27. Deporting Veterans – Fact or Fiction? – An Interview with Amanda Schuft from Immigrant Defenders Law Center

On the 27th episode of Immigration Today! Angeline Chen welcomes Amanda Schuft. Amanda Schuft is the Legal Services Director of Community Defense Programs at Immigrant Defenders Law Center. Immigrant Defenders Law Center is Southern California's largest deportation defense non-profit. They provide full‐scale deportation defense, legal representation, legal education, and connections to social services. Amanda has been a part of the Immigrant Defenders Law Center team for almost 8 years while serving various roles. Her focus is in representing adults who have been detained by ICE and who have been found incompetent to represent themselves through their National Qualified Representative Program. She is also the Directing Attorney for ImmDef's Deported Veteran Program where she helps veterans who have been deported with legal resources and post-conviction relief in an effort to eventually get legal status in the U.S. Prior to this, she was a staff attorney at Esperanza Immigrant Rights Project. She attended the University of Oregon School of Law. 

Amanda explains how she always knew she wanted a career that was of service to people. Her mother was a teacher and would help vulnerable students better access the education system. Amanda became a bilingual teacher in Honduras for a year and eventually realized education was not for her. She pursued law school instead and eventually understood that there was a real need in the immigrant community to better access the legal system. Now she dedicates herself to representing individuals that are not competent to represent themselves in immigration court and has made huge strides in helping deported veterans come back home.

You can learn more about the Deported Veterans Program on ImmDef’s website here. For client referral’s you can email deportedvets@immdef.org.

You can also make a donation here or sign up to volunteer here. Please follow ImmDef on Instagram, Facebook, Tik Tok, Linked-In and Twitter. Amanda Schuft is on Linked-In.

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DISCLAIMER – This podcast is intended for general informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice or a solicitation to provide legal services. The information in this podcast is not intended to create, and receipt of it does not constitute, a lawyer-client relationship. Listeners should not act upon this information without seeking professional legal counsel. The views and opinions expressed in the podcast represent those of the individual speaker only and are not necessarily the views of Clark Hill PLC.

Transcript

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Hello, everyone. It's Angeline Chen. Welcome to Immigration Today, where I interview leaders, advocates, experts, and volunteers in immigration and immigrant rights on the issues, their experiences, and how you can make a difference. Today we have Amanda Shuft. Amanda Shuft is the Legal Services Director of Community Defense Programs at the Immigrant Defenders Law Center. The Immigrant Defenders Law Center is Southern California's largest deportation defense nonprofit. They provide full scale deportation defense, legal representation, legal education, and connections to social services. Amana has been a part of the Immigrant Defenders Law Center team for almost eight years while serving various roles. Her focus is in representing adults who have been detained by ICE and who have been found incompetent to represent themselves through their national qualified representative program. She is also the directing attorney for IMDEF's Deported veteran program where she helps veterans who have been deported with legal resources and post conviction relief in an effort to eventually get legal status in the U. S. Prior to this, she was a staff attorney at Esperanza Immigrant Rights Project. She attended the University of Oregon School of Law. Welcome to the podcast, Amanda. Thank you so much for having me. Thank you. Is it okay if we get right to kind of getting to know you and asking some questions about your work? Absolutely. Oh, thank you. So I'd love to know a little bit about your background, Amanda, in terms of, you know, More of the personal part about you in terms of how, what your upbringing was like, where are you from? Things like that. That'd be great. Sounds good. So, um, I was born and raised in Oregon. My family isn't from there. My parents are actually from California. Um, but they, they moved up to Oregon in the seventies and my dad ended up working with the Oregon department of transportation. And that led us to. Rural Eastern Oregon where I, uh, grew up most of my childhood in a town called La Grande. So my my mom was a teacher there. She actually became a teacher when I was young. So I watched that process happen. And I think, you know, my parents just watching them and watching my mom as a teacher seeing how, you know, the things that she was doing to help her most vulnerable students so that they could succeed. You know, better access the education system with the faults that it does have was kind of inspiring to me to. Think about what I wanted to do in my life. Mm-Hmm. and, um, kind of developing my more ground level