- (female announcer) Production funding for Behind the Headlines is made possible in part by the WKNO Production Fund, the WKNO Endowment Fund, and by viewers like you, thank you.

- Immigration in Memphis, tonight, on Behind the Headlines.

[intense orchestral music] I'm Eric Barnes with The Daily Memphian.

Thanks for joining us.

I am joined tonight by Casey Bryant, executive director of Advocates for Immigrant Rights.

Thanks for being here again.

- Yeah, thanks for having me.

- Michael Phillips is executive director of Su Casa Memphis Family Ministries.

Thank you for being here.

- Glad to be here.

- Along with Bill Dries, reporter with The Daily Memphian.

We'll talk about lots of things around immigrants and immigrant rights.

We'll stay very focused on Memphis.

I mean, there's plenty of national, you know, conversation about things going on in other cities and protests and so on.

I mean, that kind of informs what maybe we're gonna talk about.

But I wanted to start with, and I'll go to Casey first here.

What does it mean to be an illegal immigrant, an undocumented immigrant, whatever phrase you want to term, and maybe you wanna define the different, but we talk about all this so much, but what does that actually technically mean?

You're a lawyer, I should add that.

And so it's not even just a legalistic answer, it's just there are all these degrees of undocumented, of status when you're an immigrant.

And so let's do kind of a primer at the top here about what we're really talking about when we're talking about illegal or undocumented immigrants.

- Yeah, well, it's certainly not black and white at all.

I would say, I would reframe illegal, undocumented, status, no status, in terms more of the continuum of the process of obtaining some kind of documentation in the country.

And so there's pre-process, pending process, and post-process, let's just say.

And so the process begins for people at different times.

Some people, the process begins before they enter the country.

Some people, it begins when they're trying to enter the country.

And some people, it begins sometime after they've entered the country.

And so in pre-process, that means maybe that a person hasn't had formal interaction with the immigration system.

Those people may be considered undocumented, with no documentation and no process ongoing to try to get documentation in this country.

Then I would say pending process is where a person has had interaction, formal interaction with the immigration system.

And that could be through an application for a visa at a consulate outside of the United States.

It could be at the border asking for asylum to enter the United States.

It could be after someone has been in the United States and has interaction with immigration and customs enforcement, and so in a pending, or it could be where someone has immigration court.

And so they're arguing the right to stay in the United States.

So in the pendency of the process, someone who has the right to pursue some kind of status in the United States is working on pursuing that status.

- It is, I mean, the way, if you watch cable news and really almost any cable news, I mean, this is not a left-right thing.

You get the sense that to cross the border without permission is illegal if you don't have prior approval, some kind of documentation.

Is that fair?

I mean, is it is illegal to cross the border in the United States without documentation or some sort of papers or permission?

- Technically there is, it is, but there is a process by which someone who crosses the border without permission is allowed to legally apply to get legal status in the United States by applying for asylum.

And so there is a legal process for people who enter the United States without permission to apply for legal status in the United States.

So although there is a law against entering without a visa, without permission, there's still a process to apply for legal status after that entry.

- Let's bring in Michael, first give a quick primer for folks not familiar with SU Casa Memphis and what you all do.

- Yeah, Su Casa, we're a faith-based nonprofit.

We work with immigrant families here in Memphis.

And so we have three main programs.

We have adult English classes that are all run by volunteers.

We have a bilingual preschool for kids one to four years old to make sure they get into kindergarten and have a good sense of what they're able to do and how their families can interact well with the education system.

And then we have a community services program, we just sort of help people to navigate.

And so part of that is partnering with folks like Casey to help with legal services and things like that.

It's also helping families to navigate the education system, also help for them to navigate health outcomes.

And then also we focused a lot on economic stability and things like that.

- And for you, again, because this is so in the news and such a national priority for the federal government right now, do you as an organization say, all right, we're working with immigrant families and these families are documented, undocumented, here illegally, not here legally, or are you blind to all that and just trying to help people with the work you just described?

