On Tuesday, President Trump will give a major speech to Congress and the nation. In this speech, he will talk about what he has achieved in his first month in office. The Trump administration has already said it has been successful in curbing illegal immigration. But many people affected by his policies are living in chaos and fear.
Andrea Lino, a supervising attorney at the Northwest Immigrant Rights Project, is one of those seeing the impact. She represents people in several western states.
In January, just days before Trump’s inauguration, she said, “Not knowing what will happen is scary. But at the same time, I feel I’m in the right place. I’m privileged to use my work and knowledge to make people safer.” We talked to Lino several times in the last month to see how Trump’s actions on immigration have affected her work and her clients.
One week after the new administration started, she told NPR that Trump had moved faster than she expected. It wasn’t about mass arrests or a big increase in deportations. Instead, it was the executive actions that caused confusion and stress among her clients.
Lino said, “At the end of the day, people still have rights. Trump and his administration are not above the law. But he’s definitely making our job harder and making people panic.”
By the end of Trump’s first month, she noticed a pattern. Traffic stops were leading to detentions.
She said, “It’s what we call ‘driving while Black or brown’. They just follow these people, stop them, and ask where they’re from. That’s illegal. You need to have a good reason to suspect that a person is in the country unlawfully.”
In this episode, Lino also shares some of her clients’ terrifying experiences. She also talks about one legal win her group had during this new administration.
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