Meet the lawyers who dropped everything to work for free rescuing airport detainees

https://mic.com/articles/166989/lawyers-fight-trump-muslim-ban-jfk-airport?utm_source=policymicTBLR&utm_medium=main&utm_campaign=social#.4NXHyZUhL

When word came down that, thanks to President Donald Trump's Friday executive order, visitors and would-be immigrants to the United States were being detained at airports across the country, an ad hoc contingent of lawyers sprang into action. 

While thousands protested outside the nation's international airports, the lawyers' mission was simple: show up at airports, talk to families of detained travelers caught up in Trump's Muslim ban and offer legal services pro bono.

"We're trying to help detainees," Michelle Miao, a lawyer coordinating the efforts in New York City, said in an interview at John F. Kennedy International Airport on Saturday night. More than 80 lawyers were already hard at work, and Miao expected another twenty to join them before the night was over.

"This initiative is happening all over America," said Miao, of the lawyers who worked on airport floors, pooling laptops, printers and stray cups of coffee to produce petitions. "This is happening at O'Hare, and then there are the smaller airports."

On Saturday night, a federal judge issued a stay blocking the deportation of airport detainees with legal paperwork for U.S. entry. Excitement and jubilance washed through the massive crowds protesting at America's airport, including Terminal 4 at New York's Kennedy Airport. 

The army of immigration, lawyers, though, did not stop work. They did not go home. Their work was just beginning.

The stay only prevented deportations of detained travelers; those travelers are still not free to enter the U.S. Though some detainees have been released — all the detainees in Chicago and at least two in New York — untold numbers of would-be immigrants and visitors are still in detention at airports across the nation. On Saturday morning, at least 20 detainees were being held at Kennedy Airport alone, according to Melissa Trent, one of the volunteer attorneys. 

"We're doing everything we can," Miao said. "We have attorneys here 24 hours a day, seven days a week."

A call to arms on behalf of refugees spurred the lawyers' coordinated efforts. 

When the ban was announced, the International Refugee Assistance Project put out an email asking any immigration attorney available to find an airport and volunteer to take shifts; the first one began immediately. And then another from 8 p.m. to 4:30 a.m., and then until noon Sunday. More than 100 lawyers volunteered for the first round of duty.

The work would be difficult; many of the lawyers were flying blind. It was impossible to know how many visitors and immigrants were being detained at Kennedy Airport. No matter who spoke to the customs officials — congressmen, lawyers and officials from the mayor's office — there were no answers.

So the lawyers improvised.

After rushing to Terminal 7 on a rumor that 11 detainees were being held there, lawyers immediately dropped to the ground and started making signs saying "immigration lawyer." The hope was that families of detainees would see the sign and report their loved ones as absent — and let the lawyers take their cases.

Immigration lawyers make signs to identify themselves to stranded families at JFK.

Source: Jack Smith IV/Mic

Finding the detainees is just the first step in a long road of legal battles. The contingent of lawyers are largely charting new territory. The executive order denied entry to people who — by modern immigration standards — are legally allowed to enter the United States.

"I've never seen anything like this in my practice," Jonathan Mulligan, one of the volunteer immigration lawyers, said in an interview as he rushed to Terminal 7. "Maybe if we look back to Chinese exclusion laws in the 1800s" — referring to a law that barred immigration by Chinese laborers, which stayed on the books until the 1940s.

Once the attorneys identify a detainee, there are several legal avenues to pursue. The first is a habeas corpus petition, which calls for the detainee to be brought before a judge (this is the method the American Civil Liberties Union used to win the stay against the ban). Another tack is to get the detained immigrants a "credible fear interview," where those detained would seek asylum by claiming that it's too dangerous for them to return home.

While lawyers worked on the inside, thousands protested at JFK on Saturday night, chanting "Let them in!"

Source: Stephanie Keith/Getty Images

"For folks now in detentions, this is a shot at trying to get them some sort of status to get them in asylum proceedings," Marissa Ram, a volunteer lawyer who'd just returned from immigration work in Berlin, said in an interview on Saturday.

