Immigration and Employment Law, Today’s Tangled Web

Episode Notes

Transcript

Jonathan Grode:

If you’re talking about the overall impact that this first five, six months of the Trump administration has had is imagine an umpire with the smallest strike zone imaginable. Under the previous administration. That strike zone might’ve been really wide and you could help people and you could get things in and you would get the benefit of the doubt. They’re shrinking the strike zone.

Matt Greer:

Workplaces are at the epicenter of the Trump administration’s immigration policy changes and aggressive enforcement efforts. In this episode, we are fortunate to be joined by Jonathan Grode and Ingrid Nava, two expert attorneys who practice at the intersection of labor and employment and immigration law to help make sense of things. In addition to the uncertainties raised by those developments, Ingrid and Jonathan remind us of the human impacts, including centrally the fear and uncertainty many immigrant workers and their employers face. Hello and welcome to the A BA Labor and Employment Law podcast. I’m your host, Matt Greer. In my day job, I work for the Washington State Public Employment Relations Commission, the agency charged with impartially administering Washington’s public sector collective bargaining laws. I wear a few hats in my role at perc, including mediator, hearing examiner, arbitrator and trainer, always as a neutral, probably like you.

My focus area is one small piece of the bigger labor and employment law universe. I’m excited to broaden my horizons through these episodes and learning about what’s going on in the wide world of labor and employment law from distinguished practitioners in the field. On today’s episode, I’m very excited to welcome Jonathan Grode and Ingrid Nava to discuss recent developments in immigration policy and law that are impacting labor and employment. Ingrid represents workers and unions as associate general counsel at SEIU, the Service employees International Union. Jonathan represents employers and his managing partner at the law firm of Green and Spiegel. Jonathan and Ingrid are two expert practitioners in this field and it’s truly an honor having them both on the podcast to share their knowledge and wisdom with us. Be sure to check out their full bios in the show notes. Thank you so much for joining us, Ingrid and Jonathan, welcome to the show.

Jonathan Grode:

Thank you. Thanks for having us, Matt. Yeah, it’s going to be an interesting discussion as there is certainly no shortage of things going on in the immigration world these days. That’s true.

Matt Greer:

Absolutely. I really appreciate both helping us make sense of that. There is a lot going on there. So I’m somebody who’s not directly involved in immigration related issues and I’m guessing most of our audience kind of fits in that category as well. So it’s been really hard to follow the almost daily barrage of news and developments and information that’s out there related to these issues. But I thought maybe we would start off our conversation as we get into this, and I know you all have a lot of thoughts and present on this quite frequently, but there was the most recent news that might be a little bit of the elephant in the room for most of our listeners is the US Supreme Court’s decision in Trump v Casa, which came out very recently that kind of related to the birthright citizenship issues. And I was wondering if you both would want to give us your quick hot takes on that case, both generally if you have any thoughts generally, but also specifically about how that might impact labor and employment in that area.

Jonathan Grode:

I think it is a fascinating decision, but I think there’s a great or misunderstanding as to what actually happened and what it means. People think that there’s actually a decision on birthright citizenship that actually has not even been close to being decided. This was a procedural matter on how federal injunctions are being levied and what the Supreme Court essentially heard was can a district court create a nationwide injunction? And this has become a very powerful tool in challenging the government because affected parties don’t necessarily feel the effects of, in this case, an executive order or an executive interpretation until the courts have had a chance to hear on the merits, this decision flips it completely on its head and it’s saying ostensibly, you cannot have a nationwide injunction for any challenge, which is lying in district court based on one moving party. Now they did, the Supreme Court did leave some room for some carve outs.

It did leave some abilities for states to sort of bandy together to have a nationwide injunction. It did leave the ability for administrative procedure act challenges, so like a regulatory change mats, if you do have a district judge saying under the A PA that injunctive relief is due, that can be nationwide. And certainly the court specifically discusses that this should be a functionality of class action. But on the ground, what is this decision actually saying? Well, states have 30 days if they want to join, but right now you have less than 20 states that are part of this litigation and the rest of the country is not. So what will happen is the births rights citizenship rule, which most people feel is squarely unconstitutional when it will be heard on the merits, will actually go into effect. And here in Pennsylvania, we are not party to the suit as of now, but New Jersey, of course the river is.

