Immigration Law in 2026: Fighting the Cruelty Machine

On this week's episode of 5-4, Reannon and Michael are marking the occasion of Peter's

first beach vacation by speaking to two lawyers about the daily realities of immigration

law under the second Trump administration. Our first guest, Matt Cameron, practices in Massachusetts, where he is seeing a new generation of defense attorneys mobilizing to oppose the federal government's deportation efforts.

“Honestly, we can thank the first Trump administration for a huge new way of immigration”

lawyers. Minneapolis, just like setting the standard for how we resist and how we respond to the ground. Our second guest, practices in Texas, with the courts tend to be very sympathetic to the Trump administration.

Because lawyers there can sometimes be targeted for speaking out about what they see. We will only be identifying her by her first name, Stephanie. Trump won in Trump too, definitely feel different. Trump won. It was fucking chaos.

They didn't know what they were doing. I feel like in Trump too, they're way more fucking methodical and meticulous. One of the three lines connecting these interviews is that why it's easy to read the news and feel demoralized by the cool strategies being used to speed up and dramatically increase deportations.

There is, in fact, reason for hope. It's only because there are ways for lawyers like Matt and Stephanie to slow down what's happening and mitigate the damage it's inflicting on their clients. When somebody finally takes their naturalization oath, their citizenship oath, it's huge and you can see the ramifications and like how it changes that person's like and

then changes like the rest of their family's life. This is five to four, a podcast about how much of the Supreme Court and Trump's immigration policy suck. Welcome to five to four, where we dissect and analyze the Supreme Court cases that have stolen our civil liberties.

Like two podcasts host stealing the other host's favorite bit. That's right. We're here. We're here. Michael and Rianan.

Yeah. Just us, too. There's no Peter, baby. Peter is off on vacation, which by all indications seems to be the first time he's ever been to a beach.

I don't know. We're getting photos in the group chat. We're getting photos of a sunset and him going, you don't do that stuff like look at this, you losers as we like. Hi, Volamojis.

Right. Right.

But like the dude has never seen a sunset of.

Right. And it's like, yeah. Peter. It's nice to be outside. Yeah.

Yeah. Beaches are nice. Yeah. The doors are nice. Right.

On sets. Beautiful. Try it sometimes. You podcast, fuck and loser. No, we definitely miss Peter.

Contractually obligated to say when Peter's not on. No, we definitely miss Peter.

“But Michael and I have been actually, I think we've been kind of batting around an idea”

for an episode like this for a minute, just given the state of things. We are going to turn it over in this episode to two interviews that we just did this week. Both of these interviews are with two immigration attorneys. One of them is on the ground, on the front lines, doing the work of representing people in immigration court right now, that is my friend Stephanie.

And then we also interviewed Matt Cameron from the opening arguments podcast to talk a little bit also about like the state of immigration law, like what is going on with the Trump administration's policies on going litigation. That kind of stuff.

It was really powerful to me.

Yeah. Both interviews were elucidating, educational, and encouraging, and motivating. Yeah. And at times moving. Yeah.

I feel really great about this podcast. I feel really great that we did it without Peter, because who knows what sort of incentive comment he would have made. Right. So I was sarcastic, condescending, Jill.

Yeah. Michael and I could finally just be our earnest selves. Yeah. Yeah. No.

It was great. I'm really excited for listeners to hear this. All right. And so we are talking today with Matt Cameron. He's been practicing attorney in immigration spaces for over two decades.

He's the host of the podcast opening arguments, which is out on Mondays and Fridays. He teaches immigration policy. We're thrilled to have him on welcome Matt. Yeah. What's up, five, four.

First time long time. This is great. Happy to be here. Hey, Matt. Thanks for being here.

Congratulations.

“But I do remember learning in law school that there were Supreme Court cases, I think, limiting”

the length of time immigrants could be detained, pending removal hearings. I mean, maybe I don't remember it correctly. But it does feel these days like it's the Wild West, like anything goes in regards to

Is my impression right or wrong, and how is this evolved from past practices? Yeah. Back in the beginning, there was a presumption against attention, if you can believe that. Like way back at the beginning of the detention system, they presumed that we should only hold on to the people that maybe were the most dangerous and most likely to run.

And now it's pretty much a presumption of detention, so that's a huge change. But that's been coming.

I've been doing this since the second Bush administration, and that's been coming the whole

time.

“But the case you mentioned, which I can never pronounce, I think it's out of bias from 2001.”

Yeah. They're coming for it. They're definitely going for this one because you've heard a focus over the past years, especially on the people whose countries want to take them back. And I am very concerned when we look at, I'm going to give you a bunch of good news today,

and I just think there's a lot of good stuff happening, and Trump is losing in most everywhere. But this is one where I think there's a real potential for this Supreme Court to really fuck it up if they get it. So for example, if you got somebody from Venezuela, from Cuba, from Cambodia, Vietnam, have not been taking one of their citizens back for different political reasons, these people

are essentially the Supreme Court is found, they can't be held indefinitely because we haven't had a system where you can just hold on to people indefinitely. So the Supreme Court held in Zedavis that if there's no reasonably foreseeable possibility that you're actually going to be able to remove somebody to their home country, if they're not actually going to be accepted back, then we can't, we have to let them out on an

ankle bracelet, basically, or some kind of chicken schedule.

And my nightmare right now, just since we're starting right off of the worst stuff, is that we end up with these warehouses that I was just talking about, there's been a lot of great local pushback, including right here north of me in New Hampshire. About 26 days, our warehouses have been rejected so far, but they're going to start building them, they're going to happen.

We're going to have massive amounts of new beds. So you're going to have the capacity to obtain way more people than we ever have. And if they do this, and they've indicated they want to, to take this back to the Supreme Court, get them to reconsider Zedavis and essentially end up with indefinite detention, then I don't know how you don't actually call those concentration camps.

“Is there any mat though, like, is there any limitation at all right now?”

Because, you know, regardless of whether their home country is taking them back or not, you hear all of the time about incredibly lengthy stays in ice detention, that people don't get a hearing for months, that people, you know, I'm thinking about Mahmoud Khadiyad, who

was, you know, the Green Card holder, legal permanent resident, who was held in ice detention

for over 100 days last year, talking about the other people that he met in ice detention, some of them having been there over a year, having no idea what's happening with their case. Are there any time constraints, meaningful, meaningful, like, in reality? Are there any time constraints on this process playing out, however it does in an individual

person's case who is detained? No. Just decency, but I says, and constrained by that. So, I mean, there's no speedy trial, right? It's right, because you're not talking about criminal detention.

There's no constitutional rights whatsoever, just remind everybody I know you guys know, but administrative proceedings are administrative proceedings, right? And so, it's only a subtle offense, Supreme Court is ruled again and again, that deportation is not a punishment. So, because it's not a punishment, you're not being detained for a crime, you're just being detained

for civil violations of the DNA. They can hold you until you, your case is over, and if you choose to appeal the way they see it, that's on you. You can ask for another chance to be released on the bond, we'll talk a little bit about detention of sure in a minute here, but there is no constraint on that part of it, you know,

obviously, it's not a vice as of what people with final orders, but when you're going through the process, appeals to the burden of immigration appeals, although BIA is trying to eliminate its ability to even hear appeals, talking about that, but it's a long process, even in custody, it can be over five or six months, and of course, they've put in the squeeze on people, and we've all heard the stories, we've seen the conditions, and they're

“doing everything they can to keep people from exercising this appeal, right?”

It's even if they have good cases, even from exercising their basic rights to present in a sound case, which, I mean, I've got plenty of clients who've been through the Oakdale facility. I've been down there myself in Louisiana, and, you know, right now, I don't know the place as the judges will tell you, we can't give you a final date right now.

We're just going to put this in the queue, and we'll just kind of assign the dates when we can, but that's unheard of. Then hasn't been happening before, where you just can't even at the time of your hearing, get your final hearing date. Yeah.