approach to, to the work that I do, working kind of with individuals on an individual basis. And, mm-Hmm, , that's what we do at MD. We provide direct legal, legal services to immigrants in the, in the immigration system. So. No. Yeah. Thank you. That's really interesting because I know that eventually you did become, uh, a teacher as well. Kind of following a little bit in your mom's footsteps and in Honduras think for, um, teaching the fourth grade. Right. And then. Yeah. And so what, what was it because she was helping kids, you just liked working with children. Like, what was that? Where did that idea come from? Um, so I did start out in education. I think graduating from college in 2007. You know, there was the recession and people weren't expecting that. So I didn't have a clear vision at that time of exactly what I wanted to do. More like broader. Mm-Hmm, . And with the lack of. Um, entry level jobs available. I, I started, you know, working at an afterschool program and as an aid at a public grade school. So it wasn't necessarily what I thought my path would be at the time, but, um, I started doing that and then I got the opportunity to go to Honduras and teach fourth grade at a bilingual school. And while I do feel value that what you can do as an educator and kind of, you know, helping, helping people on an individual basis, um, I realized that that wasn't necessarily the path for me and started thinking about what I wanted to do, you know, in the context of that there was still a recession going on and realizing, yes, I am going to. Um, I had to go back to school most likely, and, um, when I got back from Honduras, I started working at a housing development nonprofit, where most of our residents were migrant farm workers. You know, that's not I didn't necessarily think about a focus on immigration at that time. But I just while I was developing educational programs for for the youth residents for after school, um, I saw a lot of our residents, their parents and the kids needing access to the legal system, whether that be for housing. You know, to deal with tickets or other interactions with the criminal justice system, um, labor issues with jobs and things like that. So I decided, you know, I think I am going to go to law school. And once in law school, I just happened to speak with someone pretty early on who had done an internship in immigration. And that's what I ended up doing my first summer. I did have the Spanish, um, so. Once I started doing immigration, I really like I think this is something that I am very interested and want to keep doing. And then the second summer that I was in law school, I went down to Arizona and worked with the Florence Immigrant and Refugee Rights Program. Yeah. And that, you know, there's so many detention centers down there, uh, penal institutions. And that's when I did start focusing on working with adults and seeing how there was very few resources. There were very few resources and very few attorneys working in those detention centers. I, I just thought, you know, this is, this is the path I'm going to take. And I find the case. The cases themselves quite interesting from the legal aspect. So, so, so when you were, so you said you had the Spanish, did you learn it in Honduras or did you learn it in college? And why did you learn Spanish? I started taking it in college. It wasn't something that there was a lot of access to where I grew up as far as second language. Um, And I thought I would love to learn a language once I was in college and could have a, um, more of a worldview, having grown up in, in a rural area. And so I started doing that in college, ended up doing a language intensive program. But I do think really getting to a level where I could effectively communicate with people did happen when I was in Honduras. Mm hmm. Totally. And so, you know, the, the work that you do now, the work that you did, um, in Arizona, I'm sure it was really hard. I mean, going into the detention centers, talking to these people, trying to get them released, trying to get them asylum or any type of type of relief to stay in the U. S. It's hard work. Like, did you feel like, okay, this, Is a job. I'm going to get into it. I'm good at it. Or, or did you feel like this is what I'm meant to do? And what was your feeling behind all of it? Like, why do you, why do you feel like you should be doing this hard? Like, I just gave you five questions. Sorry. Yeah, I'll start off and if I miss any, you can let me know. Um, I do think, you know, just seeing, again, the very limited resources, um, you know, particularly in Arizona, that's not ultimately where I ended up, but those detention facilities and in California are Not in very populated areas. And at the time that I was in law school, there wasn't very much focus with nationally, with the public on what was going on with immigration. Um, a lot of that focus came later, at least in the timeline of my career, with the Trump administration making their policies, um, actual, like the family separation policy, while that was happening before. It wasn't official policy. There wasn't as much of a spotlight on what was going on that, you know, thousands of people were being separated from their families and detained in very remote areas where they didn't have access to