So if you are a foreign national on a non-immigrant visa and you give birth to a child in Pennsylvania, once this goes into effect, that child will not be a citizen until a decision is made on the merits. If you are crossing the Delaware River and you give birth in New Jersey, that child is a US citizen because they are party to the injunction. Okay. So that’s what it means for right now. And how is this related to employment law? How is this related to workers? It’s not directly related to employment lawyers, certainly if you’re a foreign national working in the United States and your child’s not a US citizen, you are affected. But I think what Ingrid and I both feel is that what does this mean for future policy? What is stopping the federal administration from lobbing out any executive order that impacts labor and employment law? And then how can we actually stop that from going into effect before the merits are heard? Because if it’s not an A thing, if it’s not a state thing and you’re stuck having to put together a class which takes a while to have it certified and then to file and to have an injunction, the nimbleness of the court system to strike down temporarily actions by the federal administration that are seemingly or even obviously unconstitutional or legal is removed. And where that goes from here could be wide ranging. Wide ranging.

Ingrid Nava:

I mean I absolutely agree with that and that’s the biggest impact of the decision, what it means for nationwide injunctions and then what it means for us in our practice in general and in a labor and employment practice in general in trying to address issues that appear unconstitutional. In some cases, I think that will appear very unconstitutional. But I would also say a couple things. One is that I do think that, I know that there are people trying to establish in the pending cases a class standing and one of them there was already because there was more than one birthright citizenship challenge pending across the country. And I know in one of them, I don’t remember which one, there was already papers filed to try to establish a class. So it’s possible I think that there could be a national class that is established and perhaps that would ameliorate the situation that Jonathan’s talking about where you have a child born in Philadelphia is treated differently from a child born in Trenton.

But I also think that while the big impact is about the injunctions in this case on the merits of birthright citizenship, as with all really all immigration matters, there is an impact on workers and thus there’s an impact on the workplace. And that’s why SEIU, my union filed an amicus brief in the Washington case outlining various stories of members and in one case a staff member who would be affected by the executive order changing birthright citizenship. And that’s because we have in our workforce large numbers of immigrants, and I’m talking about in this case, immigrants who are work authorized, but who in various ways have made their way to the country are working and are either planning to or raising families already in the country.

Matt Greer:

Thanks, that’s really helpful to have that framework and kind of flashbacks a civil procedure class in law school. It sounds like you’re worried about what the Trump via CASA case is more a civil procedure, but obviously can’t lose sight of the real world and personal impacts of those decisions as well. But Ingrid, I think maybe we can pivot from that little piece and kind of bring it back into the more nitty gritty of labor and employment. And you mentioned some of the folks who are impacted who do have legal status, but there’s current developments that are kind of drawing some of those classifications into question. I was wondering if maybe talking about some of those classifications what the status is regarding those and what’s happening as they change along the way of the impacts of that as well?

Ingrid Nava:

Yeah, sure. I mean one of the things you opened with a comment that it is hard to follow the news even though you are in the labor and employment world and are aware of immigration decisions, it’s hard to keep track of them all. And I would say that is generally true for almost everybody who is practicing in labor and employment, whether on the employment side or the union side. And that’s because there is a lot going on and there is a lot to keep track of. And so just for an example, and there’s a lot of ways that it can get confusing very quickly. So first of all, just super basic, I think as most people probably know, an employer has to verify that an employee is authorized to work at the start of employment within three days after hire. And then as a general rule, they’re not supposed to reverify until that person is either has some authorization that is expiring or if there’s another different reason that would cause a non-discriminatory review of the workforce’s work authorization.

And so what that means is that employers have to be careful about when they decide that they want to ask employees to show new documents or to show documents to prove again that they’re still work authorized. Because generally what the employee is showing should be good for duration of employment until the work authorization expires. What gets confusing is that the dates on the pieces of paper that our employee shows in our current system often don’t actually match up with when that employee actually loses work authorization. So for example, there’s one of the documents that somebody can present is called employee authorization document EAD for short, it’ll have a date on it for when it expires. And routinely over the, I would say the past 10 years or so, there have been automatic extensions of those documents, but only certain ones of them. And so the employer has to keep track of who is automatically renewed under what circumstances and which subset of those eads automatically renew.

