out. It’s not a liberal or conservative issue; Americans are concerned about due process. It invokes freedom of speech and fundamental liberties that are key for everybody. It’s not a political issue. It’s ‘What does it mean to have a democratic republic?’ Really foundational stuff.” 24
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