Immigration enforcement in Nevada--is ICE truly targeting criminals?

Plus... (Vida Lin) This grant will have given them more education to educate them to be American citizens, to be better American citizen.

-The federal government cuts funding meant to help hundreds of Nevadans become US citizens.

That's this week on Nevada Week.

♪♪ Support for Nevada Week is provided by Senator William H. Hernstadt.

-Welcome to Nevada Week.

I'm Amber Renee Dixon.

Immigrant advocacy groups say immigration enforcement ramped up in recent weeks.

What that looked like and what impact it had on undocumented children in the state, that's ahead, but we begin with what it takes to become a US citizen.

This is the lengthy application involved, and it's what Marichi Robeliol says she had the most difficulty with.

The Las Vegas woman, originally from the Philippines and now a US citizen, could have paid an attorney to fill out the application.

Instead, she got free help from the Asian Community Development Council.

That's where we met up with her, as well as with the nonprofit's president and founder.

Vida Lin said the ACDC was ready to help about 200 people with the citizenship process thanks to a federal grant of $300,000.

The organization was awarded the grant in November but, in March, learned that the Department of Homeland Security was terminating the grant because it, quote, no longer effectuates the program goals and the department's priorities.

What was your reaction when you found out that this grant was going to be terminated?

-My reaction was very surprised.

I couldn't understand the reason why.

These are people that's been in the United States for a long time that is legally here, that wants to become a citizen, the next step.

They have been here maybe 5 years, 10 years, 20 years, and they want to have a-- become a citizen, to be part of America.

But before that, they have been contributing.

They work, they pay taxes, they, you know, built and helped build America to where we are today.

(Marichi Robeniol) Knowing that these grant would be then retracted, it's really discouraging, you know?

It's a letdown for the many people that will need this assistance, because they have really been very helpful, basically, you know, especially so, as you can see, that's quite a thick number of pages.

-Pages to fill out.

-Right.

And there may be certain records that maybe especially with dates, you know, factoids, you know, in terms of who, what, where, and those are the things that I somehow needed real guidance and assistance in sorting those out.

I mean, on my own, I think I would really have had that difficulty.

-The process of becoming American citizen is not that easy.

They have to study 100 questions, because anytime during the interview, they will ask them any of those questions, right?

But think about 100 questions about the American history or the American, how the government works, right?

So people who's born here probably wouldn't know some of the questions you ask.

If you go down the street today and interview people, you will find out many of them don't know what's going on.

-Is this an in-person interview in which you are asked one or several of the 100 questions?

-Yes.

-This isn't a written test?

-Is not a written test.

You have to be there in person.

They will be asking you in English, in, you know, so you have to understand enough to be able to answer those questions.

-Wow.

And so this grant would have provided classes in which people got to practice that-- -Yes.

- --study and prepare themselves for that kind of a test.

-This grant will have given them more education to educate them to be American citizen, to be better American citizen.

-To our viewers who may ask, Well, why should taxpayers fund other people getting help to become citizens, what would you say?

-I would say, think about if your parents, your forefathers didn't go through the process that we do now, where would they be today?

So this is why the taxpayer money, which we are not asking a lot, we're here to help, very simply, for them to become citizen so they can be part of this country legally.

-So you had to call people and tell them, Sorry, we're no longer doing this program, we no longer have the funding.

-Yes.

And that was very heartbreaking for us to say that.

They worked so hard.

They already had everything set up, places where they were being trained to educate, and now we don't have that grant, so we won't be able to do some of the service.

We will do-- we will continue helping with applications and educating, but we wouldn't be able to do a full program that would benefit this country.

-So I imagine you're reaching out to your private donors and asking them to help out?

-We are.

We're reaching to private donors, individual donors, foundations, to see if we can continue this services.

We are doing-- I am so glad to know that a lot of the community are accepting to step up, because they understand we are here to help legally permanent resident become citizen.

-And when you say they are legal, permanent residents, do they have criminal backgrounds?

That's another big question among this immigration topic.

-So we think of the question we ask.

We probably go through what we call the N-400 application form.

That application form is very intense.

It's about two-hour questionnaire that we ask you.

The biggest question we ask is any criminal record.

We have to go through every detail about your background: How many times you've been married, the name of your kids, are they, you know, what their status.

We go through-- that question that we asked for the N-400 is very intense.

-And that's what you ask them as you're helping them fill it out?

-As we help them fill out the form.

-Okay.

-It takes about two hours-- -Wow.

- --per person to do.

Per person.

So if you have a family of four, we go through every detail.

So that's very intense.

So if anyone want to look at it, they can go online and look for the N-400 forms, and they can see how those questions asked.

The biggest question they asked is criminal record and criminal background.