And that makes it difficult to know when to reauthorize. And so on the employer side, that’s that difficulty. What’s happening now with attacks on temporary protected status parolees, CHNV, parolees, et cetera, makes that even more difficult. So there has been an attempt to revoke Venezuelan TPS for example. Where that stands now is that the Supreme Court said earlier this term that while the litigation is pending, the attempt to roll back that temporary protected status can be in effect while the litigation is pending. And then there are two designations of Venezuelan TPS. So that means that there’s two different expiration dates. By the time that the Supreme Court had said that the rollback could go into effect, one of those expiration dates had already passed. So it became then unclear. Another thing that the Supreme Court said is that there’s a certain subset of people, even though the rollback could go in effect, who had already received new documents and that particular subset, which we estimate to be at about 5,000 people, those people, the rollback doesn’t apply to them during this period of time. So there’s really three sets of workers with three different potential dates.

Matt Greer:

And that’s all within just the Venezuelan community, just Venezuelan

Ingrid Nava:

Tps. Okay.

Correct. And then there’s the new Haiti TPS issue, and I think that’s currently pending. A local of SCIU was a party to that district court case in the Eastern District of New York. And while it was positive, and it currently means that the MAJORCA’S set date of February of 2026 should remain and that the Trump administration’s attempt to roll that back should not go in effect right now. That’s very likely to be appealed. There’s going to be a new, I think, notice in posting. And so that is still changing. And then there’s the CHNV parolee issues as well. But all of it is to say that it is a confusing matrix and what it means is that people who do have work authorization and continued work authorization get told that they need to reverify. And in other cases, an employer may be scared to try to reverify people if it’s not necessary and inadvertently lets it go.

Matt Greer:

Yeah, yeah. I was going to ask Jonathan if, yeah, on the employer side, Ingrid could have highlighted some of the challenges that you might be facing. So yeah, tell us more about that.

Jonathan Grode:

Ingrid did an excellent job of laying it out. I think what we fail to realize is the size and scope of who’s being affected. Matt, there are literally over a half a million people working in the United States in these particular classifications, and these individuals are typically doing lower skilled labor. We don’t actually have a visa or mechanism to have year round low skilled labor. So these temporary protective status classifications have almost become like a default supplement to a lack of access to visas for foreign nationals that do certain types of work well. How does that actually affect an employer? And I’ll try to give a tangible example, but I have a client that is heavily evolved in the mushroom farming industry, which is a big, big, big thing in Pennsylvania. I got all these Pennsylvania references coming out during this talk, but it’s a big thing.

In fact, the world’s largest production of mushrooms is Kennet Square and right here in south of Philadelphia, they estimate that a third of their workforce is on TPS or some sort of protected status, a third. And because it’s year round like cattle farming, like chicken farming, there is no temporary seasonal visas that they can get. There is no H two A, that’s the temporary agricultural visa. There is no H two B for non agricultural temporary work. If these programs are canceled in full, they are estimating that they might have to cut their production by up to 50%, which will lead to a dramatic decrease in the availability of this particular staple, but also create inflation, which is counter to the very platform that the president ran on. And we’re seeing a very fascinating juxtaposition now, Matt, and you saw it with Trump, and I know like we’ve said, it’s hard to follow, but two weeks ago, the Secretary of Agricultural said to him, man, licks and you were having some problems at the farms, like people aren’t showing up for work, the work’s not getting done.

