How Trump's immigration policy changes who gets arrested and detained
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During his second presidential campaign, Donald Trump vowed to carry out the largest deportation program the U.S. has ever seen. On day one, I will launch the largest deportation program in American history. And true to his word, Trump's administration is arresting, detaining and deporting immigrants without legal status. But as a part of the crackdown on illegal immigration, legal immigrants are getting caught up in the mix.

There's Llewellyn Dixon, a green card holder from Seattle. She emigrated to the U.S. from the Philippines 50 years ago. And in February, she and her niece returned to Seattle from the Philippines. They both waited in the same line for customs. Dixon's niece, Madonna Cristobal, a U.S. citizen, went through without a problem.

Then Cristobal waited for her aunt and waited. One hour, two, three hours, I started to worry. And then I'm like, oh, what the heck is going on? Dixon had been detained by Border Patrol officers. A few days later, she was transferred to ICE's Northwest Detention Center in Tacoma. A month later, Dixon is still at that detention center. Her next immigration hearing is scheduled for July.

The reason for Dixon's detention, a felony conviction for embezzling nearly $6,500 from the bank where she worked more than 20 years ago.

At the time, Dixon pleaded guilty and paid a fine. She never served any jail time. But now, any past infraction can loom large as immigration authorities ramp up enforcement at airports and at border crossings. There isn't a lot of explanation. There isn't a lot of consistency on what they're doing, except trying to find any and every reason to prevent people from coming back into the United States.

That's Ben Johnson, the executive director of the American Immigration Lawyers Association. But it's not just cases like Dixon's. Tourists have been arrested and detained. And university students in the U.S. legally with visas are also being detained and arrested. Columbia University graduate student Mahmoud Khalil has gotten the most attention. He is a green card holder. He's a pro-Palestinian activist and was detained in early March by U.S. immigration officials.

The Trump administration has argued that Khalil has engaged in, quote, anti-Semitic and destructive protests. Here's White House Press Secretary Caroline Leavitt speaking at a press briefing back in March. This administration is not going to tolerate individuals having the privilege of studying in our country and then siding with pro-terrorist organizations that have killed Americans. Khalil rejects the allegation of anti-Semitism or that he supports Hamas.

And then there's Amir Maklid, a U.S. citizen and lawyer. Maklid was detained by border agents at a Detroit airport as he returned from a family vacation in the Caribbean. If government agents can target a lawyer at the border, what's stopping them from doing it to anyone who dares to speak out? Consider this. How is the Trump administration's immigration policy changing who is getting arrested and detained? Coming up, we hear from Amir Maklid. ♪

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It's Consider This from NPR. Among Amir Macklid's clients is an activist who has been charged in connection with a pro-Palestinian protest at the University of Michigan. Macklid said he believes that is the reason why he was stopped. He told me more of what happened when we spoke on Wednesday.

So as I understand, you were returning home from vacation with your family. Then you were pulled aside by some federal agents. Pick up the story from there and just start to tell us what happened. Well, as soon as I got to the passport check line, the agent looked over to another agent and asked, is the TTRT team available? I didn't know what that acronym stood for, so I did a quick Google search. At that point, I realized it meant the Task Force on Terrorism, something along those lines. Tactical Terrorism Response Team is what the acronym was.

And at that point, my gut just, you know, my heart fell into my stomach at that point. I was so, you know, concerned and worried. I looked over at my wife and I told her we're probably going to be stopped and detained and questioned. And so they eventually took me over to an interview room. My family was waiting for me anxiously, not knowing what was going on. And at

Then a plainclothes officer walks in and says, we know that you're an attorney and we know that you've been handling some high profile cases lately. And then I said, okay, well, what can I help you with? And he said, we would like to look at your phone. And he handed me a pamphlet with a federal statute that says that at the border, they're allowed to confiscate my phone for a number of days. And at that point, I was just shocked that they wanted to take my phone. Well, let me ask you this. At that point, did you have any sense of why they wanted to see your phone? What did they tell you?

Well, it was apparent to me at that point that they had already done their homework about me before I arrived because they knew that I was taking on some cases. He knew who I was and he knew where I was coming from and he knew I was an attorney. So it wasn't a random selection. They were prepared to talk to me and discuss things with me. And he was adamant that he wanted to see my phone. What did you do then? Did you give him your phone?

