Immigration Law in 2026: Fighting the Cruelty Machine

Hey, everyone. This is Leon from Prologue Projects. On this week's episode of 5 to 4, Rhiannon 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 wave of immigration lawyers. Minneapolis, just like setting the standard for how we resist and how we respond to the crowd. Our second guest practices in Texas, where 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 1 and Trump 2 definitely feel different. Trump 1, 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 through lines connecting these interviews is that while it's easy to read the news and feel demoralized by the cruel strategies being used to speed up and dramatically increase deportations, there is, in fact, reason for hope. If 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 how it changes that person's life and then changes the rest of their family's life. This is 5 to 4, a podcast about how much the Supreme Court and Trump's immigration policy suck. Welcome to 5 to 4, where we dissect and analyze the Supreme Court cases that have stolen our civil liberties. like two podcast hosts stealing the other host's favorite bit that's right we're here we're here michael and rihanna together just us two 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 yeah and him going you know stuff like look at this you losers as if we eyeball emojis like the dude has never seen a sunset right and it's like yeah peter it's nice to be outside yeah yeah yeah beaches are nice the outdoors are nice right sets beautiful beautiful try it sometimes you podcast fucking 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, ongoing 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, you know, who knows what sort of insensitive comment he would have made. Right. Something about a sarcastic, condescending joke. Yeah. Michael and I could finally just be our earnest selves. 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 a 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. Hey, what's up, 5-4? First time, long time. This is great. Happy to be on here. Hey, Matt. Thanks for being here. I'm not super fluent in immigration law, 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 who gets detained, where they get detained, for how long. Is my impression right or wrong, and how has this evolved from past practices? Yeah, I mean, way back in the beginning, there was a presumption against detention, 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. You know, I've been doing this since the second Bush administration, and that's been coming the whole time. But, you know, the case you mentioned, which I can never pronounce, I think it's Zadweiss from 2001. Yeah, Zadweiss. Yeah, they're coming for it. They're definitely gunning for this one because, you know, you've heard a focus over the past year, especially on the people whose countries won't take them back. And I am very concerned when we look at it. I'm going to give you a bunch of good news today. I honestly 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 the Supreme Court to really fuck it up if they get it. So for example, if you've got somebody from Venezuela, from Cuba, from Cambodia and Vietnam have not been taking one of their citizens back for different political reasons, these people are essentially, the Supreme Court has 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 opens out a bias 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 have to let them out on an ankle bracelet, basically, or some kind of check-in schedule. Yeah. And my nightmare right now, just since we're starting right off with 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 in North of me in New Hampshire. About 26 of these, 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 detain 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 Zad of IAS, and essentially end up with indefinite detention, then I don't know how you don't actually call those concentration camps. Is there any, Matt, 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 Khalil, who was, you know, the green card holder, the 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. So like, 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 ICE isn't constrained by that. So I mean, there's no speedy trial rights, right? Because you're not talking about criminal detention. There's no constitutional rights whatsoever. Just to remind everybody, I know you guys know, but administrative proceedings are administrative proceedings, right? And so it's only a civil offense. The Supreme Court has 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 INA, they can hold you until 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 bond. We'll talk a little bit about detention, I'm sure, in a minute here. But there is no constraint on that part of it. Obviously, The jet of bias is about people with final orders. But when you're going through the process, appeals to the Board of Immigration Appeals, although BIA is trying to eliminate its ability to even hear appeals, we'll talk about that, but it's a long process, even in custody, another five or six months. And of course, they're putting 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 those appeal rights, even if they have good cases, even from exercising their basic rights to present an asylum 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 in Oakdale and other places, 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. That 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 and holding. 