WILLIAM J. SANCHEZ CONFIRMED AS SPECIAL COUNSEL FOR IMMIGRATION RELATED UNFAIR EMPLOYMENT PRACTICE

WASHINGTON, D.C. - William J. Sanchez received unanimous confirmation by the U.S. Senate to be Special Counsel for the Office of Special Counsel for Immigration Related Unfair Employment Practices at the Justice Department. As a Special Counsel, Mr. Sanchez will work to protect U.S. citizens and other legal immigrants from discriminatory practices as well as educate employers and employees about their rights and responsibilities under the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 (IRCA). Mr. Sanchez was confirmed on December 8, 2004.

"William J. Sanchez brings more than 15 years of experience in the immigration and employment rights area. I am confident he will be instrumental in educating employers and employees about their rights and responsibilities under the law," said R. Alexander Acosta, Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights.

Prior to joining the Justice Department, Mr. Sanchez had been a senior partner in the law firms of William J. Sanchez, P.A. and Sanchez and Lopez, P.A. While in private practice, Mr. Sanchez worked on hundreds of immigration court trials as well as numerous appeals before the Board of Immigration Appeals and the federal courts. Among these cases are nationally-recognized class-action lawsuits on behalf of Haitian farm workers and Cuban refugees who attempted to enter the United States on vintage American cars fashioned into water crafts. Early in his career, Mr. Sanchez also served as staff attorney for the Haitian Refugee Center and as Professor of International Law at the Ateneo University in the Philippines.

A native of New York City, Mr. Sanchez has spent most of his adult life in South Florida, where he helped establish one of Florida's largest micro-enterprise institutions in Miami's less-advantaged communities. He has also been involved in numerous nonprofit and charitable endeavors. In the early 1980's, he spent six months working as a Georgetown University student representative in a Vietnamese refugee camp in Palawan, Philippines and in the early 1990's spent a year in Naga, Philippines, founding a Grameen village bank for poor families.

Mr. Sanchez received his Bachelor of Science in Economics from the University of Miami and earned his Juris Doctorate from the Georgetown University Law Center. He is the author of a number of articles on immigration issues.

The Office of Special Counsel for Immigration Related Unfair Employment Practices (OSC) was created by the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 (IRCA). OSC protects U.S. citizens and other authorized workers from discrimination based on their national origin or citizenship status in hiring, firing, recruitment or referral for a fee, document abuse, or retaliation for filing a claim. OSC staff also appear before administrative law judges who are specially trained to hear IRCA discrimination cases and conduct outreach and education programs.

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