It does seem like in the rush to round up as many people as possible, they've found themselves, you know, crushed for space and jamming people in wherever they can in a while doing, and because they're, you know, rounding up people who maybe aren't immediately removable or are, you know, have more issues with countries not taking them, that they're having to hold them for longer.

So, is, is detention changing and how, and if so, how is it, how is it different? Yeah. I mean, the biggest change we've seen this year, and in the past, since Trump took term again, has been that there's way more people without any arrest records at all, and, you know, I know that you all agree with me that we don't want to play the good American

bad immigrant game, but if you're just looking at the kinds of people that they're picking up. Right. And what their histories are, you know, I will say under Obama and Biden, they were doing what Trump said he was going to do, and of course, we only wasn't going to do.

So that's kind of in terms of the population. They're being far less discriminating, and they're just going after everybody, and we're

they didn't have the capacity, and that's why a concern is I sang before when we get these warehouses, and I don't know if you're guessing the blue prints for these warehouses, it just came out. These are, it's bad. It's terrific.

Yeah. And it reminds me of the drawings, a scene of slave ships, frankly, and it's just that kind of like packing people in, in just really inhuman conditions. So if you build a 10-lane highway, you're going to end up with 10-lines where the cars, that's not works.

And there's a lot of financial incentive to throw everybody in there.

So that is really, it's that plus the attempts, unfortunately, have now finally, after many

months, it looks like it's failing, but travel administration tried to rewrite immigration a lot, 30 years worth. Basically, just say that anybody who's been in this country for any period of time is what the law classifies as an arriving alien, and I don't want to get into the details, but essentially saying somebody that's been here for 20 years with two kids, and I was a house, is still

in the process of arriving in the United States. And so because of that, we can hold them without any possibility of bond, that was the big change in the past years, that you had all these people where we have to run to federal court before they can get a bond here. And I knew that was wrong, we all knew that was wrong.

Some of the ice attorneys were primarily admit that they knew it was wrong, but they were firing the judges, the immigration judges, who, of course, are not real judges. If they wouldn't comply with that, and finally, we just got just a few days ago, a federal court or the vacated behind decision that was upholding that. So, piece by piece, this is how we went.

It is happening. These ones are happening. Yeah. I just want to mention to you, you know Matt, and you do a great job of this as well, it's like, we're not just talking about high up policy, but the cruelty of the thing, that the

experience of individuals, families, communities, and, you know, in this massive spike, this massive expansion of ice detention, the conditions also in ice detention are just like

“absolutely deplorable listeners will remember that I interviewed to attorneys for”

look at Claudia, who is a Palestinian woman currently still in ice detention in North Texas. She's been there for, you know, something like 10 months, despite two judges saying that she could be released on bond. You know, as of the time of this recording, about two weeks ago, she had a seizure inside that detention facility.

It's a cruel blessing, but it was a blessing that she was found. She was taken to the hospital. She reports that for over 72 hours, while she was in the hospital, she was chained to the

hospital bed. They never took the chains off. When she asked if her chains could be removed

and why she was chained the officer that guarded her 24/7 while she was in the hospital, told her because I said so she is back in ice detention now during her hospitalization. Nobody from her family, her legal team had no idea where she was. They would not tell them, it's just deplorable. Like you said, they're really dark historical analogs to this.

We talk on this podcast a lot about how we didn't just get to this place because Republicans are evil, but also because Democrats have failed in a lot of ways as well. So I want to ask you about this law right after Trump was elected, there was like, you know, this acceptance, all of the sudden that like basically America has chosen ethnic cleansing and so a bunch of Democrats signed on to some really heinous immigration legislation

with Lincoln Riley. Can you tell us a bit about that law? Like, what does it do and how

“has that contributed to shaping the last year or so?”

Yeah, no. It's, you know, we tried to scream about it at the time because I think this is really, it's one of the worst changes in immigration law during the time I've been practicing. And I think it went mostly unnoticed. It's doubly bad. It's not just the first time I tell you a little bit of a second part as well, which is not really kicked in yet, but it's going to be a real problem.

But the first part expands mandatory detention under the INA and mandatory detention was originally, of course, like all of these things supposed to be limited to, you know, people who are convicted of extreme aggravated felonies and now it's just been expanded to

everybody in so many different ways the way these things always do. But the really shocking

thing about it was because the man who killed Lincoln Riley, which of course was a terrible murder, but he was convicted and, and for her murder, but he had previously had a shot left in conviction. And so they, these idiots actually thought that, or at least were allowing themselves to make the argument that if we don't let the guy in to pour it to remember the shot left and he never would have committed the murder, it's typical

kind of logic. And so what they did with mandatory detention is they expanded it not just to people with convictions because that's typically that that is what mandatory detention has required. They expanded it anybody has ever been charged or arrested for a theft offense. And that's still being let it get obviously, but that's a huge constitutional issue obviously. And it means you're opening the door for small town racists police chiefs

to just put out the order to just, you know, charge anybody you can with theft and they're

“going to get held in the court. Yeah. And if you need to know how bad this was, this is true.”

Ice was begging Congress not to pass this at the time because they said we can't possibly comply with this law. We can't hold everybody who would need to be held if you're going to go after everybody's ever had a minor theft conviction. You know, all the things that you could add to mandatory detention. And, you know, I've seen the consequences already

families, been able to do their cases. And now they have to do their cases in in custody, which is much harder. And also means they're being held in places like New Mexico, Louisiana Texas, where they're not going to get this same kind of shot they'd get up here where we're playing an easy-mode in Boston, frankly. Yeah. So that's the first part, the second part, which has been criminally undernoticed, is that it allows the states to have a cause of action

to sue over anything they don't like. So the next Biden's Obama style administration that's trying to do something to expand rights to try to do something like DACA trying to do something like the keeping families together program that they fought so hard under Biden. Not only can the states try to block it, but they can sue and they can there's just possibilities from money damages potentially if they think they've been harmed by these things. I mean,

“it's really bad. It's trying to constrain the executive, I think when these suits finally”

start to trickle up under the next administration, someday that maybe this will be blocked

a reverse. But I mean, this is bad. It never should have been all at a pass. And I remember

talking to a congressional liaison and asking, like, what's going on here? How is this even on the table? And they said, well, you guys should have told us you didn't want it. It's like, I shouldn't have to tell you. And this is something that I mean, I know we all have or been as bad Democrats here. I just really, this is something that should be held against Democrats forever. I mean, this is really bad. And then they left it on Trump's desk, the

week of this morning. It was just a giftcraft package form, ready to sign. Yeah, the guy who ran on mass deportations, they're like, here's a gift. Let's make it easier for you. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And then we'll give you the budget you want to do it. But I mean, this is even before they had the budget, right? And this is, right, it's one of the greatest tools for mass detention that has been introduced in Congress. And like I said, during

the time of practicing. I did very quickly though. I wanted to address, Ryan, what were you just said about that woman in custody, because I have a similar story about, just just a human level. It's so important to tell these stories. I had a client a few months ago. It was in a bad car accident. It wasn't his fault. And his hand was really badly hurt. His fingers were broken in several places. I just dragged him out of the scene and

detained him and never gave him medical attention. The pain of being in custody with untreated

injuries to your hands. Like, barely just getting abandoned, it's basically. And that else you actually allowed us to speed through the habeas petition even faster. And the judges have no patience for what NICE is doing to detention in Massachusetts right now. So we're getting a bit of a pretty quickly. But the judge specifically mentioned the issue with his fingers and how an human animal is. So, you know, it's worth telling these stories

and getting them out there, of course. We mentioned this, but I did want to talk about the budget, the extra money that's coming ice is way. And you alluded to the warehouses

“that they're buying up, which seems to solve one of the lake and Riley problems, right?”

