Katie Meyer, a Washington University law professor, director of the university’s Immigration Law Clinic and a Lindbergh parent, sat down for an interview to discuss immigration courts, enforcement trends and legal concerns. 

Q: Could you tell me more about what role the immigration courts play in the citizenship process?
A: In the immigration process, immigration courts can come into play in a variety of ways. Someone is only put into immigration court if the U.S. government has issued documents charging them with being removable from the United States. And removable is actually the legal term the law uses now instead of deportable.

But someone could be put into immigration court, put into removal proceedings for a variety of reasons. For being in the U.S. without having permission, so maybe they came on a visitor visa, it expired, that’s a reason to be put into immigration court. For being lawfully in the U.S., like say as a student visa holder, but then violating the terms of that visa, typically by working, you don’t have permission to work, or being on a temporary work visa that allows you to work for one company and it’s found out you work for another company, right? Someone could be put into immigration court proceedings even if they have the highest level of immigration status, lawful permanent resident status, what we call a green card, if they are convicted of certain crimes.

Another way though is if people show up at a border, that could be an airport, it could be a sea port, it could be a land port, they show up at a U.S. border, they don’t otherwise have permission to enter, but they say, if you send me back, my life is at stake here. Then they are supposed to be given a screening, it’s called a credible fear interview, to determine if they might meet the requirements for asylum, not actually an asylum interview, and then if they pass that interview, they’re actually put into removal proceedings.

So it’s all like, conceptually, it’s like they’re knocking at the door to get in and the government’s like, we can’t let you in, you don’t have a visa, you don’t have permission, but you’ve proven to us you have this at least certain level of fear, and so we’re actually going to put you into deportation proceedings and let a judge decide whether we should just deport you, which is what we would normally do because you don’t have permission, or whether you have proven your asylum claim.

So that’s another common way people end up in immigration court. So the immigration court has the legal ability, they call it jurisdiction, to decide certain types of applications that could not only stop someone’s deportation, but actually give them status. They decide applications for asylum, but there’s a lot that the immigration court does not have full authority or jurisdiction to decide, right?

Q: How do current immigration enforcement trends differ from previous years or previous administrations?
A: Prior administrations, both Democratic and Republican, have given to the immigration enforcement agency, including ICE, what’s called prosecutorial discretion. The ability to use their best judgment.

And so under past administrations, officers would use that discretion and say, you know, it’s not like we’re going to, we can’t give you status. We’re not going to clean your record. But it’s just not a good use of our resources to focus on putting you in deportation court, potentially detaining you, and then slowing down the process of putting someone else in removal proceedings who we think is more of a priority, right?

And so on day one, in both the first Trump administration and this Trump administration, the president issued an executive order that said there is no discretion, zero, basically saying to officers, if you see it, if you see it, right? If you recognize someone is technically on paper amenable to removal, that technically there’s an argument you would make that this person is removable. You have to arrest them. You have to put them in removal proceedings. And in fact, they’re being told in most cases you have to detain, right? So that is a really big difference.

Another difference that we’re seeing is we’re seeing the administration even detain people and place them into removal proceedings when they were already in a process that was leading to giving them status, right? They filed all the right paperwork. They were showing up for their fingerprints. They show up at an interview, and sometimes they’re arrested at the interview or arrested outside their home. And that I’ve just never seen before.

And many news sources have reported with credible sources from inside the government that these officers are being told they have a quota, right? You need to arrest a certain number of people every week. So that’s kind of different too, right? Instead of a strategy to actually look for specific categories of individuals, instead it’s just anyone we can get.

Q: What are some trends you’ve noticed with ICE agents or immigration policy enforcement here in St. Louis, Missouri?
A: We’re certainly seeing enforcement. I mean, there’s never been, there’s [always] been ICE enforcement in St. Louis. There’s always been ICE enforcement in St. Louis. We have an ICE field office right downtown, but so far we have not seen in other cities what you might call mass raids or large numbers of outside ICE into St. Louis to do big sweeps on streets.

We haven’t really seen that, but we are certainly seeing what ICE calls targeted operations, where they have certain individuals that for a variety of reasons have come onto their radar. Some because of criminal conduct or interactions with police.

And so ICE will do a targeted operation to pick up that person. It could be they know this person has been scheduled for an interview and they’re going to go show up at the interview. So we’re seeing them do more of these targeted operations. They’ll pick up someone outside of their apartment or while they’re driving or at their place of work or at an interview.

And it’s really sporadic. It’s not like there’s an indication in advance ICE is going to be going to this neighborhood.

And then again, there’s already a lot of people who as part of their process are required to check in with ICE. And we’re continuing to see a good number of arrests when people go to their check-ins. Some people go and it’s totally fine. Someone else goes who seems to have the same case and they’re detained.

So it’s really hard to understand a pattern. Some of it could have to do with the number of jail beds available. We just have to be honest with them that there is a risk. We just can’t tell you how high.

Q: Could you please describe to me what you know about the ICE detainment and deportation process in legal terms?
A: ICE is a civil enforcement agency. They are not a criminal enforcement agency. And they are actually part of the executive branch of the government. And so they’re under the president, and then they’re under the Department of Homeland Security. So they’re a federal agency.

They’ve always had these agency arrest warrants that they themselves can sign. And then an ICE officer can just sign it and use that to say, I have authority to arrest this person. Those are called administrative warrants.

Administrative warrants have been found to be valid to take physical custody of a person. But the longstanding understanding has been they do not give ICE any authority to enter a home or a private space with only that administrative warrant.

If ICE wanted, they could go to a judge and ask the judge to sign the warrant. They just don’t.

What we’ve been seeing that’s been really concerning lately is ICE now saying they have the authority to break down doors and enter a home to carry out this administrative arrest warrant. I and all the legal scholars I’ve spoken to strongly disagree that that violates the Fourth Amendment.

Q: How do you address some critics’ claims that the current administration’s enforcement of immigration policy and ICE is unethical?
A: I don’t dispute that at all. Yeah, I think there’s a lot of unethical aspects of it.

I have heard stories for two decades in my practice of ICE deceiving people in order to arrest them, dressing clothing to make it look like you’re delivering someone’s food so they’ll open the door. To me, that is extremely unethical.

Certainly, these very physically aggressive tactics are not just unethical. I would argue they’re criminal“s”. I think it’s highly concerning all around.

Q: So, there’s been a lot of student protests recently regarding ICE or immigration policy. Have you seen any of that at WashU?
A: I haven’t seen any walkouts or anything at WashU. There’s certainly a lot of events, panels, coming up about the issue of immigration and ICE and their actions. I’m going to be on one of these panels later this month, so there’s certainly dialogue and discussions about it.

Q: How do fluctuations in federal funding for DOJ sanctuary jurisdictions influence the enforcement of immigration policy?
A: The current administration is calling any jurisdiction that won’t do the absolute max work with them sanctuary jurisdictions, and they’re threatening to withhold funding.

It would depend on exactly what funding is withheld, but for many cities and states it could affect major programs. So it’s sort of being used, they’re like almost holding this essential funding hostage and saying if you don’t do exactly what we want, we’re not going to give you this money.

Q: Going back to what you’re saying about how you haven’t noticed a lot of trends about ICE in St. Louis like you were in places such as Minneapolis — do you think it’s ever possible that we would have that same situation (as Minneapolis) in St. Louis?
A: It certainly is. It seems to be at the whims of the president right now. I hope not. But I think anything is possible.