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, so is, is the tension changing? How, and if so, how, how is it, how is it different? Yeah. Well, 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 and all. And, you know, I know that you all agree with me that we don't want to play the good immigrant, 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 all knew he 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 seeing kind of random enforcement in a way that we've never really seen before because they didn't have the capacity. And that's my concern, as I was saying before, when we get these warehouses and I don't know if you have seen the blueprints for these warehouses that just came out. These are, it's bad. It's horrific. Yeah. I mean, it reminds me of the drawings I've seen of slave ships, frankly. I mean, 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 lanes worth of cars. That's how it works. And there's a lot of, it's financial incentive to throw everybody in there. So that is really, it's that plus the attempts. And fortunately, these have now finally, after many, many months, it looks like it's failing. But Trump administration tried to rewrite immigration law, 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. I don't want to get into the details, but essentially saying somebody that's been here for 20 years with two kids and owns 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 year is that you had all these people where we have to run to federal court before they can even get a bond hearing. And I knew that was wrong. We all knew that was wrong. Some of the ICE attorneys at private admit 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 order that vacated the BIA decision that was upholding this. So piece by piece, you know, this is how we went. It is happening. These winds are happening. Yeah. I just want to mention too, you know, Matt, and you do a great job of this as well. It's like, we're not just talking about high up, you know, policy, but the cruelty of the thing that the experience of individuals, families, communities. And in this massive spike, this massive expansion of ICE detention, the conditions also in ICE detention are just absolutely deplorable. Listeners will remember that I interviewed two attorneys for Laqa Khordia, who's a Palestinian woman currently still in ICE detention in North Texas. She's been there for something like 10 months, despite two judges saying that she could be released on bond. 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, there are 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 this acceptance all of a sudden that basically America has chosen ethnic cleansing. And so a bunch of Democrats signed on to some really heinous immigration legislation with Lake and Riley. Can you tell us a bit about that law? Like, what does it do and how how has that contributed to shaping the last year or so? Yeah, no, it's 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 and it's doubly bad. It's not just the first part of the 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 that these things always do. But the really shocking thing about it was because the man who killed Blake and Riley, which of course was a terrible murder, but he was convicted for her murder, but he'd previously had a shoplifting conviction. And so these idiots actually thought that, or at least were allowing themselves to make the argument, that if we'd only caught the guy and deported him over the shoplifting, he never would have committed the murder. It's a 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 is what mandatory detention is required. They expanded it to anybody who's ever been charged or arrested for a theft offense. And that's still being litigated, obviously, but that's a huge constitutional issue, obviously. and it means you're opening the door for small town racist police chiefs to just put out the order to just charge anybody you can with theft and they're going to get held and deported. 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 who'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 with a few cases where people that would have gotten bond would have been a return to their families, been able to do their cases. And now they have to do the cases in custody, which is much harder and also means to being held in places like New Mexico, Louisiana, Texas, where they're not going to get the same kind of shot they'd get up here. We're playing an easy mode in Boston, frankly. 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 trying 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 possibilities for 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 seats finally start to trickle up under the next administration someday, that maybe this will be blocked or reversed. But I mean, this is bad. It never should have been allowed to 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 our opinions about Democrats here. I just really, this is something that should be held against Democrats forever. I mean, this is really bad. And they left it on Trump's desk the week of the sworn in. It was just a gift-wrapped package for him, 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. Yep. And then we'll give you the budget you want, too, to do it. But I mean, this is even before they had the budget, right? And this is, 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, Rhiannon, what you just said about that woman in custody. Because I have a similar story about, just at a human level, because it is so important to tell these stories. I had a client a few months ago who 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. ICE 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 a band-aid, basically. And that actually allowed us to speed through the habeas petition even faster. And the judges have no patience for what ICE is doing at detention in Massachusetts right now. So we're getting habeas approved pretty quickly. but the judge specifically mentioned the issue with his fingers and how inhumane that was. 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's 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 mass internment machine. Is that fair to say? Yeah, I know. There's a reason that GeoGroup and the other one, I'm trying to remember right now, the two main private providers of prisons in America, their stocks went up 100% when Trump was elected. 