Like, if you have 90,000 more beds, then it's just a matter of having enough people to make those arrests, which if you can hire more people, right? It does seem like it's trending towards a mess and term it machine. Is that fair to say? Yeah. I know there's a reason that you're a group and the other one I'm talking about right now. And the two private providers of prisons in America, there's talks about 100% when Trump was elected. You know, they

know what's coming. This is what they were promised. The unlimited amounts of money that seems to be getting dumped into immigration enforcement right now. And immigration enforcement was already spending more as I'm sure you know than all of their federal law enforcement

combined for almost all my career. And now, you know, they've got this $75 billion

slush fund to play with, that they can keep them going through shutdowns. They've got this detention mentality. They no longer have the wind to the backs. I'm not sure with this legal approach that they were taking, but they're going to find some of the way to keep doing it. So I'm sure you guys remember at the RNC, they were handing out signs so they could hold up their big mass deportation now, signs. Steven Miller was giving fascist speeches in front of

“nasty deportation now. So I think it's like nobody can say they didn't expect this. This is exactly”

what they promised they'd do. Yeah. Yeah. And I saw just today that ISIS has been purchasing hundreds of millions of dollars worth of like military-grade weapons as well, which is a little foreboding. It is. Yeah, I mean, yeah, seeing some reporting, you know, the photos, particularly out of Minneapolis, but this is happening across the country, right, of ice agents, ice officers, outside people's homes and the photos. I want to say it was the times, but maybe another publication

that was like, this is the most lethal weaponry that the United States military has in terms of guns in terms of the weapons that they're using to, you know, bust down people's doors right now. But we have to say and you've already alluded to it, too. It's not all doom and gloom though, right? There have been some winds, especially at least with individuals I'm thinking about remains of us, Turk, you know, muzzin medallim, Muhammad Khalil, Kilmar Abraigo Garcia,

others, you know, can, can you tell us about some winds that have happened and then maybe we can also turn to ongoing federal litigation. There are lots of cases right now against ice against DHS and all sorts of legal fights happening. Yeah. No, when we fight, we win every time. I mean, this is, I just think about, I was just thinking before we came on here about how this felt last year, we're on this time, right, end of February when we're seeing all the shit happening at once,

And, you know, some of it was just done really poorly, just like with travel,

the original travel ban, you know, where they have to kind of go through multiple drafts. But I was just going through the list and you just mentioned, of course, those individuals you just mentioned, those people were the kind of the marquee cases, those are the ones that were supposed to really scare us into thinking, this is how it is now. And everyone of those people was free and living in U.S. still, and, you know, ostrich and Muhammad Ali, just had their cases terminated,

“and, and in Muhammad's case, on really stupid technical retreat, not stupid. I mean, it's important.”

But it's stupid in the sense that the government really could have actually not had that happen. But the foreign policy grounds that they're trying to port both of them and collil on are just not working so far, and we'll see obviously it's going to have to go to the Supreme Court, not as optimistic about that, but I mean, unfortunately, you know, that those grounds are what they are, and the board of immigration appeals is found that essentially you just need a letter from

Marker Rebius saying that Secretary of State thinks these people are a problem, but they have to be limits. There have to be limits. And there will be. So, you know, that, and then, of course, big one for students free speech here in Massachusetts that's nationwide, that sangly we can't be deporting people over that kind of thing. And, you know, over and over again, like I said, with a burger Garcia, permanent injunction against taking it back in, because I just couldn't

get itself together, that criminal case is falling apart. You know, they were threatening to send people to Guantanamo Bay, it turns out that that's way too expensive and practical, just barely anybody there at this point. You know, there are worries about C-COT, certainly,

“one person is too many to send a C-COT, but you know, that was the Salvatore in Prison,”

obviously it was taking a couple hundred people, none of them except the people who are actually Salvatore and are still there, and it's very hard to get them back, and a burger Garcia's back and with his family and, you know, just the whole case fell apart. Everything they've been trying to do on that. The detention stuff I was talking about with you, how do I hit Tato? The board immigration appeals case that justified this ridiculous read of arriving aliens, right? That

is a real result. As I said a few days ago, and we're back to potentially, I hope, we'll see how the immigration judges are applying it, but we're hoping we're back to regular bond conditions, national guard immigration enforcement deployments stopped. Many Apple is just like setting the standard for how we resist and how we respond on the ground. It was there a few weeks ago, just absolutely inspired by everybody I'm going to talk to, just cannot believe the fortitude

and what's going on there, and we all can follow their example, and just speaking of practical local resistance, we've got those warehouses I mentioned, 26 at least stop by now, and that's something anybody can do if you're peering about a potential deal, because, you know, they're hoping to buy these things, they don't want to build them, they want to buy and modify them, and there's only so many of these things out there. And, you know, obviously popular opinion,

you know, you've got polling now, I never thought I'd see this kind of polling. The majority of

Americans now are turning on ice, you know, after the murders of two of your citizens in a month. Haitian TPS was extended not just for the first time, for the second time, for the same reason, it was extended during the first Trump term, the temporary protector status, because Trump had been so openly racist about the way he terminated it. Same thing here, because of all the stupid shit they said while they were doing it, you know, they made the same mistakes again.

Once again, the same federal court in San Francisco found that they can't cut off funding to sanctuaries cities on the same grounds. Elin Enemies Act was blocked that may be coming up again, but that, you know, that was looking pretty scary, and that was immediately terminated. I'm not feeling like there's a chance of birthright citizenship actually going away with this Supreme Court at this point, but we'll see how that goes. And, uh, generally speaking, like the

Department of Justice is falling apart, like they're just being pushed to the limits by all these hate cases, and I've just, sorry, I'm just going through the laundry list here, but in terms of our office, in our cases, we've been seeing all kinds of ones in ways that, you know, sometimes beyond what we're used to. As I said, pretty much, and in fact, every hate case, every hate

case that we found is one, that's remarkable. I'm not going to say it's us. The judges are basically

just like, this is the tenth case like this, DOJ, that you're trying to defend, why are you still

“doing this, you know, we're not even having a hearing in this. It's out, you know, the best thing we can”

do is just file as quickly as possible. I'm a realistic person. There's a lot to be concerned about. I could list off easily a bunch of bad stuff, too, when we get into that, but sure, yeah, of course. Yeah, I just want to remind people the ones and the fact that all of the stuff that we are worried about last year, the big stuff. The big ticket marquee stuff that was really concerning to me and keeping me up with the future immigration policy has either been reversed or stalled or isn't

happening. Part of the bad things that are still happening, a lot of damage is still being done. More people in custody than we've ever had at once. I am not trying to say that we're living in the best possible times for our firm, but I also think that we are in much better place for immigration than I think people might realize if they're not seeing the whole picture. Yeah, yeah, one of those I want to mention also is that that had scared me, because you mentioned

several that I mean, I was extremely frightened by Quantanamo Bay, I was extremely frightened by Zico, and those have sort of resolved in administration losses. Another thing I was extremely frightened by was the concentration camp out in the Everglades, indeed, Collier County in South Florida, because they were plans to prop up many more of them. They put that up in just a few days, and that of course led to very substantiated conditions, but they had plans that they presented

the Trump administration for a bunch of these throughout Florida, and those seem to have died out as well. And I'm not sure why or how they got stalled out. I know that there was some litigation around the one camp that they did get propped up, that was at least stalling that a bit,

they were hoping to have Fort Bliss holding 30,000 detainees by now, and that hasn't happened either. You know, it's still me at some point, but still too many people in that, but yeah, no, it's yeah, nothing like what they want. Yeah, but the expansion hasn't happened the way they wanted to. So you slow down where you can, you take your winds where you can, and it's important to celebrate those winds. It's important to remind yourself that sometimes losing slowly is a wind

and along the way, you can have real winds, not just losing slowly, but sometimes you have actual winds. And then maybe there's a chance to to drive these people from power soon, right? Yeah, like in the meantime, yeah. One thing I wanted to mention is that you know, when I started doing this, immigration law was really kind of a backwater for lawyers. It was not something people were very excited about 2006. You know, it wasn't getting the kind of

attention. It gets now. I'm really glad that we've got some of the fresh new reinforcements