legal counsel or information about their case and didn't even understand the process that they were going through. Um, so, seeing that need, um, and the At least for me, there is, you know, the intersection of criminal and immigration law is quite a complicated area, but I. I felt that that legally was, was very interesting and something that I wanted to pursue and I didn't see a lot of people doing at the time. Um, so I did start looking at where I might want to land and other organizations that were doing that work. Um, at the time it was. There were some public defender agencies that we're starting to have immigration experts, things like that on staff. So, so I was looking at a few different things and ultimately ended up in Los Angeles. Um, you know, as you said, the work is very hard and I thought being in a city where there were some uh, Other types of organizations doing supportive services outside of the immigration representation would maybe make it a little bit easier to do that holistic work without getting burned out, without having it all on the attorney's shoulders, um, because a lot of our clients do need access to medical services, housing, um, You know, a full range of social services, rehabilitation programs, things like that. So I don't think I answered all of your questions. Yeah, no, it's really good stuff. You know, sometimes I just. I'm only I did work a little bit in detention before. Um, I have been to the detention facilities, uh, have been to the border as well, but I could not. I can't see myself doing it all the time. The emotional part of it was is to it's very. Difficult for me, and I probably suffer PTSD from what I've done in the past, but it, you know, I just really admire people who can do it. Um, it's sad and I feel like it's gotten harder. Um, especially people with, they can't afford for, you know, these bonds and, and, and to hire attorneys. And I know the nonprofits are also really overwhelmed. So I'm always interested in, like, what What drives you, what makes you keep going? So I guess that's my next question. What, what drives you to keep going? You know, I think in the timeline of my relatively short career, a lot has happened, um, you know, the. Obama was the president when I started, and there was a growing number of, of immigration detention facilities, beds available, and just learning more about that. That was something that I was seeing people without kind of direct experience with it, or who were directly impacted by it, not Having an awareness of what was actually going on, and that these very large companies were running these institutions, lobbying our government, and, you know, expanding that system. And there was, again, when I started, very few people doing the work, even private attorneys going out to those facilities. Yes, the work is extremely difficult. And in the beginning, when there wasn't as many people doing it, it was a lot of trips to the detention centers. Um, we didn't have access to free attorney client calls. So even just to ask the client a simple question. To prep for a hearing when you know that happens all the time with last minute things coming up and just making sure all the, the T's are crossed and the I's are dotted, trip up to the detention center. And then, you know, as time went on, they're starting with the large numbers of unaccompanied children coming to the border. There was more focus on what's going on with immigration. Ultimately, that didn't become my focus of the work. Um, then. You know, Trump got elected and started making some of those draconian practices, actual policies, and the spotlight became much greater, um, There is now, you know, state, local governments across the country funding this work. There are so many more nonprofits doing this work, even many more public defender agencies. So, while the work is very hard, being able to see those very obvious and concrete changes is inspiring. Um, also, you know, with my work specifically, the. Representing, um, individuals who are incompetent before the immigration court, um, there is a Ninth Circuit injunction, Franco, um, Gonzales v. Holder, that required the government to fund representation for people who were detained, who were in immigration court proceedings, and Injunction came down in 2013. So that's a big change to, you know, government, government funded representation for appointed counsel and immigration court. Um, and, you know, with those cases, starting to see cases going up through the appellate court, seeing some, you know, we get negative decisions, but we've had, you know, positive precedential decisions from, from the Ninth Circuit in some of our cases. And I think as a young lawyer, that's quite inspiring to see that while, you know, my focus and passion has always been to do more of the ground level individual work, how that can be much more impactful on a larger scale. So looking at it like that, of course, you know, We, when someone's detained without status, when someone is placed in removal proceedings without status, especially if they're in a detention center, their options are very limited. The immigration system is, you know, contrary to what a lot of people think. There are not very many avenues to obtain legal status, particularly if you're You know, in removal