Title: Children in Immigration Detention

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Kousha Navidar: It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. I'm Kousha Navidar, a host here at WNYC. I'm filling in for Brian today. Good morning. Coming up on today's show, for the Health and Climate Tuesdays section of the show, we're going to talk to a local organizer who's running a solar project in Sunset Park, Brooklyn. It's the city's first community-led solar project. We'll hear what that means exactly and how that project's going. Plus, later in the show, in honor of Black History Month, which is celebrating its 100th anniversary this year, my guest will be the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Eugene Robinson. He's written a new memoir that traces how his family's story intersects with America's.

It's called Freedom Lost, Freedom Won: A Personal History of America. Eugene Robinson will be my guest in a little over an hour from now, and we'll wrap today's show with a little levity. I'm excited. You may know that tonight is the finale of the Westminster Dog Show, where they will crown best in show. To end today's show, we'll ask you, "What does your dog deserve a trophy for?" My guest for that will be the person who runs the popular Instagram account, The Dogist, Elias Weiss Friedman. First, a five-year-old boy in a blue bunny hat and a Spider-Man backpack should not be a national news story.

That's exactly what happened when Liam Conejo Ramos, a pre-kindergartener from Minnesota, was arrested and detained by US Immigration authorities and sent with his father to a family detention center in Dilley, Texas. Liam did not commit a crime. He is a child who, according to his mother, became sick in detention and appeared pale and withdrawn when a member of Congress visited him there. Liam is no outlier. Over the past year, thousands of children have been arrested and held by US Immigration authorities, including infants, toddlers, elementary school students, and teenagers pulled from their routines and placed behind locked doors.

According to government data cited by our guest, at least 3,800 children were detained in 2025 alone, including 20 infants. Many had lived in the United States for years. Some were detained at schools. Though a federal judge ordered Liam and his father released last weekend, this is an ongoing story. Our guest is Elora Mukherjee, a clinical professor of law at Columbia Law School and director of its Immigrants' Rights Clinic.

She has spent months inside the Dilley Detention Center representing families and documenting conditions she describes as unlawful, unnecessary, and profoundly harmful to children. She joins us now to talk about what's happening to children like Liam and what could be done differently, which she's written about in an opinion essay for The New York Times headlined, "Liam Ramos was just one of hundreds of children at this detention center. Release them all." Professor Mukherjee, welcome to WNYC.

Elora Mukherjee: Thank you so much for having me.

Kousha Navidar: Absolutely. It's a pleasure to have you here. The photo of Liam Conejo Ramos being detained is, in my opinion, one of the most visceral images of the Trump administration's immigration policy in actual practice. Let's start with Liam. Can you tell me about his family and how he came to be detained by ICE?

Elora Mukherjee: Sure. As I understand the facts, this is a family that did everything right. They entered the United States with a CBP One app appointment. This means they followed a process that was in place at the time to lawfully enter the United States. Once they entered the United States, the Department of Homeland Security paroled them into the community, which necessarily entailed a determination that the flight was not a danger to the community and was not a flight risk. The family integrated into their community. In the Minneapolis area, Liam was enrolled in school. The family has no criminal history anywhere in the world.

One afternoon, as we all know, when Liam was on his way home from preschool, he and his father were arrested, detained, and eventually transported to the Immigration Detention Center in Dilley, Texas. This is part of a wide-ranging effort by the Trump administration to detain immigrant children and families. As you mentioned, nearly 4,000 children have been arrested over the past year. This includes about 1,700 children who've been in the custody of the federal government at family detention centers since the Trump administration restarted the practice of long-term detention for children in federal immigration custody last year, in March.

Kousha Navidar: It sounds like the integration was by the book. Then there was this harsh changing, even though it seems like they had gone along with what the protocol said. Is that a fair summarization there?

Elora Mukherjee: Yes. This is reflective of what so many immigrant children and families are facing right now. Overwhelmingly, children and families in federal immigration custody have no criminal histories anywhere in the world. They have done everything right. They entered the United States with permission. They're showing up to their immigration court hearings. They're showing up to their alternatives to detention check-in requirements. As they are living their daily lives and doing exactly what they're supposed to do, they're being abruptly snatched into federal immigration custody and then detained in deplorable, inhumane, and degrading conditions.