“coming in when you need them. But you know, honestly, when I started practicing, most of the”

people going to immigration court looked like me. I guess if you're not watching this on video, I'm a middle-aged white man. But we've got a whole new craft of lawyers that are coming from immigrant communities, serving their communities that are excited to get out there,

grade energy, you know, people that grew up speaking languages that are so essential for the

communities. So that's been a really exciting to see. And honestly, we can thank the first Trump administration for a huge new way of immigration lawyers. And I'm sure a massive new second way, because we aren't going to need them the way this is scaling up. And you know, immigration law is one of those fields where there's more than enough work. There's more than enough clients for private and non-profit alone. Certainly non-profit's have more than they need. So we're all very

friendly. It's a great bar. You know, it's a really good thing to be a part of. And I've been proud to be doing it for a long time. I really didn't want to do anything else at this point. But, you know, it is probably it's growing. And it's about as technically difficult as they can get sometimes. And, you know, especially with the custody cases, there are a lot of attorneys. You won't even take the custody cases and we take a lot of them. And, you know, that really does

wear on you. I back when I went to law school. I hope they're doing this better now. But they weren't teaching us about by Kerry's trauma and about how to take care of your mental health. But I do any of that. And, you know, I feel like we've come a long way of certainly had to win the hard way during the first Trump term about all that. But, yeah, no, just in terms of where I'm at, where the practice is at, I'm feeling very good about the team we have here and the work we're able to do.

And the marathon up the sprint that we're on here. You know, as Michael said, sometimes losing slowly is really, I mean, in terms of even just getting an injunction for a couple of years against a bad policy is a huge win. And a lot of these cases. Right. We've talked about some wins. We've talked about some really dark things. What are you predicting about what's to come in immigration

“policy and ice enforcement for the future? You know, I am really, I think that there are so many”

people, especially young people who've gotten a look at what this can look like. And they've seen it many uploads. They've seen it in Chicago. They've seen it in LA. They've seen how effective local resistance can be.

And, you know, I made a friend and in Minneapolis is telling me that she's never been

more proud of her kids than when they went the next day, maybe the day after two, uh, they were naked by my own. I've visited both of those ones there. Her kids just started yelling fuck guys. Her like 14, 15 year old kids. You know, like that's just a big moment of pride as a mother. This new generation that can see that this is what American fascism looks like and is ready to stop it. I'm I have a lot of hope for that. And I have a lot of hope for better policy coming out of

and I've always known this honestly, I've been thinking about American fascism for, you know, more than 10 years now and I fully expected that people are going to have to see it. It's worst and we're nowhere near the worst before anything's going to change. You know, there's been this distant dream of any kind of actual immigration reform of actually overhauling the engine of it.

“And maybe this starts to push us to that direction. But at the very least, I think that”

once we finally get new leadership, once we get a younger crop of people in there, we're just coming.

We have a lot of people who are very motivated to do something about it. I think we can actually abolish eyes. I think that can actually happen and not just as some kind of reform effort or retrain I'm, you know, not tomorrow. But I think we're getting there at the point that people are going to say, we don't want to return to this period. We've seen it. We know what it looks like. And, you know, again, I'm afraid it's going to take things that are much worse than what we've seen so far,

but this feels like the beginning of something. Your mouth to God's ears. Your mouth to God's ears. Or the presidents ears or whatever the fuck because, yeah. I mean, it's, it's, it's great to hear from your vantage point and from your perspective that, you know, some of these things are attainable. But, yes, I mean, I hear also, of course, and agree that it's going to take us fighting for it as well. You know, I am thinking about ongoing federal litigation, right? Like cases against ice,

cases against DHS, cases against the Trump administration. Are there any cases in particular, one or two or maybe more that you're keeping an eye on that are ongoing right now? And then, of course, we're a Supreme Court podcast. What do you see, maybe, as potentially going up to the Supreme

I think I'd bring it back to Zadavaya, so we started with the possibility of extended indefinite

attention. That's really something to watch because I knew they're going to try to get one of those cases up. But I know there's been some back and forth among this. I've not taken the birth rate citizenship case, particularly seriously. Certainly, I'll lead on Thomas. We're going to take it seriously. I still, I'm willing to put money on that one. I don't want to actually bet on Supreme Court cases. Okay, yeah. At least $50, I'd put at least $50, with $50, with $50, with $50, with $50.

“Okay, great, great. He said he's not a corporate lawyer for folks, okay?”

That's my max. I'm not even a better. But, yeah, no, it just doesn't, and again, they've done enough damage with the injunction, it's right, with the permanent injunction issue, just with cost of alone already. I think that was the damage they really wanted. But, yeah, no, patient TPS, right, watching the temporary protected status for 350,000 people who were just trying to live and work here, and not have to return to some of the worst conditions of the Western Hemisphere,

that, again, are very much of our creating. We're talking about, just, again, at the program, those obviously terminated for racial reasons, they're just straight-up reasons, and even beyond the usual built-in, baked-in, why it's the premise of the immigration system, it was explicitly a Trump campaign promise that he would end the TPS of people that were eating cats and dogs. I mean, it's just, it was right out there for us, and that all ended up in the injunction,

that was just issued. But, the TPS programs all around, because he's trying to end those temporary protected status programs for everybody. You know, just keeping a watch on all of that, I'm very concerned about, I mentioned before, but the Board of Immigration Appeals, I don't know if this is kind of for you, but Board of Immigration Appeals was created by Congress's administrative agency to do just what it sounds like, to review immigration appeals from immigration

judges. And they've decided that they don't want to do that, and you have any more, and they've issued a draft rule that's under review now, and I'm sure it will be an immediate litigation by which they want to act like the Supreme Court, and they want to decide whether or not

to basically take things on certain. They're going to have to vote in the majority of the Board.

If they decide to take an appeal, if you pay $1,000 to take the appeal, we'll decide rather than having an automatic appeal as a right. And that's especially important, because during the time that you're appealing or move alerted to the Board, you get an automatic stay, and that could potentially can be for years on the next day for removal. So this is another way of fast-tracking

“deportations. This one I think will probably end up with the Supreme Court, because it's a very”

important structural issue, and I don't think it's getting any reporting right now. Something much more practical that one of the main concerns of my clients is just keeping in employment authorization, just making sure they can have work permits. That's going to be litigated, because a new draft rule for that is immediately going to be taken up by hope. I know that litigations getting ready, but they're trying to make it almost impossible for people

who are seeking asylum to get work permits. And what are people supposed to do? If they're just going to sit on their couches and wait for years, it just doesn't obviously doesn't make any sense. So those kinds of practical things, you know, let's keep a watch obvious on the way they're trying to use other federal agencies in the National Guard, and everybody else to do this on what other tricks they're going to try to pull for detention,

now that you're hurrying, her motto seems to be at least for the moment suspended. We'll see, obviously, that's going to have to get a Supreme Court to about the arriving alienation on what we can do about holding people just because they came of the border holding them indefinitely. You know, all those detention issues, all those ways are going to try to keep people in and build the machine as well as things to watch. But, and also, you know, they're bringing back it,

so much of this is exactly what we knew is going to happen, just recycling bad Trump one stuff, so that they ended asylum protections for survivors as domestic violence, and for people being persecuted based on family membership, right? That's all going to be taken up again, I'm sure. So there is, it is almost impossible to watch every aspect of just immigration litigation alone, and I'm only even really talking about the deportation of families aside of things,

immigration, which is what I work on. You know, I barely keep track of what's going on. At the employment business, there's a whole other world of stuff happening there.

“But, you know, this is, obviously, the most important on the humane level here is detention.”

