Illegal immigrant gets help with law license

FLORIDA (AP)

The House amended a bill yesterday to include language that would help immigrants who are unlawfully in the country to receive their law licences under certain conditions.

The decision comes a month after the state Supreme Court denied a licence to a man because of his immigration status.

Jose Godinez-Samperio watched from the gallery as the House approved language to give the Supreme Court the ability to grant law licences to immigrants here illegally under certain conditions. House Speaker Will Weatherford congratulated him after the bill (HB 755) passed.

"You've been given an opportunity by this Legislature ... an act of justice by this Legislature," said Weatherford, R-Wesley Chapel. "Return that act of justice to many others."

Godinez-Samperio's parents brought him to the United States on a tourist visa when he was nine and the family remained in the country after the visas expired. He was an Eagle Scout and the valedictorian of his high school before graduating from Florida State University's law school. He passed the bar exam in 2011, but the Supreme Court said in March that Florida law didn't allow him to get a law licence.

The court suggested the Legislature could pass a law to allow immigrants here illegally to obtain law licences, and noted that Godinez-Samperio is an exemplary candidate.

- AP