Trump sends out a tweet, a truth, a truth, whatever. Yeah, the truth. And he says, farmers, don’t worry. We know these people are good. We’re going to have a fix. Which Ingrid, I’m like, this guy going to give ’em a protected status after working to cancel all this stuff. He’s like, there’s going to be a fix. And then two days later, the White House walks it back under the influence of Stevie Miller and Ice Barbie and they’re like, you know what? We can’t do this. So it’s an effect of the sort of policy interrupting the reality of what’s going on with these particular industries, many of whom were supporters of this administration and are worried that their very livelihoods are going to be undercut. Not to mention the fact that historically speaking in Ingrid, I know you’ve been doing this as long as I have, we don’t normally cancel TPS when there is still a conflict or strife in whatever country these individuals have come from. The only time in my career, and I started doing this in the late nineties as a legal assistant, the only time in my entire career I’ve seen them cancel TPS was for Western Africa when Ebola was sufficiently eradicated. That’s the only time that I can recall.

Ingrid Nava:

I mean in general.

Jonathan Grode:

Yeah. What is going on here is unprecedented, in my opinion, somewhat shortsighted and unfortunately self-inflicted. And I think that that is the overarching issue here. If you look at employment trends, whilst we might see a ton of shedding of jobs in the white collar sector for a variety of factors from AI to economics, blue collar workers are in more demand than ever. Unfortunately, we are finding ourselves with an ideological battle that is playing out in the labor and employment realm when it comes to foreign nationals. And it’s hard because we don’t have a lot of optionality to help these individuals and we don’t really have good answers for the employers. They’re asking what next.

Ingrid Nava:

Yeah, I would just make an additional point. I mean, it’s not just that there’s not been revocation of TPS and the way that Jonathan described in the past. It’s also I’ve never seen an attempt to take away status in general or to remove the ability for people to reside in the country who’ve already been told they can reside and already have work authorization SEIU, in addition to being involved in many of these policy issues, in addition to engaging in immigration related issues with employers so that we can make sure that they have the workforce and that our employees are protected, we’ve also been involved in protecting individual members who have been detained since the new administration. And in all of those cases, they are people who had permission to reside in the United States, including people who were legal, permanent residents who were detained, the attempt to strip people of their ability to stay and work in the United States, not just enforce against people who don’t have that authorization. That is, to me, what is unprecedented.

Matt Greer:

It just shows how uncertain this is and how things change so quickly and it’s hard to kind of see the logic behind it sometimes. I really appreciate kind of giving your insights and to how we can at least make an effort to make some sense of what’s going on and the real world impacts of that. This might be a good time for us to take a quick break for an update from the section, the Labor employment Law section has some upcoming events and stuff. So we’re going to do a quick break to let you know about that and we’ll come back. I want to touch base a little more with Jonathan and what you mentioned, the whole agricultural truth message that came out and the aftermath of that. I wonder if we want to follow up on how are certain industries being impacted more than others and maybe kind of touch base on that a little more too.

So we’ll be back in just a moment. Alright, we’re back. Do you have any insights in terms of are there certain industries, I mean certainly have heard agricultural hospitality, I think we’re the ones that were mentioned by President Trump and his truth about the areas that he went to address that obviously changed, but I was curious, are there other areas? I know transportation workers seem to be a big area that I’ve heard of, healthcare might be another one. So I am curious if you have any thoughts about which industries are being impacted and what’s going on in those.

Jonathan Grode:

I think you have a couple of things here, Matt, that are really of interest. And one thing I want to stress, we’ve been talking about these policies that are taking away programs, but your fundamental immigration laws have not changed. Rules on admissibility are the same as what they were. The H one B category is still the H one B category. They’re not being changed. But if you’re talking about the overall impact that this first five, six months of the Trump administration has had is since we’re in summer, I’ll give you a baseball analogy. Okay, imagine an umpire with the smallest strike zone imaginable and you’re the pitcher and you’re trying to throw it in that strike zone. Under the previous administration, that strike zone might’ve been really wide and you could help people and you could get things in and you would get the benefit of the doubt, a preponderance of the evidence standard as most things are adjudicated, and that is the standard that applies.

They’re shrinking the strike zone, they’re making it harder and harder to get into that safe zone for individuals. And the examples of people who fall outside of that zone and the way that they’re being treated is so egregious. For example, Russian scientists coming with frog embryos who may have misrepresented, maybe should have been given expedited removal, should certainly have had the things taken away from them that would’ve happened under any administration, but to then put them in custody and charge them criminally is something we haven’t really seen before. And what this administration is particularly adept at is effectuating the few to change the behavior of the many, and it’s that impact that we’re seeing across all sections of business. So companies that are looking to expand from Europe to the United States might say, you know what? We’re going to hold off for a little while.

