Benjamin Hamilton

Why immigration? I grew up as a 4th generation American in a suburb of Northern Los Angeles, California. Nothing about my family or upbringing screamed “immigration”.

That changed in 2001 when I decided to serve as a missionary for two years. I was assigned to serve in the Cordoba, Argentina mission which covered the provinces of Cordoba, La Rioja, and Catamarca. After a two-month crash course in Spanish I landed in Buenos Aires as a green nineteen-year-old. I was equal parts excited and terrified, but for the first few months I was mostly just dazed and confused. 

I served in diverse locals ranging from big cities to small mountain towns. The country was beautiful. The people were (mostly) friendly and outgoing. Life was slower but that was because they savored it. I loved it. I learned the language, both the good and bad. I absorbed all the customs including futbol (Dale Boca!). I was fascinated by the music and dance. And the food? Empanadas, choripan, milanesas, facturas, asadods, it was all amazing!

But everywhere there was beauty, it was abutted by crippling poverty, government dependency, and limited social mobility. How could a country that was so blessed struggle so bad? It was depressing. I felt powerless.  But I finally got it. America offered hope. America offered opportunity. Maybe I couldn’t fix Argentina, but I could help Argentines seek a better life.

But first, I had my own immigration journey. I fell for an exotic beauty from Rio Cuarto, Argentina. Plan A was to get her a tourist visa. That failed, no surprise there. Plan B, I went back and in 2004 we were married in Rio Cuarto. Our honeymoon was a trip to the embassy to apply for her permanent residency. There were some hiccups (the Embassy lost some paperwork) but we finally arrived back in the US in the spring of 2005. Nineteen years later my wife is a US citizen and we have four amazing children along with four pampered cats and two dogs.

Oh yeah, along the way I graduated from BYU with a Bachelor of Arts in History. Worked a summer in Puerto Rico, then San Francisco (installing alarms) and eventually we resettled in Texas where I followed in the footsteps of my father and brother and attended law school at the University of Houston. 

Immigration law was a priority, but all the classes were in the evening which conflicted with my work schedule. Then I caught wind of the school’s Immigration Clinic. Under the supervision of professors, students worked real prop bono immigration cases for class credit. I was sold. 

I spent two years in the clinic working on various cases culminating in an asylum trial and a huge win.  When it was time to apply for a clerkships, I only applied to immigration law firms and landed with a prestigious employment focused firm in Houston.  Up graduation they offered me a job as a full attorney and the rest is history. 

For well over a decade I have dedicated myself to employment-based immigration. I’ve worked for big corporate firms, and small boutique firms (including a year in Calgary, Canada). I’ve worked on cases for the biggest tech companies in the world, small one-man operations, and everything in between. But my bread and butter are investors, entrepreneurs, and startups. My expertise and my passion are helping those looking to start something new in the U.S.