Building Bridges, Not Walls

Last updated Saturday, December 27, 2008 8:59 PM CST in Our Town

By Bettina Lehovec The Morning News

The gang charges were eventually dropped, although the boys were expelled for the rest of the semester for disorderly conduct.

Miranda described Hoeller as “a very, very kind person, very humble, very passionate. ... She’s touched by the people she meets — individuals most of us would typically ignore.”

In May, Hoeller self-published a book titled “Impasse: Border Walls or Welcome the Stranger.” The volume begins with the history of immigration in the United States, takes a look at the responses of different Christian groups and concludes with a 12-step program for reform.

Neither her pro-immigration friends nor those who want to shut the border entirely will agree with her ideas, Hoeller said.

“I tried to stay in the middle, which I think is the only solution. I don’t believe in open borders. I also don’t believe in Fortress America.

“We need reform that protects the jobs of American workers, while treating immigrants — whatever their legal status — humanely.”

Compelled To Help

Hoeller was born in Chicago in 1953, the granddaughter of Croatian immigrants on her father’s side.

Her family moved to Montreal when she was 6. Her father worked for an industrial valve company. He became a Canadian citizen, instilling the value of patriotism she would later bring to her work with immigrants.

Hoeller graduated from high school and attended one year of university in Montreal. She likely would have remained, but the French Canadian separatist movement of the early 1970s brought turmoil to the city. The family returned to the United States.

Hoeller finished her undergraduate work at Colby College and earned a law degree from Vanderbilt University Law School in Nashville in 1976. She went into practice in Chicago, where she met Ted, who worked in real estate.

The couple moved to Dallas in 1983, where they stayed for 22 years. Hoeller started as an in-house lawyer for Texas Instruments and went on to partner with the prestigious law firms of Haynes and Boone and Jackson Walker.

She started pro bono work with refugees during the siege of Sarajevo, capital city of the newly independent state of Bosnia and Herzegovina. The images she saw on television tore at her heart, she said. She asked herself, “What can I do?”

A friend who volunteered with Catholic Charities recruited her to help. Her first case involved the first Bosnian refugee to come to the Dallas area. The young woman and her baby had been evacuated by the United Nations at the start of the 1,000-day siege. She was seeking asylum in the United States.

Hoeller lost the case in immigration court in Dallas. The judge ruled that the woman’s situation was not unique — that she had not been singled out for persecution. Hoeller argued that unique circumstances were not a prerequisite for asylum. She took the case to an appeals court in Virginia, where the original ruling was overturned. The woman and child were granted asylum — after several years in the court system.

Responding To Need

Hoeller represented 5 to 10 pro bono clients a year during the next 12 years in Dallas. They ranged from Yugoslavian war refugees to Mexican women abused by their husbands to a 16-year-old political refugee from China. The boy had been jailed in Chicago for a year when she met him.

That case took seven years to resolve, Hoeller said. The client remembers her each Christmas with a package and a letter. He thanks her for saving his life, she said.

“It makes me cry when I think about it. It’s very touching.”

She’s also worked to help children obtain medical visas for operations in the United States and to change the rules protecting Russian mail-order brides. All the cases were coordinated through Catholic Charities, which helps immigrants of all faiths, and Love In Action International, a Dallas-based nonprofit.

The volunteer work was the most rewarding of her career, Hoeller said. Business law is interesting but not very personal.

“Essentially, you’re dealing with money. There’s not a lot of emotional feedback. Helping an individual whose life is difficult improve their situation (leads to a) closer emotional tie.”

She went beyond legal representation to help in all areas of clients’ lives, Hoeller said. She and her husband helped buy cars, went clothes shopping and gave other kinds of advice.

“A lot of the work I did with them was more social work. Once you had a client, they called you for everything — if their car got towed or their kid got in trouble in school.”

If Hoeller has a weakness, it’s that she can’t walk away from need, Ted said.

He cited a recent example that began when the couple canvassed for presidential nominee Barack Obama in Joplin, Mo., last fall. (Susie Hoeller, a longtime Republican, backed Obama for his economic plan and his hope for the future. The time has come for the pendulum of hands-off economics to swing toward the center, she said.)

They met a woman who lived in challenging circumstances, Ted said. She was ill with cancer, her husband had died and her finances were low. She had applied for food stamps, but received only $10 per month, she told them.

Susie couldn’t get the situation out of her head. She went online and discovered the woman was eligible for more food stamps. She wrote to her and helped her re-apply, Ted said. She also sent a Christmas card with money tucked inside.

“It (makes it) hard to sleep at night,” he said. “You try until you drop, until there’s nothing left.”

It’s that caring that defines her, Ted said.

“Susie has a very emotional, compassionate feeling toward other people. She’s never, ever been motivated by money and prestige.

“That’s just her basic personality — a compassion for humanity and fighting the injustices of the world.”