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 is already spending more I'm sure you know, than all other federal law enforcement combined for almost all of my career. And now, you know, they've got this $75 billion slush fund to play with it that can keep them going through shutdowns. They've got this detention mentality. They no longer have the wind to their back so much with this legal approach that they were taking, but they're going to find some other way to keep doing it. So I'm sure you guys remember at the RNC, they were handing out signs so everybody could hold up their big mass deportation now signs. Stephen Miller was giving fascist speeches in front of mass deportation now slogans 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 ICE has been purchasing hundreds of millions of dollars worth of military-grade weapons as well, which is a little foreboding. It is. I would say. Yeah. Seen 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 wins, especially at least with individuals. I'm thinking about Ramesa Ozturk, you know, Mohzen Mahdawi, Mahmoud Khalil, Kilmar Abrego Garcia, others. You know, can you tell us about some wins 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 around this time, right? End of February when we're seeing all the shit happening at once, right? And just like, they're just flooding the zone with everything they could think of to do. And, you know, some of it was just done really poorly. And just like with travel, you know, 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 every one of those people is free and living in the U.S. still. And, you know, Ozturk and Madawi just had their cases terminated. And in Madawi's case, on really stupid technical reasons, not stupid, I mean, it's important, but stupid in the sense the government really could have actually not had that happen. But the foreign policy grounds that they're trying to deport both of them and Khalil on are just not working so far. And we'll see. Obviously, it's going to have to go to the Supreme Court. And not as optimistic about that. But I mean, unfortunately, you know, those grounds are what they are. And the Board of Immigration Appeals has found that essentially you just need a letter from Marco Rubio saying that the Secretary of State thinks these people are a problem. But there 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 nationwide That saying we can be deporting people over that kind of thing And you know over and over again like I said with the Brigho Garcia permanent injunction against taking him back in because ICE just couldn get itself together That criminal case is falling apart. You know, they were threatening to send people to Guantanamo Bay. It turns out that's way too expensive and impractical. There's barely anybody there at this point. You know, there are worries about CICOT. Certainly one person is too many to send a CICOT. But, you know, that was the Salvadoran prison. Obviously, it was taking a couple hundred people. none of them except the people who are actually Salvadoran are still there, and it's very hard to get them back. And Brigho Garcia's back with his family, and just that whole case fell apart. Everything they've been trying to do on that. The detention stuff I was talking about with Jajara Hurtado, the Board of Immigration Appeals case that justified this ridiculous read of arriving aliens, right? That was overruled, 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 deployment stopped. Minneapolis, just like setting the standard for how we resist and how we respond on the ground. I was there a few weeks ago, just absolutely inspired by everybody I met and talked to. I 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 stopped by now. And that's something anybody can do if you're hearing about a potential deal because 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 obviously, popular opinion. You've got polling now. I never thought I'd see this kind of polling. The majority of Americans now are turning on ice after the murders of two US citizens in a month. Haitian TPS was extended not just for the first time, but the second time for the same reason. It was extended during the first Trump term, the temporary protected status, because Trump would have 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. They made the same mistakes again. Once again, the same federal court in San Francisco found that they can't cut off funding to sanctuary cities on the same grounds. An enemies act was blocked. That may be coming up again, but 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 the Supreme Court at this point, but we'll see how that goes. And generally speaking, the Department of Justice is falling apart. They're just being pushed to the limits by all these hate cases. Sorry, I'm just going through the laundry list here. But in terms of our office and our cases. We've been seeing all kinds of wins in ways that, you know, sometimes beyond what we're used to. As I said, pretty much, and in fact, every hape case, every habeas that we filed is one. That's remarkable. I'm not going to say it's us. The judges are basically just like, this is the 10th case like this, DOJ, that you're trying to defend. Why are you still doing this? You know, we're not even going to have a hearing on 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. Sure. Yeah, of course. Yeah, I just want to remind people the wins and the fact that all of the stuff that we were 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. Plenty of other 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 are living in the best possible times. Far from it. Of course. But I also think that we are in a 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 Guantanamo Bay. I was extremely frightened by CCO. And, you know, those have sort of resolved, you know, in administration losses. Another thing I was extremely frightened by was the concentration camp out in the Everglades in Dade Collier County in South Florida, because there were plans to prop up many more of them. And they put that up in just a few days. And that, of course, led to very substandard 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 that was at least stalling that a bit but yeah I think you take the winds where you can get them I think this time last year, they were hoping to have Fort Bliss holding 30,000 detainees by now, and that hasn't happened either. It's still May at some point, but- Still too many people in there, but yeah, no, it's nothing like what they want. Of course, yeah, yeah. But the expansion hasn't happened the way they want it to. So you slow down where you can, you take your wins where you can, and it's important to celebrate those wins. It's important to remind yourself that sometimes losing slowly is a win. And along the way, you can have real wins, not just losing slowly, right? But sometimes you have actual wins. And then maybe there's a chance 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 so many fresh new reinforcements coming in. We 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 crop of lawyers that are coming from immigrant communities, serving their communities that are excited to get out there. Great energy. You know, people that grew up speaking languages that are so essential for the communities. So that's been really exciting to see. And honestly, we can thank the first Trump administration for a huge new wave of immigration lawyers. and I'm sure a massive new second wave because we are going to need them the way this is scaling up. And immigration law is one of those fields where there's more than enough work, there's more than enough clients for private and nonprofit alone. Certainly the nonprofits have more than they need. So we're all very friendly. It's a great bar. 