--:-- [Theme music fades out]
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: You ever feel like you got too many acronyms to remember the meanings of, like SMDH, Patriot Act is one of them, and CRM, Customer Relationship Management System, that's a tricky one. That one MailChimp can help with. MailChimp's all-in-one marketing platform helps you know who to talk to, what to say, when to say it, and the best channel to deliver the message. That's what the CRM helps with. Learn more at MailChimp.com.
--:-- [Music transitions to a gentle background]
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Keep your doors shut, ask for a search warrant, and if they don't have it, well then don't open the door. San Francisco stands behind our sanctuary city policy. I know that many immigrants in Nashville are concerned. Immigrant New Yorkers, you have rights if you're approached by ICE. You have rights in your home. You have rights on the street or in public.
--:-- Tal Kopan: I'm Tal Kopan, the Washington correspondent for the San Francisco Chronicle. Immigrant communities across the country were on edge this weekend. There were rallies. There were churches and cities offering shelter and sanctuary. Why was everyone on edge?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: So this has been a buildup of several weeks at this point. President Trump is promising a mass crackdown on undocumented immigrants that could include families with children. We start with a tweet from President Trump a few weeks ago warning that his administration would start rounding up millions of undocumented people. Writing that immigration and customs enforcement will begin removing, quote, millions of illegal aliens next week. That particular operation got pushed back to Sunday of this week. And we again got a little bit of advance notice from, you know, sources that were leaking and also from the president who confirmed it. We typically don't get advance notice of operations from ICE. But in this case, there was a lot of advance notice saying that some operation was coming.
--:-- Tal Kopan: OK, so it started with millions of people are going to be rounded up. Then it came down to thousands or hundreds. How many people were actually rounded up yesterday or over the weekend?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: First of all, we always knew it was never going to be millions. ICE operations always build a target list of several thousand knowing that they're not going to get everyone on that list. So they put together lists for various regions and say these are the people we want to primarily go after. But as of now, we have no reports of sort of widespread operations or tons of arrests happening on Sunday.
--:-- Tal Kopan: Do we know why they didn't happen? Is it because people were expecting them?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I don't know that we should frame it as why did they not happen? You know, this was always marketed as starting Sunday, but it was never only Sunday. These things typically last five days. If ICE is going to go through the trouble of making a target list, typically they do a little bit of surveillance. They try to figure out, you know, do we know this person's routine? Is there a good time to intercept them? Perhaps people that they're observing don't leave the house much on Sundays, but on Mondays they go to work and perhaps they have a plan to pick them up on their way to work.
--:-- Tal Kopan: Then there's also the factor of all the mobilization that was done in the advocacy community. And so there also may be a combination of factors of people not answering the door, staying with the relative, going underground, knowing that this is happening, all of the above.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: How much of this actually changed under the Trump administration? How much of this is new?
--:-- Tal Kopan: You know, under this administration, we have actually seen arrest levels and deportation levels fairly comparable to the Obama administration. That said, total numbers aside, we have seen this administration going after more non-criminal immigrants, so people who do not have criminal convictions, and even more who don't even have criminal charges, although, you know, charges are just charges. They have not been proven in court yet. But it's still mostly criminals who are picked up by ICE. You know, it's down to something like 60 to 70 percent, but it's still 60 to 70 percent criminals.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: But what's up with the non-criminals? More non-criminals are being detained now, right?
--:-- Tal Kopan: Yeah. The reason that the number of non-criminals is going up is because they're doing two things differently. One, they're prioritizing people who have what's called a final order of removal or a deportation order. What they say is a lot of these people have them, quote unquote, in absentia, meaning they were not in court when that deportation order was given. The other thing is that ICE has much more free reign under this administration to have what are called collateral arrests, meaning they show up at someone's door under the Obama administration. They were under instructions to focus on their targets and prioritize the people that have been prioritized. Under this administration, they may start asking everyone in the home about their status and arresting anyone in the home who is without status. So that has also partly driven up the numbers.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: So overall, it's not like we're seeing hugely skyrocketing numbers of arrests. We're not seeing tons more deportations. What we're seeing is a different population of people and a different mix of people being caught up in ICE net. And more and more of them could be families could be parents could be you know unfortunate bystanders who happened to be in the wrong place and got caught up by ICE.
--:-- Tal Kopan: Okay, we've got two ways the Trump administration is shifting deportation priorities. One, targeting more people who weren't in court when they were ordered to be deported. And two, allowing ICE to expand their targets when they knock on doors.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Who's the target of these raids? Specific to this operation, what we have been told by ICE is that they would like to go after a population of families who are part of what has been called an expedited docket or colloquially the rocket docket that was set up specifically just for families that are arriving at the southern border.
--:-- Tal Kopan: And what this did was basically put all those cases to the front of the line in immigration court because the administration said, we want to send a message to families that are coming that they're not going to just be allowed to stay. So they moved all the cases to the front of the line. This is something like 60,000 cases. Of those, a fraction, roughly 11,000, were completed in absentia, meaning that an order was given when the family was not present for a court hearing.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: On Thursday, the ACLU filed this preemptive lawsuit arguing that the targets of ICE raids should be allowed a day in court.
