My initiation as an immigrant advocate came as a young law student volunteering at a legal aid office in San Francisco's Chinatown/North Beach neighborhood during the summer of 1972. I was actually assigned to the housing law unit at the office, when I struck up a conversation with a tenant client, Mr. Medrano, about a peripheral issue that was bothering him. He was upset because he had visited the local INS office the day before to inquire about the procedures for applying for his wife to immigrate from Mexico. Mr. Medrano was a lawful permanent resident of the United States, so he showed his “green card” (alien registration receipt card) to an INS officer during his visit. The officer challenged the authenticity of the card and proceeded to cut the card in half to take a closer look at its construction. The card was genuine, and the officer returned the two halves to Mr. Medrano and told him to leave. When I heard this story, I offered to return to the federal building with Mr. Medrano to demand a new card. We walked into the building, took the elevator to the tenth floor where Mr. Medrano had been the day before, and we found the same INS officer at his desk. When I confronted the officer, he did not deny what had happened. Without an apology, he simply stated, “Go down to room 100, and they'll take care of it.” “Victory!” I mistakenly thought.