Diary from AILA's National Day of Action

Soft Power Shushing

16 April, I sat in the audience at the DHS Appropriations Committee hearing at the House of Representatives in Washington DC.  There was space in my schedule for the committee hearing during the American Immigration Lawyers Association's lobby day called National Day of Action.  During the hearing, Representatives from both sides of the aisle engaged leaders of the USCIS, CBP and ICE - Joseph Edlow, Rodney Scott and Todd Lyons (who announced his resignation the same day).

Rep Lauren Underwood (D) - a nurse by training - spoke eloquently about the need for responsible medical attention in ICE detention centers and CBP custody and the deaths resulting from detainee health needs being ignored.  The committee Chair Amodei spoke over her on a hot mic, chatting casually, toward the end of her time.  I couldn’t actually see the Chair, as we were sitting on a blue leather couch in the back row.  I shushed the noise - thinking it was in the listening spectators - to the delight of my fellow AILA NDA teammates.

Thematic Takeaways

In terms of thematic takeaways, former immigration court prosecutor and Heritage Foundation participant now USCIS director Joseph Edlow assured representatives from the Republican side that immigration laws were being observed strictly.  This has been a theme for all the immigration agencies - often not to change the law, but to enforce and interpret the strictest letter of it - resulting in dramatic policy changes without the need for public notice and comment or time to pivot.

Power of the Purse

The highlight of NDA for me was meeting New Haven, Connecticut Congresswoman Rose DeLauro (D) with her fabulous shock of blue purple hair.  She was a small face among the representatives in front of the government witnesses.  In that public space, she illustrated how the power of the purse is a tool to influence policy.  She gave AILA NDA listeners hope that democratic processes were still robust. 

She favored Congress blocking reconciliation bills written in backrooms which funded CBP and ICE without new protections, mentioning the 44 who died in custody in the last fiscal year, a 20 year high since the DHS was formed in 2003.  She mentioned the 100 federal court orders violated by ICE, more than some agencies have committed in their whole existence. She mentioned the false imprisonments and teargassing of a family by ICE.  She mentioned the sexual abuse of a detainee which went on for months in 2025.  She mentioned the El Paso Cuban detainee death ruled a homicide by the coroner.  She called for judicial warrants, clear identification of enforcement officers, and investigations into misconduct. 

A Florida Republican’s Callousness

On the Republican side was Representative John H. Rutherford (R, FL-05).  He showed his lack of care about migrant workers with this language, when he asked about scalability of new ICE detention facilities: “Eventually, we’ll deport the illegals then we’ll be back to normal.”  Once we’ve “gotten ride of them/deported them . . . “  He followed this with a question to USCIS Dir. Edlow about H-2A visas used for seasonal work because Florida crops were turned over in the fields recently.  Coming from a weekend spent in Charleston, a pretty place with a horrific history of slave trade before the US Civil War, Rep. Rutherford’s commoditization of farm workers was palpable.