- Yeah, I mean, the first thing that I would say is that our faith perspective on that is that we think that all people deserve to be treated with dignity.

And so to us, it's unimportant what kind of paperwork they do or don't have.

For us, what matters is they've come to our door and that we have sort of a faith obligation with our context to then offer hospitality and be able to help them to the best of our ability and help to direct them to the places where they can get the support they need.

And the truth is, we think that that dignity that they deserve comes from the fact that they have intrinsic value, that they have something valuable they're bringing to our community, and that we are better with them here among us and with us.

- Let me bring in Bill.

- Casey, does the system, does the immigration system have to be as complex as it is?

Is there a better way to do this?

- Yeah, there's absolutely a better way.

And I think everyone on all sides of the equation know that the immigration system is just ill-equipped to deal with the realities of modern times.

Right now, it's a patchwork of different acts that were passed at different times by different presidents to deal with certain situations that were happening.

But all in all, the immigration system does not address the needs of the 21st century.

- Is there a, I don't know what you would call it.

Is there a mismatch here between people who come to America to work initially and may enter the country illegally, but they know there's work waiting for them here?

They know they're gonna be able to find work in some way, in some industry.

- So you're saying, although it is not lawful to enter the United States without permission, there is an incentive that our economy is creating to bring people here?

- Exactly.

- Absolutely, yes.

I think it's not farfetched to say that our economy runs on immigrant labor, whether it's documented or undocumented.

And I think that is demonstrated by, yes, well, this week the Trump administration has put a pause on enforcement measures against certain people in certain industries because those industries are suffering because people are scared, and they're not coming to work.

- What are each of you seeing locally since President Trump took office with immigration being, with an ICE crackdown, something that he campaigned on last year?

What's it been like?

- Yeah, I mean, it's been very difficult.

People are scared.

People are afraid.

And we're not talking about violent criminals.

We're talking about moms and dads who go to work every day, who work in businesses and industries that have made our community a better place, right?

Who are mowing the grass of many Memphians who rely on that, who are cleaning their houses, and who they speak, those folks who are receiving those services speak very well of those folks, right?

Like those are the kinds of people, you know?

There's just recent data.

I think it was just yesterday a report came out.

It was internal ICE data that had been released through a FOIA request, I believe, that essentially less than it was like 10-15% of the actual deportations are "violent criminals", right?

And the other 75% either just had an immigration offense or it was some sort of a, you know, traffic ticket or something of that sort, and so like- - And that's national numbers, not Memphis specific.

- Those are national numbers, that's correct, yeah.

And so given all of that though, I think that we have seen that corroborated in the day-to-day experiences.

I mean, Casey works with a lot of clients.

She's hearing the real nitty gritty of a lot of that stuff.

We have people coming to our door daily asking for support and help with their specific situations.

And I can tell you the biggest difference that I've seen, yes, we've seen the ICE crack down.

We saw this eight years ago, it looked a little bit different, but we saw this eight years ago, right?

The biggest difference is that I think that it's become clear, right?

We're not talking about actual criminals, we're talking about criminalizing people so that we can get rid of them, right?

That's what has actually happened, right?

We're not talking about real criminals who have actually done anything.

You know, they've gotten, they've done something worth the parking ticket, right?

Worth a fine, right?

That's the way we deal with other similar kind of, you know, like you parked in the wrong space, and you didn't have permission to park there.

Well, you get a ticket, you know, right?

Like, that's what we're talking about.

And then what we've done is labeled it like it's murder.

It's not the same thing, right?

And we're treating people without dignity as a way to score political points from my perspective.

- So we've seen some really high profile ICE roundups, I guess you could call them, in other cities.

What's the pace been like here?

We've had some high profile incidents, but those seem to be smaller than what you've seen in other cities, accurate?

- Yeah, we have not, I think this is a good time to point out that a voice that really should be a part of this conversation is there's a grassroots group called Vecindarios 901 who are doing great work.

They're keeping a close eye and making sure people are aware of exactly what that activity looks like.

And through their activity, I can tell you, we may not have seen large-scale operations like what you're seeing nationally, but we are daily seeing the little bits and pieces happening here, there, and they're displaying cruelty.

