Hey everybody, it's July 14th, 2020. Immigration lawyer, Jim hacking practicing law throughout the United States at our office here in St. Louis, Missouri. Wanted to shoot this short video because I know that it's demoralizing, that President Trump and his evil minions have driven immigration into the ground. Right? A situation where USCIS is about to shut down because they're out of money because he took all that money and put it in enforcement.
Submissions are down, case filings are down, so the cash at USCIS is down and they're about ready to furlough 75 to 80% of their employees. We see State Department having embassies closed around the world now, some are supposed to open tomorrow. But when it comes to visa processing things haven't been this slow in a very, very long time. And of course that's partly to do with the coronavirus, but it's also partly to do with this government not wanting to let immigrants into the United States.
So I know it's an easy time to be depressed, to be sad, to be frustrated that you're separated from your loved ones. And I get all that and things are unfair. But at the end of the day, all we can control is what we do. We can control what news we allow into our lives. We can control what we can focus on. There are things that we can control and there's things that we can't control. And as they say in the AA prayer, "God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference." I have recited that prayer many times during the Trump presidency and I'm sure I will continue to recite it here in the future. It's a good thing to keep in mind, but it's especially true when it comes to immigration because there's so much that we can't control. We can't control whether our offices are closed, or employees are furloughed, or embassies are on reduced staff. We can't control any of that.
What we can control is this. We can control voting. If we're a US citizen, we can pick the politician that we want to support to say that when it comes to immigration what's been going on is not acceptable. And that can be presidents, congresspeople, whoever on the federal level that touches immigration. We need to hold them accountable for the state of our nation.
You know, the kids and I just got done watching Alexander Hamilton. And it's so great to see he and some of the other founding fathers talking about the important issues of the day and the important issues that make America so great. And we need to have those dialogues again. We are in dire situations. This country hasn't seen a crisis like this in 30 or 40 years. It's the worst that I can ever remember as someone who's about to turn 50 years old.
So I want to give you hope, but I also want to tell you to work. You got to work. You got to reach out. You got to to write letters to the newspaper. You have to help politicians who favor immigrants, and you got to demand changes. We are given the government that we selected and every election has consequences. So while it's frustrating, while it's sad, take all that energy and use it for something positive. Give $5 to somebody running for Congress who supports immigrants. Write a letter to the editor, get a yard sign, do what you can. Knock on doors. Or I don't know if they're knocking on doors now anyway for politicians, but raise money. Do what you can for the people that love immigrants.
And to the extent that you have immigrants in your life, do what you can to support them. Everybody's isolated right now, everybody's sad, and everybody's freaked out. And I'm just here to tell you that you got to keep going. You got to keep fighting. You got to do what's next, do the next right thing. That's all you can do.
And if we do that at the end of the day, at some point in the future, whether it's six months from now or four and a half years from now, Donald Trump will no longer be president. And we need to get ready for that future. And we need to bring about the future that we want. So it's hard, it's difficult, but it's important work. If you want to join us, give us a call at (314) 961-8200. You can email us at [email protected]. Be sure to join us in our Facebook group, it's called Immigrant Home, we'd love to have you in there. And make sure that you subscribe to our YouTube channel so that you get updates whenever we make videos, just like this one. Thanks a lot and keep hope alive as Reverend Jackson always said. Thanks so much. Have a good day.