-What about immigration activity in Las Vegas?

Has immigration enforcement increased in the Asian-American community here?

-I think the enforcement has increased in Nevada in general, right?

I think that-- -Have you heard of any cases of people being detained?

-Yes, we have heard a few cases.

One of the cases that I know this case is supposed to be for those who came who have committed a crime and they want to get them deported, which-- -That's what ICE is supposed to be focusing on.

-Yes.

But some of the case we hear is this one case where he actually has a business visa, and he overstayed because he's applying for a renewal.

The wife got the renewal.

His renewal did not come in yet.

But he got arrested with no criminal background.

So I don't know if we need more training on how the enforcement should be held.

-You don't consider that a crime, overstaying your visa?

-We don't consider that as a crime if you're applying for new one.

So-- and you're waiting for your status to come.

That is not a crime.

-Last thing, Vida.

You have represented the Asian-American community here in Las Vegas for decades.

Have you ever felt this kind of pressure or attention on immigration here?

-This time around, I feel much more people more negative, negativity, right, toward immigrants.

And I don't understand the reason why.

-You mean, currently, right now?

-Right now.

-Okay.

-I feel that it's so funny is because when you think about America, you think about the people who immigrate here, right?

And I can't stress more that everybody at one time immigrated to the US or were brought in from Africa, the slaves who were brought in forcefully, except for the Native American, that we all come from somewhere.

Where did immigrants become a negative or criminal before they even look at your background?

If you're looking foreign, you look foreign, they consider you as an immigrant, although you can be a couple generation here in the US.

We are just as American as anybody else.

And what United States made of is of immigrants.

There is no country like America.

We have people coming from all over the country to build rich culture, rich food that we enjoy, things that we can educate each other on.

This is what makes America so great.

-We continue on that topic of increased immigration enforcement in Nevada.

How is it playing out?

Who is Immigration and Customs Enforcement going after?

And what about undocumented children?

How is increased ICE activity impacting them?

For more on that, we bring in Michael Kagan, Director of the UNLV Immigration Clinic.

Thank you for taking the time.

-Happy to be here.

-Your clinic right now, how would you describe it?

(Michael Kagan) Under a whole lot of stress.

Calls-- we are the only pro bono deportation defense center in the state of Nevada.

Calls from immigration detention have tripled since the end of last year.

We represent people in detention, and we represent unaccompanied kids.

And the kids are under more threat too.

A couple weeks ago, most or many of our kids that we have been serving for a while were visited by FBI agents at their homes.

These are kids who, in many cases, don't even have the most mild discipline records at their middle schools, getting teams of FBI agents knocking on the door asking who lives here.

It's very threatening and it's extremely stressful, but we were built for this.

And I think we're needed more now than ever.

-This was not happening prior to this increased immigration enforcement, where FBI was visiting the home of children?

-That was totally new just a couple weeks ago, and we have seen an internal memo suggesting that that's actually listed as Phase 2 of three phases, which the third phase, including possible immigration enforcement, which means arrest or attempting to deport kids who are already actually in the system doing everything correctly.

-What do you think?

What did you think when you learned that?

-I was shocked.

Even though I was a pessimist about what we needed to prepare for with this administration, I think that it has been in many ways more in discriminate, more harsh, and more unrestrained than I expected.

And we're only beginning, so I think that we're only still seeing the foreshadowing of what might come if we don't get a handle on this very soon.

-What do you mean by "indiscriminate"?

-Meaning that they're targeting all of the above.

They are certainly going after people with serious criminal records.

They're going also after people with very minor criminal records.

Like I have law students who go on to great careers who have a DUI on their record, right?

But that gets lumped into criminal.

And we have people who are targeted who did something dumb 30 years ago and have lived an exemplary life.

Do we want to break up a family?

And people are being targeted who have no criminal record at all, no convictions at all, and people who just have the misfortune to be Venezuelan or have a tattoo.

And as I said, we're seeing targeting of our kids, not arresting them yet, but steps that seem to lead in that direction.

-I want to go back to something you said about you were a pessimist.

-Yes.

-And was that earlier this year when you said, you know, this isn't going to be immediate, mass deportation will take some time?

Is that what you're referring to?

-Well, what I mean that I was a pessimist is that I thought that during the election last year, people were not paying enough attention to the threat of mass deportation and were naive or deluding themselves about what it would mean to our community.

And I still think we're not seeing mass deportation in terms of numbers.

They will need more resources, and that will come.

What we're seeing is laying a lot of groundwork to avoid having any court process, having any review, having anyone have a chance to be heard and just an indiscriminate targeting.

So that the-- we are getting more calls to the office of all types, and it's not only one thing.

So you could ask me, are they going after these, and the answer is probably yes of almost any type of person.

