Deep Dive
Shownotes Transcript
Hi guys, welcome back to Friends Anonymous. My name is Lindsay and this episode is going to be a little different than normal. We're going to be hitting a heavy topic, but it's needed in every space right now, but especially in healthcare because I think there's a lot of healthcare workers and patients alike that are confused on the current situation.
issue that's happening. So I have Latoya Pompey on here with me and she is an immigration lawyer. I'm going to let her introduce herself and kind of tell us how she got here.
Hi, Lindsay. Thanks for having me. I'm so excited to have this important discussion with you and your audience. My name is Latoya McBean Pompey, and I'm an immigration lawyer in New York, but we work with clients nationwide, touching really the globe with the important message of freedom that immigration brings.
And through the team of McBean Law, we're doing some amazing things and changing lives. And it feels great every day to be able to do that. That's amazing. How did you get into immigration law? And is it the same as civil law?
Immigration law or I don't know all the terms. That's fine. So I got into immigration law truly it was really by accident. It was not intentional. I had been living in Michigan and working in local government and resigned from my job, came back home to New York and I thought okay now what? So I had no immigration experiences to draw from.
Somehow, I decided to reach out to a nonprofit organization in Washington, D.C. to do a little pro bono project because I had time on my hands. And they gave me a case involving a nine-year-old boy from El Salvador who had recently crossed the border on his own and his father was murdered.
and um that he needed an attorney because he was in immigration court facing removal deportation proceedings on his own without an attorney so i under through the supervision of this organization i decided to just jump in and learn something new and it was so real it was so um
The human element was just unlike anything I had ever done before with my career. And then his mother said to me, can you help me out? I have a case as well. And also, can you help my other son? And so McBean Law started from just this little pro bono project that I took on just to pass the time. And before I knew it, I started making videos online.
When President Trump came into office in January of 2017, I just felt really strongly that I should just get out the message about all of these changes with immigration, although I didn't know that much at the time. I was still a baby immigration attorney. And I started making these videos like,
Donald Trump is now president. Now what? Where do we go from here? And I just started covering all of the changes. And people started watching the videos. And then they, they folks said, Well, can I work with you? Can you know, can you do something for me? And it just grew from there. That's amazing. I feel like you're, I've been watching your content for the past, I want to say week, maybe so I saw it from a
Another creator online had shared your information and I was really... Yolanda, that was her name, Yolanda. And I saw your information and I was excited because I've seen a lot of...
misinformation which we'll get to in just a moment but I was excited to that you even said yes to talk to me because there's a lot of people in my DMs asking me questions that I do not know the answers to and I don't want to share information that is not correct because it could damage someone's livelihood it could damage you know their life while they're here so um moving forward I am excited to um
ask you some hard questions, and hopefully we can get some answers to people listening. First, I want to take a step back and say that maybe before this year, what was the immigration policy? And what was the most significant change to the US immigration policy over the last few years? Sure. So before President Trump was inaugurated about a week ago, or two weeks ago now,
Things were so different with immigration. The focus was really about family unity, fairness, potentially a pathway to citizenship for millions of immigrants who are here in the United States illegally or without status. And the enforcement priorities were really focusing more on
what they consider to be dangerous criminals, right? They, they wanted to really hone in on public safety threats. That's really, that was really the focus of ICE at that time under the Biden years. And they had obviously a very liberal border policy as well. We saw millions of migrants flow into the United States and, and, and,
There were a lot of problems as a result of some of those policies that President Biden had in place at the time. That was where we were before Donald Trump became president. Today, it's a completely different ballgame. This administration considers everyone who is here without status to be a criminal.
And therefore, the target is pretty much anyone who they can find who have broken an immigration law.
whether they are criminals or not, although they do say to their credit that at this time, they're focusing on those with a criminal record. And they are. They're targeting those individuals. Those are the early arrests that we're seeing these days. But for the most part, the philosophy has shifted significantly to one of everyone is a criminal. And if by chance we find out about you, well, we have a right to detain you.
That's scary because I feel like it could be taken so many different ways since it's not in like a exact format of what how they're doing things. I know a question I get a lot is are people in the middle of the process trying to get a green card or their DACA dreamer or anywhere in the process of trying to.
become a citizen? Are they in danger of being arrested? That's such a terrific question. And I get that question every day as well. Potentially, potentially, some people are the target as well, right? Because if you are, let's say, for instance, you have DACA, and you you're arrested for a theft crime,
Well, Congress just passed a law and President Trump signed it just this week that says that if you're arrested or even admitted, if you've even admitted to committing a theft crime, it could even be shoplifting that, well, you could be detained and detained in such a way where you can't even seek a bond and you can be deported. That's what
President Trump signed into law this week, the Lake and Riley Act. And so individuals who have a criminal record are more vulnerable to enforcement activities, of course, but most everyone else going through an immigration process right now, most of them will be fine.
They are okay, and they could just pull out that receipt from immigration showing that they're in process. They have a petition that has been filed for them. They're waiting on their green card. They could pull that out, and they will eventually be fine and be released. But those who have a criminal record, I would say those are the ones who are at risk
risk for being detained and being detained for a very long time under this administration. I'm going to back up here. I jumped ahead. Could you explain to us the process in which one becomes a citizen? Because I think a lot of people who have never, who have had the privilege of never having to get citizenship in another country, don't understand just how lengthy and
difficult the whole circumstance could be. Could you kind of walk us through a timeline of that, if you will? Yeah, the timeline will vary. It certainly depends on the process, right? So Congress set up many different pathways to a green card. Although there are many, they are also pretty narrow, right? Which is why today we have
Over 11 million people in the United States without lawful status because they just cannot fit into one of those categories so individuals who have a certain relative can apply for a green card and then ultimately become a US citizen and
some years later. Others are sponsored by an employer. Others are victims, right, of a crime potentially or they've sought asylum here in the United States and they get a green card and then citizenship that way. So these are different
buckets, I would say that Congress created. And if an individual falls into a particular bucket, then they could become a citizen one day. And for some people, it could be it could just be a one year process of becoming lawful here. For others, it could take many years, several years or even longer, it just really depends on the circumstance.
