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- Since taking office, my administration has launched the most sweeping border and immigration crackdown in American history. - Immigrant rights groups, again sounding the alarm over what they say is an intensifying violent crackdown across Oregon. - Our immigrant community has been under attack in a way that we haven't seen. Not at this magnitude and not in this chaotic way.
You can comply, you can go to court, you can do the process and still get picked up. - So many of our clients right now are experiencing that fall of, but I don't understand. I'm following all the rules. Why did they detain me? - We had kind of understood that the administration was gonna move unlawfully and use a lot of illegal tactics to achieve this mass deportation goal.
It would be aggressive and the law didn't really matter to them. When we talk about the moment to me, like people talk about like we gotta meet the moment, right? This is the moment we've all went, this is why I went to law school. Right? This is why you're here at Law Lab.
This was the last case we were court for. That will get shredded. Attorney action shots. My name is Stephen Manning. I am the executive director for Innovation Law Lab here at Law Lab our mission is to promote and protect the rights and prosperity of the immigrant refugee community. We say the best way to defend your rights is to use them. If we don't use them, they vanish. In Oregon, we've worked really hard on making lawyers available at no cost to the community. One of our biggest pushes was to be able to get people's asylum applications on file so they could move forward with their process.
So standing up workshops, asylum workshops, asylum legal clinics. We've also thought about like lawyers need to go out into the community and so we have this thing called the Justice Bus. So Justice Bus, access to justice everywhere. This actual vehicle that can go to places that need lawyers on site. So this is a consultation space, consultation spaces.
You can get people in here and then we have the canopy that comes out on the side. So then we can also have like a lobby space out there. So the physical bus. So this is our ski bus and our camper van and we're like, yeah, you know what we, this is where this is actually needed more than us going skiing. Kind of like a makeover. Is it an extreme makeover? Maybe. Last year was like within the law, obviously there would be disagreements about what the law could mean or certain interpretations, but that's normal. It was a system that functioned - Get on the ground. - But what's happening now? It's all different. - Now it's just about preserving the shreds of democracy within the immigration space that exists preventing people's expulsion back into
very dangerous places. So the stakes are just absolutely different. - Immigration enforcement raids are initiated across Texas. - Growing tensions over mass deportations in Los Angeles. - We saw the administration call in the National Guard on LA. You know, immigration raids have not happened here in Oregon, but certainly we have seen just an increase in attack on our immigrant community. I'm gonna be speaking at this rally to really condemn the actions of the administration.
Hey y'all. I'm one of the speakers. - How are you? I'm Lee. - I'm Isa. I work at Innovation Law Lab. - Oh right, I think I've heard of it. - We need Oregon leaders to ensure that our state stands strong. Let's protect the place we call home. And if ICE wants to find out what the constitution means in Oregon, we will not back down. I come from a mixed status family. That means there are people in my immediate family that have citizenship. There are people who have no documents.
The personal is always in the work. - When immigrant rights are under attack, what do we do? - Stand up! Fight back! ICE detained four people at the courthouse who were seeking a asylum - Taken out of immigration court and into custody. - This man was the last of four immigrants taken into custody. You know, we started to see this practise where ICE attorneys would ask judges to dismiss people's cases. The judge would then dismiss the case and there would be ICE agents outside waiting to pick up that person.
- ICE is asking immigration judges across the country to dismiss the court cases of certain migrants so the agency can arrest them once their hearings end and place them in a fast track deportation process. - Usually it's a good thing if the government drops charges against you, but here they're dismissing proceedings in order to put you in a form of proceedings where you have fewer rights to actually speed up your deportation. - So far it's not happening here in Portland? - Not yet. Not - Yet. We right. It's not yet. We've been in, so we've they rolled it out, started rolling it out last week.
Phoenix, San Diego, LA, Seattle. So we were anticipating it starting sometime this week. So we're just preparing. It violates the constitution because they did it without regard for anybody's due process rights. I think it's gonna get really, really bad and I think we're only at the beginning of bad right now. Court cases generate a lot of documents.