proceedings. So you're having to defend against your deportation by the US government. So, yes, you know, focusing on adults in detention, the case outcome might be many times that your client is not going to get out of detention. They're not going to have a chance to see their family. Going to get deported. Um, and that's extremely tragic and sad, particularly, you know, when there are family members that rely on those people, they're losing that from their life from kids to family members of medical issues. And. In those moments, it's, it's very sad and tragic, but I do think there's an element of, of being able to kind of compartmentalize that and see the bigger picture to have longevity, but also, you know, what's been important that for me and immigrant defenders law center. And, you know, as I progressed in my career to. Help develop help the development of of new attorneys is really, um, redefining success. It's a phrase that we use a lot and that success is providing our clients with the highest quality of legal services while they go through this process and information because. There is value in knowing what the likely outcome is of a case, um, instead of wondering and wondering to the last minute and then realizing, you know, people don't even understand they're going to a hearing on a day that the judge is going to make a decision on their application. And at the end of that hearing. They might be ordered deported, um, and not being able to make any plans for things like that. So helping people through that process, even if the ultimate outcome is, um, a deportation, there is value in that. Um, and, you know, I've had a lot, a lot of clients who have just told me at the end of that, like, thank you so much for, for all the work that, that you've done and people are in a system that really strips their dignity and just taking the time to be with that person and they get the chance to know that at least they did everything they could to try and stay. Um, You know, it's still really hard, but I think those are the things that I look to and, and the change that I've seen across my career, um, even through the Trump administration, while, yes, there was a lot of hard things that happened. There were a lot of judges appointed that now, you know, impact the outcomes that we get. But, um, during the Trump administration, the. Amount of pro bono legal services available to individuals who are in deportation proceedings, or even for affirmative immigration release just grew so significantly. Yeah, that's great. That's that part, that part is great. Yeah, although they shouldn't be detained or being deported, you know, in deportation proceedings in the first place is what I think. But yes, but if they're in there, we definitely need to provide support. Uh, I always do tell people being an immigration attorney is very much. So the social emotional support system for them, um, sometimes therapists as well, uh, and for the family members and just, just, you know. And it's just more than just the legal, the legal help behind it. Because these are families, these are people who have been here for a long time or for a short time or fleeing persecution or, you know, there's so many different stories. Um, and And so the stuff we do is not, it's not just the legal work, right? You have to have a personality for it as well. And I, I do agree that communication is so important. Preparation is so important because this whole process is so traumatizing, uh, for them, you know, you want to be as prepared. They need to be as prepared as possible. Um, and I'm always telling, you know, my people who work for me and my team just over communicate, over communicate. You know, on the phone and in writing, remind them and people are happy in general, you know, all in all aspects of life. I feel like the more you communicate, the better. Um, so, yeah, thank you for your work there. I want to get into, uh, the work that you do for the veterans. So I either saw you in an article or in an interview talking about how, um, Veterans are getting deported as well. And for a lot of people, it's hard for them to even comprehend that, that, um, that the U. S. would deport veterans. It's it just boggles my mind and I'm sure other people too. Can you get into a little bit more about what's happening with veterans who were undocumented or are undocumented and how you're helping them? Sure. Um, so, you know, it kind of reminds me how people react to. Veterans are getting deported as when, at the very beginning of my career, I would talk about how people are, the level of people getting detained and deported, just a lack of awareness. So I do hope, you know, right now with the spotlight on, on veterans getting deported that that awareness outside of the legal community and immigration lawyer community, uh, broadens. But. Yes. So actually, um, you do have to have legal status to join the military. So most of our clients were lawful permanent residents who were deported. And, you know, the grounds of removal apply to veterans, just as they apply to any other person. So. There are many different, as you know, as an immigration attorney, things that can make someone removable, and including certain convictions. Um, I mean, I know you know this, but most people don't know that a lawful