Once protesters dispersed and the ACLU announced the temporary stay, things were less hectic for the lawyers at Kennedy Airport — but they continued to work around the clock,  lawyers on the ground said in phone interviews late in the evening.

"We're staying here and we're meeting flights and going to be here all weekend," Miao said. "People are intent on staying through the night, more attorneys will come fresh in the morning."

LIKE US ON FACEBOOK:

SHARE

 

TWEET

 

POST

Jack Smith IV

Jack Smith IV is a writer covering technology and inequality. Send tips, comments and feedback to jack@mic.com.

Follow @jacksmithiv

The Yes Men’s guide to resisting Trump

http://wagingnonviolence.org/feature/strategies-for-stopping-trump/

What happened Nov. 8 is for many of us (especially liberal white people) literally unthinkable — which may be why our bodies are getting involved, with many reporting stomach problems and nausea, or intense cravings for human company combined with irritability. It’s as if we’re reconfiguring ourselves for the awful new world we’re stuck in now, and it kind of hurts.

Big-picture protests against Trump Tower may help with that, a bit. They feel great, and may help build community, while reminding us that we absolutely have to stay angry and never fear “polarization.” (Spilling fake blood on the top floor of a Trump hotel also feels kind of good.)

But that’s not nearly enough. And as the cloud of our bewilderment lifts, we’ll realize there are some more strategic things we need to do, too.

To really achieve anything in these darkest times in American history, we’re going to need to start with strategic battles — that might feel a bit small next to the immensity of what’s happened, but it’s only strategic, winnable battles that can combine into a movement, and it’s only a movement that can change what we’re living.

Remember, it took several decades for the racist virus spread by Republicans, as part of their strategy to win away Southern Democrats, to take over and turn their own party into a fascist one. We can’t reverse all that all at once, but with hard work and strategy, we can reverse it — and make a much better world, just as the Nordic countries did after they’d been through worse than even this. Let’s learn from the Vikings!

Here are a few ways that people are already getting started.

Take over the DNC

We need to pressure the Democratic National Committee to reinvent itself at the top, by electing Minnesota Rep. Keith Ellison to chair it.

Whether or not we think that Bernie Sanders would have been a better choice than Hillary Clinton, it’s clear some enormous mistakes have been made, and for a whole lot longer than this election. Like: While Republicans appealed to racism to win over voters, Democrats just left those voters behind, and went from championing working people to championing a consensus technocracy: a beautiful but false vision that you can just let the world run itself thanks to the market’s magic, applying a few polite tweaks here and there. That vision, shared also by mainstream Republicans, left out millions — who, now, have found a sick, dangerous, magic-based vision that exploits their need to be listened to.

Electing Ellison would signify a necessary massive shift in direction for the Democratic National Committee. Many in the DNC already know this shift is necessary, but they need your support — or pressure — to make the right decision.

• Call the DNC directly and let them know how you feel.
• Call or write anyone you know with ties to the DNC, or any Democrat congressperson, and tell them how important it is to pick Ellison.
• Sign a petition like this one, which by the way contains useful language for calling or emailing.
• Figure out something else and share your idea!

Stop Bannon

Perhaps the most immediately actionable battle is to stop former Breitbart News chief Stephen Bannon, who Trump has appointed to be his chief strategist. This can be done; several of Bill Clinton’s cabinet appointees were blocked by Republicans way back when.

Sure, Bannon is only one of the most toxic of all the many toxic byproducts of this election, but we need to start somewhere, because, again, we can’t win all at once.

• Here’s a guide to calling your representative, complete with sample scripts. You can also write to them, starting from this draft, for example.
• Join a protest! Protesters recently stormed the building housing Trump’s transition team, getting huge coverage — a great example of a protest directly tied to a winnable campaign.

