JANUARY 16, 2020 – Recently I was asked to handle a business transaction involving a party with an H1b visa. Concerned about the effect the contemplated event might have on such a visa, I called my good friend Jurek, an immigration lawyer. A few years ago, our offices used to be on the same floor of a downtown office building. We talked a lot back then.
That was before Trump. I say “before Trump,” because since early 2017, immigration lawyers have been overwhelmed. Yesterday, four days after my call, Jurek finally found time to call back. He gave me an earful of outrage over regulatory nonsense and uncertainty and contradictory edicts. The system is broken to smithereens. Jurek was beside himself and placed the blame squarely at the feet of an impulsive president and minions. (People who make a big issue of “illegal immigration” have little idea what damage the crazy, crackdown in all quarters of immigration law is doing to the future economy of America.)
But the focus of this post is not simply crazy, reactionary politics. It’s about Jurek.
Born and educated in Poland, he came to our shores in the early 1990s. He’d earned history and law degrees from the Jagiellonian (pronounced, Yā-ge-WO-nian) University in Kraków, Poland’s Oxford (famous alumni: Nicolaus Copernicus; Pope John Paul II), but to become an American lawyer Jurek had to start all over with law school—after he learned English.
(In his first-year torts class, Jurek once recounted, an entire lecture was devoted to “assault and battery.” Jurek’s English and cultural acclimation had yet to fully develop. He was sure he’d heard, “assault with a battery,” and was wholly perplexed that such a bizarre offense would warrant an entire class session. He had trouble following the discussion. Afterward, he approached the professor to ask, “In America, is this really a common problem—assault with a battery? And what kind of battery, exactly?” The professor, of course, straightened him out.)
I miss my conversations with Jurek. He is one of the best educated, most interesting, and naturally hilarious people I know. His sense of humor is the sort possessed by people with a keen sense of irony and sharp power of observation. I’ve been remiss in not recording every story he’s every told, because in the right hands, each tale is fertile material for a brilliant film or delectable piece of literature. At least I’ve sketched a film version of one of his stories. It would be a short—maybe 20 minutes long, with a very simple set and seven actors, filmed on location back in Jurek’s home peasant-like village east of Kraków. But I digress.
Jurek told me how difficult it was to gain admission to his alma mater, Jagiellonian University, founded in 1364. Besides many other hurdles, he had to sit for a rigorous oral exam conducted by a whole jury of leading scholars from the department of his desired major, history. On his first attempt, Jurek didn’t make the cut.
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© 2020 Eric Nilsson