So that's really what we're going to watch. Sure. You know, again, I really want to stress the good stuff that we're just talking about. But I've been saying since the beginning, since way before the funding bill in July, that it's going to hit the point where people are going to become very aware of immigration enforcement in the street in the way that people in Minneapolis, Chicago have been. And that's one of the main lessons I learned in Minneapolis is we all have to be ready

for that. And I know that listeners of the show, which I certainly am one, are the kinds of people that are going to be most likely to be out there in the front lines and everywhere they can be. It's a fight worth having. These fights are working. And they see us, and they see what we're doing. I says about to expand quite a lot. If you look at the bar chart of where this funding is going. So this is, you know, just, I'm very happy about this good news, but this is just part of the

marathon. There is so much more fighting to do. But I'm also really excited about the comments we have. And the many more people who are joining us in this. So, you know, this is, I guess it's just my ADHD, but I need everything to be on fire. This is my time. This feels good. So, I'll take it. He's in his element. He's flourishing. Yeah. Again, it's a terrible thing to say when my clients are suffering in so many ways.

We've never seen the kind of anxiety that we're seeing. But this is, you know, that this is what we're

That the worst, the worst it gets for the country, the better it gets for the podcast.

“Yeah. Yeah. Well, I'm going to talk about it right now. Yeah. Yeah. No, I didn't.”

Oh, it's so dark. Yeah. I didn't really think about the reality of it when I started with opening arguments in 2024 about that Trump was almost certainly going to be elected. And I was going to have to be doing my job all day and then talking about my job. But here we are. That's fine. I love talking about my job. And I'm totally great to be here with you. Thank you so much. Thank you for joining us. Thank you for doing the good work you do. Let her listeners know where to find you.

Yeah. I'm Matt Cameron on this guy. And you can find open arguments anywhere. You get podcasts.

And we're just a general interest. Lasha, we're not really for lawyers. And hope you've turned us

in time. Thank you so much, Matt. We really appreciate it. Thank you so much. Great. Thank you, guys. You know, maybe this isn't therapy, but I want to tell you guys that the morning is a really dark time for me. And I have been turning to fuel. And specifically the black edition ready to drink meal replacement. It has 35 grams of protein. It has 7 grams of fiber.

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you will dot com slash five four H U E L dot com slash spell out five four. That's for new customers only. And thank you to on the podcast of very special person. Stephanie is an immigration attorney who practices in Texas. And we are going to talk to her about what the hell the practice of immigration law is like right now and what she's seeing and immigration courts and what her clients are going through. So Stephanie, thank you so much for being on five four. Hi, glad to be here. Hi.

So, Steph, I know that you've been practicing for like 15 years. You've practiced immigration law under the Obama administration and then Trump won and then the Biden administration and now Trump too. I'm interested though in like the changes to the practice or yeah, the changes in immigration law between these administrations. Yeah, Trump won and Trump too definitely feel different. Trump won was the it was fucking chaos. They didn't know what they were

doing and thank God because the damage they were able to do was pretty limited. It's like, we're going to do the Muslim ban. Right. It's like, come on. I feel like in Trump too, they're way more fucking methodical and meticulous and they've done their fucking homework in a way that makes working in the immigration context like that much more difficult. It's kind of like the evil genius. Right. I don't know if it's the genius over there, but well Stephanie, you and I have

talked about one Steven Miller. Right. One Steven Miller. It's running things in a very particular

“way. Like Steph, I remember like I think a couple weeks ago you told me like it just feels like”

Steven Miller, whoever it is, right, is saying the coolest ideas you have bring them and we will implement them. Right. And we will do it methodically and we will fight over it in court and we will put billions of dollars behind it. Yeah and it's and that's I think it's been very different from Trump one and Trump two is kind of yeah how methodical it's been and kind of these areas that are like very niche, really specific, very nuanced and immigration law that you would think like,

why the fuck are they going to be messing with the Freedom of Information Act policy? But they did. Right. And they're doing it. It just complicates everything in a way that you feel like like this is not this is nothing like they're we're going to just start pulling people over and deporting people that know they're going after all kinds of tiny little nitpicky things that are just

making practicing immigration law a real fucking nightmare. Yeah. Basically. What about the

difference if if you have any maybe these are like maybe it's more different or maybe it's not

that like the Obama administration deported more people than any president before him and since then

every single president since then including Biden in the during the Biden administration deported more people than the president before. Yeah. It's just like it's like the trajectory.

“I think of this country right now is it's the number scheme under Biden. Nothing pisses me off”

like the Biden presidency. Really. Yeah. Yes. Because they did nothing. They fucking did nothing. They threw crumbs. And we got the little gobbler up like the starving rats that we are. The immigration like it was fucking they threw crumbs and we were so excited about the fucking crumbs and now what what it was in the film of a crime. Rean and you've been here for 25 years. You have kids born here. We're not going to deport you. You're welcome. Yeah. I'm not

giving you a work permit. I'm not going to let you get a social security number or have any type of fucking stability or be able to plan your future here. We're just not going to deport you. I'm going to keep all your information on file though and you're address and everything but you're welcome. Yeah. And we were so fucking excited about that. And now like looking back it's just like God they could have done so much more and they didn't. And I get that like you know Congress as a

piece of shit and doesn't do anything. But most of immigration law is administrative law. And so it's like all about the rule making process. And if you're in law school,

“take administrative law because that's what most of the law is. And so the Biden administration”

had an opportunity to do more in the administrative law since passing rules and regulations. And they just didn't. Yeah. They just didn't. They put out some fucking memo that could easily be like revoked under Trump 2.0. And that's like if you look at like how many memos were

rescinded under Trump 2 or like the first like two weeks. Because it was so easy to do. It was

like nothing. They were like nothing millows. They had no like real lasting power. And the fact that the Biden administration didn't have like the foresight to kind of put some of these things protections. And when they had the chance like really fucking pisses me off. Yeah. I mean, I think if you're a listener and you're looking around at the country and scared by authoritarianism, fascism, you know, all the tools for that weren't built overnight.

They weren't built in the last 12 months, right? They they have been sitting around loaded guns waiting to be fired or maybe even unloaded guns that were being loaded by democratic presidents, right? Like they that all this machinery was there. All these ice agents have served under democratic and Republican presidents. Tom Homan, who's, you know, maybe second only to Stephen Miller and, you know, just inherit evilness. I mean,

psychologically evil. Yeah. It was awarded a medal by Barack Obama, right? Like we have long tolerated fascism light in the immigration realm because it was so cordoned off from the rest of the country. And wow, loan beholds. Now it's being turned on other people and we're so shocked.

Immigration was like the sleeper cell. Like yeah. That's right. It was always there. Yeah.

That's just sleeper cell. Yeah. Can you talk about like your clients? What do they need? What are they asking for from immigration courts? You know, what do they come to you for? Well, I guess I'll just say like, I'm just living the fucking dream. If anybody ever had asked forations to dive in it a lot, how is the time? It is the wild west. Yeah. For example, yesterday, I met with a gentleman from Columbia. He had a paper that he got in the mail and he's like,

I don't understand what this says. It's an English. And I was like, oh, you filed for asylum? Yes. Yeah. I had a file for asylum. I have my work permit based on asylum. I was like, well, this says that they dismissed your asylum claim and you have an expedited removal order. Now, oh, my gosh. Like he's looking at being deported. Yeah. He's like, oh, and then I said, and it says here, like, if you'd like to go forward with your asylum claim,

“you need to present at your local ice office with this paper. And he's like, oh,”

what's going to happen if I go to that ice office? And I said, well, I think there's a

ice office? What happens with my asylum claim? Well, you don't have plenty more. And so it's like

explaining the to people how like you're just up against the wall. You're like rocking a hard place, a damned if you do your damned if you don't. Yeah. That is devious though. Like dangling a false promise of a continuing asylum claim to lure them into what is likely detention and expedited removal. Yeah. And it doesn't say on the paper like you will be detained. It's like present at your local ice immigration enforcement removal office with this letter and say that you would like to have a

credible fear interview. And we'll take it from there. Just sit back, relax and enjoy the ride.

