Voices that Inspire

What inspires you from WFSU Public Media? Here's this week's Voices That Inspire. My name's Elizabeth Richie. I'm an immigration attorney. Well, I come from a family of immigrants. My grandfather's born in Costa Rica. My family is Cuban and Italian. My husband is Jamaican. I speak Spanish. I served in the Peace Corps in Guatemala. And I think that all immigrants have something in common. And that is that they want a better life for their family. And that better life does not necessarily come at a cost in the sense of taking away something from someone who was born in the United States. I think you can have it both ways. And if we dig deep in ourselves, we'll see that everybody wants the same thing. And because somebody's not born on a particular patch of land doesn't mean that they're not entitled to certain rights and privileges. And we need to make those rights reasonable and based on facts and not emotion. And they need to be well thought out. The phrase I hear all the time is, why don't people get in line? Get in line, get in line. People who say that don't realize that the line is 5, 10, 15, 20, 100 years long and I'm not exaggerating. So the line is completely unworkable. My clients inspire me. I see people every day who are starting businesses or buying businesses, keeping businesses in business. That's pretty exciting to be able to meet people like that every day. And when I realize that the contribution that immigrants make to this country, we are a nation of immigrants. Just motivates me to keep that going because we're not going to continue to be great if we exclude the immigrant. My name is Elizabeth Richian. I'm an immigration attorney. Voices that inspire is sponsored by Leadership Tallahassee, a program of the Tallahassee Chamber celebrating 35 years of cultivating community leadership.