permanent resident, whether they have lived here for 5 years or 50 years, misdemeanors, many misdemeanors can make them deportable, including simple possession of a controlled substance. So I like to use that one because it's easy for everybody to understand simple possession of a controlled substance, particularly as it relates to veterans where I think a lot of people are aware now that our military members and veterans, oftentimes, most times, especially historically, didn't have access to the services that they medical mental health services that they most likely needed upon discharge from the military and with mental health services in this country, it's not specific to veterans or any other group of people that They're not available. And oftentimes people turn to, um. Substance use to mitigate the symptoms that they're experiencing, whether that be depression and ability to sleep or PTSD symptoms associated with PTSD, which can be quite significant for many people and debilitating. Yeah. So then they are getting caught for that. Um, these misdemeanors and then placing removal proceedings. Is there something. Um. There are certain forms of relief they could qualify for, but is there anything special about being a veteran that could keep them from being deported at this time? You know, there are with the administration, um, is kind of making a focus on military members, non citizen military members and veterans. There are some, um, some bills and legislation. Um, being proposed that would require the government to use more waivers and things like that to allow people to not be deported and, um, during the Obama administration there was a program that every person during their basic training would start the process of naturalization to become a citizen because as soon as you you serve in active duty for one day during a period of hostilities, which the United States has been in since, um, September 11th, 2001, you're eligible for, for military naturalization. So starting that process during basic training and getting that process done for deployment or transfer to another base, things like that. Um, because oftentimes what has happened to people is Start that process and then they're deployed and they don't get their interview notice or I mean, you know how long and arduous that process can be. So, um, we did have 1 client who, who was deployed, you know, to a war zone. He had started his naturalization process and. He did his interview. His application was, um, approved, but not the same day. So he wasn't sworn in and he never got the notice for his gradient ceremony. He was never sworn in and he ended up having a conviction, um, that actually barred him from naturalizing and he was deported. Oh, no. Yeah. Yeah, so we do have many veteran clients who, who were deployed into war zones and then after their deployment, you know, the circumstances in their lives led them to, to convictions that then resulted in their deportation. Um, so aside from that, once in removal proceedings, there are, you know, memos, several memos regarding prosecutorial discretion, which means. The prosecuting agency ice in the case of of removal proceedings can use their discretion and not placing someone in removal proceedings. Um, so military service is a factor to consider. But as you know, doing the cases of deported veterans, I review a lot of the, uh, the, the freedom, their files from immigration court, um, that we obtain through the Freedom of Information Act. And, you know, you see it sometimes that, The ICE officers or arresting officers are aware that the person has military service, but you know, discretion is not exercised. Um, people file applications for relief. Those are denied and they're ultimately deported. So like military service is considered in the broader consideration of all positive and negative factors in the case. So. What do you do with the veterans who have already been deported? Can you help them back into the U S? Yes. And we have, you know, many clients at this point who have been returned after a deportation. Um, and I think Right now the because the administration created the immigrant and military members and veterans initiative within the Department of Homeland Security in partnership with the VA So there are now Um, ICE officers and USCIS officers that are put on assignment to this initiative, and the goal of this initiative is to assist current military members in that naturalization process, which isn't the focus of our program at Immigrant Defender's Law Center, the focus on our program is actually the deported veterans, um, and so part of that process has been considering that. People for humanitarian parole that in the past, most likely their applications would have been denied so and then, you know, What we do also is post conviction relief. So there are veterans who would be eligible for military naturalization, military naturalization. Someone is eligible if they're a veteran who served during a period of hostilities, who was discharged, honorably discharged, or under honorable conditions. And, um, you can't have What's called an aggravated felony and immigration law. No, you know what that is, but for the listeners, that is a legal term of art. It doesn't mean that the conviction has to be a felony under state law or