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 wouldn't do anything else at this point. But it is probably, it's grueling and it's about as technically difficult as it can get sometimes. And 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 that really does wear on you. Back when I went to law school, I hope they're doing this better now, but they weren't teaching us about vicarious trauma, about how to take care of your own mental health, but I don't do any of that. And I feel like we've come a long way. I've certainly had to learn the hard way during the first Trump term about all that. But yeah, no, just in terms of where I'm at and 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 The marathon, not 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 in 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 have gotten a look at what this can look like. and they've seen it in Minneapolis, they've seen it in Chicago, they've seen it in LA, they've seen how effective local resistance can be. And I made a friend in Minneapolis who's telling me that she's never been more proud of her kids than when they went the next day, maybe the day after, to the Renegade Memorial. And I visited both of those while I was there. And her kids just started yelling, fuck, guys. Her 14, 15-year-old kids. She said that was 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 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 more than 10 years now. And I fully expected that people are going to have to see it at its worst, and we're nowhere near the worst before anything's going to change. But 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, which is coming, we have a lot of people who are very motivated to do something about it. I think we can actually abolish ICE. I think that can actually happen and not just as some kind of reform effort or retraining. You know, not tomorrow, but I think we're getting there to 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. You're mouth to God's ears or the president's ears or whatever the fuck, because, yeah, I mean, 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 Court and what chances of anything good happening there? So, yeah, just to answer that last question, I think I'd bring it back to Zadavayas that we started with, with the possibility of extended indefinite detention. That's really something to watch because I know they're going to try to get one of those cases up. But I know there's been some back and forth among those. I have not taken the birthright citizenship case particularly seriously. Certainly Alito and Thomas are going to take it seriously. I still, I'm willing to put money on that one. I don't usually bet on Supreme Court cases. Okay. Yeah. At least $50. I'd put at least $50. Okay. Okay. Right, right, right. He said he's not a corporate lawyer, folks. That's my max. I'm not even a better. But yeah, no, it's it just doesn't. And again, they've done enough damage with the injunctions, right, with the permanent injunction issue, just with CASA alone already. I think that was the damage they really wanted to do. But yeah, no, Haitian TPS, right? Watching the temporary protected status for 350,000 people who are just trying to live and work here and not have to return to some of the worst conditions in the Western Hemisphere that, again, are very much of our creating. We're talking about just Again, a program that was obviously terminated for racial reasons or just straight up racism, like even beyond the usual built in, baked in white supremacy 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. But I'm very concerned about what I mentioned before, but the Board of Immigration Appeals, I don't know if this is coming up for you, but the 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 job anymore. And they've issued a draft rule that's under review now, and I'm sure will be in 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 cert. They're going to have to vote. And 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 a removal order to the board, you get an automatic stay, and that potentially can be for years, an automatic stay 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 up reporting right now. Something much more practical that And 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 have to be litigated because a new draft rule for that is immediately going to be taken up, I hope. I know that litigation is 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 obviously doesn't make any sense. so those kinds of practical things you know let's keep a watch obviously on the way they're trying to use other federal agencies and the National Guard and everybody else to do this on whatever other tricks they're going to try to pull for detention now that Yohari Hurtado seems to be at least for the moment suspended we'll see obviously that's going to have to go to the Supreme Court too about the arriving alien issue and what we can do about holding people just because they came off the border holding them indefinitely you know just all those detention issues all those ways they're going to try to keep people in and build the machine those are all things to watch but And also, you know, they're bringing back, so much of this is exactly what we knew was going to happen, just recycling bad Trump one stuff so that they ended asylum protections for survivors of domestic violence and for people being persecuted based on family membership, right? So that's all going to be taken up again, I'm sure. So it is almost impossible to watch every aspect of just immigration litigation alone. And I'm only even really talking about the deportation and family visa side of things, commigration, which is what I work on. I barely keep track of what's going on with employment visas. There's a whole other world of stuff happening there. But this is obviously the most important on the humane level here is detention. So that's really what we've got to watch. 