The people that we’re going to be coming for a conference in New York might say, you know what? I’m not willing to travel right now because it’s not worth it. The people that were looking at going to university in the United States, the future of innovation are saying, look, what’s happening to these kids at Harvard? I don’t want to have to deal with that. It’s to the point, Matt, where for the first time in decades outside of the pandemic, we are going to subtract more foreign nationals than we’re going to add ideologically that might jive with certain people in the country. And I’m okay with people having their own beliefs, but the methodology for which it’s occurring, the fact that it is cutting off development, economic growth, the transfer of workers from around the world to the United States, that is going to take a while to recover from even after this administration.

So yes, we do have the laws, we have the TPS situation, we have the stricter border enforcement, we have alligator Alcatraz or whatever the heck it’s being called. We have all of these things that are changing things within the country, but the effects of these policies are changing the way people view the United States view it as a place for investment and innovation and cutting at that core of American exceptionalism and the American dream. And that’s where I worry, of course, trying to help people that are here and now and fix their problems is top priority. But as we look at our business as business immigration attorneys, those that facilitate corporate advancement in the United States, the effects of the perceived reality of immigration I fret is going to resonate for a very long time to come. And it’s tough. It’s tough.

Matt Greer:

It definitely feels like it’s a seismic kind of thing going on, doesn’t it? Yeah. Ingrid, what are your thoughts? Yeah,

Ingrid Nava:

I absolutely agree that it is widespread. I mean, there’s no question that there are many industries that are really fueled by immigrant workforces, which is why really, and at least my opinion, the administration’s announcement, which lasted for a couple of days, that there was going to be a pause or some sort of rule for the agricultural sector and for the hotel industry. I can’t remember if it was actually hospitality in that hotel or hotel. It was restaurant

Jonathan Grode:

And hotels or something

Ingrid Nava:

Like that.

Jonathan Grode:

Yeah.

Ingrid Nava:

So sure, those are two industries that have large immigrant workforces, but there are so many others, commercial cleaning, a lot of healthcare, home health people who do daycare, et cetera. There’s many, it affects really the membership across SCIU, I would say my union. But one of the sort of key things to note is that it is affecting the workforces, not just because they are people that might be in categories that are vulnerable, like temporary protected status, but also because the sort of unprecedented way that Jonathan was just describing that the administration is trying to address immigration issues has created fear. And the fear, I think it is causing people not to show up to work. I mean, that is certainly what I have read and heard. I don’t know about it in the particular workplaces that I’ve personally been involved in, but I do believe that that’s happening.

And the overall anti-immigrant, or at least treating immigrants with less deference than was previously afforded them is having an effect. And one example of that is that in our airports, people may not realize that a very large percentage of the airport workers across our nation’s airports are immigrant workers. The people who put your bag on the belt, the people who wheel chair you around the airport, if you need a wheelchair, the folks that clean the airplane cabin, all of those people are contracted out employees and they tend to be workforces that are very high immigrant workforces. One of the things that we’ve seen the Customs and Border Patrol doing and customs and Border Patrol is involved in providing the badges that permit people to be behind the security. And so all of the international airports have workforces that have to receive a custom seal badge from the Customs and Board of Protection Agency.

They are deciding that there are certain categories of people who, even though they are work authorized, present a threat simply because they happen to be more or less, it’s a little bit more complicated than this, but it’s more or less if you are not a citizen or a legal permanent resident, you’re being viewed as a potential threat. In my view, it’s unnecessary. It will create a crisis in the airports if it continues. And that’s not really good for anybody. It’s not good for passengers, it’s not good for community, it’s not good for the employers or the employees.