So our client, YZLH is seeking asylum in the United States. He went to immigration court. He's completely fought all the rules in every single rule he has followed. At immigration court they grabbed him. They have power to do so, but it still has to be lawful, like they've gotta do it within the, the confines of the constitution. The government did not do that at all in this case in YZLH, they were literally like grab him and let's go. - We would ask the court to find that petitioner's parole grant of parole under 8 USC 1180 2D5 has not expired of its own accord. That to the purpose of petitioner's parole was to seek protection in the us - I would combine these two,
if you wanna make it shorter, - Stairs, elevator? - Stairs. It's disturbing how little has been a surprise other than I'd say the speed with which everything's happened. Yeah. - And here I think we're gonna de-mic 'cause we're gonna move right into the courthouse. Did you see, were you in there? We won. But I gotta go get him out. So I gotta go. He's in Tacoma at the moment. We are working as we speak to get him released because the court has ordered his release today.
The judge issued a very clear unequivocal order from the bench that he needs to be released today. That he is, he has been unlawfully detained since June 5th and he needs to be released today. - You did great. You did great there, you did great here. You killed it. We won! - That's what you call justice. He should never have been detained in the first place. Right? But if that wrong happens, there is a way to get a remedy and it gives me hope that the system, our judicial system recognises the illegality and will remedy it.
So I do have hope. When we were researching, so we were preparing our briefs, we came across this German lawyer who wrote this law review article, Ernst Fraenkel. He was practising law during the rise of the Nazis. So one of the few Jewish lawyers who still had their licence able to practice. And he started writing about the dual state.
Two states of being. Right? So it's in one he called the normative state. Most people will spend most of their lives in the normative state, right? So like the law still exists here in the US like we have our mortgage law and our contract law. We all stop at stop signs still. But then there's this other place, this sort of legal abyss that he talked about, which he called the prerogative state. Whatever the prerogative of the leader here, the DHS administrators, right? Whoever's in charge, whatever they say becomes the law. So there is no law. Did you ever watch Stranger Things?
- This is very much like Stranger Things. At any moment in time you could get ripped from the normative state into the prerogative state law exists only 'cause we believe it exists, right? It's like so we, we have to get courts to believe that there's still law and that they will then enforce law. Previously in the US we'd had the rule of law, which means all the laws apply. We had that as this bedrock, but that doesn't exist right now.
- So today we are gonna be hosting a press conference forgo Rigoberto Hernandez, a wildland firefighter that was detained and arrested as he was actively fighting the Bear Gulch fire in Washington. - This video shows Customs and Border Patrol agents moving in on crews working the Bear Gulch fire in the Olympic Peninsula. They lined them up and started taking pictures of their IDs. - On August 27th, armed border patrol agents working with National Park Rangers illegally arrested Mr. Hernandez.
Mr. Hernandez invoked his fifth amendment right to remain silent and the federal agents arrested him despite having no warrant or reasonable suspicion. If CBP can unlawfully detain someone in secret without notice or access to counsel, then no one's due process rights are safe. - This morning we got notice that the attorneys for ICE motioned to dismiss their immigration proceedings and that they're gonna release him. So we're gonna drive over to Tacoma to pick him up.
Honestly, kind of shocked that it turned around so quickly. Does it feel weird being in Oregon? A little? - It was mainly like a mentality game. So, and I mean that as in, you know, you wake up and it's on you how you take about your day.
It's either you could dwell on your situation or you just try to make the best out of it. And that's what I did. You know, there were some pretty, pretty good souls that I met in there. You know, they were good people. I heard their situations, you know, it is just what they do to immigrants. Alright man. Alright, thank you for your help. - The days that we do get wins, those are really good, but then there's other days that it's heartbreaking. If we're able to get one person out of detention, it's worth it. So just working for the one right now.
- Outrage growing among immigrant advocates. They say more than 200 people have been arrested in the last few weeks. uust here in Oregon. - ICE and Border Patrol are recklessly and violently targeting Oregonians on their way to work. - Portland is burning to the ground. You have agitators, insurrectionists, all you have to do is look at the, look at the television. - The Trump regime wants to punish Oregon wants to punish Portland, right? As is you know, calling it war ravaged.
The detentions are more violent, the arrests are more violent. They're moving people really quickly, faster than the lawyers can operate. At the ICE facility here, there are people who are detained inside who want lawyers and there are free lawyers outside, but the government won't let the people see the lawyers and won't let the lawyers see the people. That's not due process. - I'm an attorney, I'd like to get access. - So this is Kate, that's our lawyer and she's there. She's like, I got my papers. I'm the lawyer.