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 and 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 in every way they can be. It's a fight worth having. These fights are working. And they see us and they see what we're doing. ICE is 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's so much more fighting to do. But I'm also really excited about the comrades we have and the many more people who are joining us in this. So, you know, this is, I don't know, 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. 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, this is what we're here for. Like we're not walking away now. Yeah. We make a similar joke on the podcast all the time that the worse it gets for the country, the better it gets for the podcast. Yeah. There's a lot more to talk about. I know. Yeah. Yeah. No, I didn't. 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 reelected 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 it's really 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 our listeners know where to find you. Yeah, I'm Matt Cameron on Blue Sky. and you can find opening arguments anywhere you get podcasts and we're just a general interest law show. We're not really for lawyers and hope you join us sometime. 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 Kewel and specifically the Black Edition Ready to Drink Meal Replacement. It has 35 grams of protein. It has 7 grams of fiber, 27 essential vitamins and minerals. It doesn't have artificial sweeteners, colors, flavors. It's gluten-free if that's your thing. It's under $5 per meal. I have mostly been drinking the peanut butter chocolate flavor. Y'all know so many like protein shakes and products like this are really kind of not pleasant to drink. I don't have that worry with Huel, I have to say. That's Huel, H-U-E-L. They've got a limited time offer going right now. If you get Huel today, you will get 15% off online with the code 54. That's 54, all spelled out, of course, Huel.com slash 54, H-U-E-L.com slash spell out 54. That's for new customers only. And thank you to Huel for partnering and supporting our show. all right i am thrilled we are thrilled to have on the podcast a 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 in immigration courts and what her clients are going through so stephanie thank you so much for being on 5-4. 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 1 and then the Biden administration and now Trump 2. I'm interested, though, in like the changes to the practice or yeah, the changes in immigration law between these administrations. Yeah, Trump 1 and Trump 2 definitely feel different. Trump won was, 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. 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 who the fuck's the genius over there but well stephanie you and i have talked about one stephen miller right one stephen miller is running things in a very particular way like steph i wonder i i remember like i think a couple weeks ago you told me like it just feels like Stephen Miller, whoever it is, right, is saying the cruelest 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 that's I think has been very different from Trump 1 and Trump 2 is kind of how methodical it's been. and kind of these areas that are like very niche, really specific, very nuanced in 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. And they're doing it. It just complicates everything in a way that you think like this is nothing. Like we're going to just start pulling people over and deporting people. No, they're going after all kinds of tiny little nitpicky things that are just making practicing immigration law a real fucking nightmare. Yeah. What about the difference if you have any, maybe these are like, maybe it's more different or maybe it's not so different. But the difference between the Biden administration and Trump, too. Like, we know, right, that like the Obama administration deported more people than any president before him. And since then, every single president since then, including Biden during the Biden administration, deported more people than the president before. Yeah. It's like the trajectory I think of this country right now is it's the numbers game. 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 gobbled them up like the starving rats that we are in immigration. Like it was fucking they threw crumbs and we were so excited about the fucking crumbs. Like what? What is an example of a crumb? Rhiannon, 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 your 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. Right. And they didn't. And I get that, like, you know, Congress is 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 rulemaking 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 sense passing rules and regulations and they just didn They just didn't. They put out some fucking memo that could easily be revoked under Trump 2.0. That's like if you look at how many memos were rescinded under Trump 2.0 in the first two weeks because it was so easy to do. It was like nothing. There were like nothing memos. 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 in 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 have been sitting around loaded guns waiting to be fired or maybe even unloaded guns that were being loaded by Democratic presidents, right? All this machinery was there. All these ICE agents have served under Democratic and Republican presidents. Tom Homan, who's maybe second only to Stephen Miller in just inherent evilness, being ontologically evil, 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, lo and behold, now it's being turned on other people. And we're so shocked. Immigration was like the sleeper cell. Like it was always there. Yeah. Fascism sleeper. So, 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 aspirations to dive in immigration law, now is the time. It is the Wild West. For example, yesterday I met with a gentleman from Colombia and he had a paper that he got in the mail and he's like, I don't understand what this says. It's in English. And I was like, oh, you filed for asylum? Yes. Yeah. I filed 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 pretty high likelihood that you will be detained. and said, well, what if I don't go to the