At Dilley, children and parents consistently report that they don't have access to sufficient potable water, that they don't have access to edible food. Children and parents have both told me that they have found live worms in their meals. There isn't access to adequate medical care or meaningful educational opportunities. Lights are left on all night, all day, making it very difficult to sleep. Families who I've represented have been threatened by guards with family separations.

Kousha Navidar: Can you tell me about that threatening of family separation, mostly in a family detention center? What does family detention actually look like? They're all kept together, but they have that hanging over their head that if they don't act exactly the way that they are told to, then parents might be separated from children.

Elora Mukherjee: It's a great question. When we think about family detention, we might imagine that family units are kept together in the detention facility. That is not, in fact, consistently the case. Let's imagine a family unit with a mom, a dad, and one or multiple children. The mom and dad are kept in separate parts of the facility and are only permitted limited contact during the daytime hours. The children need to be with one parent only.

This means that for children who I've represented who have slept for years with both their parents, now they're separated from one parent throughout the night. One parent has to become the primary caregiver in this setting when it's really difficult for anyone to be in prison themselves and to be separated from their loved ones. Complicating this is the fact that guards, unfortunately yell at and threaten to separate families indefinitely, even in front of very young children.

Families who I have represented at Dilley have been told by guards that the dad will be taken to one facility, the mom will be taken to another, and that the child will be taken away and put into the equivalent of the federal foster care system, and the family won't have an opportunity to be together ever again. This threat of family separation is hanging over the heads of all the children and families there. When children act like children, when they do the things that kids do, they can be threatened with family separation.

Kousha Navidar: Liam has now been released, but you're clear that his case isn't unusual. You've already mentioned that. I want to drill into that a little bit. How many children are currently being detained by US Immigration authorities? You mentioned there are young kids. How young are the youngest children in custody?

Elora Mukherjee: Hundreds of children and families remain detained at Dilley. I just started representing a new family detained at Dilley, and they have a one-year-old baby who has been extremely sick there. It is a really, really difficult place to be. Increasingly, children are being detained at Dilley for prolonged periods of time. There is a settlement agreement in a case called Flores, which in 1997, the federal agreed to a settlement agreement providing for "safe and sanitary conditions in federal immigration custody for kids." The federal government at that time also agreed to prioritize the prompt release of children from federal immigration custody.

This Trump administration is acting as if it's no longer bound by the Flores Settlement Agreement. Kids are being detained at Dilley for weeks, for months. Some children have been detained there for nearly half a year. The Trump administration is making an effort in federal court to terminate its obligations under the Flores Settlement Agreement, which would leave children in federal immigration custody with no protections at all. That effort has been rejected by a federal district court. The Trump administration has filed an appeal to a federal court of appeals in the Ninth Circuit. The Ninth Circuit has granted an expedited consideration of the administration's claims.

Kousha Navidar: Let's pause there for a second because I want to get to Flores in a little bit, but I want to make sure that we also invite listeners into the conversation. Listeners, we want to hear from you. What questions do you have about the detention of immigrant children and families, or if you or someone close to you has experience with this aspect of the immigration system? What do you want people to better understand? You can call us. You can text us. The number is 212-433-WNYC. That's 212-433-9692. If you're just joining us, this is The Brian Lehrer Show. I'm Kousha Navidar, a host here at WNYC. I'm filling in for Brian today. My guest is Columbia University law professor Elora Mukherjee.

She's also the director of its Immigrants' Rights Clinic. If you have questions about the detention of immigrant children and families, we would love to hear from you. Call us or text us. We're at 212-433-WNYC. That's 212-433-9692. Elora, while we're waiting for those calls and texts to come in, I'd like to know more about the medical needs of some of these kids and how they're being met. As you describe it, these detention facilities are a hellhole. You went into some of the deplorable parts of how they're being met. Kids who have been living in the US for years they're now in these detention centers. What do their stories tell us about how wide-ranging this policy has become and how it affect kids who might have serious medical needs?

