Representing the unbreakable Eli Sharabi
Michael Wildes of Englewood talks about visas, immigration, and the changing landscape
You might recognize the name Eli Sharabi.
He was the Israeli held hostage for 491 days and then released, shockingly gaunt, with two other hostages, Ohad Ben Ami, and Or Lev, on February 8 of this year; the three were paraded by masked, gun-waving Hamas terrorists, given certificates to flourish, and then finally let go.
Mr. Sharabi was the hostage who learned only after his release that his wife, Lianne, and their daughters, Noiya, 16, and Yahel, 13, had been murdered on October 7, dragged out of their safe room at Kibbutz Be’eri — and for an extra fillip of grotesque cruelty, the terrorists also shot their dog, Mocha. Mr. Sharabi’s brother Yossi had died in captivity in Gaza; that, too, he found out when he was released.
Since then, somehow — the amount of internal strength it must take is unimaginable — Mr. Sharabi has managed to advocate for the release of the hostages still in captivity. (The Israeli government says that it thinks that there are 59 hostages remaining in Gaza; about 24 of them might still be alive.)
Now, Michael Wildes, the immigration lawyer who also is the mayor of Englewood, has said that his firm, the Manhattan-based Wildes & Weinberg, is representing Mr. Sharabi “in U.S. immigration matters.
“In order for Eli to do his good work, to help raise attention and support for getting the remaining hostages released, he’ll have to have the kind of immigration status that will permit him to do that without worrying,” Mr. Wildes, a Democrat, said.
The United States has “extended its sense of hospitality since October 7, starting with President Biden offering the visa waiver program to Israelis.” That allows citizens of some countries to be in the United States, as tourists or for business, for up to 90 days without having a visa. “Now, with the current administration, we see some collateral damage being done to religious workers and talent who are not taking care of their visas appropriately.”
Religious workers means “everyone from rabbis to teachers to mashgichim” — people who supervise and certify kashrut — “who come from all over the world, but primarily from Israel.” The “talent” is “influencers, musicians, people like that, trying to raise awareness about what’s going on. You need a visa for that.”
To be specific, if you’re a religious worker, you need an R1 visa, Mr. Wildes said; that’s the authorization that people who work for religious nonprofit organizations — not only Jewish ones — can use. That’s not a step to eventual residency, much less citizenship, but it allows people to live in this country for more than two years.
“Despite the hospitality given by both the Biden and Trump administrations to Israelis since the October 7 attack, we’re seeing people being caught up by not understanding the protocols and guidelines they need to follow.”
And of course this is not a particularly easy time to be in the United States if you’re not a citizen. “I’m knee-deep in students who’ve had their visas revoked, and there are all sorts of other challenges going on,” Mr. Wildes said. “It’s been a five-alarm fire for immigration lawyers since the president was sworn in.”
Before this new administration began, “I averaged somewhere between 60 to 80 inquiries a day. Now it’s well over 100.” The whole process takes even longer than it used to, because so many USCIS agents — that is, people who worked at the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services — have been fired.
It’s even more complicated to work with Israelis, Mr. Wildes continued, because not only do they have to face the challenges that all would-be immigrants or temporary residents face, but also the psychological challenges of deciding where to live — is it prudence or cowardice at work to decide to leave Israel, even temporarily? What about family members there if you’re here, or here if you’re there? Yes, that’s a question of family dynamics and psychology as much as immigration, “but I try to find the right solution for all collateral family members,” Mr. Wildes said.
As an immigration lawyer, Mr. Wildes works with people who come from all over the world; as mayor of Englewood, he works with and for a diverse community. The world has changed and narrowed for everyone, he said.
“Our founding parents, as we see in the documents they wrote, envisioned that young people, entrepreneurs and risk takers, would come to America, learn important new things, eventually get a visa, get a green card and become citizens. This new administration was transparent in saying that they would get rid of those people who would cause us harm. Nobody argues against that. But the way that they’re doing it is causing harm and emotional trauma even to legal immigrants.
“ICE” — that’s the U.S. Immigration Customs and Enforcement agency — “is going into private businesses and homes, even in my city of Englewood.” He’s been texted upsetting videos of ICE maneuvers, Mr. Wildes said.
It’s also happening elsewhere in New Jersey, he continued. “I got a call from a charity that deals with food insecurity in a neighboring community. ICE knocked on the door and said they were the police.” The family asked what the people wanted; the answer was “We have gifts for the children.”
“So they opened the door, and it was ICE, and they arrested the father.
“The wife went to collect food for the children, because she had no money. So the charity called me, because I’d prepared them to know what actions they could take when they give food. How they can create private areas that would not allow ICE agents in unless they had the right warrants.
“The charity needed advice about how to handle it immediately, and the woman needed to have an immigration lawyer to protect her interests. I said that first they have to prioritize feeding the children and making sure that the mother has the right medicines and food.
“But this is beyond the pale.
