Immigration lawyers navigate shifting ground, with fewer options for clients

Phones are ringing off the hook at immigration law firms these days. But attorneys say many of the tools they once used to help people stay in the country legally are vanishing.

“We are getting tons of calls, we are having people that come in for questions,” said Jennifer Velarde, a lawyer in New Bedford. “However, in a majority of the cases, I can't do much.”

Immigration has long been a complicated and fast-changing branch of the law. But with the Trump administration looking to transform the immigration system — clamping down on who we let in, and expanding the pool of who's deportable — some lawyers say it’s getting harder to give solid legal advice.

On a recent afternoon, Velarde held meetings with a number of prospective clients. They were all from different countries and had wildly different stories: a Cape Verdean family whose son had overstayed his visa; a Honduran woman with temporary status trying to stay permanently; an Ecuadorian couple that had entered the U.S. illegally, strategizing for an upcoming hearing in immigration court.

Velarde explained she couldn’t see a clear path to legal status for any of the families she saw that day. She said in good conscience, she couldn't take them on as clients.

“My rule is, if I can't do something for you, then take your money, save it, so you can have maybe a better life or better return back to your country,” she told WBUR.

Velarde doesn't want to scare people, but with an administration fixed on "mass deportations," she's telling them to prepare for the worst.

A Guatemalan couple visited the office with their 2-year-old daughter asleep in her mother’s arms. Velarde heard them out and then delivered advice that's becoming increasingly common: Make sure all three of you have valid Guatemalan passports; find someone (a U.S. citizen ideally) who can exercise power of attorney; and designate a caretaker in case you're separated from your baby.

“During the first Trump administration, I saw families getting separated, deported, and it worries me,” Velarde said. “It makes me not want to practice law anymore.”

Trump claims he's protecting the country from an “invasion,” by shutting down the borders and ramping up enforcement of immigration law — targeting some who’ve committed serious crimes and others who haven’t. But the new policies are also targeting many people who have already been allowed into the U.S.

The arrival of many Haitians to Massachusetts, for example, was enabled by a Biden-era plan that let them work and apply for asylum in the U.S. That’s gone.

Also on the way out: a program for Venezuelans called Temporary Protected Status, a program that benefits roughly 600,000 Venezuelans across the U.S.

“That has made the role that we serve, in so many instances, impossible to manage as effectively as we could before,” said Boston immigration lawyer Desmond FitzGerald.

Imagine, FitzGerald said, assuring a client that you can help them renew their temporary status. And the next day, having to call back and say: “Listen, this process may be unavailable to you.”

Complicating matters is the expansion of those susceptible to removal. FitzGerald said during the presidencies of Barack Obama and Joe Biden, ICE was instructed to prioritize criminals for deportation.

“And what they have done now is simply said: Everyone is a danger; everyone has to leave,” FitzGerald said.

One Boston resident affected by the elimination of TPS for Venezuelans is Caren, a 21-year-old pursuing a master's degree in business finance. She fled Venezuela as a teenager.

“We've spent too much time in limbo,” she said.

WBUR agreed to use only Caren’s first name because she fears what will happen when her temporary status expires. After seven years in the U.S., she's tired of living in uncertainty.

“My sister and I are still young," Caren said. "We're thinking that when our TPS expires, we'll go to Canada or Europe, some other country where it’s easier to fix our status.”

Some immigrants worry that submitting claims for legal status could put them on the radar for deportation.

But David Bier, director of immigration studies at the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank in Washington D.C., said people should still use the courts to fight for legal status.

“ I would say: Go through the process,” he said. “If you are in a legal process, you're always going to have a little bit more rights than if you have no application pending.”

Bier points out the logistical challenge of increasing deportations. Millions of people are already subject to deportation proceedings, he said, “a population that's far greater than anything that the government is going to be able to remove in any foreseeable time horizon.”

Immigrants' fears are compounded by a White House expanding the power of ICE agents. ICE can now carry out raids in schools and churches, and agents can fast-track deportations of people in the country for less than two years — without allowing the person a day in court to make a case for staying.

“There's an unsettling sense that anything is possible, that this administration is capable of doing anything,” said Daniel Kanstroom, who teaches immigration law at Boston College.

Kanstroom said it’s getting harder to conduct "know your rights" presentations, because it’s unclear what rights are actually protected at the moment.

Those rights are at the center of court battles across the country, as immigration lawyers and Democratic attorneys general try to block the president’s agenda. After Trump tried to end birthright citizenship, at least 10 lawsuits came down against the change. Also drawing suits are the transfer of detainees to Guantanamo Bay; the suspension of the admission of refugees; and the withholding of funds from so-called “sanctuary cities.”

Kanstroom said over the coming years, the courts could redefine key questions in immigration law.

“Is a non-citizen a person for Constitutional purposes?” he said. “Does the birthright citizenship clause of the 14th Amendment mean what it said? How do you round up people who have been accused of crimes, not people who have been convicted of crimes?”

The law has long granted the government greater control over the bodies of non-citizens, Kanstroom said, but there's more at stake here than just due process for immigrants.

“ Once there's an evisceration of the rule of law for anybody, there's the beginning of an evisceration of the rule of law for everybody,” he said. “And I think that is the real story now — that’s the real danger here.”