Elora Mukherjee: Detention is harmful for all children in detention, and this is particularly exacerbated for children who have specialized medical needs. The American Academy of Pediatrics and every major medical association in the United States has condemned family detention because of the long-term effects it has on children in federal immigration custody. The American Academy of Pediatrics has found that the detention of immigrant children accompanied by their parents can stunt child development, cause psychological trauma, and result in long-term mental health risks, including depression and post-traumatic stress disorder.

In the children who I've represented over the past year, the trauma persists even after children leave detention. Last summer, I was representing a six-year-old boy at Dilley who had been diagnosed with leukemia. He needed to be released to get urgent medical treatment. We had his chemotherapy treatment records. We had expert medical testimony demanding that he be released immediately. I begged ICE for a month to release this little boy, his nine-year-old sister, and his mom. ICE refused to do so. Working with two organizations in Texas, RAICES and the Texas Civil Rights Project, we filed a federal habeas petition for this family. Luckily, the family was released.

Even after the little boy returned to his home in California, he faced ongoing trauma effects from his detention. Anytime strangers walked by his apartment, he hid under his bed. Whenever his mom tried to take him outside the home, he sobbed, and he wept. He was too scared to go outside. He was worried that if he stepped foot outside his home, armed masked men would take him back to prison. This persisted for months. Even to this day, when he's in a store and he sees security guards, he worries that they will take him back to prison. Detention has long-term consequences for kids, for any child, and it's especially devastating for kids who have serious medical concerns.

Kousha Navidar: Absolutely. It sounds like a very difficult situation, to put it mildly. We just got a text from a listener I'd like to read now. It's, "So this was a targeted detention. Why? What rationale? Why wasn't Liam allowed to remain with family who were in the house?" Elora, do you have any sense of what the specifics were in that situation?

Elora Mukherjee: I have the same questions as your listener. The Trump administration, in thousands and thousands of cases across the country for children and adults alike, is claiming that non citizens are subject to mandatory detention. This is a complete 180 turnaround from how immigration law has been read, understood, and practiced for decades. For decades, immigrants, adults and children alike who were law-abiding, who did everything right, who had no criminal histories, who showed up for their immigration court proceedings and alternatives to detention programs, they were not considered priorities authorities for arrest and detention.

People could live their daily lives, even if they were undocumented, in relative peace. This administration has completely changed its use of prosecutorial discretion and believes insists in court over and over again that basically any noncitizen can be subject to mandatory detention. The Trump administration's reading of the mandatory detention provision of the Immigration and Nationality Act has been rejected in hundreds and hundreds of federal court opinions.

According to a POLITICO analysis from last month, the Trump administration's sweeping reading of the mandatory detention provisions has been rejected by more than 1,600 federal court decisions by judges across party lines, in federal courts, across the country, in district court, and in federal appellate court alike. Yet every day, the Trump administration is still relying on this mandatory detention provision as its claimed basis for arresting and detaining hundreds of non-citizens.

This violates the Executive Branch's duty. The president takes an oath to faithfully execute the law. When there are hundreds and hundreds more than a thousand federal court decisions that say, "You cannot interpret the law this way," and the Executive Branch continues to do that, we have a problem of accountability, a problem of democratic governance in our country.

Kousha Navidar: Listeners, we are talking about the immigration issues that are popping everywhere with people and children, especially being held in detention centers. We have a caller right now who wants to talk a little bit about the word detained versus imprisoned. Let's go to Wendy in Park Slope. Hi, Wendy, welcome to the show.

Wendy Wendy: Oh, hello. Am I on?

Kousha Navidar: Yes, hi.

Wendy: Hi. I don't have any particular expertise on immigration or experience, but I work with language. I've been struck more and more over these months by the use of the word detained, which seems to mean anything from being pulled over on the side of the road to locked up for a few hours to what is happening to these children in these camps. I feel like it's government propaganda. We should stop saying these children are detained. We should say they are imprisoned, jailed, incarcerated, locked up. I think clarity really matters in this moment.