“There are police departments throughout the nation that will get a phone call from ICE to say that they’re coming in, to make sure there’s no crossfire. But what I’m seeing here locally is that they’re not calling the police, because the police understand that it would undermine reporting of domestic violence and other crimes. So ICE feels that the police might not work in concert with their interests, so they’re going undercover, in rental cars, removing people surgically.
“I was sent a video that shows several agents surrounding a car with several people in it, and they take only one person.”
Mr. Wildes is part of a generational chain of immigration lawyers in his family. His father, Leon, was an immigration lawyer — the Wildes in the firm’s name — who famously had John Lennon as a client. His son, Josh, also is an immigration lawyer; he has given his father great joy by joining the family firm.
But a generation back from Leon Wildes, Mr. Wildes’ maternal grandfather, Max Schoenwalter, was an immigrant to the United States from Germany. The more Mr. Wildes learns about Mr. Schoenwalter, the more he feels the situation of an immigrant from the inside.
His grandfather had owned a successful paint company, Mr. Wildes said. “I found a letter amongst my grandfather’s papers about how Hitler had forced the sale of his company,” he said.
His grandfather had been born in a small Bavarian town called Markt Berolzheim. On Kristallnacht, rioting arsonists burned down the shul next to the family’s house. The Jewish community in Markt Berolzheim dated back centuries; Schoenwalters had lived there since at least 1610. Max Schoenwalter’s older brother, Wilhelm, had fought for Germany in World War I.
But that was enough for them. The family moved to Leipzig almost immediatelyand then left Germany entirely. They relocated in Lichtenstein, where Mr. Wildes’ mother, Ruth, was born in 1939.
Later, they moved to Long Island City, and Mr. Schoenwalter reopened the paint company again. It was still called Shecolin Paint Company, as it had been in Bavaria, where it was taken from the family, and as its successor had been called from move to move, from Lichtenstein to Queens. The letter that Mr. Wildes found was asking for reparations for Shecolin.
“I’ve built a bit of a museum in our Englewood office, with my father’s briefcase — the one that’s in the famous picture with John Lennon — an old typewriter, and a whole wall about Ellis Island, where my two grandfathers came in.
“So when Eli Sharabi came to us, taking him was a no-brainer. And I wasn’t going to charge him.”
Mr. Wildes has been saying that the immigration system has been broken for years; now it’s even more smashed up. “I know that members of Congress are concerned that they can’t try to fix this broken system without being accused of being weak on homeland security. And that’s a shame, because the greatest risk-takers and entrepreneurs historically have come from other countries, become Americans, and then hired Americans. This makes America exceptionally strong.
“The president himself has availed himself of that,” Mr. Wildes continued. “I filed hundreds of visas for Trump models, for Miss Universe, for all kinds of other interests that the president owns.” (Mr. Wildes represented Melania Trump’s parents, Amalija and Viktor Knavs, in their naturalization.)
“The president, to his credit, actually announced a few months ago that he thinks it’s foolish that we compete against foreign students after they pay tuition and we educate them, and he said that he thinks they should have green cards. But now there is a schizophrenia in the immigration onboarding of foreign nationals, where we have to go through hurdles to look like we’re protecting Americans’ jobs and at the same time protect foreign nationals to make sure that they are paid prevailing wages and their employers don’t take advantage of them.
“Because immigration laws have not kept up with our economic times, we have a system that’s fundamentally stuck and not helping America’s employers.
“The last time our immigration laws were amended, it was by President Reagan, who literally gave three million green cards to people who were here unlawfully in 1986. He said that if you can prove you were here before January 1, 1982, I’ll give you a green card.”
Immigrants here illegally “didn’t even trust him,” Mr. Wildes said. “They thought it was a ruse. They didn’t go to federal buildings for work authorization and fingerprinting, so the government had to open up satellite offices on 24th Street so that people would trust it. And that was a president who had been a Democrat, became a Republican, and gave three million green cards because he knew it was wrong to have people living in the shadows.
“Now, the number is close to 30 million people. And if you look at what President Trump is trying to achieve right now, he should be online to deport about two and a half million people after four years. That’s a drop in the bucket, and it’s not going to fix a broken system
“Deporting people may be a first step, and it should be in conjunction with making sure our economy retains the talent we need.” (Talent covers a wide variety of skills, from the sophisticated to the agricultural.)
“I’m a former federal prosecutor,” Mr. Wildes said. “I agree that we should not keep hardened criminals in America, and once they’ve been given due process, they should be shown the door.
“I wrote a book called ‘Safe Haven in America: Battles to Open the Golden Door.’ I’ve always believed that America’s door is golden, but should be on a hinge so we can close it against those who would cause us harm, and we can open it widely to new inventions and investments from the world over.
“I’m a product of the immigration experience,” Mr. Wildes concluded. “So are the rest of us; if we’re not Native Americans, we’re descended from immigrants.
“There’s been no other country in the world that has given us a sense of hospitality and comfort like the United States, but without a proper sense of balance in the world and in our legal system here, we’re going to be a mess.”
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