ICE office? What happens with my asylum claim? Well, you don't have one anymore. And so it's like explaining to people how you're just up against the wall. You're rocking a hard place. You're damned if you do. You're 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 do i'm like i have no fucking idea what i would do he asked me he was like would you go i I was like, probably not. But then what? You're just like fucking living here within like expedited removal order, just a walking target forever. Like it just when you try, you try 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 haven't seen stuff like this before, right? Not under. This is 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, like I said, you're damned if you do and you're damned if you don't because 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 a fucking 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 and 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 scammed. 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 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. 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 sows seeds of fear in the entire community. 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 calling, and we got a call yesterday, about a lady who was driving to church. I didn't even know people still go to church, but they do. Driving to church with her son, adult son, and their windows were too dark. Allegedly. And they got pulled over by a state trooper. And the 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 like 25 years. It's like never been arrested. No criminal 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, 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 taking 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. Take something from immigration court to federal court. And something that this highlights is unlike criminal law, you are not entitled to have an attorney appointed to you. We've talked on the podcast before about the many shocking differences between criminal law and immigration law in terms of what constitutional rights apply to the individual in the criminal case, like a criminal defendant. it, right? But in the immigration case, an 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 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 people in immigration court. So like, Like, yeah, talk about that a little bit. Like, can you shed some light on like what the difference is? Yeah, 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 in 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 counsel 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 paid 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 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 rates 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 as people imagine them, right? It's not a... No, they're like overwhelmingly former ICE attorneys. Or my favorite judge who was just like an insurance attorney for like decades and then fucking dove right into the immigration world. Yeah. Just like an insurance attorney for decades, but also probably a MAGA freak, right? 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 They don't have to be confirmed by the Senate or any of that stuff. Yeah. It's 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 on the law. Yeah. And I mean, and those judges who aren't toeing 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, quote unquote, work with the other side, right? Like if you're a criminal defense attorney, you are in, you know, a big part of cases is negotiating with 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. Fucking hard. I mean like sure I'm sure they're nice people on both sides 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 none of that shit and you can email a nice attorney 20 times and they will not fucking respond. And I remember like a couple of weeks ago when that AUSA was like, the system sucks, the job sucks. And she was talking about all the habeas cases. And there was like a thing that didn't quite make anyone. 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. This is how it is. This is Stephanie's talking about an immigration case that had gone into federal court. So it's the AUSA, it's 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 reprimanding the AUSA being 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, et cetera. And yeah, the thing that kind of made waves on social media was she was like, judge, I wish you would hold me in 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 ICE attorneys. Right. Because she has to work with ICE attorneys and they are not even responsive to their side, to their cooperating, you know, federal half there. Yeah. Yeah. Which I'm not going to lie. It made me feel a little bit better, slightly better. It's not personal. I am not personal. It's not against you. Exactly. It's not against me. They're dickheads to everyone. Yeah. But 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 ICE attorneys coming in. We don't have anyone's contact information. They have this general email box called the duty attorney email. You send an email to the duty attorney saying like, hi, my client's actually a citizen. And you get an auto response back. And the auto response is like, we 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. Gorgeous. And like the next line, you're like, who the fuck proofread this? Like, what are y'all doing? But this is like the world we live in. But this has always been the case. This is not under the Trump administration. This has always been the case with having the thing that you, like you said, Rhiannon, like in criminal law, where you negotiate and you talk and you kind of try and resolve issues before a hearing just as non-existent in the immigration world. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Right. Like the criminal system, at least ostensibly, is about finding the truth. Oh, that's cute. That's funny. Supposedly. Supposedly. 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 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 get there are judges in the same court where one judge in courtroom a has an 85 percent asylum grant rate and the judge next door in courtroom b has an 85 percent denial rate and it's the fucking luck of the draw of which one you get um 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 a fucking crapshoot. 