“Right. It's really hard to advise people in that situation. And that's, I think that's like”

been one of the hardest challenges under this administration is how to advise clients when like, I don't fucking know what to tell them. And they're like, what would you? And I'm like, I have no fucking idea what I would do. He asked me, he's like, would you go? I was like, pre-hope, I'll only not. But then what? You're just like fucking living here with like expedited removal order, just a walking target for ever. Like, it just, when you try, you're trying to quote unquote do the right thing.

And it's just like, yeah, you're just set up every step of the way. And so this is a new phenomenon. You've, you've known, you haven't seen stuff like this before, right?

And not under, this is the, the first time in this administration. I haven't seen this under

previous administrations. Okay. I heard somebody the other day, like talk about like, actually immigration law is right now. Like they described the state of immigration law is like immigration laws where you go to get deported. Like every, every pathway, right, seems to be a place that like is deviously set up to just kind of trap you, right? So I know Stephanie, like, for example, like, I know that you're in immigration court a lot driving around and appearing

in court. So like, what does that look like? What are you, when you are in court? Like, what are you arguing for and what are you representing people on? The thing is is like, like I said,

“you're damned if you do and you, you're damned if you don't. Because like, you have to”

appear at, for example, let's not even talk about the removal proceedings. Let's just talk about regular ass immigration. You're just like, and Joe Schmo and you married a citizen. Yeah. That kind of scenario you are required to appear at an interview and you're watching TikToks at home all day about people who've been arrested at their interviews and then you ask your attorney, like, am I going to get arrested at the interview? And I'm like,

probably not. Probably not. I think, but it's really hard to not give a definitive answer. I feel like if I could say, everyone is being arrested, we can work with that. And I can advise people, you can plan, make informed decisions, but when it's just like, I don't know what's going to happen. And so today, for example, I had an interview for a green card application and I was nervous and they were nervous and it went fine. Nothing happened. The officer was

very kind and told them, try not to get scanned. Apparently, people are pretending to be

immigration officials and asking for money and we will never ask you for money. Thanks so much for

coming in and have a great day. But that's like rare, right? Like, you've also had green card interviews that do not go that way. I've had interviews that have not gone that way. But like I

“said, it's like, you, you have to go. If you don't go, you don't get the benefit. And we're”

still getting people green cards. People are still getting approved. It's just in this really unstable kind of, the floor is lava. Right. Yeah, I don't know if you can speak to this, but it seems to me the idea is less like we're going to arrest a lot of people at these interviews. And more we're going to arrest a few people at these interviews that's going to scare a lot of people who are then not going to show up to their interview and put them in jeopardy. Exactly.

Increase our pool of people we can then later deport. Right. Like, that's the policy. And that's my understanding or my guess as to what's going on there. I think that's right. When just a few people are arrested, right? It just so seeds of fear in the entire community. Right. People who are in some type of immigration process are desperate for information and answers and want reassurance and want to know what's going to happen. And when you're like facing the unknown, I think that's

one of the more difficult parts. The other kind of big group of people we're seeing is people

people still go to church, but they do. Driving a church with her son, adult son, and their windows

“were too dark allegedly. They got pulled over by a state trooper and a state trooper was really”

concerned for the safety of everybody because of those dark windows. And when the driver turned over

a foreign ID, they called ICE. And this man's been here for 25 years. It's like never been arrested,

no problem history. Just trying to go to church and now he's in a detention center. And his mom is like sobbing and like what's going to happen. And unfortunately it's like in a lot of these situations, it's like yes, you can try and fight and and you know maybe do some type of federal litigation, but for like everyday people, they don't have money to do that. And oftentimes the person that's picked up is their only source of income. And it's like they're instantly in crisis mode. They don't have

thousands of dollars to pay an immigration attorney to potentially file a case that may or may not actually result in them being released. And so most people are just taken voluntary departure

or getting deported and that's it. You've said something here, which is like people don't have

the money to pay an attorney to take on this massive case, put together extremely long filings, right? Like take something from immigration court to federal court and something that this like highlights is like unlike criminal law. You were not entitled to have like an attorney appointed to you, right? We've talked on the podcast before about the many shocking differences between criminal law and immigration law in terms of you know what constitutional rights apply

to the individual in the criminal case like a criminal defendant, right? But in the immigration case and immigrant or somebody who's seeking adjustment of status or trying not to get deported

what have you and how you know there's all these constitutional rights supposedly you and I

Stephanie like know very well like from practicing here in Texas it's not like criminal defendants are like a really getting robust constitutional protections in criminal court. But in theory those constitutional protections are there for criminal defendants and they're just not for for people in immigration court. So like yeah it talk about that a little bit like can you shut some light on like what the difference is. Yeah they're just they're just not like

you are it's like you're in a detention facility and you don't have an attorney you wait maybe a month and a half before you even see a judge you're just in there just waiting you haven't been served with the charging document they've issued it but you don't actually have a copy but it doesn't matter because it's an English anyways and you can't read it in English and then you go to the court and there's an interpreter but you you don't ever get a chance to

kind of consult with yeah consult with council for somebody to explain what the fuck's happening like who has the word and what is this about and I think what's really heartbreaking is there's this like misconception I think amongst a lot of people that like if you work hard and you pay your taxes and you've been here a long time the judge will have mercy and like that's

“not a thing. That's not a thing that exists in the immigration realm and so you need to have the”

money to pay an attorney to kind of evaluate your case and then even then like the success for hits of like winning a case when you're detained are like abysmal. Yeah and the judge you're hoping to have mercy from isn't even a judge is people imagine that right it's not a no they're like overwhelmingly former ice attorneys yeah or my favorite judge who was just like an insurance attorney for like decades and then look and do right into the immigration world yeah just but like

an insurance attorney for decades but also probably a maga freak right like and gets that sweet sweet authoritarian evil appointment to be an immigration judge right which this is all being housed in the executive branch they don't have to be confirmed by the Senate or any of that stuff yeah just a very different world right yeah essentially like immigration judges carrying out the policy desires of the administration right it's not about like sort of like objective

adjudication uh on on the law yeah and and I mean in those judges who aren't toe in the line have been

“removed right Stephanie we have some attorneys certainly law students who are listening and I think”

you're told that the practice of law we have an adversarial system but you do sort of you are supposed to in theory in most areas of the law kind of kind of quote work with the other side right like if

the state negotiating with the prosecutor the lawyer who represents the state and ostensibly correct

me if I'm wrong you are also maybe in theory supposed to do that with ice attorneys in immigration court but like tell us what that's like working with ice attorneys ice attorneys are the worst of the worst longest pause in history yeah yeah she's censoring herself folks I had the hard I mean like sure I'm sure they're nice people on bullseye but like the fucking ice attorneys get under my fucking skin yeah because we don't have that there's no pre-conferencing there's no

exchange about like hey this guy has this this and this like can we try and resolve this before court none of that shit and you can email an ice attorney 20 times and they will not

“fucking respond and I remember like a couple weeks ago when that AUSA was like the system sucks the”

job sucks and she was talking about all the habeas graces and and there was like a thing that didn't quite make any of which she was like you don't understand judge we have to try and reach an ice attorney we're calling like 10 15 times I'm like yeah welcome to my fucking world yeah how it is this is Stephanie's talking about an immigration case that that had gone into federal court so it's the AUSA it's the the U.S. attorney's office that is handling representing the government

yes representing the government on stuff that had come out of the immigration court the judge is like recommending the AUSA being like what like you guys have not done what I am asking you to do you guys have not produced what I'm asking you to do whether that's filings etc and yeah the the thing that kind of made waves on social media was she was like judge I wish you would hold me and contempt so that I could go to jail and sleep for 24 hours and this is a lawyer representing

the government the Trump administration saying like she's completely overwhelmed and in part right it's because I say attorneys right because she has to work with isateries and they are not even responsive to their side to their cooperating you know federal has there yeah yeah which I'm not going to lie it made me be a little bit better slightly better like it's not personal I mean it's not against you yeah it's not against me they're against everyone yeah it's things like there is a lot

of turnover in Department of Homeland Security right now for whatever reason and so there's been a lot of new isateries coming in we don't have anyone's contact information they have this general email box called the duty attorney email you send a email to the duty attorney say like hi my client's actually a citizen and you get an auto response back and the auto responses like we are have overwhelmed with cases and we will not give our position on any prospective motions