There are people who were being treated without dignity.

There's all kinds of videos that stories have been done on, that have been posted on social media and other places of the ways that these things are happening that demonstrate that, whether it's US Marshals or ICE or whoever it may be, that there seems to be a lack of concern about people having due process, about them being able to actually communicate and understand what's happening, and with a sense that they have any right to any sort of due process whatsoever or to be heard, right?

People are coming here to make a case for why they want to have a different life than what was offered to them elsewhere.

They should at least be able to make the case, right?

- And, you know, in contrast to what happened in Nashville, this big splashy operation that lasted over the week, a weekend, and kind of trickled out through the week, two hundred people were arrested in that operation.

Here in Memphis, anywhere from 7-10 people every day, at least, are arrested by ICE in these quiet operations that are in neighborhoods and areas where there are large immigrant populations since January.

- It is, do you see the example of, okay, someone has a date in immigration court or a check-in with immigration, and so they show up to keep the date to abide by the process and they get picked up?

- Absolutely, it happened, started happening about a month ago, that ICE was present in the immigration court.

And the immigration court is run by the Department of Justice, which is a completely different agency to the Department of Homeland Security.

So Department of Homeland Security is present at the immigration court.

And this is something that like, that has not happened before, where they're ready and ready to pick up people who haven't just lost their case, but where the government attorneys have done kind of a tricky switch and bait for the people in their immigration proceedings to get their case closed and then just offer them up to ICE.

- With about midway through show here, back, I think it was in February, we had Worth Morgan, he's head of the Shelby County Republican Party right now, ran for county mayor, was former City Council.

He said, you know, we talked, at that time there was a pretty high profile arrest of some immigrants.

He said, it's not a bad thing for people to be afraid to break the law.

He talked about people working who are, on the one hand he was, you know, if people are working, and I think as he said, keeping their head down, but they're here illegally, they're doing the right thing, they're not committing other crime.

He was fine with that, but he said, but they're also being exploited.

And that was a big thing he focused on locally, that people, if they're working here without documentation, if they're working here, the wages can be kept artificially low because people are afraid to say anything.

They can be treated badly.

Do you, and that was part of his justification, I'm paraphrasing, for why tougher enforcement of immigration laws was important because of the exploitation.

Do you see that?

- We definitely hear about people talking about being mistreated in various ways, right?

And that's, you know, be on the basis of what their perceived status is.

And so we are constantly working with and advocating for families that are at Su Casa to try and like reach out to people and say, and when there are sort of like agreements in place that are just not abided by, or with housing in particular, you see a lot of problems where there are these really terrible rental contracts.

There's no rental contract whatsoever, and the landlord's not keeping up their side of the deal, but they know that they don't have to worry about it, right?

And so there's definitely a space there, but I think that that's an argument for a positive proactive vision for like, what does a better immigration policy look like, right?

Not to like, that means we need to get rid of it.

You know, we have people who are adding value to our community, who are making this place a better place.

And as a result, I think finding a way to create pathways is a better way forward than saying like, oh, well, I guess we gotta, you know, just let this happen.

- To that point of exploitation, from a legal point of view, are there avenues where you can advocate for someone who's being exploited, whether it's housing issues or jobs, and you get a fair hearing on that in this world?

- Yeah, absolutely.

It's called the criminal justice system and the civil justice system.

We already have these systems in place that everyone has access to in the United States, whether they're here lawfully or not.

If someone's a victim of a crime, they call the police.

If someone wants to sue another person in court, they sue them in court.

They can go to, they can sue the landlord, they can engage in the civil process that we have set up for everyone here.

So there's no reason to create some kind of extra system for other people for.

- Yeah, but for, but right now, if you're talking about like changes in the way the federal government's operating, are people afraid to come forward because, and are you seeing people who come forward who a landlord is not treating well, an employer is not treating well, and it goes a different direction where it's like, well, you're not documented.

This is the new policy.

You're not supposed to be here.

