Filipino-American Immigration Lawyer, Atty. Luisito L. Lopez (photo courtesy of http://www.luisitolopez.com/)
LOS ANGELES – Filipino-American immigration lawyer Atty. Luisito L. Lopez, died on Tuesday, April 5, after a car accident while on his way to visit a client in an immigration detention facility in Eloy, Arizona. He was 76.
Lopez’s eldest daughter Rose, who was driving the Honda Odyssey van, was seriously injured and is now recuperating at a hospital in Phoenix, Arizona.
For more than four decades, Lopez, who was born in Guagua, Pampanga, fought for people of different races in the United States, and won numerous difficult cases in immigration courts in Los Angeles, San Diego and other cities in California, Connecticut, Chicago, and in Phoenix and Eloy in Arizona.
Lopez received his law degree from the San Beda College of Law and taught law at the University of the East before immigrating to the US in 1972. He was an active member of the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA) and the America Bar Association (ABA).
Lopez also championed the cause of Amerasian children, particularly those born in the Philippines and fathered by US servicemen who, he noticed, were specially excluded from the United StatesAmerasians Immigration Act of 1982 that allowed the children born in Vietnam, Loas, Cambodia and Korea to immigrate to the United States simply because “the Philippines was not part of the war zone.”
Wasting no time in his crusade to right this grave injustice, he formed the Filipino American Movement for Amerasian Services (FAMAS) aiming to fight for the amendment to the law to include Philippine-born children.
Lopez formed chapters in the Philippines and wrote letters to US lawmakers to amend the current law at his own expense. Because of his display of selflessness, on January 21, 1997, U.S. Senator San Inouye (D-Hawaii) introduced Senate Bill 111. It passed into law, and some 50,000 Filipino children will be able to immigrate to the US.
Lopez resided in San Pedro, California and had offices in Carson and San Bernardino, California.
His remains will lie in state at the Forest Lawn Glendale, Church of the Recessional, at 1712 S. Glendale Avenue, Glendale, CA 91205. Viewings are scheduled on Wednesday (April 20), 6-9 p.m.; Thursday (April 21), 5-9 p.m.; and Friday (April 22), 6-9 p.m. Funeral services will be held on Saturday, April 23, after a 9 a.m. mass at the Holy Family Catholic Church in Glendale.