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. Throwing that sweet, sweet federal pension. Right. I want to talk a little bit about this practice of, I think they're called third country deportations where, you know, someone from... Honduras. Honduras, yeah, is deported to somewhere in 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? Are they taken into detention or are they just let out and to just walk around? Like, how's it work? 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 they're in detention. I'm sitting there, I'm listening to all the attorneys go before me. and this is a judge an immigration judge who's been an immigration judge through a number of administrations like he's not new he's he's done this and the attorney says um your honor we were recently served with um third country removal and a motion for third country removal my client's from cuba the government is trying to remove him to uganda and the judge is oh, yep, I saw that. I saw them file that. Do you need time to reply? And the attorney's like, yeah, I think 10 days. We could do a 10-day reset. They're just like, government, do you have any objection? No, 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 should be deported to Uganda. And I'm just sitting there like, can we all just take a break? Right. 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. Where 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 pretty rare. The problem is the problem. The issue 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 that these ICE attorneys are filing these rote 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 forecloses the person's ability to like get asylum in the united states that's like the whole point you said you haven had a client uh removed yet i am curious um it seems like once that happens your professional duties are over but that seems almost bizarre to me I mean I don know I guess the experience of landing in Uganda as a Latin American for example and just no longer having legal representation no longer having employment no longer having anything I just have trouble wrapping my head around it So I'm hoping you can help me understand it, but I don't know if there is anything to understand other than it is as horrific as it sounds, and they are kind of left on their own. Yeah, they're left on their own, and I think their family members end up purchasing plane tickets for them to go somewhere else, right? Closer to their country of origin. I mean, like... Yeah, assuming you can afford a... Exactly. It's like the burden is put back on. But it's also like the number, I just saw an article somewhere about the hundreds of thousands of dollars that have been spent per person to do these third country removals when 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 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 Steph, you know, like I've seen reports, investigative reporting that like has uncovered that, you know, an ICE attorney in such and such court or whatever is like a member of a white supremacist organization. categorization, that ICE attorneys, you know, on social media and in their politics, not only espouse, you know, of course, undying love and support for President Trump, but, you know, like actually violently racist ideology. So like, what is the average ICE attorney like? Like, who are these freaks? And I think like I'm bringing this up and wanting to hear your perspective on it because like, there's a lot of focus right now on like ICE agents, ICE officers, like we're seeing, right? Like people being attacked, people being kidnapped. That 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 kidnappers and deporters, right? Making all these decisions on cases. And, you know, we should see that there is an attorney, a legal machine that is also doing the work that picks up the work of ICE officers 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 a template where they're just changing out people's names. And someone's drafting them and they just file them in every case. and so i i i wonder like how how much do they stop and think about like the person behind the motion like 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 do you do that job and like right do i think they're all racist mega freaks i probably not like statistically right come on And there's got to be. Right. But 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. Right. I think the only way you don't, I think you just turn yourself off. Right. And you just do it and it's just a job. And I'm just doing what they're telling me to do. Right. Which I feel like has always been a really good defense. Like when atrocities are being committed is just saying like, well, 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, I get paid well. I'm comfortable. I do my menial tasks that are like very replaceable and nothing changes. And I also think the switch from in-person to video conferencing for immigration hearings, it's like 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 filing a federal habeas petition. Exactly. Or challenging the entire concept of third country removals. Those kinds of things. And having these organizations like the ACLU, the Northwest Immigrants Rights Project, are some of the organizations, the National Immigration Project, that file these national lawsuits challenging the underlying policies, which 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 enjoined and then the injunction has been lifted and try just trying to figure out like 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. Most immigration attorneys now have turned into federal court attorneys. The only way we're getting clients released is through a federal habeas petition for habeas corpus. That's not 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 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 if my suit, jacket and pants match. They're breath black, but I can't tell in the light. Like, please don't make me fucking go and do this. 