And if the future of the whole planet is more your cup of tea, 350.org has a campaign to stop the demented Myron Ebell from heading the EPA.

Make your city or campus a sanctuary

There’s no need to explain why this is needed. Movimiento Cosecha is a migrant rights group with campus sanctuary, city sanctuary, and other campaigns. Get to work!

Restore the Voting Rights Act

The 2016 presidential election was the first election in 50 years without the Voting Rights Act. The Supreme Court gutted it in 2013, and Republicans immediately went to work to ensure that people of color would have a harder time casting their ballots. Why? Because people of color vote against white supremacy. And their plan worked.

In Wisconsin, a federal court found that 300,000 fewer voters cast ballots because of new ID restrictions; Trump won there by only 27,000 votes, and similar suppression efforts in other states were equally effective.

In North Carolina, there were 158 fewer polling locations in 40 predominantly African American districts. African American turnout decreased there by 16 percent.

Voter suppression is why Trump won, pure and simple.

• Sign a petition to restore the Voting Rights Act.
• Take any other action on this you can possibly think of.

Take over the entire Democratic Party (not just the top)

The DNC is one thing (see above) — but we can also just take over the whole party and make it ours. Remember the Tea Party? They drove establishment Republicans crazy. And now we need to do the same.

• Join your local Democratic Committee this weekend — their meetings are public.
• Run for local office, even if it’s just dog-catcher.
• Call your representatives: call them every day and tell them the ways you need them to fight Trump. If one of your reps has a public appearance, attend it and get really loud.

“Most of all, get offline and get talking,” added documentary filmmaker Astra Taylor. “Meet with friends and make new ones. Get to know each other, so you can spring into action when the going gets tough, when you need to elect a local progressive leader or fight deportation.”

Fight for universal health care, and other really big things

One of Trump’s first targets is likely to be Obamacare. While our initial instinct may be to defend it, we shouldn’t: We should, instead, think much bigger: single-payer, universal health care, like all the other rich countries have. Much, much bigger. And here’s where we should take a lesson from the civil rights movement and another health movement: ACT-UP.

“With the disaster of Reagan,” said Waging Nonviolence columnist George Lakey, “almost every significant social movement in the United States went on the defensive — trying to save school reform initiatives, union density and rights to organize, voting rights, etc. — and they all lost ground. The only one that didn’t was the LGBT movement.”

ACT-UP — always on the offensive and always in-your-face — forced the development of treatments that saved millions of lives. And then that segued into a movement that eventually won equal marriage on state and federal levels.

“Multiple victories were followed by increasing intensity by the movement: demanding, demanding, demanding,” said Lakey. “I don’t recall a single time when gays organized a major campaign to save some previously won achievement, like a city human rights commission or that kind of thing. It was always: onward, forward, we demand more!”

The alienated white working-class people who voted for Trump don’t like Obamacare because, well, it isn’t that great. But they would like free health care, and there’s a way we can get it — if we set our sights high.

“Inspired by the LGBT movement, we can enter the game determined to win,” said Lakey. “We can mount a civil rights movement-level campaign, occupy the insurance companies and Big Pharma, the private hospitals, etc. We can go to jail in massive numbers. There’s a target everywhere, and everybody who’s not rich has an infuriating story to tell about someone they know who has had inadequate/delayed/or nonexistent care or are bankrupt because they recovered from cancer.

“We will never deserve to have the society we want if we don’t take charge of the battleground. That doesn’t mean protest and defensive postures — it means assertive nonviolent direct action campaigns of the sort that SCLC and SNCC proved enable people even to take on the Klan and win.”

Get rid of the Electoral College

National Popular Vote wants to finally get rid of the Electoral College. Eleven states have already passed the bill, and even some Republican ones. Yes, it’s nauseating to work on something endorsed by you-know-who, but still.

And finally…

Everything else. These are just a few of the campaigns that are gathering steam, or will be soon. Many groups already getting down to the business of building action campaigns. Join in! This is the time.

—