Ideas For Change

Hoeller’s interests span a range of global events and policy issues. She reads four newspapers a day — The Morning News, the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal. She reads the Montreal Gazette online weekly.

She runs her own international law practice, the Hoeller Law Firm, from home. Clients include several New Zealand companies doing business with Wal-Mart Stores, she said. Hoeller worked for Wal-Mart for 18 months after she moved to Northwest Arkansas. She left in August 2007 to write her book — a project she’d started in Dallas years before.

First, she wrote a consumer advisory called “Recall: Food and Toy Safety: An American Crisis,” which she self-published in September 2007. She was concerned by the high number of recalls in food and children’s products and wanted to get an advisory out to help consumers shop for the holidays, she said. Like her second book, “Recall” also pushed for government reform and detailed ways for businesses to improve their practices.

Her book on immigration was self-published through BookLocker in May. Hoeller said she was eager to get her views out and didn’t want to wait to find a publisher. She believes she’s offered a pragmatic plan, one that balances the needs of American citizens with immigrants fleeing poverty or persecution.

The heart of her reform plan is a market-based immigration system. The current system is based on congressional lobbyists pushing their own agendas, she explained. Certain industries petition for work visas so they can hire cheaper labor from other countries.

Enforcing the prevailing wage system would stop that practice, she said. In theory, immigrants are paid the same as American laborers, but in actuality, wages differ. Eliminating that gap and giving United States residents first dibs on jobs would shift the pattern of immigrant employment.

“They wouldn’t come if they couldn’t get a job,” she said. “It’s a lot simpler than putting up fences and walls. ...

“Money and goods flow to the market, but people don’t.”

Hoeller also speaks out against green cards. These create an underclass of non-citizen laborers with no real motive for assimilation, she said. She’d like to create two tracks for immigrants — temporary visitor or citizen.

Hoeller’s faith-based approach cleaves to a middle road between amnesty and deportation.

“I believe in the rule of law, (but) law has to be tempered with justice,” she said. “Immigration laws are not just. They need reform. We need to do it in a humane way, a way that makes economic sense.”

A Heart For People

Currently, Hoeller is teaming with other community members to start an immigrant relief fund. The fund would aid families of nondocumented workers who are left without resources when the breadwinner is arrested.

The needs are many, said the Rev. Roger Joslin, vicar of All Saints’ Episcopal Church in Bentonville and La Iglesia de Todos los Santos in Rogers. Chief among them are food, clothing, shelter and legal assistance. He and Hoeller have discussed recruiting area attorneys to donate legal advice.

“Susie is an advocate,” he said. “When she sees a need or a cause, she advocates for it. ...

“She’s thorough. She examines things from every angle. She’s full of energy — a perfect attorney. ... She’s very bright, very articulate. She has a good heart.”

Ana Hart, another community activist, agreed. She first met Hoeller during the investigation into alleged gang activity at Bentonville High School.

“I was impressed by her kindness,” Hart said. “Lawyers are not easily found in the charitable arena — but she was.

“Besides having the heart for it, she has the expertise for it,” Hart added. “She’s hands-on. There’s very little gap between (her) wanting to do something — and doing it.”

Hoeller’s husband said Susie has always been a pragmatist. She tries her best to find workable solutions. If they’re not accepted by those around her, she takes her talents elsewhere, he said. Quick to give credit where credit is due, Hoeller is hurt when others don’t appreciate her, Ted said.

Still, she fights tirelessly for what she believes in, he said.

“She’s unafraid. She’s fierce about it — whether it’s doing something right in a corporation, in government, in an individual’s life. She gets extremely tenacious and tough.

“If it can be done, she will do it.”

Other causes that animate Hoeller include animal rights and anti-abortion. She serves on the board of the area Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation. She’s been involved with the group since 1992, when one of her brothers died of a diabetic coma at age 32, she said.

Hoeller continues to love sports, following major league ice hockey and football. She and Ted hike, kayak and sail.

Together, they lead the American Center for International Policy Studies, a nonprofit they started in 2003. The center provides a forum for debating a variety of policy issues.

Profile

Susie Hoeller

Born: July 13, 1953

Parents: Carolyn Yovic and the late Charles Yovic

Husband: Theodore Hoeller

Education: Bachelor’s degree from Colby College in Maine; law degree from Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tenn.

Career: International business attorney

Childhood accomplishments: Hoeller “pushed the envelope” as a young athlete, disguising herself as a boy to join an ice hockey league. She also sailed, winning the Quebec (Canada) junior sailing championship as a teen.

In her words: “Being an athlete in the pre-Title IX era encouraged me to push the envelope. ... I’m not afraid of doing things differently. I try to look for the good wherever I am.”

Source: Staff Report

Book Information

‘Impasse: Border Walls or Welcome the Stranger’

Author: Susie Hoeller

Publisher: BookLocker

Cost: $17.95. E-book available for $8.95.

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