“we will file a response accordingly if you need to speak to the attorney about a particular case”

please look at who is assigned to the case we will no longer be providing information about who is assigned to the case like the next line you're like right who the fuck prove for this like what are you doing but this is like

the world we live it but this is always been the case this is not under the Trump administration

this is always been the case with having the thing that you like you said we are in like in criminal hour you negotiate and you talk and you kind of try and resolve issues before hearing just as non-existent in the immigration world yeah yeah right like the criminal system at least ostensibly is about finding the truth oh that's cute that's funny yeah that's what that's what they say right that's what they say we obviously have a different point of view on this podcast but I don't

think even immigration even pretends that that's the right like this system is designed to move

“people out of the country that's what that's what they're doing well and it's just you can even see”

in the disparities of grant rates between immigration judges is like insane you there are judges in the same court where one judge in courtroom A has an 85% asylum grant rate and the judge next door in courtroom B has an 85% denial rate and it's the fucking luck of the draw of which when you get and it's like the system shouldn't it shouldn't be like that that's not how we should determine who gets to remain in the United States and who doesn't buy up an crap shoot but that's just how

it is and now under this administration the person with the 85% grant rate has been pushed out yeah like they're not even a judge anymore they're on that sweet sweet federal pension

I want to talk a little bit about this practice of I think they're called third country

Africa they're not even deported to their home country they're just dropped off on a different

“continent I'm curious a lot of things about that practice how widespread it is what happens to them”

when they're there they take into detention or they just let it out and to just walk around like how's it how's it work well I mean they are the government is trying to deport people to

third countries at a rate that we've never seen before and I have a client that's detained

we're appearing on video court because our intention I'm sitting there I'm listening to all the attorneys go before me and this is a judge and immigration judge who's been an immigration judge to a number of administrations like he's not new he's he's done this and the attorney says you're on early we were recently served with third country removal and a motion for third country removal my clients from Cuba the government is trying to remove him to Uganda and the judges

“oh yep I saw that I saw them by all that do you need time to reply and the attorneys like I”

can 10 days we could do 10 day reset do just like a government you have a new objection note no objection okay yeah why don't we go ahead and reset this come back in 10 days and you can fucking talk to me about why this guy from Cuba really deported to Uganda and I'm just sitting there like can we all just take a break right look at think about what we're saying like this is insane but it's like it's already feeling like the norm which is the scary part or the judge like no

everyone was acting like this was like just this is how we do things now will that person actually get deported to Uganda no I don't think so from what I understand and I haven't had any clients

luckily be removed to third countries it's it's it's pretty rare the problem is the problem

the issue is is some of the countries for example like Honduras had a cap of how many people they would take and the cap was like immediately met and the thing is is that these is attorneys are filing these road motions in every case about third country removal and it's like they don't even know whether it's an actual possibility but what that does is for closest to the person's ability to like get asylum in the United States that's like the whole point you said you have

had a client removed yet I am curious it seems like once that happens your professional duties are over but that that seems almost bizarre to me I mean I don't know I guess I just the experience of landing in Uganda as you know a Latin American for example and just no longer having legal representation no longer having employment no longer having anything I just have trouble like wrapping my head around it so I'm hoping you can you can help me understand it but I don't know

if there is anything to understand other than it is her if it's her if it's it sounds and they are

“kind of left on their own yeah they left on their own I think they're family member's”

end up purchasing plane tickets for them to go somewhere else right closer to their country of origin I mean like yeah it's weeping you can afford exactly it's just like the burden is put back on and but it's also like the number they they just saw an article somewhere about the

like hundreds of thousands of dollars that have been spent per person to do these third country

removals went at the end they ultimately end up in their home country anyways and this is just all this fucking weird show and like you said a way to discourage people from seeking the benefits that they have a right to seek under the law right that makes sense yeah it's another scare tactic another thing to to cow you into self deportation essentially right the whole thing is like a show of cruelty like it's a cruelty theater right like every step of the process so

stuff you know like I've seen reports investigative reporting that like has uncovered that you know an isaternity in such and such court or whatever is like a member of a white supremacist organization that isaternies you know on social media and in their politics not only a spouse you know of course undying love and support for president Trump but but you know like actually violently racist ideology so like what is the average isaternity like like who are these freaks

there's a lot of focus right now unlike ice agents ice officers like we see we're seeing right

like people being attacked people being kidnapped that is who is who is doing that part but the next step is when people go to immigration court it's ice attorneys who should also be seen as a law enforcement arm right who should also be seen as um kidnappers and and deporters right making all these decisions on cases and and you know we should see that there is an attorney illegal machine that is also doing the work that picks up the work of ice officers and

and carries that forward who are these guys they do what they're told they don't ask questions they don't push back everything that they file is template whether just changing out people's names and someone's drafting them and they just file them in every case and so I I wonder like how how much do they stop and think about like the person behind the motion the person they're filing the motion against because it almost seems like they have blinders on they have to right

I mean like how can you do that job and like do I think they're all racist macophreaks I'd probably not looks statistically right come on there's gotta be right I think then how do you fucking do that job then if you're not right if you don't actually believe in what you're

“doing I think the only way you don't if I think you just turn yourself off and you just do it”

and you're just a job and I'm just doing what they're telling me to do which I feel like

has always been a really good defense like when atrocities are being committed is just saying like

what I was just doing what I was told I think that goes down really well in history to what you're saying it's like you can see how easy the rationalizations are right like oh somebody else can just file this template and switch out the names so why shouldn't it be me yeah this is like I paid well I do my medial tasks that are like very replaceable and I think changes and I also think the switch from in person to video conferencing for immigration hearings so now they don't even

have to like be in the room when you're hearing the kid in the galley or what audience crying while their dad gets deported like they don't have to see that anymore they don't have to like hear it anymore they're just on their video with their fucking thing blurred out and that's it

“and so I think that's like one way that they wake up every day I have no idea I have a”

couple more questions that are on my mind from what you're saying like maybe taking a step back from the daily grind of this practice and like what's happening to people what do you think there is to be done what can lawyers like realistically do for undocumented people or yeah folks who are at risk and do you see like a group of attorneys or certain organizations who are like taking on the brunt of the work I don't know where we would be without our federal

litigators honestly right now it is one of the only pieces of defense that we have against some of these policies is when there's federal litigation yeah which is like I'm filing a federal habeas petition exactly or or challenging the entire concept of third-country removals those kinds of things and having these organizations is like the ACLU of the Northwest Americans Rights Project or some of the organizations the National Immigration Project that

files these national lawsuits challenging the underlying policies which like will finally give us

kind of a break the problem is is that things are changing so quickly that I can't just look

at the regulations anymore or the immigration and nationality act the actual law the code and then look at the regulations anymore because everything is changing so quickly that there's always a new memo about a different interpretation and then that memo has been enjoyed and then the injunction has been lifted and try just trying to figure out what the fuck is the state of the law today is really challenging especially like yeah when you're trying to explain like really

complicated concepts to someone who's in crisis and having them make a decision huge decisions about their life and their family and I'm telling them like this is what it is today

“but honestly tomorrow it could change and that makes it really really difficult and so like”

these lawyers that are challenging the underlying policies have been like indispensable I also think I wish more lawyers weren't so scared of trying new things it most immigration attorneys now

a federal habeas position for habeas corpus that's that's something that was done before it was I think I had done a few over the course of my career but now it's like we're filing them

constantly because it's the only way we're getting people released and that first one you are

fucking scared it because I actually don't do I know what I'm doing please God do not call me for a hearing because I don't even know it's my soup jacket and pants match they're working but I can't tell in the light like please don't make me fucking go and do this right and it's terrifying but

