Often, public debate on the topic of immigration reverts back to a discussion of “doing things the right way.” As a litigator, I have sued every President since George W. Bush for failing to do things the right way. During President Donald Trump’s first term, I successfully challenged his attempts to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. However, I’ve never seen a disregard for the rule of law comparable to the one on display today.
Trump has long claimed that his immigration crackdown is focused on undocumented migrants—those who, the his eyes, did not come to this country “the right way.” But in practice, the Trump Administration is shutting the doors to the few lawful pathways that do exist for migrants at lightning speed. As a result, we could be left with a system that is even more dysfunctional and cruel than it is today and in which there is no “right way” to come to the United States.
Trump campaigned on a platform of “mass deportation,” which in theory may have meant only those who already had undocumented status would be swept up for removal. The reality, however, is that even those who entered under lawful channels are not safe from detention, deportation, or even foreign imprisonment. Indeed, the President recently said he is in “all for” sending American citizens to foreign prisons.
The false premise that mass deportation would only target those already with an undocumented status has helped grease the wheels for sweeping abductions of individuals and families who have been living peacefully and working hard in communities across the country. But it has also paved the way for attacking immigrants who are trying to follow U.S. immigration laws in the hope of securing legal protections.
The Trump Administration has rarely attempted to do things the “right way,” despite their harsh law and order messaging. But the concept of immigrants doing things “the right way” has been manipulated into a gnarled, hateful narrative—a sort of mythical boogeyman—which Trump and his allies will often warn of: the “illegal criminal migrant” is infiltrating our pristine white communities.
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First, let’s consider one population the Trump administration is calling “criminal migrants:” people who are applying for legal status—a process that almost always takes several years, if not decades, to complete.
These are people who have lived in the United States, and who have been in the process of earnestly applying for legal status for years. To do so, these individuals must show up to their ICE check-ins, pay hefty fees for attorneys and applications, and wait endlessly for the day they can finally find peace in the place they call home.
They are also asylum seekers following legal processes and awaiting their day in court to prove in painstaking detail that they are fleeing based on a “credible fear.” Many asylum seekers are forced to wait years on end in dangerous conditions on the other side of the border until their case is heard.
They are also children who are often forced to defend themselves in those very courts if not for groups like our plaintiffs in Community Legal Services in East Palo Alto v. HSS that provide them with lawyers.
And so since Trump’s second inauguration, the lives of those who are actively in the process of seeking lawful status, have been put in flux. Not only have their applications paused in many cases, but they are also being demonized as criminals for not being able to continue the legal process.
When you make sweeping generalizations that designate entire segments of the population as inherently “criminal,” you make it impossible to have practical policies that actually meet the needs of our current moment. The Trump Administration has simultaneously been carefully gutting many of the remaining legal ways to immigrate to the U.S., ripping to shreds an already deeply broken system.
The Trump Administration is also making moves against people who secured legal documentation against tremendous odds while, you guessed it, also falsely referring to them as “criminal migrants.”
This includes hundreds of thousands of people with Temporary Protected Status (TPS), a legal protection that is designated for people from specific countries facing significant violence or instability. This also includes more than a million participants of several humanitarian parole processes, providing a lawful pathway for people from select countries if they are able to find a U.S. sponsor or meet other criteria. These parole processes, grounded in a legal authority that has been used by Republicans and Democrats alike for more than 70 years, include Uniting for Ukraine (U4U), Operation Allies Welcome for Afghans who helped U.S. troops in the war, and the process for people from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela. It also includes international students here on visas who have been detained and jailed in facilities thousands of miles from their universities for minimal infractions or even for engaging in protected speech.
These attacks impact tax-paying immigrants—folks who have long paid into a system whose benefits they cannot access—who have long been demonized for false claims that “immigrants don’t pay taxes.” With lightning speed, our President went from parroting that myth to using immigrants’ IRS records to target them for deportation. This bait and switch is abhorrent, and it is causing immeasurable heartbreak and chaos in families, classrooms, workplaces, and neighborhoods in every corner of the country.
“Follow the law” they say, as the laws keep changing. “Follow the law” they say, when they can’t seem to follow the law themselves. According to remarks issued from the White House back in November 2018, under the first Trump Administration, so-called legal migrants, on the other hand, are supposed to be safe.
“Mass, uncontrolled immigration is especially unfair to the many wonderful, law-abiding immigrants already living here who followed the rules and waited their turn,” Trump opined from the Roosevelt Room.
But his current actions speak louder than his prior words.
The Trump Administration is playing a shell game with who is considered lawful in the United States. The result is a system in which people are delegitimized, disenfranchised, and potentially deported—even after doing everything the federal government has asked of them.
The law is getting in the way of this shell game—for now. Organizations like mine have stepped in to stop their unlawful attempts to freeze humanitarian parole, to deprive children of their Congressionally-mandated rights, and to invite ICE into our sacred spaces. But there are not enough lawyers to stop all the harm, and the current administration has shown little regard for judicial orders.
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Let’s be clear: this disregard should frighten all of us, regardless of our immigration status. Immigrants may be the first victims of their effort to silence the courts, but we are all vulnerable if the Trump Administration succeeds.
But I still have hope. With each passing day, my organization hears from everyday people—including Trump voters—who have had enough. In these frightening times of a nation careening towards lawlessness, we can be certain that this will soon affect nearly all of us, directly or not.
The White House is counting on us to freeze in fear, which means it’s exactly the right time to, in the words of John Lewis, get into a bit of “good trouble.” The Trump Administration’s agenda is not what we need. Now is the time to say it.
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