From Mogpog to Maryland: Garcia helps Pinoys build lives
Immigration is governed by federal law so that he can take cases from clients in any state, Garcia said in a roundtable interview with Daily Tribune editors.
For Garcia, the work is about people more than paperwork
Photograph courtesy of Jenny Mogol Garcia/fb
NEW life, new calling Todith Garcia arrived in the United States in September 1993, accompanying his wife, nurse Jenny Mogol Garcia (right), who had secured an employment visa that allowed her to bring her family. He arrived not as a practicing lawyer, but as a former topnotcher who had placed 17th in the Philippine Bar Examinations three years earlier.
Todith Garcia placed 17th in the 1990 Philippine Bar Examinations. Three years later, he moved to the United States and rebuilt his career from scratch. He passed the New York and Maryland Bar Exams on his first try, then became a partner at a Virginia law firm before opening his own practice.
Today he has more than 20 years of legal experience specializing in United States immigration and domestic relations law. He serves Filipino and other clients across the country from his Maryland office, and he writes a column for the DAILY TRIBUNE.
By 1996, Garcia was already practicing US immigration law. He joined Calonge, Garcia & Associates, a minority-owned firm in Virginia, and became a partner. After years in the partnership through the 1990s and 2000s, he founded his own firm in Maryland, the J. Garcia Law Office.
Immigration is governed by federal law so that he can take cases from clients in any state, Garcia said in a roundtable interview with Daily Tribune editors.
Maryland and Washington, D.C., have large Filipino communities, which gives him a solid base of clients. They come to him for employment-based visas, family-sponsored immigration, student visas and investor visas.
Garcia indicated his domestic relations work includes uncontested divorces, and he also handles wills and estates and personal injury claims.
Most of his work is now done online, from drafting documents to filing applications, so clients living far from Maryland rarely need to visit his office.
For Garcia, the work is about people more than paperwork. His clients want to build a life abroad through a job, school, family reunification, or investment, and he sees his role as helping them get there lawfully.
Writer before a lawyer
Garcia was born in Mogpog, Marinduque. His first love was writing. At De La Salle University in the 1980s, he edited the Political Science Society (POLISCY) Newsletter. He then earned his law degree at the Ateneo de Manila Law School from 1986 to 1990 and has been a member of the Fraternal Order of Utopia since 1986.
Writing stayed with him in America. In the 1990s and early 2000s, he edited and contributed to two Filipino-American newspapers, Fil-Am Horizon and the Manila Mail.
His skills complement each other. Law gave him precision, and journalism taught him to explain complicated issues to ordinary readers. He uses both skills in writing his column.
A Philippine law degree and a strong bar showing did not let him practice in America, so he had to qualify all over again.
Because the family lived in Maryland, he first needed admission in another state before taking the Maryland bar. New York allowed foreign law graduates to sit for its exam, and he took that route. He passed the New York Bar in 1995 and the Maryland Bar in 1997.
Doubly difficult
Garcia says practice under US President Donald Trump has become “twice as difficult.”
His work has centered on helping people enter the United States legally, not on defending them against deportation.
Employment visas and family sponsorship are the heart of it, and those are the areas being squeezed. Student visas are harder to get, and international students now generally face a four-year limit, subject to the applicable rules. Before, students could keep renewing their status through successive degrees.
He conceded that the US has good reason to secure its borders and stop illegal entry. What worries him is the push to restrict legal immigration, too. He points to the influence of Stephen Miller, the restrictionist adviser whose views have shaped the Trump administration’s approach.
The proposal that concerns practitioners most is replacing family sponsorship with employment- and merit-based immigration. For Filipino families, family reunification has long been the main road to America.
Some lawyers are moving into deportation work. Garcia has chosen not to, noting that it is a specialty with its own demands.
What Filipinos overlook
The tougher climate has made him want to explain the legal tangles of cross-border marriage more often.
A Filipino who marries in the Philippines and then marries someone else in America may be in serious trouble if the first marriage is still valid. Under Philippine law, that can amount to bigamy. Citizenship complicates the picture further.
Becoming a US citizen may change how American law treats the situation, but a person who keeps Philippine citizenship can still answer to Philippine courts.
These cases are common in communities where spouses live in different countries for years, and immigration status stays unsettled. His advice is simple: “A marriage or divorce recognized in one country does not automatically settle things in the other. He has written on this before and thinks it deserves fresh attention.”
Home, family, habits
Garcia speaks warmly of Marinduque. He admits he once underestimated what people from the provinces could achieve, until he met Marinduqueño lawyers and writers who changed his mind. What stands out to him, he says, is how intelligent, hardworking and humble they are.
Outside work, he plays sports about twice a week, uses the treadmill, reads and follows the news from both countries. For a man who works between two legal systems, staying informed is both a professional necessity and a habit.
He has spent more than three decades away from Mogpog, but he never really left. His column is how he keeps one foot there, writing about America for readers back home.