“you have to do it because there's like no other way and I think the immigration bar has really”

stepped up on that front immigration court's kind of like the joke court real kangaroo court and people think it's like the federal court's like a big kids court and we're having to go to a big kid's court now and it's scary but it's something you can do is like we went to law school

science we just you know we can figure it out and support each other and ask for help yeah and

and it's like people have been in the immigration bar have been really willing to we help each other out we share motions we share a habeas petition templates we share decisions that we've gotten on other cases that might be similar to the fact pattern that we have because like really it's the only way that we're going to be able to do something meaningful as if we do it collectively on a united front yeah it's worth noting like habeas isn't just you know big boy

big kids court it's also it's really big kids court because habeas is like kind of a nightmare to navigate and the burdens are very high it's super complicated it's super complicated it's super we've talked about it on the podcast but it's not it's it's not like oh once you get there it's we say like you know it's it is it is much harder than you know winning a regular case in federal court to my understanding yeah it really speaks to the role of an attorney and representing

people who are facing this onslaught where the victims of all of these policy changes who are you know the main targets of this kind of like authoritarianism, this fascism, their racism, all of it right and it speaks to how your role as an attorney changes and you're really your call you you might be called to do something that is different from what you ever thought you were going to be working on in your career right exactly it's like getting out of your comfort zone

yeah and it's really scary and I think god attorneys they're the worst they just like always

want to feel right you never want to feel like you don't know what you're doing but unfortunately

“it's like that's not the world that we live in right now and so you have to be brave and just”

put on your matching suit and do it and just do it and I think that's also but I mean because on the immigration attorney I get calls from like randos all the time like my aunt who's like co-workers brother just got detained or like and other attorney friends who's yeah somebody they know tendentially is like in an immigration process and is detained and I'm like you can do this as an attorney like I will help you help them because like I can't we can't

I can't do it all on my own like we need we need help so many out there wants to like bug and file some previous positions like me up because it's such a Stephanie she's got work for you to do there's a lot out there there's a lot of people yeah no this is this is actually really

“important like setting aside we haven't even mentioned right like the the defunding of”

immigration non-profits right which uh uh uh uh by the federal government which has also been like a massive a massive hit to the practice of immigration law because a lot of these non-profits are not getting the same funding anymore um and have to lay off staff right they are dog paddling in the ocean right now yeah local direct service providers are dog paddling in an ocean and before these huge funding cuts we really leaned on the non-profits to kind of give us the lay of the land because

they were in the detention center day in day out do you know your rights presentations meeting with people individually they were able to recognize patterns that somebody who's just an individual immigration attorney might not pick up right away um I know when I worked out a non-profit and did know your rights presentations and detention centers it was a way to kind of get a broader picture of how the machine was working yeah and what we needed to do yeah who's the population

the government like treating their cases right and you get a holistic picture exactly and then like once you have that you can kind of game plan right and figure out like next steps but because those non-profits are no longer in the detention facility we're all just scrambling to try to figure out what the fuck's happening I just want to emphasize so hard what Stephanie said some takeaways that like are already kind of buzzing in my brain the collective power right if in this context

the immigration non-profits are being defunded and people are are are dog paddling in in the ocean

right it is only by sort of reorganizing and reconstituting some sort of like powerful immigration

bar that like resources get shared and again like that holistic picture gets gets to be built and shared across immigration practitioners right and I want to emphasize also and make sure that if you're in attorney that you heard what Stephanie said which is that any attorney if you've gone to law school you got that JD you passed the bar right you can file a habeas petition and thousands and thousands of people need habeas petitions filed for them right now right now so there are ways to get

connected right there are ways to opt into some of this work that's badly badly badly needed

“if you're listening to this and you're not in attorney still you should be thinking”

that in these times you need to be getting out of your comfort zone and learning new things and pushing yourself doing what's necessary right like all of us need to be willing to do what's necessary even if it's not something we've done before yeah right this that's the lesson in manyapolis right that's the lesson for immigration attorneys that's the lesson we all need to be taking is no matter what you do and where you are and what

your expertise is just doing what you've always done it's not enough right now yeah we can't do

business as usual yeah it's just not gonna cut it and there is nothing like checking your email and getting an order from the federal court ordering immediate release of somebody it's looking off and then you get to call their family and it's it's just there's nothing fucking like it it's nothing like it yeah there's nothing like it and it's like it's possible

“I think people think my job is just all doom and gloom all the time but it's not we have like real”

wins and when somebody finally takes their naturalization oath there's citizenship oath it's huge and you can see the ramifications and like how it changes that person's like and then changes like the rest of their family's life it's like a really beautiful thing to like witness and I was receiving an immigration interview and the officer first of all they have these signs in their offices like you don't have to be crazy to work here we'll train you

we're in there and this is like a kid who's been in the United States and see he was two years old he's been here forever and he's we're at his green card interview was a pretty straightforward case officer said y'all though I get that's that's pretty much it

“we're gonna go ahead I'll go ahead and prove your case you should get your green card in about”

two weeks and he like broke down just sobbed and then the officer started crying which was kind of

I mean I always cried but crying cries I cried but then the officer started crying and was like

it just felt like recognizing kind of the humanity of what immigration is and like people's stories and like these are real people with real lives that have and the stuff has real impact and when it's good it's amazing but when it's bad it's fucking horrible yeah yeah I think that's really powerful yeah stuff I want to say one thing because I want every single one of our listeners to hear this before we wrap up I think you Stephanie I have seen you do amazing things in so many

people's lives I think you are an incredible model of an attorney and what an attorney can do I have seen Stephanie testify as an expert in cases that had nothing to do with her clients but would help somebody else would help another client I have seen Stephanie do trainings for one person one attorney one non attorney and for room falls dozens of people I have seen Stephanie put together and file humanitarian parole applications for people in Gaza the beginning of the genocide

for so long for so many people I have seen you do such amazing things and I don't know that you

“ever knew that you were an art mentor to me but I want you to know and I love you so much and I”

think you're amazing and so many lawyers can learn so much from you and your career my mom thought I was gonna be on the Supreme Court like when you were young like when you were new I was like I'm the only lawyer in my family I'm looking elementary school teachers and when I graduated she was like

what if you were in the Supreme Court yeah I'm almost I'm almost doing something so much better

almost there thanks for being on stuff yeah thanks for having me yeah thank you so much Michael I'm so glad we talked to these two people it like really reminds me of the great power of a lawyer and what lawyers collectively also can can do together I feel like it was like a good good reminder about the importance of people who are out here doing good work and look it's not all

“you know happy news and there are a lot of scary things on the horizon but I think the take away”

from this episode has to be that you can get wins and it has to be that even when you can't get wins you can slow the losses you can slow the machine yeah you can delay harm you know they say justice delayed is justice denied well injustice delayed is also injustice denied right you delay it long enough you might prevent it entirely so slowing things down stopping things altogether right like every time a warehouse gets rejected that's you know that much longer until ice can start detaining

“thousands of more people yeah every win on an individual case is real people getting to go home to their”

families right like there's a lot of good still to be done and there's a lot of good all of us can do I everyone feel hopeful about that yeah me too for the next five minutes yeah until I log on again and read the news yeah right exactly so thank you again so much to Matt and Stephanie for joining us we will be back next week unfortunately unfortunately with Peter it'll be a regular case episode but also want to say this episode was was different than our normal format this episode

feels a lot more like one of our premium subscriber only episodes on patreon so if you did like this episode and you like to hear us talking about things that aren't a straight up supreme court case then definitely check out patreon.com/54 pod 54 pod all spelled out to subscribe and get all our premium episodes ad free episodes and lots of other good stuff follow us on social media at 54 pod

basically everywhere and we'll see you next week bye everybody five to four is presented by

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