No, at that point I said, listen, you know that I'm an attorney. Everything on my phone could be privileged information. I have emails that go back over 10 years. I have text messages with clients. I have all my court filings and my office filings are in my cloud, which is available on my phone. You're not getting full and unfettered access to my device. It's not going to happen.

And so that puzzled this agent, and he had to go to a supervisor. The supervisor comes back and says, here's a legal pad, here's a pen. Write down everything that you believe is privileged. We won't go through that. I looked at him with astonishment. How do you expect me to go through 10 years and more of information that's in my device and see this is privileged and this isn't? It was a ridiculous conversation.

You said in other interviews that I've heard that you believe that you were targeted because you were representing a pro-Palestinian protester. You said that they didn't seem to know who you were. They seemed to know that you were an attorney. What led you to make the connection that this protester might have been the reason that you were detained, interrogated? They wanted your phone?

This is the only case of any high-profile action that I'm involved in right now. This is the only one that we've been making a lot of noise about because in Samantha Lewis's case, my client at the University of Michigan, they're criminalizing free speech. They're charging seven students with resisting and opposing police officers, which are felonies. And all they were doing was engaging in peaceful protest about the war on Gaza. So that we've made a lot of noise about and that we're vigorously defending.

Why else would they mention that I know that you're engaging in high-profile cases? I just want to note that NPR has reached out to Customs and Border Protection, and at the time of our conversation, we've not yet heard back. But a CBP spokesman named Hilton Beckham told the Detroit Free Press, which you spoke to, that searches of electronic media have not gone up during the Trump administration. And I'm going to quote here, allegations that political beliefs trigger inspections or removals are baseless and irresponsible. Your response?

I'd say to them that, you know, what was the purpose of searching my device then? If you know that I'm not a – there's no probable cause. There's no warrant. There's no concern that I'm a threat to national security or anything of that nature. The purpose of searching my phone doesn't have anything to do with terrorism, right?

there's only a chilling effect and it's done to be intimidating, in my opinion, for the causes that I was engaging in. I'm standing up for students. I'm standing up for immigrants and political dissenters. And I think this was a way to try to dissuade me from taking on these types of cases. Ultimately, you did not consent to just hand over your phone. But if I understand correctly, you did at some point let them look at the contacts that are in your phone. Can you tell us a bit about that?

Well, they kept threatening to take my device and they said they had the legal right to do so. So I didn't want to walk away from that meeting or interrogation or detention without my device in my hand. So I did acquiesce to allowing them to see the list of my contacts that's stored in my phone only. And they agreed with that. They said, okay, we'll look at your contact list and we'll go from there. So at that point, they took my device for maybe seven or eight minutes and they came back.

They apparently had downloaded my contact list and then began to ask me further questions about who contacts in my phone were. And that's when I said, no, this is getting into too much uncharted waters here. Anybody that's in my phone is going to be a friend, a family member, or a client. I'm not going to tell you if these folks are clients or not, but that's all the information you're going to get.

If this is part of a much broader effort to intimidate lawyers whose work runs counter to administration priorities, I want to ask you in the minute or so that we have left, is this working?

No, I think it's doing the opposite effect. The outpouring support that I've received from members of the bar, not just in Michigan, but nationally, and members of the community, is a showing that people are offended by this type of conduct. This is not what America is all about. We are a nation of laws. We have protections. We have amendments, the Fourth Amendment included, of your right to privacy, which includes not having your personal effects and papers be searched.

And it's setting a terrifying precedent. If government agents can target a lawyer at the border, what's stopping them from doing it to anyone who dares to speak out? We've been speaking with Michigan attorney Amir Mackled. Thank you so much for joining us. Thank you for having me.

This episode was produced by Tyler Bartlam and Brianna Scott. NPR's Joel Rose contributed reporting. It was edited by Patrick Jaron Watanonan, Courtney Dorning, Eric Westervelt, and Nadia Lancey. Our executive producer is Sammy Yannigan. And before we go, a word of thanks to our Consider This Plus listeners who support the show. You make it possible for NPR journalists to report the stories you hear on the show.

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