California Attorney General Kamala Harris and the Sergio Garcia Case

Official White House Photo

There has been lots of talk of the immigration record of Kamala Harris, who appears to have locked up the Democratic presidential nomination.   There is a matter that has not made the news.  As California Attorney General, Harris submitted an amicus curiae brief in support of the admission to the state bar of an undocumented immigrant.

In a 2014 decision, the California Supreme Court granted a motion filed by the Committee of Bar Examiners of the State Bar of California to admit Sergio C. Garcia, an undocumented immigrant, to the California State Bar.  Garcia thus was given a license to practice law in California.  The court’s 2014 decision was unanimous and was authored by Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye.   It was the first state high court decision allowing an undocumented immigrant to be licensed to practice law.

I was one of the attorneys that represented the California State Bar, which supported Garcia's admission.  As mentioned above, Attorney General Harris submitted an amicus curiae brief supporting admission.  In my estimation, Attorney General Harris's support made a difference in the case and helped lead to a unanimous California Supreme Court decision.

Sergio Garcia, who was later granted a visa and naturalized to become a U.S. citizen, practices law as a sole practitioner in the rural Northern California town where he has spent most of his life.

UPDATE (July 29):  Jonathan Blitzer for the New Yorker scrutinizes in detail Kamala Harris's immigration record.  

KJ