--:-- Tal Kopan: Yeah. Are the targets of ICE raids not allowed a day in court?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: So it depends. If you do not already have something on your record, you do still get a day in court. If, however, the person that they're picking up has one of these final deportation orders, technically, that means they went through the court process. What ACLU is saying is it really was not like that. You know, many of these individuals may have simply moved. They, you know, get a court notice to appear, but it goes to the wrong address and they have no idea and they never show up. It can be something like that.
--:-- Tal Kopan: What the ACLU is saying is that just because an immigrant has a final order of removal in absentia does not mean that they were given a fair court process contrary to what the administration is saying. And they were petitioning to have that sort of factored in to give all of these immigrants a chance to, you know, sort of reopen their case.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: If you actually get a trial, if you get to have a day in court, as an asylum seeker who's in the process of being deported, how difficult is it to navigate the court system?
--:-- Tal Kopan: The short answer is very difficult. Just for one second, a very much of a step back. Think about the fact that most of these people we're talking about arriving at the southern border come from remote parts of Central America. They definitely don't speak English. Many of them don't even speak Spanish. They speak an indigenous language. They come from places where, you know, quote unquote, federal authorities can often be working with gangs, you know, hand in hand. They're incredibly skeptical of their government's ability to protect them. They've never actually been in a real court. They get to the US, they're thrown into, you know, our court system. Problem is these cases take years to work their way through the system. So it's going to be disorienting, even in the most friendly setting for many of these immigrants.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: How much difference does having an attorney make?
--:-- Tal Kopan: It makes a big difference. Actually, you know, the administration's big complaint is that, you know, oh, these immigrants don't show up for their hearings. Well, north of 90% of immigrants show up for their hearings if they have an attorney, according to some of the research that's out there. So whether or not it actually makes for a successful outcome, it certainly makes for a better process. And honestly, it makes for a better process for both sides of the equation because it's easier for the judges and the quote-unquote prosecutors, which in this case are ICE attorneys, if the immigrant has an attorney to explain to them what is happening along the way and say, this is when you need to be in court, This is what we're going to do that day. You know, don't get scared off by the craziness of this. The likelihood of the process completing itself and not generating some appeal that 10 years later reopens the case are much, much, much higher if you have an attorney.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And then some cases are still unsuccessful. Asylum law is very complicated and you have to establish a lot of things. You know, it's not simply, you know, my neighbor was trying to kill me because we got into an argument and I can't go back. That's probably not going to be enough for an asylum claim, even if it might be a really terrible story. And so, you know, they're not all successful. But the process is by far more likely to work if there's an attorney representing the immigrant.
--:-- [Music transitions to a gentle background]
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: What exactly happens after someone's picked up by ICE? Where do they go? How long are they there? And what stands between them and deportation?
--:-- Tal Kopan: I'm going to ask an immigration attorney after the break.
--:-- [Music transitions to a gentle background]
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: If you run a business but you not really into the marketing side of things MailChimp wants to help with their all-in-one marketing platform, a platform that allows you to manage more of your marketing activities from one place so you can market smarter, grow faster. This platform eliminates the need for multiple tools by giving you everything you need to create and publish and manage and measure your marketing campaigns. It's powered by a good old marketing CRM, Customer Relationship Management System, so you can collect and organize and understand all of your audience data. MailChimp's complete marketing platform has everything you need to start marketing your business today. And while you're off managing your business, MailChimp will be there to help you as your business grows and needs new capabilities. Learn more about this whole deal at MailChimp.com.
--:-- [Music transitions to a gentle background]
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Let's go to Claudia Cubas, the litigation director for the Capital Area Immigrant Rights Coalition, otherwise known as CARE Coalition. We're a D.C.-based nonprofit, but we provide legal services to people who are detained in Maryland and Virginia. And you all represent immigrants who have been detained by ICE.
--:-- Claudia Cubas: That's right.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: What exactly happens right after ICE shows up?
--:-- Claudia Cubas: Well, when somebody gets arrested, usually it's a couple of officers who arrest that person and they bring them into a field office or a local office where ICE is set up. And they can book them for – booking could be anywhere between two hours or several hours. And booking, what it really entails is going through, taking the person's fingerprints, asking them questions, comparing their biometric data to anything in the system to see if they already have a case ongoing. They transport you to the jail that they've identified. It could be a jail within an hour away or it could be a jail three, four hours away from the local field office. So it could be eight to nine hours until finally that person gets to a place where they can call someone.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And then once they get to jail, all their property is confiscated. They usually are given a onesie. And then they are given some basic toiletries and they get a cot. And this is just the trial period, the first stage of a legal case. It could be anywhere between a month to six months. A month if the person doesn't fight to stay, six months or longer if the person, you know, is applying for something like asylum. And it could be longer if the person appeals.
--:-- Claudia Cubas: I've had clients, in fact, I have a client right now who is getting to his third year in detention.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: It sounds a lot like criminal court, but it's important to remember here that this is actually a civil proceeding.