have any aggravated circumstances, but that is just a word that defines, um, a number of crimes. under federal law as aggravated felonies. So that's a bar. So we work on post conviction relief for veterans who would be eligible to naturalize, but for a conviction. Um, and then we've also done cases for veterans who aren't eligible for the military naturalization. We have a lot of veterans who served during the eighties and nineties. Um, there is a period, you know, the, the goal for the nineties, but that period, As defined by, by the Department of Homeland Security is only about a year. So for those cases, in some cases, we have been successful in, in vacating all of the deportable convictions and then filing a motion to reopen their, their case in immigration court so that they can reinstate their, their status as a lawful permanent resident. Some of our clients, we are not able to obtain post conviction relief so that they have a permanent pass to status. So we do have clients who have been granted humanitarian parole through this initiative with this administration and they're, the parole periods for many cases have been about a year and you know, that comes with a lot of question marks. Am I going to be granted parole again? If another president is elected, will this initiative continue? Yeah. What happens to it? Exactly. I'm, you know, I think that if Biden isn't elected or another. Democrat, but no guarantees even so then it would not no longer exist. Um, I forgot to say when I was talking earlier about the program to naturalize, start that naturalization process during basic training that was canceled during the Trump administration. Not surprising like that. Yeah. So, um, So, good news, you know, we've had a lot of veterans repatriated, um, in the scheme of, of immigration law, you know, being, being able to obtain humanitarian parole for someone who's been deported, who does have conviction, it's kind of, it's amazing, not heard of in the green. Not normal. Yeah. Yeah. So, um, So that's great, but there's still a lot of work to be done, and nobody knows exactly how many deported veterans there are because DHS doesn't keep records of this. Of course, there is a way to find that information of going through everybody's FOIAs, but there's no way the federal government would take the time or resources to do that, so it's kind of a question mark, but Absolutely hundreds of veterans have been deported. Um, but so it's basically if the, the, if the individual finds you, hears about you, hears about this in the media. Um, oh, I was actually a veteran. I was deported. I can. You know, talk to in depth and see if they can help me, it's gonna, it's, that's the way right for them to find out, um, because you're not getting a list of names and you obviously can't keep, you know, keep a spreadsheet of everyone who's deported and look them up. So, oh, wow, that's a lot of, it's a lot of work. It's a lot of work. Thank you for doing that. Yeah. And I do want to say we work a lot with, um, partners. Um, we've worked directly on a lot of these cases with our partners at Public Council in Los Angeles, the ACLU of Southern California, um, and it, the Black Deported Veterans of America, U. S. Unified Deported Veterans Support House in Tijuana, Deported Veterans, there's two really amazing support houses in Tijuana, um, So, you know, we, it's a, it's a big team effort. Sure. No, definitely. I, I, I definitely know how that is. You have people all over the place. You can get the resources from, from everywhere. So, it's great to have a, a strong network. Um, and I'd love to interview those people too, so I'll contact you about that. Um, so also. In depth has other services as well. Um, you do represent unaccompanied minors may not be you individually, but, you know, someone, um, at the nonprofit helps and represents unaccompanied minors helps reunite families who are separated, um, represents people in removal proceedings, um, affirmative asylum cases. I'm thinking, am I missing anything? No, the main focus of our work at MDef is, uh, representing people who are in removal proceedings. And our largest program is working with the unaccompanied minors. Um, and then on our adult side, when we started, it was only the, the Franco Gonzalez class members, but as, you know, more focused, we have a lot of different, um Like locally funded justice funds, the county of Los Angeles, state of California, city of Santa Ana, city of Long Beach, um, provide funding to represent the community. You know, our community members in in removal proceedings and so this program is a, is a bit smaller as far as MDEF goes on our end, but, um, it's important, very important, makes a huge impact. Yes, so do you have a specific story of you helping somebody that has touched your heart in the past? Absolutely. Too many to stay here. Um, but maybe I can, I can talk about someone who we were able to help, you know, with the path to permanent status and then someone who is kind of in that gray area of I'm on humanitarian parole and will I get to stay? So, um, starting off with, with that one, I, um, You know, speaking of community partners, we, I went to an event through the Rizom Center out of Guadalajara, Mexico a couple of years ago when we were, um, really starting to do the immigration