-Okay.

Yeah, I did talk to the consulate of Mexico in Las Vegas.

She said, yes, mostly people that are being detained already had orders for removal or criminal histories.

Do you mind explaining what an order of removal, why someone would have that?

-So there are a lot of ways.

They never expire.

I think that's one thing that's important to understand.

Some of those orders of removal can be-- I've seen 30-year-old orders of removal being used.

So that can happen if someone is in a process.

It can happen if they go to a notario, which is one of the reasons we-- or a lawyer who cheats them and files an application that shouldn't be, and they don't understand what's going on.

They can end up with an in absentia deportation order.

"Removal" is the legal word for deportation.

It could mean that an immigration court ordered them removed and ICE didn't have resources to actually deport them.

Deportation is actually a lot more complicated than it's often portrayed.

So there's a lot of reasons why not everyone who legally can be deported doesn't get immediately deported.

But some of these are extremely old, and people have been living pretty normal lives raising families for a long time, but they never expire.

And that's unusual in our legal system.

We have statutes of limitations for a lot of other things, but not for deportation orders.

-So, yes, ICE is targeting criminals, but perhaps not all of them are violent criminals?

-That's absolutely right.

So what's getting labeled as criminals can be driving without a license, DUI.

It could be a drug offense.

It could be a drug offense last year, it could be a drug offense 25 years ago and someone who's, you know, otherwise put their life back together after having trouble.

It's all of those things, and they're all getting lumped into "criminal."

But if you meet some of these people, you would not-- it would not meet people's image of us when I think of a dangerous criminal.

Like I said, I have law students at UNLV who have similar records and go on to be esteemed attorneys in our community.

-Let's also talk about the Alien Enemies Act.

You mentioned people from Venezuela being a target, also, because they are being associated with a violent gang, Tren de Aragua.

That is what happened in the case of Adrian Arturo Viloria Aviles.

You and the ACLU are representing him.

-Yes.

-What happened with him?

Why get involved?

-We-- he actually just wants to apply for asylum.

So actually on paper, he has a similar case to many of our clients.

He's already been found to have a credible fear of being tortured in Venezuela, which is why he wants to go through the normal process.

None of this would be remarkable or in the news, except for that, for reasons we still don't know, they have put down in the document that they're saying he's part of this gang.

And not a shred of evidence has been produced so far in two different court proceedings, one in immigration court and one in federal district court, to back that up.

So we'll see what happens.

What we are defending in federal court, the reasons in the news, is just the right to due process.

I think people across the country are seeing now why process matters; that we can't have a situation where a government official can just write an allegation on a piece of paper and suddenly whisk you off to a foreign prison.

But that is literally what we're fighting against right here.

In immigration court is a lot less process than trials on Law & Order that you see on TV, but yet people can be accused of heinous murders in this country, and we pride ourselves on having a fair system to adjudicate that.

I think people who are going to work every day and raising their families, whether they have made a mistake here or there or not, at least we all should get process.

And the danger for us all is if anyone can be exempted from process, none of us are safe because the government could lay the same allegation against you or me.

-President Trump recently said that if everyone detained were to have due process, this could take up to 200 years to get through everyone and lead to his mass deportation plan not being implemented.

-Well, leaving his math aside, I think it's odd when people for so long have been pounding the table that people have to do it the right way, for then we in the United States of America and our government to say, Well, we're going to do it the wrong way.

That's what he's arguing for, to do it the wrong way.

We have these processes for a reason.

Some of the things that he's talking about doing were things that were complained about in the Declaration of Independence against King George.

This is not a new concept.

Everyone needs a process in a fair country that follows the law.

-The President also argues that birthright citizenship is not guaranteed in the Constitution.

What do you think about that?

That will be going before the Supreme Court in June?

-There's a lot of things the Constitution is not clear about.

It's clear about this.

It says very clearly that if you were born in the United States and subject to our jurisdiction, then you are a citizen of the United States.

And "subject to the jurisdiction" is not complicated.

I think President Trump, I assume, agrees that if an undocumented immigrant does commit a crime, most don't, but if they do, they're certainly subject to our jurisdiction.

That also, though, means that the 14th Amendment applies and people have birthright citizenship.

Fact is, I don't have my own parents' immigration records or something to prove why they're a citizen, so my own citizenship is actually based on birthright citizenship.

This is not unique to immigrants.

It's very clear in the Constitution.

-What's your level of concern that the Supreme Court will not feel the same as you?

-I'm choosing not to be very concerned about it, because I think that if it's a serious court, that-- and it's a court that says it's textualist, meaning it reads the words, the words are pretty clear.