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 is kind of like a 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 big kids court now. And it's scary, but it's something you can do is like we went to law school like it ain't fucking rocket 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 emotions we share uh 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 is if we do it collectively on a united front. Yeah, it's worth noting, like, habeas isn't just, you know, big boy, big kid's court. It's also, it's really big kid's court because habeas is, like, kind of a nightmare to navigate and the burdens are very high. Yeah, it's super complicated. It's super complicated. We talked about it on the podcast, but it's not like, oh, once you get there, it's smooth sailing. It is much harder than 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, who are the victims of all of these policy changes, who are, you know, the main targets of this kind of like authoritarianism, this fascism, the racism, all of it. Right. And it speaks to how your role as an attorney changes. And you're really you're 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. 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, I mean, because I'm an immigration attorney, I get calls from like randos all the time, like my aunt, who's like co-worker's brother just got detained. Or like other attorney friends who's, yeah, they're 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 anybody out there wants to like fucking file some habeas petitions like me up. Get in touch with 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 defunding of immigration nonprofits, right, which by the federal government, which has also been like a massive hit to the practice of immigration law because a lot of these nonprofits are not getting the same funding anymore and have to lay off staff, right? They are dog paddling in the ocean right now. Yeah. The local direct service providers are dog paddling in an ocean. And before these huge funding cuts, we really leaned on the nonprofits to kind of give us the lay of the land because they were in the detention center day in, day out, doing 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. I know when I worked at a nonprofit and did Know Your Rise presentations in detention centers, it was a way to kind of get a broader picture of how the machine was working and what we needed to do. Yeah. Who's the population in detention right now? What is being alleged, right? What is it that they need? And how is the government like treating their cases, right? And you get a holistic picture. And then like once you have that, you can kind of game plan, right? And figure out like next steps. But because those nonprofits 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 nonprofits are being defunded and people are dog paddling 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 to be built and shared across immigration practitioners, right? And I want to emphasize also and make sure that if you're an 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 in to some of this work that's badly, badly, badly needed. If you're listening to this and you're not an 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. That's that's the lesson in Minneapolis. 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 is not enough right now. Yeah, we can't do business as usual. Yeah. It's just not going to 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 fucking awesome. And then you get to call their family. And it's just there's nothing fucking like it. 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, their citizenship oath, it's huge. And you can see the ramifications and like how it changes that person's life and then changes like the rest of their family's life. It's like a really beautiful thing to like witness. I was recently in 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. Ha ha ha ha. Leave the room, buddy. Leave the fucking room. Yeah. We're in there. And this is like a kid who's been in the United States since he was two years old. He's been here forever. And he's, we're at his green card interview. It was a pretty straightforward case. The officer said, yeah, I get that. That's pretty much it. We're going to go ahead. I'll go ahead and prove your case. You should get your green card in about two weeks. And he fucking broke down, just sobbed. and then the officer started crying which was kind of i mean i always cry the client cries i cry 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 a real impact and when it's good it's amazing but when it's bad it's fucking horrible. Right. Yeah. Yeah. I think that's really powerful. Yeah. Steph, 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're 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 roomfuls, dozens of people. I have seen Stephanie put together and file humanitarian parole applications for people in Gaza at the beginning of the genocide. When that was an avenue that you can pursue, it is not anymore. And I saw Stephanie do that 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 and are a 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 going to be on the Supreme Court. Like when you were young? No, because I'm the only lawyer in my family. They're all a bunch of fucking elementary school teachers. and when I graduated she was like what if you're in the Supreme Court yeah yeah almost mom I'm almost there you're doing something so much better almost there thanks for being on Steph 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 do together. I feel like it was a good reminder about the importance of people who are out here doing good work. And look, it's not all happy news and there are a lot of scary things on the horizon, but I think the takeaway from this episode has to be that you can get wins. It has to be that Even when you can't get wins, you can slow the losses. You can slow the machine. 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? Every time a warehouse gets rejected, that's that much longer until ICE can start detaining thousands of more people. Every win, in an individual case, is real people getting to go home to their families, right? There's a lot of good still to be done, and there's a lot of good all of us can do. I, for one, 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, or fortunately with Peter. It'll be a regular case episode. But also want to say this episode 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'd like to hear us talking about things that aren't a straight up Supreme Court case, then definitely check out Patreon dot com slash five four pod five four 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 five four pod basically everywhere. And we'll see you next week. Bye, everybody.