That's the law, and we're gonna deport you.

- Yeah, in fact, I believe the federal government's ramping up some kind of hotline to take tips from people who know that someone is here undocumented.

- I should have said if I didn't already, we're taping this Tuesday morning, lots going on nationally, there could be stuff going on locally.

So if there's something that's happened by the time this airs on Friday, we didn't touch on, again, we're taping this on Tuesday morning.

For both of you, before I go back to Bill, again, if you watch too much cable TV news, or you get on whatever it's called now, Twitter or X, you will get these very, very polarized kind of, it's all or nothing kind of views.

People, maybe they're listening or people who might read what you all have said here.

There are people out there that say, well, they think all these violent criminals, if there is a violent immigrant, they should be, you know, they shouldn't go to jail.

They shouldn't be, they have some rights beyond the fact that they're a violent criminal.

For each of you, if an immigrant documented or undocumented is accused of a violent crime, what should happen?

- Yeah, I mean, I think that obviously we have a criminal justice system for criminal violations, and so that should run in that same process with everything else for everybody else.

And I think that there's probably a whole 'nother show we can talk about about things that obviously could be better in that system.

- We've done a lot of shows on the criminal justice system.

There's more to do, I'm not taking away from that.

- So, but that being said, I think that this is what I said earlier, we have taken an immigration system, which is a system about someone finding a pathway, you know, and having the opportunity, no one's saying like you must say, yes.

It's, people should have the opportunity to tell their story and find a pathway if one exists for them, right?

And we should have a system that makes that manageable.

But besides that, I think on the other end of that, so then what has happened as a result is now we're having this kind of conversation about this stuff where we sort of are talking about immigrants in this sort of criminalized sense because we have criminalized immigration, as opposed to talking about how it is that immigrants can find a pathway, right?

- Yeah, and I mean, the immigration system itself is not a criminal system.

It doesn't even have the capacity to adjudicate guilt.

So what's happening is when these people who are criminals are being picked up, even if it's something, in immigration proceedings, it doesn't matter if someone has been convicted, it just matters if they've been charged or accused.

And so the immigration system doesn't have the capacity to understand if someone actually did it or not.

And so bringing people straight into the immigration system where they haven't had their day in criminal court means that they don't actually have their day in court at all.

- Let me, so just, are you saying, so someone's accused of a crime, turns out they're undocumented, they should continue through that criminal justice system in whatever form or fashion, whether it's a plea deal or that's a jury trial, whatever, is, if they are found guilty, is deportation a necessary or appropriate outcome in some circumstances?

- I mean, in every circumstance that someone is adjudicated guilty for whatever crime and they serve their time even, you know, especially if it's like a felony.

- Yeah, we're talking felony, let's say in that space.

- Felony, you're in prison, and you spend your time there, always, what happens is that someone gets transferred to immigration proceedings and then they have a chance to argue their immigration proceedings.

And so there are two different systems that don't run concurrently.

It should be first the criminal system and then the immigration system.

In each system, a person has a chance to argue their case, and the cases are different, the law is different, the requirements are different, the judges are different, and there's just different considerations.

- And, but you're fine with that.

You're not saying it shouldn't operate that way.

It's just, right now, it's not quite operating that way.

- Right, that's how it's operated in the past.

- Yeah, yeah, okay, Bill.

- And there's also some confusion I think about, if you are an immigrant in this country, legal or illegal or pending, we often hear from people who will say, yeah, but they don't have rights.

By the constitution, citizenship is not a prerequisite for rights.

Correct?

- Correct, correct.

And everyone in this country has rights under the constitution.

It's a matter of demanding those rights that makes it a little bit hard sometimes because different people have different access to representation and attorneys.

And so in immigration proceedings, it's kind of too late to be demanding those rights because they need to happen much sooner in the process.

And so, yeah, saying people don't have rights, you can't just create a second class of people that maybe don't have rights within another group of people that do have rights because there's no way to tell the difference.

And then if we do that, we walk down this slippery slope that I think in history we've seen before where we don't wanna go as a country.