Kousha Navidar: Wendy, thank you so much for that call. Elora, I'd like to get your take on that, because when we just talked about how the Executive Branch follows through on the legality of the ways in the policies that they're told to follow, in this case, there is detained and there is imprisoned. When you hear that, what use do you feel the word detained actually has in the parlance of this administration? Are they using it in the way that Wendy is describing as propaganda?

Elora Mukherjee: Wendy, thank you so much for your thoughtful question. You are right that as we describe what is happening to these children, using the word imprisoned or incarcerated or locked up, using those types of phrases may be a better description of what's happening. Then, at the same time, I'm an immigration lawyer, and I try to be really careful when I speak. Here's the myth. Here's the legal myth of what's going on. Immigration detention is supposed to be civil in nature. It's not supposed to be punitive. Punitive detention is considered incarceration in the United States.

Civil detention is not supposed to be punitive, and which is why it's described in legal doctrine as detention rather than incarceration. Your point, Wendy, is very well taken. Maybe even we as lawyers should be using more accurate and more powerful language to describe what's happening under this administration. Just to give your listeners a sense of the numbers, right now, today, there are more than 70,000 people in immigration detention facilities across the country. Overwhelmingly, they do not have any criminal histories.

Kousha Navidar: I think, it's a good time to bring up this text that I just saw come through. It says, "What are the legal recourses to these violations, which I think is a question that has been pervasive through many different issues over the past year. Elora, as you can, I'm sure, attest, but what is there in terms of what you can do next, what families can do next?

Elora Mukherjee: It's a great question and one that I think about every day.

Kousha Navidar: I'm sure.

Elora Mukherjee: There are a few things that lawyers can do, but lawyers are not going to solve the moment that we're in now. Let me first talk about what lawyers can do and then talk about what everyone else can and should do. Lawyers can work with individual children and families to help them navigate their immigration proceedings. Increasingly, for families detained or incarcerated at Dilley, this is extremely difficult because the immigration judges who are assigned to the Pearsall Immigration Court, which has jurisdiction over the cases of families detained at Dilley, have denial rates for asylum and other forms of humanitarian relief of upwards of 95%, which makes them huge outliers in terms of immigration judges across the country.

We can work with children and families who are detained at Dilley on their immigration cases, but the odds are against us, even for families who have extremely strong cases for asylum and other forms of immigration relief. Another way that immigration lawyers and civil rights lawyers can help children and families detained at Dilley is by filing federal habeas petitions. This is what Liam's lawyers did to get him and his dad out of detention.

This is what I did for the little boy with the leukemia diagnosis, and what I've done for other children and families detained at Dilley. This can be a very effective mechanism for getting a child or a family out of detention, but it's incredibly resource-intensive. The law is very complex, and basically, you can do this for one child or one family at a time because of how complicated it can be to bring these actions.

A third way that lawyers are working on behalf of children and families detained at Dilley is through trying to enforce the Flores Settlement Agreement, which, as I mentioned, is supposed to require the federal government to provide for safe and sanitary conditions for children in immigration detention facilities and prioritize their prompt release. The lawyers for the children in the Flores case are working tirelessly to try to enforce that settlement agreement and hold the federal government accountable for its myriad violations of that agreement. Those are three ways that lawyers can be involved.

Kousha Navidar: Sorry to cut you off there, but it sounds like, of those three, in the first case, it's an outlier to have it actually put through 95% rejection rate. In the second one, it's very resource-intensive to have that federal habeas petition. Then the third one, the Flores Settlement Agreement, which again, I think we're going to touch on more after the break. There's a lot of work right now to make sure that it's upheld. Is that a fair summary of what you're saying?

Elora Mukherjee: Yes. The Trump administration is acting as if it's not bound by the Flores Settlement Agreement anymore.

Kousha Navidar: We're going to get to that in a second. Before we go to break, though, I want to bring in Emily from Edina, Minnesota, who wants to talk about how the fear is showing up in children. Emily, hi. Welcome to the show.