Matt Greer:

Yeah, it’s interesting. It’s not Air Airport weren’t primary. I was thinking about to be affected by this. So that’s really interesting to hear that that might be something on the horizon and airports are not necessarily the funnest place to go through now, so I can’t imagine that some of that played out might resonate in a different way. Yeah,

Jonathan Grode:

I mean, just to put it in perspective, I have people booking half hour consultations with me just to talk about their fear about traveling. I joke, but I say they don’t call me counselor for nothing because I feel like I’ve moved into therapy mode to the point where for the first time ever, we have a program where we will prepare a packet for you to carry with you to feel like you can present something to the border if you’re coming in. And Matt, this is not just temporary visitors, Ingrid’s talking about green card holders, we’re talking about citizens of the United States, and this is what we’re saying about effectuating the behavior of the many by making an example of the few. It is truly, truly, truly a paradigm shift. And this is not to be a alarmist because it is so real. Now, what I find fascinating, and Ingrid, you might have something to say about this, but what I find fascinating is in addition to everything we’ve talked about already, this is not being done uniformly across the country. The efforts that they’re making with work site enforcement are being targeted. They are going to specific states and specific cities for specific purposes and talking about amplifying it. When they did that very first raid on day one of the administration, they had Dr. Phil with them recording it.

Ingrid Nava:

I do think that there’s a resource question involved, and that’s probably why certain places are being targeted at least first.

Jonathan Grode:

Yeah, we haven’t seen Chicken Farms in Alabama, the rated yet. You know what I’m saying? There’s certain states where some of it feels a little bit politically driven,

Ingrid Nava:

But

Jonathan Grode:

Matt, I don’t know if you notice in this bill that’s currently being debated, that will probably pass by the time this airs.

Matt Greer:

Yeah, it’s in the process we’re talking here. Yeah.

Jonathan Grode:

It’s got an 20 fold increase for the ice budget, 20 fold.

Matt Greer:

Yeah, those efforts will be broader soon. It sounds like if there’s been focused, it sounds like there’s going to be the resources there.

Ingrid Nava:

I would just say, and just going back to the point, I think a yes, we need immigrants for jobs in the United States. There are certain industries that run on immigrant labor, but even where that’s not the case or where there’s many more citizen workers, these policies are having an effect.

Matt Greer:

The human impact seems huge. I can’t imagine being like an agricultural worker or a hotel worker who it might be falling into various categories who doesn’t know from day to day you might see a message from the president saying you’re okay, and then two days later you’re not. Okay. I mean, I can’t imagine the psychological impact that might have. And I guess as we kind get close to our end of our time, I did want

Jonathan Grode:

No. Well, and Matt, but to your point, this is actually a really important thing what you just mentioned, because of the fact that Congress hasn’t made any real, we talked about this already, Congress hasn’t made any real changes to immigration law. Frankly, you could argue in decades since 1986. Right? I mean, if you really want to say, when was the last time we had comprehensive immigration reform and then to call it like it is when Obama did DACA deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals rather than pushing it through Congress, that really established a unique thing with the executive branch having control over immigration, the likes of which we’ve never seen before. And what’s happened since then is a bit of a whiplash. So every four to eight years when you have a new change in administration, you have new immigration policy, not new immigration laws. So at the end of the Biden administration, they’re pushing through mechanisms to give all these people parole and create status, and then you have it taken away from you.

So it’s not only what is going on with this administration, it’s the promises of previous administrations that are not being fulfilled built. So a lot of this is, in my opinion, the ineptitude of Congress to actually take the mantle of doing something comprehensive. If you even look at the last time we had even a sniff at comprehensive immigration reform was 2013. And do you know who was the lead sponsor on that Bill Marco Rubio, who is now currently running the State Department. So it is extremely fascinating, but I think you hit the nail on the head, Matt. I mean, we have created such uncertainty not only in the now, but over the entire narrative of somebody being a foreign national into this country.

Matt Greer:

Our audience is mostly lawyers. And in your role, and you mentioned the counselor role, and I imagine that you both have pretty difficult conversations, I imagine pretty emotional with some folks who are really fearful about situations. And I guess I’m curious if you have any tips or thoughts about the human aspect of this, both for the people that you advise and who are calling you maybe in a state of concern, but also for you as practitioners, how do you handle that? Do you have any kind of thoughts for people who are kind of dealing with these really challenging conversations, trying to give advice in these really uncertain and for some very ugly times? Do you have any tips or thoughts on that front?

