Help Immigrants ? The Lawyers We Cannot Fire or Control, We Will Destroy

Newly confirmed Homeland Security chief Noem joins NYC ICE raid

“It’s a fundamental gap that we have filled over the years to ensure that people have not only access to counsel but access to a fundamental understanding of their basic legal rights.”

Michelle Jacobson, the chair of the ABA Commission on Immigration.

In the 250 years we’ve been a nation, a free press and a cadre of passionate attorneys challenging unfairness have chiseled the United States’ system of justice into one of the most carefully evolved nations on earth. Until now. And if you are an autocrat escalating into genuine total control of a country, you declare those trying to contain the checks and balances that limit you or the attorneys who use “fairness and justice under the law” to circumscribe your excesses, you label them your enemy and squeeze them out of existence. Trump’s MAGAland is just such a nation, as thousands of lawyers are struggling to stop the tsunami of anti-democratic edicts, statutes and clearly discriminatory efforts… all aimed at reshaping the Constitution and everything it stands for to support the Trump desired “total control.”

Indeed, as Elon Musk has literally commandeered a crucial federal office: “Sources within the federal government tell WIRED that the highest ranks of the Office of Personnel Management (OPM)—essentially the human resources function for the entire federal government—are now controlled by people with connections to Musk and to the tech industry. Among them is a person who, according to an online résumé, was set to start college last fall.” Wired, January 28th. It is here that the written federal offer of a buyout to federal employees apparently emanated, looking remarkably similar to the same letter Musk issued to his employees when he took over Twitter (now X).

Interfering with Trump’s goals creates unwanted inefficiencies that MAGA will not tolerate… and challenges his most basic directives. So, today’s blog will examine the Trump ban against lawyers seeking to advise detained immigrants, some of whom may actually be US citizens. The programs, some government, some private, were brought to an ugly halt on January 22nd, with a DOJ email to the relevant legal community: “This email is to send you notification to stop work immediately pursuant to the Executive Order on the following task orders,” the memo said. The programs listed in the memo include the Legal Orientation Program; the Immigration Court Helpdesk; the Family Group Legal Orientation Program; and the Counsel for Children Initiative. DACA kids are not exempted, and there does not seem to be a mechanism to allow wrongfully detained US citizens or green card holders to secure legal help… for an egregious mistake.

Writing for the January 30th Journal of the American Bar Assn (of which I am a member), Amada Robert drills into this Trump administration effort to purge lawyers from advising potential deportees: “But shortly after noon [on 1/22], an order from the U.S. Department of Justice changed everything. Lauren Cusitello, the director of the Immigration Justice Project, described the events in an email to colleagues and supporters Tuesday that was shared with the ABA Journal.

“In the order, the DOJ directed legal services providers to immediately stop work on several legal access programs that use federal funds to assist people, families and children at risk of deportation… In a system with no right to court-appointed counsel, these are the only free legal resources available for many people whose lives and liberty are at stake in removal proceedings,” Cusitello wrote in her email… The DOJ’s directive followed sweeping executive orders from President Donald Trump that aim to radically alter the U.S. immigration system. One of these orders calls for the immediate removal of immigrants without legal status from the United States.

“It widely affected the ABA Commission on Immigration, which not only paused legal access programs at the Immigration Justice Project but at its South Texas Pro Bono Asylum Representation Project in Harlingen, Texas, and national office in Washington, D.C. The impacted programs also include the Family Group Legal Orientation Program and the Legal Orientation Program information hotline.” It’s happening across the land. Don’t complain if your food prices skyrocket or you cannot find a plumber or electrician to fix a big problem… or maybe your favorite restaurant closed.

But if you think you’ve got problems, picture these hardworking individuals, many of whom have never known a different life. And while I know we can have a vastly better immigration policy, but the last such successful effort was in 1986 during GOP Ronald Reagan’s presidency. Of course, we need to control our borders and keep criminals and narcotics out, but since Reagan’s reform in 1986, every effort for meaningful immigration reform (even proposed by Republican presidents) has been sandbagged by Republicans in Congress. It seems that if immigration were fixed, Republican candidates would have lost a huge campaign issue. And that’s why, and they even admit it.

I’m Peter Dekom, and you cannot tell me that America is too stupid to fix obvious flaws in its immigration laws… but the GOP leadership is able to con Americans into keeping the bad system bad unless they can nuke immigration altogether.