They're inside. And there's all these guys up there with the guns. They're like, who are you? No, we're closed. - Come back Monday. We're closed. - And then they don't let her in. So we're gonna dial in now. So if you've got audio, turn off the audio. We're asking the judge to kind of just restore due process and return to the status quo of the Fifth Amendment.
The court's now gonna consider what they're gonna do and they're gonna act with some urgency. Even if she rules against us. This case still goes on, like we still have a, this is just like the first stage of the case. - We still do not have a decision on our access to counsel case, which we had hoped to have a decision this morning. - We got the Justice Bus right outside the window there. We're ready to go.
The judge scheduled another hearing. She specifically wants more facts to demonstrate the denials of access before she grants the thing that we've asked for. Almost simultaneously, we got word that there's at least 31 individuals who are scooped up and a whole series of wantless arrests. So those simultaneous things are happening right now, it's just very bad timing. Got key, got a wallet, got a licence.
Yesterday was a really shitty day. We did a lot of really great work. We're getting two people out. I didn't sleep last night, by the way. - Oh Stephen. And we got someone out earlier this week that we totally forgot about because we were consumed by this yesterday. So we got someone else. Three people released this week. - So there's a press conference today. Our attorneys from Innovation Law Lab were able to swiftly reach and file habeus petition for five of those detained.
This is what due process looks like when attorneys can access their clients. If everyone who ICE snatched from our community were allowed to meet with their with an attorney, how many more families would be whole tonight? I think the level of violence and the level of just sweeps that are happening, I think is just an another level that we have not seen in decades. People don't go to get gas anymore as regularly, or they're sending other friends to get gas for them because they're afraid of getting pulled over.
Just like trying to bandage our way through and try to protect as many people as we can. - Just getting our little hearing room ready? - Please enter the PIN, followed by the pound key. - We brought a lot of evidence to that case. Lawyers testified, community members testified, impacted individuals, testified, we had data, all kinds of evidence. And I was astounded by the closing argument
by the government lawyer that had two pieces to it. One was, thanking these people who are out there every day risking their lives to deport people. And the second piece is that the whole purpose of this case is to leverage the machinery of the judiciary to prevent the deportations which is exactly what the case is about. That's called the Fifth Amendment. Like that is the machinery of the judiciary. That closing argument to me was these men who are enforcing this immigration law, they're above the law. His closing. - It's not a strategy to the judge, it's a strategy for and ninth circuit judges who they're gonna like appeal this to and strategy for their press release.
They're gonna issue about, you know, radical Oregonians. - So now Judge Aiken has told us that she's taking under advisement, which means she is gonna go back and think about it. I don't know that we will get a decision before the New Year. So now we wait. A decision could come at any time. So I keep checking. I check multiple times to see each day. There's a level of fear that you, I mean, look at the building.
It's like you step in and you might not step out. Everyone who's going in is being negatively impacted by the fact that we don't have a decision in that case. - I'm waiting for Rigo to come in through security and then we're gonna go try to meet a senator real quick. How you feeling? Ready? Scared, nervous? - A little nervous, but. - You're gonna do great. - I was fighting a wild land fire in the Olympic Peninsula when I was arrested by Border Patrol.
I am an Oregonian and I'm grateful that this programme existed so that my attorneys could fight my unlawful detention. I know I'm just one of many Oregonians who have been targeted by unlawful arrest and I'm here because we all need to be able to access an attorney at some of the most critical moments in our life. - We heard stories from Rigoberto, many other individuals who have been detained. When you bring people who are directly impacted by what's going on, it grounds you. It brings everything to, to what we're really about and why we do the work that we do.
People were able to hear our voice. - The work that we've done here at Law Lab has slowed the mass deportation regime and has broken some of the cogs that are necessary to run that machine. We've used the courts to free people from unlawful detention and decisions across the country have said people are not subject to this mandatory detention that the government's just interpreting the law wrong.
I'm hopeful about a lot of the cases that we've brought. I'm hopeful in the resilience of the people we represent. I am hopeful in the stamina and the courage of the people that work at Law Lab. I'm hopeful in those things.
