Tell Me I Can’t: Hillary Walsh’s Defiant Stand for Immigrants in an Unforgiving System
18th September 2025
Date
Interviewee
Hillary Walsh
Tell Me I Can’t: Hillary Walsh’s Journey from Midwestern Volunteer to Immigration Visionary
Hillary Walsh didn’t grow up dreaming of becoming an immigration attorney. In fact, she had no connection to immigration at all. Raised in the American Midwest and South, she lived what she describes as a “rural American” life - one mostly unexposed to the realities faced by those outside the borders of the United States. That all changed on a volunteer trip to Uganda during her husband's military deployment.
“I’m not sure I contributed much, other than changing a lot of diapers,” she says with characteristic humility. But what she witnessed children orphaned by war, surviving on the streets after fleeing from being forced into child soldiering altered the course of her life. “It blew my mind that I had all these choices - like going to law school and others didn’t. I’m embarrassed to admit it, but I had never fully grasped that before.”
That six-week volunteer trip, as brief as it was, planted the seed for a new future. Hillary would go on to law school with a fiery passion to work in international human rights. But in the early semesters, that passion had to sit dormant under the weight of required coursework. It wasn’t until she met a visiting professor, a former immigration attorney from Los Angeles - that the fire was reignited.
“She was everything I had wanted to go to law school to become,” Hillary says. “And immigration law, I realized, is the U.S. version of international human rights law.”
A Career Forged in Compassion and Defiance
Today, Hillary leads a thriving immigration firm in Phoenix and Los Angeles. But her journey has been far from easy or linear.
“My work isn’t rooted in a family immigration story,” she says. “It’s rooted in empathy, in paying it forward, and in believing deeply in what this country could be when it lives up to its ideals.”
That belief fuels her daily. Her eyes light up when she talks about helping families reunite, or when she envisions enabling a brilliant immigrant scientist to come to the U.S. and invent new early detection methods for diseases like breast cancer—a cause close to her heart.
“What a privilege it would be,” she says, “if I could say I played a tiny part in that.”
Despite her optimism, Hillary is under no illusions about how crushing the immigration process can be for those caught in its web.
“No one likes to feel like they’re not in control of their own destiny,” she explains. “Even if you’re a Ph.D. with a job offer at a top university, you're still subject to the whims of a system that can feel arbitrary, slow, and deeply unfair.”
She doesn’t sugarcoat it: mistakes happen. Bureaucratic errors can set applicants back years. Processing times swell from 14 to 23.5 months with no warning. The wait becomes a slow, bureaucratic form of emotional erosion.
Yet even in this bleak reality, Hillary’s resilience, and the stoic optimism she radiates remain firm.
“Tell Me I Can’t”
That resolve is best captured in the theme Hillary chose for her firm’s most recent conference: Tell me I can’t.
“It’s a mindset,” she says. “If someone tells you no, you put that in your back pocket and let it fuel you. You walk through the fire toward your goal, eyes locked in.”
When clients ask how to navigate the chaos of shifting immigration policies, media-fueled fearmongering, or high-profile ICE actions, Hillary has a clear answer: focus.
“Your life is now. Your opportunity is now. Waiting for a future administration is like waiting for Prince Charming,” she says. “He doesn’t exist. A better administration doesn’t exist right now. What we have is today and the tools that are available to us now.”
The Future of Immigration Law
Throughout the conversation, one word continues to surface: peace.
In a climate of policy whiplash and emotionally draining cases, Hillary has adopted what she calls a mindset of surrender not to be confused with giving up, but with finding grace in the face of what cannot be controlled.
“Chaos is a choice,” she says. “Doomscrolling is a choice. If you’re feeling anxious, take stock of what you’re consuming mentally, emotionally, digitally. I have to remind myself of this a lot these days.”
Her favorite book on this mindset? The Power of TED (The Empowerment Dynamic) a simple parable that reframes how we move through life as creators, not victims. “That book helped me remember that I have agency even when everything feels like a dumpster fire.”
To those standing on the precipice of a major immigration decision, Hillary has a final word of encouragement:
“If you don’t know your goal, your single point of focus, all the chaos will consume you. But if you’re clear - crystal clear - about what you want, then get the hell out of your own way and go get it.”
And if you’re waiting for the perfect moment to apply?
“It doesn’t get better than now,” she says, unapologetically. “So let’s apply. Let’s build a great case. Let’s win.”
Q & A with Hillary Walsh
Q: What’s the most misunderstood part of immigration law?
A: That the process is predictable. It's not. Every case is unique, every officer is different, and even the same type of case can vary wildly depending on timing, policy, or even clerical errors.
Q: What technology do you find most useful today?
A: Claude AI has been a game changer for our multilingual team. It helps with translations, drafting, and reducing errors. But I’m still looking for an all-in-one system that’s built for immigration lawyers—not just retrofitted for us.
Q: How do you keep going in such a high-stress field?A: I stay focused on the people. On their goals. On the lives that could be changed. And I remind myself: I choose peace.
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