Emily: Hi. Thank you. I have a 2nd grader and a kindergartner, and we live in an affluent first-ring suburb of Minneapolis. That said, there are definitely children in our district, in my kids school, who belong to at risk populations. I just want to emphasize that the pervasiveness of the fear in children right now. There was an ambulance at my kids school for an unrelated reason last week. The rumor that went through the 2nd grade and kindergarten was that ICE came and killed someone. The kids are all scared for their friends. They're scared for their teachers. It's really traumatic for all of the children right now. I just wanted to add that layer.

Kousha Navidar: Emily, thank you so much for adding that layer. It's crucial to hear from so many different experiences in this very complicated and intense moment for our country. We're going to take a quick break. When we get back, more with my guest, Columbia University law Professor Elora Mukherjee. More of your calls. If you would like to and you have questions, or you would like to talk about any experience you might have with these detention centers or someone in your family, give us a call. That's 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692. Stay with us.

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Kousha Navidar: It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. I'm Kousha Navidar, filling in for Brian. Today. My guest is Columbia University law Professor Elora Mukherjee. She's also the director of its Immigrants' Rights Clinic. Elora, over the break, we got a lot of texts getting at a central question here. I'm going to summarize all those texts for you, and hoping to get your perspective on it. Are the private companies benefiting from these detention centers? One other related text is, "Is the Dilley facility run by a private contractor? If so, do they make a profit on each person detained?" What do you think?

Elora Mukherjee: Yes, absolutely. The Dilley Immigration Processing Center is run with a federal government contract to CoreCivic, which has rebranded itself from being the Corrections Corporation of America. It is a private for profit prison corporation that makes enormous amounts of money because of its federal government contract to detain children and families. Once the Trump administration came into power, shareholders and the heads of CoreCivic were thrilled, and they expected business to be booming. It has been.

Kousha Navidar: I'd like to bring in Jorge from the Bronx. Hi, Jorge. Welcome to the show.

Jorge: Oh, hi. How are you? I don't want to get off topic, but I think American foreign policy, especially basically a cruel foreign policy as far as immigration and undocumented aliens. I'm for secure borders. I was born in Dominican Republic. I am a naturalized American citizen. I love this country. I'm for secure borders, but I think that money will be better spent having a Marshall Plan for Latin America. People come to this country because they have Economic necessity, and you're not going to stop that. You could put a billion people on the borders. Our policy is very cruel. You cannot destabilize a country and expect people not to come here. People are desperate.

I think that money would be better spent having a Marshall Plan so that people have economic, social crime security, so people don't have a need to come here. Nobody wants to come to this country. People come here because they're desperate. Our policy is basically cruel. As far as ICE, what they do doing is cruel. That money that they're putting for ICE, we better off secure the border but spend the money so that people in Latin America don't want to come here. People don't want to come here. People come here because they're desperate.

Kousha Navidar: Jorge, thank you so much for that. A lot to unpack there. Elora, one thing that I heard from Jorge is how the money for ICE is being spent, and a reference to a Marshall Plan. Do you have any thoughts on that, the reason people are coming to this country, as Jorge says, and how we as a country are responding with good policy.

Elora Mukherjee: Great questions, Jorge. Thank you. While Jorge was speaking, I just pulled up the exact dollar amounts in case that's useful for your listeners. In 2025, CoreCivic received $300 million in ICE contracts. CoreCivic's federal contract for the Dilley facility is expected to generate $180 million in annual revenue. Could that money be better spent? Could we not be needlessly and cruelly detaining children and families, and instead invest that money in communities in Latin America, where the money could help people thrive in the communities that they're born into? Absolutely.

Kousha Navidar: Jorge, we really appreciate your call. I wanted to touch on the Flores Settlement, which you brought up, Elora, before the break. Just a reminder for listeners, under the settlement, the government is supposed to prioritize releasing children and ensuring safe and sanitary conditions. As you said, Elora, before the break, based on what you've seen not being followed through, and there's a lot of struggle right now in making sure that it's upheld. The administration is now trying to end the Flores protections altogether. If that effort succeeds, what would change for children in immigration custody?

