Today we’d like to introduce you to Luis Ruiz.
Luis, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
I was born in Tizapan, Jalisco and when I was two years old, I was brought to the United States. We came in search of a better life, much like other immigrants. We settled in Baytown where my mother, recently divorced from my father, worked up to three jobs at a time just to put food on the table and a roof over our heads. Many days, she would go without food just so that I would have a full belly. When I was in middle school, my mother remarried and we left Texas, my stepfather was a farm worker so my mom and I followed.
During the next few years, I too, became a farm worker on the weekends and during the summers. I picked oranges, apples, blueberries, cucumbers, and a slew of other fruits and vegetables. It was terribly dull work, it was during those weekends and those summers that I decided that I could not do this kind of work, I needed more, I needed mental stimulation, I needed a challenge. I begged my mother to let me return to Texas and she reluctantly agreed. She knew that I needed to return back so that I could have a stable education, doing farm work, we would move every few months, and every few months I would have to start over at a new school. I know how difficult the decision was for my mother, but she made it. She is a phenomenal woman, strong, hardworking, and willing to sacrifice for my future.
I returned to Baytown and graduated from Robert E. Lee High school in 2006. I enrolled at Lee College that summer after graduation and then I transferred to the University of Houston where I received a Political Science degree in May of 2010. After college, I took a year off from school, but I knew that I had to take the next step in my journey. I applied and was accepted into law school. In May of 2014, I received my J.D. from the University of Houston Law Center. I was licensed on November 6, 2014, and by November 7, 2014, I had my law office up and running. I currently practice immigration law, I want to help other families who have similar stories as mine, who came to this country to find a better life. I was undocumented until my sophomore year in college. I understand the fear, the pressure, and the complications of being undocumented. I remember being a farm worker and hearing the way that people talked to us or how they treated us, it was disgusting, I want to be a voice for my people. I have been blessed with the privilege and opportunity to achieve this level of success, and I want to use it to reach back and pull my community up with me.
I want for other minority kids to see me and to see themselves. I am lucky enough to have a successful law practice with two locations, Houston and Baytown, and we keep growing! We are currently looking at expanding our offices to East Texas, where there is a large Latino population who have very little access to quality immigration attorneys. I am here to fill the gap, I am here to be the voice for my community, to be the person who helps them along the path to legalization. I am here because of all of the people who helped me get here, and I want to help others on their path as well, we have to be able to pay it forward.
Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
I faced many difficult moments in my life, when I was 18, during my first semester of college classes, I was pulled over for a traffic infraction and was arrested, I was undocumented and heading to jail, I thought my life was over. I was sure that I would be deported, I thought that everything we had worked so hard for would have been in vain. My mother immediately hired an attorney and I was lucky to be able to obtain lawful permanent residence in the United States and avoid deportation.
There are an estimated 800,000 DREAMers or DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) recipients who are in the same situation that I was in but are not lucky enough to have access to legalization.
I think back to that moment often and realize how close I came to being in a much different situation than I am now. I was spared from being separated from my family, from being sent to a land that I had no knowledge of, I was spared from having my dreams torn away from me. I think of all the other people who are not so lucky, and it is for them that I push myself to be better. I was one of the lucky ones, I have to take full advantage.
Alright – so let’s talk about your work. Tell us about The Law Offices of Luis Ruiz – what should we know?
My office, The Law Offices of Luis Ruiz, are immigration firms that focus exclusively on family-based cases. We help parents petition their undocumented children, children petition their undocumented parents, we help spouses petition for each other, we help fight for people who are in removal proceedings. We help people outside of the United States obtain tourist visas to come into the United States to visit, and we help people become U.S. citizens.
We guide our clients through the entire immigration process, which can take many, many, years.
One of the things that our firm does that I value is that we give back to our community, it is hard for me to forget where I come from, and to forget the help that I received growing up. It was important to me that my firm do the same for the community. Every year we do a big back to school drive where we give students the school supplies they will need for the school year, pencils, crayons, notebooks, folders, backpacks, and more. In 2018, we gave 400 students school supplies and to date, we have been able to help about 1,400 students receive school supplies for the school year.
During Christmas time, my office gives out gift cards to ease the Christmas burden on parents. We also participate in the Houston Pride Parade and the Baytown Christmas parade every year.
We pride ourselves in keeping the community up to date on immigration law developments and host legal events as needed, in 2017, we did free power of attorney’s for undocumented people to have ready in case they were apprehended or deported.
Any shoutouts? Who else deserves credit in this story – who has played a meaningful role?
First and foremost to my mother, for being supportive, for being headstrong, for knowing what to do, for pushing me to be myself. She has been the perfect mother to me, she has allowed me to make my own decisions, and my own mistakes, but has also been a steady and guiding light for me. Anything I have achieved is largely due to her support and her sacrifice.
There are many people in my life that have been by my side, my entire family, they are always there for me when I need them now, and in the past. Everyone has always been a part of my journey, whether it was giving me a ride somewhere, making me something to eat or just listening to me and giving me guidance, they have been there. My family is always involved in any of the events our firm hosts, from my mother, my aunts, uncles, cousins, and nieces, and nephews. They continue to stand by my side.
There were many teachers, principals, and other staff in school who guided me and who were key to me making it through high school, college, and law school. To them, I will be forever grateful because they saw potential in me, they saw something, and they helped me see it too.
Contact Info:
- Address: 600 Ward Rd Baytown, TX 77520
4101 Greenbriar Dr. Suite 122J Houston, TX 77098 - Website: www.luisruizlaw.com
- Phone: 832-390-4664
- Instagram: instagram.com/luisruizlaw
- Facebook: facebook.com/luisruizlaw
- Twitter: twitter.com/luisruizlaw
- Other: youtube.com/luisruizlaw
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