- Talk a little bit about what you've seen locally in terms of the allegation in other cities that the ICE agents are rounding up people who they think are here illegally.

I mean, that they're not operating off a tip or information, they're just walking into a community saying, you look like you aren't from here.

Is that happening here?

- Well, I mean, the first thing that I should say is, I have not personally witnessed an ICE incident of that sort, and so, you know, but what I can tell you is what we've been told and what has been communicated to us by our families is certainly that there is activity around ICE that seems to be incongruent with what ICE would describe as its official policies around what and how you should be doing when it comes to an ICE arrest or detention or what have you.

And so we've seen a number of incidents, again, Google it, go on social media.

There's plenty of videos out there, in Memphis, in the neighborhood, right behind the building that I work in, where these sorts of things are happening on a daily basis is what I am hearing, on a daily basis from our people, that there are things happening where, you know, I mean, there was just a video posted the other day where there appeared to be a person who was not the person that was being sought that was then like pulled into a house without anybody else with them, that they couldn't communicate effectively.

And they turned out to not even be the person that was being sought, right?

And yet people who lived in that home were locked out of that home so that whatever agency these folks were from were able to be in there and talk without anybody else being there with them, with this person, right?

Like that kind of stuff, like, I mean, I think there needs to be more explanations about exactly what's going on with that, but I think at the moment, the sense in the neighborhood and in the community is that there's impunity about that.

That they don't have to answer to those things.

And the irony in all that is that you have people who are here, and we're having this whole long debate, right, 20 some odd minutes we've had now about whether or not someone is following the letter of the law to enter this country.

And yet the people who are detaining them, we're hearing constantly, are not following the letter of the law in how they're detaining them.

And so why do those two things, why are those not equal?

Why does one matter and the other doesn't, right?

And so I think that's a question that I would love for us to ponder more seriously as we talk about these things.

- Casey, are you seeing or hearing of people who are coming into the system who are citizens, who are, were either born here or naturalized?

- I haven't heard of any adult people personally, but I have heard where several, several occasions where a parent has had a check in, like you mentioned, with ICE, And they came with their US citizen children, and they were held in custody, and so were the children.

There was the one particular person who had a six-month-old baby and a six-year-old child, and both were US citizens, and they were held incommunicado by ICE for multiple days.

And no, they wouldn't say where they were.

They wouldn't grant an opportunity for an attorney to talk to them.

In fact, they asked the person to call a family member to bring diapers for the 6-year-old because they didn't wanna deal with it.

And so it's these kinds of things where, I mean, US citizens have, I mean, we all have a right against being detained without having a case.

But the kids, it was just particularly egregious.

- I meant to acknowledge early on, the show came together last minute.

We've got four white people here who are not immigrants talking about this.

I mean, it doesn't take away from the work y'all do and your expertise in the matter, but again, sometimes shows come together that way.

And we had that's, we're glad you all are here, but sometimes things like that happen.

Other organizations you work with, real briefly here, that you mentioned one, maybe you mentioned, other organizations in Memphis that are doing work that you think is important and should be highlighted.

- Well, first I wanna say the organization that I run is called Advocates for Immigrant Rights, and we represent people in immigration court in Memphis.

We have clients across Tennessee, Arkansas, and Louisiana.

So we're a nonprofit immigration law firm.

And we also have a social work program to support our clients outside of their legal case.

We work with all the other nonprofits in Memphis that work with immigrant people, and we work across the state too so we work with Tennessee Immigrant Refugee Rights Coalition.

We've been working with the ACLU of Tennessee, especially for the Nashville stuff that happened in May.

And so we are all sort of intertwined and in coalition.

- Okay, and the group you mentioned, mention it again.

- Vecindarios 901.

- Okay, we are out of time.

Thank you very much for being here.

Thank you, Bill.

If you missed any of the show today, you can get the full episode online at wkno.org, The Daily Memphian on YouTube.

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Last week we had Mayor Harris on, we recently did a show on homelessness, MIFA and potential federal cuts.

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Thanks very much.

We'll see you next week.

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