If I'm surprised and it goes very badly, I will be worried not only for birthright citizenship, but for the state of our legal system, because if those were-- if those words aren't clear enough, then I think so many fundamental things are in doubt.

-How are you talking about this with your students?

-My students are very worried.

Many of them have come to talk to me.

They're worried about their choice of career because they see issues like threats of court orders not being followed and shakiness of our system that just a few years ago we took for granted, maybe just a few months ago we took for granted, and wondering, you know, is it still worth becoming an attorney, right?

And I sometimes wonder that, too, because if a court order is justified by men with guns who may happen to wear a uniform this time, then I don't have a useful skill set as an attorney to help anyone with any problem.

And the bottom line-- this sounds grave, but it's a reality that rule of law is an alternative to violence, because our conflicts will be settled one way or the other.

I would rather they be settled in court, through process, through making the arguments.

If the government has a claim against someone, let them make it and let it be evaluated by somebody independent.

-What are you advising your students to do?

-I'm advising them that for-- that all is not lost, and for right right now, I think, the higher callings of the legal profession are more important than ever.

And I think we in the legal profession have to stand up.

Not everyone has, and but some have.

And I think that the legal profession-- sure we serve clients.

People need to make a living.

All that goes on, but sometimes it's our job to defend democracy, and I think we need to do that locally and nationally.

-Speaking of UNLV students, there were seven who had their visas revoked.

This has been happening at universities across the country.

Some are getting them back.

What is the status of those seven students?

-So I can't speak to the seven at UNLV, specifically.

Nationally, it's part of this ongoing turmoil, same as what we see in the tariffs.

One day it's on, one day it's off, backwards, forwards.

Nobody can plan their lives.

In addition to these individuals, I'm really worried this is going to be devastating to one of the things that's one of the greatest natural-- national resources that we have in the United States, which is our higher education system.

People will come from all over the world to try to study here.

It brings in tons of money.

It actually helps to finance universities for American citizens.

It brings in talent that might go elsewhere.

And now think about, you're a bright student from another country, thinking about whether to study at a Canadian or an American university.

I think, unfortunately, this is going to make people choose to study elsewhere, and that's going to hurt us severely for a long time.

-Now, these seven students, they were referred to you for legal advice, right?

-By UNLV, that's correct.

-Okay.

And what advice did you give them?

-I can't speak to that, because that would be individual.

The other thing that I can say, generally, and this isn't unique to UNLV, that the students who were subject to these decisions were put under a whole lot of pressure sometimes to make really rapid decisions, and that sometimes got in the way of people getting advice that would have benefited them.

So one of the things I would really tell everyone who's at all stressed about anything in the immigration system is get to a lawyer.

Much like doctors and health problems, people sometimes procrastinate too long before going to an attorney.

And get to-- talk to a lawyer, get advice before you make any irrevocable decisions.

-I don't know if you can add any insight into this, but the Trump administration says several of these students that had their visas revoked had criminal records.

Some, though, were found to be pro-Palestinian supporters.

Do you know what the case was for the students?

-No, and I wouldn't be able to speak to it even if I did know.

-Okay.

-Yeah.

-And last thing, you wrote a book that came out in 2020 called The Battle to Stay in America.

The description of it and some of the commentaries, one includes, "Michael Kagan's book paints a picture of Vegas that most people never see: families struggling to stay together despite ICE's efforts to rip them apart, as well as activists, advocates and immigration lawyers fighting from strip malls for justice in their communities."

This was in 2020.

Doesn't sound much different than today.

-It's more intense.

I mean, I wrote that book largely in 2018 and 2019 reflecting on what we had already been through by that point and the stress of it.

There was a lot of psychological warfare.

The chapter in the book describing how that worked, I wanted to explain to more people who I think eyes were opened to some of the problems in our immigration system how is this happening.

And so I think that there's still some really relevant things to-- that are explained there, and I think there's some lessons learned.

But right now, what we're seeing is much more intense.

It might be some of the things we might have seen in 2020 if COVID hadn't happened, because some things were accelerating even at late, late 2019.

But I think, unfortunately, that was like the preview.

And this is we're getting closer to the real thing now.

So I think-- but I think that on the optimistic side, I think people are realizing that due process matters.

I think people are realizing that indiscriminate immigration enforcement is not good for us.

It doesn't live up to our higher values and we will regret it.

There are a lot of different opinions about what should be done about the immigration system, but I think more and more people are seeing that it's not this, and this is going to really hurt us.

It's going to hurt us in Nevada.

-Michael Kagan with UNLV's Immigration Clinic, thank you for joining Nevada Week.

-Thank you for having me.

-And thank you for watching.

For any of the resources discussed, go to vegaspbs.org/nevadaweek.

And I'll see you next week on Nevada Week.