side of the deported veteran work. Um, we started out mainly with post conviction relief and I met this person who, um, You know, he served during a period of hostilities after 9 11, and he was just telling me that his wife was very sick, and he needed to get back home. Um, they have three minor children together, and she has suffered from, um, Brain aneurysm and have had to have brain surgery. And as a result of that, no longer was able to do all of her day to day functions, and they were no longer able to go visit him. He's very isolated, you know, living in a state. There are there are the support houses near the border, but living in a state, you know, farther in and, um, his kids were going through a lot. His wife obviously was going through a lot. And when we met, that was before the this initiative has started. And he has a federal conviction that would be defined as an aggravated felony. Post conviction relief is Almost impossible at the federal level. Um, you know, who knows, maybe someone who hears this who does presidential pardons, um, or something like that, reach out, but, um, so he doesn't have a passive permanent status. At this point, um, and I, you know, told him, unfortunately, there, there isn't a path for you right now to return to your family. And, you know, it's so hard, but the the The resilience and after the initiative was created, we started working together on his humanitarian parole packet. You know, there was definitely some obstacles to overcome, but the amount of letters of support that I got from him from him from, you know, a sheriff. People that he served with in the military, and obviously his family members, his brothers and sisters, just, you know, knowing everything his wife was going to on a day to day, his, his wife's doctor had told her, you know, it might just be that Sunday, don't wake up in the morning and she didn't have him there thinking about what if It's Sunday. My kids come in and find me and, and things like that, and you know, their son's suffering from pretty significant depression. So, so it was a lot, it was still like very much a struggle for him to go through that process, waiting. Will I get approved? Will I not get approved? Because they are not approving every application for humanitarian parole. He did get approved. He is back with his family. You can get a work permit. When you're on humanitarian parole, so he has a work permit, he has a job, um, but it's, you know, he can never feel secure about what's going on, so we're about to, to start reapplying, and, and we'll just be submitting a request to the, the local, Uh, DHS ICE office, uh, the ICE attorneys to a request that they in their discretion reopen his case or file a joint motion with us to reopen the case and dismiss it so he could. Yeah. We, it has happened in a couple of cases, but there's no directive on that from, from the ICE attorneys. So it's really case by case and up to the local office of whatever. You know, immigration court that that person was deported from so that is one you know, obviously, there are things that pull your heartstrings in every single case, but just, you know, speaking to him over the months that we had met, especially, obviously, while he was still separated from his family and knowing what he was going through and, like, you that he ultimately is now with them, at least temporarily. Um, that's great. Yeah. But you know, it's still, it's, he does suffer from PTSD. He's been through a lot, child abuse, child sex abuse. Um, so it's a lot to live in that state of what could happen to me. This could all be gone tomorrow. Absolutely. Um, and then, so another case. Where it just to go to highlight how much work, um, can go into to repatriating someone even with the development of the initiative. So this person, he did not serve during a period of hostilities. It doesn't mean that people weren't deployed, especially in, you know, in the 90s, people are deployed to a lot of different places that are, were war zone like. Yeah. Um, and he. We were able to do post conviction relief. He only had one conviction besides a misdemeanor failure to register Like your car or something like that, but one conviction that had rendered him removable as a lawful permanent resident You know brought to you most of our clients brought to the United States at a very young age English is preferred language everything like that consider themselves American through and through, of course, you know, they served this country, you know, even having been deported after all this time missing out on child lives, maybe even a child's whole life. Most of our clients when they see him walk through that. Port of entry, they say, like, God bless America. So, like, they are extremely patriotic, um, and deserving of citizenship in this country, clearly. Um, so we were able to vacate on legal grounds, his only removal conviction. And so But we still couldn't get him back into the United States at that point because we needed to have his case reopened in immigration court. So we reached out to ICE and kind of spent a lot of time negotiating with them. They ultimately agreed to join our motion, but opposed the validity of the vacatur. I know I'm getting into the legalese a little bit, but it was a fight. Ultimately, we were. able to