--:-- Claudia Cubas: It smells like, it feels like, it looks like criminal court, But it's civil. People come in with jumpsuits and shackles. I mean, like, when we talk about civil court, we're talking about like a divorce proceeding, right? We're talking about... People's Court. Remember People's Court, the show?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Sure.
--:-- Claudia Cubas: So that's very civil court, where you have a dispute, perhaps with your neighbor over trash. That's civil court. Right.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: What happens after arrest in these situations?
--:-- Claudia Cubas: The second phase of this process, which is, okay, how can I fight my case? And what I usually tell people when I go inside the jails and give the know your rights is people fall into three basic categories. Category one. This is your first time having an encounter with ICE. So those people generally are going to see an immigration judge. That's guaranteed they're going to go to immigration court. Seems sort of straightforward.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Category two.
--:-- Claudia Cubas: The second type of category of people are people who have what is called a final order of deportation. That means that at some point an immigration judge ordered them removed and they didn't leave. It could be for varied reasons that they were ordered removed. And they have to figure out how to reopen that proceeding to get to immigration court. They have to fight to get to immigration court. Right. We heard about that one in the first half of the show. You've been asked to leave. Maybe you didn't know. Maybe you did, but you haven't left. And now you're fighting to stay.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: What's the third category?
--:-- Claudia Cubas: The third category is somebody who was previously deported. And then is now back in the United States. Those people are in a type of situation that's going to be called reinstatement, where they reinstate the removal order from before and try to deport them fast again. But those people, because our laws allow for non-refoulement, we can't send people back who are afraid to go back to their countries. Those people can fight, again, to get to immigration court by going through a reasonable fear interview process, basically an interview with an asylum officer. And if they pass that interview, they get to go to immigration court and try to apply for protection, something like asylum.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: These three scenarios, first time in immigration court, deportation order has been issued and you're trying to fight to stay or you've already been deported and now you've come back. These scenarios aren't new.
--:-- Claudia Cubas: I think for me as an immigration attorney and I've been practicing over a decade now, so through three administrations, Bush years, Obama years, now Trump years. And I would say that the most difficult aspect of representing asylum seekers at this moment is that they keep changing the laws. They keep changing the case law from literally one day to the next. And then the other aspect of it is that they keep limiting legal access.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: You know, I've had experiences in the last two years where I was told, my staff was told at an organization that we could not enter the jails in Maryland at all.
--:-- Claudia Cubas: My personal opinion is, I think, regardless of how difficult or how much President Bush and President Obama were pushing for the deportation and removal of people, when I was a lawyer under their administrations, there was clear idea of what due process was, of what the case law was. There wasn't so much shifting from one day to the next. Right.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I guess we saw an example that just this morning, the Trump administration says it's going to create a rule that requires asylum seekers who pass through another country on their way to the U.S.-Mexico border to first claim asylum in that first country.
--:-- Claudia Cubas: Immigration law, even though there's immigration courts, the immigration courts are staffed by judges that are officers. They're employees of the Department of Justice, which is under the executive branch. That means it is, in essence, the same agency who's trying to deport that person, ICE, is under the same umbrella, right, the executive branch, that the judge works for.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Are you saying that ICE and immigration judges are following the same orders?
--:-- Claudia Cubas: What I'm saying is that ICE is under the Department of Homeland Security. The immigration judges are under the Department of Justice. They're both agencies under the executive branch under this administration and in other past administrations like the Bush years. Generally, those agencies have been seen as enforcement tools, as enforcement agents. So people think a judge, they think an impartial person who's going to hear their case and make an objective, impartial decision. But that's different when the same administration that's trying to deport these people under a very specific political ideology is now in charge of that immigration court system.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: So in essence, it's not a real impartial immigration court.
--:-- Claudia Cubas: And in fact, the Union of Immigration Judges, the Federal Bar, the ABA, AILA, the American Immigration Lawyers Association, all wrote a letter recently asking Congress, please, please, please, these immigration courts make them independent. In our view, the immigration courts must be moved out of the Department of Justice to ensure that judges have full decisional independence without fear of reprisal or improper political influence.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: That was Hillary Bass testifying in front of Congress last year at the time. She was the president of the American Bar Association.
--:-- Claudia Cubas: We reached out to the Department of Justice's Executive Office for Immigration Review to ask about Clalia's argument that the immigration courts should be made independent of the executive branch, that an independent system would be fairer and better functioning. They declined an interview but wrote in an email that They also stressed that it helps to keep them close to the attorney general who operates under presidential supervision.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I'm Sean Ramos from this is Today Explained. Thanks to MailChimp for supporting the show today. You might be thanking MailChimp and their all-in-one marketing platform soon after you employ them. The platform allows you to manage more of your marketing activities from one place so you can market smarter and grow faster. And it's powered by MailChimp's storied marketing CRM. You'll know who to talk to, what to say, when to say it, and the best channel to deliver the message. Learn more at MailChimp.com.