Elora Mukherjee: Unfortunately, there is a real risk that children would be left with no protections in federal immigration custody. With the signing of the One Big Beautiful bill Act on July 4th of last year, Congress allocated an additional $45 billion to expand detention for both single adults and families with children. This quadruples ICE's annual detention budget. Without the Flores Settlement Agreement, ICE now has the funding necessary to detain children indefinitely as the kids and their families are navigating immigration proceedings.

That's a process that could take months or years. Children and families could be detained for months or years in unlicensed facilities with deplorable conditions until they're deported from the United States.

Kousha Navidar: Let's go to Nick in Brooklyn. Hi Nick, welcome to the show.

Nick: Hi. I just zooming out, I'm genuinely confused. It's been my understanding that it's illegal to arrest children and infants. If a child is walking down the street with his backpack, that it's not legal to grab the kid and put him and a parent in a jail somewhere. I remember when there were discussions as to whether a 16-year-old, for instance, could be tried as an adult for murder or something like that. Now, these things aren't discussed. I don't know what the discussion is. It seems like there's no accountability for the federal government in anything anymore. I'm wondering why any of us should be following any laws, why any of us should be paying taxes, or stopping for red lights.

Kousha Navidar: Nick, thanks so much for that call. Let's unpack that a little bit. Let's start at the beginning. You started by talking about the question of the legality of actually arresting infants and children. Let's at least start there. Elora, can you unpack that for us a little bit?

Elora Mukherjee: Sure. Nick, thank you for these fundamental questions about the extent to which the Constitution should still be governing us. The Fourth Amendment applies to all people on US soil, regardless of immigration or citizenship status. This means that before federal officers can carry out any stops or detentions or arrests or seizures, that arrest, that seizure must not be unreasonable. The Fourth Amendment is clear. It has a prohibition against unreasonable searches and seizures. What this has meant in the immigration context has been hotly debated over the past year.

I want to take us to the immigration enforcement actions in LA from last summer, in the context of immigration officers and federal officers there carrying out immigration raids on ordinary people. There was a challenge in federal court. What the federal district court judge held is that federal officers were carrying out immigration enforcement based on people's apparent race and ethnicity, whether they spoke Spanish or English with an accent. The places where they were, for example, where they had a car wash, and the jobs that they had appeared to be doing, for example, were they day laborers. The federal District court held that relying on those four factors was impermissible.

It introduced impermissible racial profiling into immigration enforcement. The judge there halted, stopped, issued an order purporting to halt and stop federal immigration officers from doing that. That case quickly went to the Supreme Court. Last September, the US Supreme Court issued a decision called Perdomo Vasquez vs. Noem. The full court's opinion was simply a paragraph, and it lifted the lower court injunction without any reasoning.

In a concurring opinion, Justice Kavanaugh seemed to allow for racial profiling in immigration stops. The so called Kavanaugh stops that we are hearing about so much, in which not just undocumented people, but also those with lawful status and even US Citizens are being detained for hours and even days by federal officers. Since then, Justice Kavanaugh has backed away from these Kavanaugh stops in a footnote issued in an opinion in December by the Supreme Court.

What we're seeing every day across the country is that federal officers are engaging in racial profiling when carrying out immigration stops, arrests, and detention. This is even affecting children. It shouldn't. This is not what immigration officers and federal law enforcement officers should be doing. Racial profiling in immigration enforcement is unconstitutional. It's illegal. It shouldn't be happening, but that's what we're seeing every day.

Kousha Navidar: I so appreciate you breaking that down. I want to go back to the latter half of Nick's statements as well, because I heard Nick as you were speaking, this questioning of why or how can the Constitution be still held? How can we faithfully believe in it being upheld? I can tell you for me, Elora, and I'd love to get your perspective on this. I am an immigrant. I have fear in ways that I didn't before. The sentiment that Nick described about a lack of faith, how does that sit with you as a person who has worked their entire career to uphold the law?