get his case terminated in immigration court. Um, but prior to that, his dad fell ill with COVID. And so we did this urgent humanitarian parole request that did have to go to CBP because of the timeline. And, um, there was requests like you grant him parole so he can see his father before he passes away. It was denied. And his dad. died, but we did another one or the humanitarian pro request through the initiative, which was granted. So he did get to go to the funeral. Um, and then right now, you know, we're waiting for him to, to receive his renewed green card because those proceedings were reopened and terminated. So he does have his lawful permanent resident status back. But, um, even, you know, there's just a lot that Can go into a case and what happens and so much, yeah, so many resources, so much money when none of it needs to happen, you know, all this money. I mean, this person is a veteran and is a minor crime. How from your, from this story, what, how long did it take from. Beginning to now. Um, well, probably like two years. I don't think people understand how long that is and how long it takes. And things can take longer, much longer people removal proceedings. And, um, but I, yeah, amazing. Good job. Thank you. It's a team effort. All of these cases. I've heard a lot of hands touch them. Um, But, you know, one thing that that that last client mentioned that will stick with me as, you know, a person, a young mother myself. Well, I'm not saying I mean, my son is young, but I do the same thing. Wait, wait, wait, wait. I'm not the young one. My child. Um, he's like, Well, now, you know, you have face time, everything like that you can get videos. But when my daughters were having their dance recitals, there wasn't videos, I completely missed all of those things. And and now they're like young adults. And, you know, he at least has the chance to reconnect with them now. But for some of our clients, You know, all the circumstances, those situations may have been foreclosed or would take a lot more work to, to rebuild relationships just due to the length of separation. Oh, totally. Totally. They don't even know their dad. They don't know their mom. It's really hard. It's really hard to, okay, we're going to FaceTime. We're going to talk on the phone. Yeah, not there for like disciplining a lot of things and just being a role model. It's, it's really, really hard. Well, thank you, Amanda, for everything that you do for the immigrants and focusing on the veterans as this is something that's very new to me. Um, you know, I've practiced almost 20 years in immigration and never had a client who, um. You know, was a veteran. Uh, I've heard of the issue happening, but I know it seems to be more popular now, which is, which is good. Let's get it out there, you know, to, to let people know. I think it'll, it'll other people who may not be so attentive to the immigration issues may be a little more attentive when they hear veterans because, you know, they, these people served our country, you know, went to war. And, and so I think that this needs to be, this information needs to be spread. Um, as widely as possible. But thank you for for your dedication to the work and and, um, and your passion for it. And I hope I hope we get you on again. Thank you so much. And. Thank you for highlighting this issue. You know, I think I brought up several times how Public focus on things can really change the landscape as far as services available. So, you know right now There's there is more focus on this. So hopefully it will just expand access to services and You know, encourage people to reach out to their Congress people and support bills that will help repatriate veterans, help veterans, you know, who are still in removal proceedings, um, for the government to exercise that discretion so that they're not deported in the first place, um, make sure people are getting naturalized, but, um, bringing focus to the issue, especially veterans themselves, reaching out, um, To their legislative representatives and saying, I support, you know, our government not deporting veterans and repatriating the veterans. I think that that's really important right now. And then lawyers. Pro bono lawyers. If you're interested in doing the work, please reach out to us. You know, our program, we do have our program, but it's, it's very small and it doesn't meet the need of all the deported veterans are out there. And, you know, of course, our military service members and veterans who are in the United States that are not citizens. Um, so. No, that's great. That thank you for that because we, we could definitely, um, keep a lookout for people who want to help and attorneys who want to take pro bono work in the space. Um, it sounds, it sounds great. Everything that you guys have created. So thank you so much. And we'll be putting links to your organization. Um, when we publicize this and yeah, thank you so much, Amanda. Yeah. Thank you for having me. It was really great talking to you. This podcast is intended for general education and informational purposes only, and should not be regarded as either legal advice or a legal opinion. You should not act upon or use this publication or any of its contents for any specific situation. 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