John, I want to tell you about an email I got earlier this year. While National Immigrant Justice Center (NIJC) attorneys and pro bono volunteers work with thousands of people each year, often helping them with their cases for years as they slowly wind through the cruel and confusing immigration system, we don’t always hear back from them after they’ve successfully won their cases and started building their lives in the United States. This is what makes it all the more exciting when someone does reach out to us. Like when we got Samer's email. Samer was an NIJC client nearly ten years ago, when he was just 18. He came to NIJC for help in returning to the United States after his parents lured him to Venezuela, the country where he was born, with the false promise of a green card. Samer is gay, and because of this, his parents had been abusing him for years. His family came to the U.S. from Venezuela when he was a child, overstaying their visas. When he was given what he believed was an opportunity to get a green card, and with it the chance to apply to college and receive financial aid, he jumped at it only to learn his parents had deceived him. With the help of NIJC, Samer was granted a humanitarian visa to return to the United States, and eventually was granted protection from deportation. This opened a path for him to apply for a green card. But what has Samer been up to in the years since he was in touch with NIJC? I’ll let him tell it in his own words: | 