Elora Mukherjee: It's been an extraordinarily difficult time for all of the children, the families, and the communities who I work with. Many people are terrified to leave their homes, to send their kids to school, to go to work, to live their regular lives. Even US Citizens and lawful permanent residents are asking me, "What should I be carrying when I leave my house? Do I need to carry my passport with me at all times? What do I say if I am stopped by a federal officer? How do I prove that I'm a citizen? How can I show that I truly belong to this country?" It has been really difficult.

That said, I'm also moved by the incredible kindness and resilience that ordinary Americans have shown to one another in neighborhoods and communities across this country. We're seeing this most vividly right now in Minneapolis as thousands and thousands of people are stepping up every day to deliver groceries to families in fear, who are stepping up to participate in protests in frigid conditions, and who are being brave enough to document ICE interactions and ICE abuses so that the truth of what's happening is made available to the public.

It's up to we the people, the ordinary people across this country, to determine the future of what this nation is. It is not going to be the Executive Branch alone that can determine the future of this country. It is the actions of ordinary people and the choices we make every day that will determine whether our democracy can continue or whether our nation slips closer to becoming an authoritarian regime.

Kousha Navidar: What does that look like for you, for individuals?

Elora Mukherjee: For me, for ordinary individuals, it can mean helping your neighbors take their kids to and from school, making sure that families who are too scared to leave their house have groceries, checking in with neighbors who are scared of ICE enforcement on a weekly basis to make sure that they're okay, reaching out to immigration lawyers on a family's behalf if they don't speak English and cannot access the resources themselves. There are amazing immigrants rights organizations across the country that are providing support to immigrants nationwide. Other things that ordinary people can do are participating in ICE Watch trainings, learning how to safely document an ICE interaction.

You've seen so many images and videos of people with whistles who are alerting their neighbors when ICE is present. All of these interactions that ordinary people can have makes them heroes. There were heroes present when Liam was taken into federal immigration custody. The school officials, the neighbors who were documenting what was happening, who were taking photos, who bore witness to this child being taken into custody, their voices have been critical to the American public's understanding of what is happening to hundreds and thousands of children across the country.

Kousha Navidar: It is inspiring to hear about the ways in which neighbors are showing up for themselves. That always does move me. As we run out of time, I'd love to get back to Liam Conejo Ramos. Where are he and his family now? How are they doing?

Elora Mukherjee: My understanding is that they are at home. Liam is very glad to be back home, but that doesn't mean that the saga is over for this family and for any family that's released from immigration detention. Any family released from the Dilley Immigration Processing Center still needs to navigate the challenges of their immigration cases. The immigration court system is an increasingly difficult process to navigate, with more than 100 immigration judges being fired over the past year for not towing the Trump administration's party line.

It's more difficult than ever for people to navigate their immigration court proceedings. The risk of re-detention is there. It's a fear that this family and hundreds, if not thousands, of others carry with them every day.

Kousha Navidar: Some other news before we run out of time. Last night, which was Monday, February 2nd, a few federal judge temporarily blocked the Trump administration from ending temporary Protected status, or TPS, for Haitians. The Department of Homeland Security under Kristi Noem had set today as the end date for TPS. That would have put the 330,000 Haitians living here under that legal designation at immediate risk of deportation. Elora, have you seen the ruling that came down yesterday? On what grounds has the Trump administration been blocked here?

Elora Mukherjee: Yes. Judge Ana Reyes of the Federal District Court for the District of Columbia in Washington, D.C., indefinitely blocked the Trump administration from ending TPS protections for Haitians today. Judge Reyes found that both the president and Secretary Noem repeatedly displayed impermissible racial animus in reaching the decision to terminate TPS for Haitians. In other words, both President Trump and Secretary Noem repeatedly engaged in racist statements that were impermissible under the Constitution and under federal law in deciding that Haitian TPS should be ended.

Kousha Navidar: We have to leave it there for now. My guest has been Elora Mukherjee, a clinical professor of law at Columbia Law School and director of its Immigrants' Rights Clinic. She has an opinion essay in The New York Times headlined, "Liam Ramos was just one of hundreds of children at this detention center. Released them all." Professor Mukherjee, thanks so much for coming on the show.

Elora Mukherjee: Thank you for having me.

 

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