December 2025

This past month has been slightly less eventful, if not less busy. After my work on the habeas petition was done, I started cutting my teeth on more of the day-to-day work of being an immigration advocate. I helped a client renew DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, a policy started during the Obama Administration for certain immigrants brought into the United States as youth). I filed a motion to continue a client’s removal proceeding after receiving a necessary document to file a U-Visa application (a visa for victims of crime). And I worked on an asylum application on behalf of a boy whose mother is in removal proceedings but he is not.

One thing that I had not adequately anticipated was the trauma that an immigration advocate works with on a daily basis. I knew that people who come to the United States and seek legal services often come from traumatic backgrounds. I even knew that the immigration process itself is gruesome, to say the least. But I hadn’t appreciated how the reality of providing asylum or visas for survivors of domestic violence, crimes, or trafficking means that these clients have to relive their harrowing pasts just for the chance of receiving an immigration benefit. And in the ever-tightening belt of the current immigration system, often someone’s past trauma isn’t “enough” or the “right” kind of suffering to warrant relief.

This realization has spawned my discovery of even more truths: it is vital that an advocate in my circumstances be trauma-informed. Truth be told, I wish we had resources for a social worker to talk to my clients after almost every one of my calls. I have an incredible opportunity to practice the skills that I acquired as an intern, but I know I also have much more to learn. I have also gleaned that immigration law, at least the kind we practice, is inherently reactionary: something terrible happened to someone, so as a result, our country will give them legal status. It creates an almost perverse incentive scheme as an advocate: while I never want anything bad to have happened to a potential client, knowing that something may have makes it easier for me to represent them.

Next month will bring new challenges with writing U-visa applications and contending with removal hearings. I look forward to reporting what happens next.

———————

November 2025

This past month was a whirlwind. It started when I received a call out of the blue from the Assistant Director of my team, The Immigrant and Workers’ Rights Practice Group. When I answered the phone, she told me that she had just met the daughter of a seriously ill man detained at the ICE detention center in Broadview, Illinois. She asked, “Do you have time to file an emergency Habeas Petition ASAP?” I of course said yes. Over the next five hours the Director, Assistant Director, and I huddled together to write, edit, and submit a petition to prevent our client from being removed from the jurisdiction of the Seventh Circuit and released from custody.

That was just the beginning. As the days unfolded, we learned more about our client and the dangers of his continued custody. He had diabetes, liver cancer, and retinal neuropathy, to name only a few of his concerning health conditions. And the reason he was arrested? He was working at his job as a landscaper and picked up in an ICE raid..

After submitting the petition, we also learned more about the basis of his detention and how we had to challenge it. We learned that the government was holding him under a new USCIS policy that considers people who have been living in the United States for years—like our client—as “applicants for admission” who are “seeking admission” and thus subject to mandatory detention. We challenged the government’s policy as incorrect as a matter of law and amended our habeas petition to reflect that argument. Meanwhile, we ensured that our client was prepared for a possible bond hearing in case the judge ordered the government to provide him bond as judges had in similar situations.

This story has a happy ending: the judge granted our habeas petition and our client got out on bond. We met with his family the week after and they were able to convey their gratitude in person. As an advocate, it was an incredible outcome and I was so glad to have contributed so meaningfully to our mission in my second month of work. But I kept on thinking about the hundreds of people who were arrested in similar raids and didn’t have access to a lawyer— who signed voluntary removal orders and got deported. What could have happened if they could have talked to a lawyer? When will this end?

———————

October 2025

Ever since I learned what the concept was, I wanted to spend my life advancing human rights. In my first ever meeting with the Immigration Team, the subset of the Immigration and Workers’ Rights Practice Group at Legal Aid Chicago (and my colleagues for the next two years), I knew I was in the right place. As we sat, anxious as our nation’s attack on immigrants escalates and masked men brutally pluck our neighbors from the streets, our director urged us to continue doing what we are doing: restoring and uplifting the dignity of our clients. We are recognizing the humanity in our clients. We are making calls and making contingency plans. We are helping clients find relief in their day-to-day cases, just as we are training on how to support our clients if caught in detention. We are active in the crisis that surrounds us, and we keep a steady eye on what’s most important: the security and well-being of our client communities.

One supervisor joked that I was starting my job in the “middle of a hurricane.” That may be a good description for the energy thrumming through our office, but a description of my work should be far more modest. I’m taking baby steps as a new attorney, learning the ABCs of today’s immigration law and switching gears from clerking. As I find my sea legs, I’ve shadowed intakes, introduced myself to clients, and grown in appreciation of both the fortitude of our clients and the intensifying obstacles they face to gain relief. And with every stride, I get closer to seeing my future as a potential bridge for that divide, one that I hope will support and uplift every client I meet.

So, in summary, my first two weeks have engulfed me in a new world of challenge and never-ending hope. And there’s nowhere else I’d rather be.