Ingrid Nava:

Well, I’ve been working with immigrant workers for the entirety of my career, and I would say couple things. One is that it is true that these are more uncertain times, and it is really hard. For example, if you have Haitian TPS and you’re in this ping pong situation, not knowing if it’s going to last or not, and now it is, but how long is that going to last? That’s a very difficult position to be in. And I do think we are also based on stories that I have heard recently in unprecedented times, and the fear level is ratcheted it up. But at the same time, it’s been my experience that immigrant workers want to go to work, they want to do a good job, and they mostly believe in our system. They mostly believe if they go to work, they do their job well, they do their, whatever they’re supposed to do with the immigration authorities, fill their papers out at the right time, go to whatever check-in that they need to go to that. In the end, this country is going to give them what they should deserve. And they want, they’re part of the bargain and they endure what is difficult because they want to be here and do the right thing and contribute.

And so most of the time they will overcome fear to those things. That’s been my experience.

Jonathan Grode:

And I would say for practitioners, and this is kind of a shame of all is inherently, most lawyers get involved in immigration because they want to help. And sometimes when you’re dealing with people in these populations, especially those who cross the border without status, the best thing to do is nothing. And just provide that realistic advice and guidance, which is counterintuitive to our very nature as lawyers. The other thing I would say is there are a number of organizations, especially refugee resettlement organizations like HIAs and Catholic Social Services and things like that that have lost a lot of funding because of the change in administration. And sometimes the best way to help the immigrant population if you want, is not necessarily to expend your pro bono hours on learning a new area law, but helping support these organizations with other aspects of law like grant writing or funding or making donations or providing them with labor and employment law support for their population because they are out of resources and they’re dealing purely on donations right now. And that is certainly a challenging time.

Matt Greer:

No, I really appreciate it, and we are coming close to the end of our time, but I definitely wanted to thank you both for being part of this conversation. It’s obviously a really challenging time to be working in this area, but also even just kind of observing it, it’s almost like it’s a challenge to do that. It is not nearly as big of a deal as is for you and the people you have to advise going through this. But I appreciate that and your time sharing your wisdom with us as we close out. Did you have any closing thoughts? I really appreciate Jonathan putting out the idea of here’s what we can do. I’m guessing a lot of people are listening to this conversation saying, what can I do? I’m a benefits lawyer or some other area of the law that isn’t directly relayed here, but kind of feels like this is an area that they might want to assist in. And so Jonathan gave us some, I don’t know. Ingrid, do you have any closing thoughts or tips for people who might be interested in helping out?

Ingrid Nava:

Well, I would agree with everything Jonathan said about how people can help out. There are a lot of organizations that are trying to provide help to immigrants right now because like I said, there are people who might be able to stay and are work authorized, but lose their job like say at the airport, or maybe it’s not at the airport, but just because their employer has done something that they think they’re entitled to but shouldn’t have fired them because they are work authorized, but made a mistake, whatever the situation is. I do think that there are, and as we already said, there’s high levels of fear. So part of what is happening, I know for example in Los Angeles is that there are just networks of people who are helping people get grocery shopping done and look after their kids and help them sort of stabilize during this time. And so I think there are those opportunities as well. So there’s just a lot of ways to pitch in.

Matt Greer:

Great. Thank you very much. So I also want to take a moment to thank our listeners as well for taking the time to join us and listen to this. I hope you found the conversation as interesting and insightful as I did. The Labor and employment law section is really excited about this podcast where you have this topic and a lot of other topics that we’re addressing through this. So please help us get the word out, share the show with your friends and colleagues if you get a chance when you listen to us on your favorite podcast player, apple Podcast or Spotify or whatever, give us a rating and give us a review and if there’s any topics that you would like to share that you’d be interested in us covering and share that as well. Alright, well, again, thank you very much Jonathan and Ingrid. It was great talking with you.

Ingrid Nava:

Thanks for having us. Thanks Matt.

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