Okay, because I have several friends who came over as children, and it took them a decade to become a citizen. And when I tell other people that they're like, what? Exactly. You have no idea just how lengthy the process can be. So to think of them as not not doing it by the book, they are. But sometimes that book is very long, and it's very difficult for them to get through it.
I think that's something like a lot of people just don't understand. Right. They think it's easier than it really is. It's actually a very intrusive process. There's a lot of very personal information that one has to share with immigration when they're going through the process of becoming a citizen. It's very intense and it could take many years. Yeah.
Yes. Do you think that there's misinformation surrounding immigration, ICE, all the things we're talking about right now? And is it coming from social media?
Oh, yeah, there's a lot of misinformation out there. Certainly, social media doesn't help, right? Hopefully, this podcast will help just a little bit. But and I certainly try to do my part too, right? So yes, there's a lot there's a lot of fear. I think let's just back up for a minute here and talk about the fact that the fear factor, that is what is most significant about what's happening today versus under the Biden years and previous administration.
they've injected a lot of fear into immigration. And that fear is felt by everyone, even U.S. citizens, people who should not feel that fear. And green card holders, of course, should not feel that fear. But there is such an atmosphere of fear that certainly social media is helping to drive that I think it's creating a lot of misinformation. So for instance, one big thing
misinformation out there is that ICE is just going after everyone and there are a lot of arrests happening. And that's simply not true. When you look at the data, as of the filming of today's podcast, ICE has only arrested a little over 3000 people since Donald Trump became president. And you might be saying, well, that sounds like a lot. Well, yeah, of course, if you're one of them, right? It's like, oh, you know, it's a lot.
But when you put it in context of over 11 million people in the United States right now, and here in New York, just a few days ago, they had a huge blitz. The feds were here, they were going into the neighborhoods, they were trying to arrest some folks, and they only walked away with 39 people, 39 arrests.
And so the big misinformation out there about ICE arresting a lot of people is simply not the case. It's simply not true. The numbers are far smaller than what most people understand them to be. That's a good point of...
them and it's instilling a lot of fear, which is exactly why I emailed or I connected with you in the first place because as a nurse, I think a lot of us are concerned what can we do for patients that you know under HIPAA we know that we are not allowed to tell just anybody about our patients.
But if ICE were to raid our hospital, I'm kind of jumping around here, but since we're on this topic, if ICE were to raid our hospital, do you know legally what we can and should do for our patients and what ICE is going to present to us in that scenario? Sure. So when ICE appears at the workplace, whether it's a hospital or whether it's an office, when they appear there, they are actually looking for someone specifically.
They know exactly who is there, who they're targeting and what they want.
And so for hospitals, for instance, of course, the hospitals will have their own protocols and policies in place for how to manage things like that, right? If ICE was to appear in the ER room looking for someone, there's an administrator, I would hope, right, who is in charge of handling the review of potentially a warrant that ICE would have. And
look to see whether it's a judicial warrant signed by a magistrate judge and look specifically to see why they why is ice here number one what are they looking for specifically number two and then number three um whether whether they should just proceed with what they've what they appear why they're what they came there for right should they move forward with it and
Administrators at hospitals should be very careful not to interfere with federal law enforcement activities because they could actually get in trouble for doing so. So if ICE does appear at the hospital, the very first thing that I would tell nurses, I'm telling your audience now, is to actually
Speak to someone who is in charge a decision maker a supervisor who could then work with ice directly to ensure that the proper warrant is there for ice to Go forward and do what they came there to do. Okay, that's very good advice because I think that's mainly the Confusion I see on my end is what on earth are we allowed to do as nurses and for our patients? And I just want to make it clear to also that
We haven't really seen or heard any reports, anything factual at least to suggest that ice is actually going into hospitals right now. Right. And right. Raid Raiden hospitals that has not happened yet, but if they do so again, it's usually very targeted. Could nurses be arrested for not complying?
with them or not if they're asking for more information and they're confused what to do. Obviously, we need to go to an administrative person above us to handle it. But if ICE comes in with... How likely is it that they're going to come in with a warrant that's not signed by a judge?
You know, they also have what they call an arrest warrant, which is an administrative warrant that they generate, right? And so the arrest warrant that they generate is not very effective if they go to someone's home, okay? If they go to someone's home with this particular warrant, it's not going to work. Well, it shouldn't work because the individual has Fourth Amendment rights that says that they don't have to cooperate, right?
based on that type of warrant, but they should cooperate based on a judicial warrant.
In a hospital or in a public place, it's a little different. They have a little bit more leeway. If it's considered a public part of the hospital, well, they could, whatever they see in plain view or whoever they see in plain view, they could talk to, right? But if they really want to go deeper, for instance, what comes to mind with hospitals in my view, from my view, is the record keeping.
is everyone who is working there in status, right? Are all of the nurses in status? So it could very well be some sort of administrative warrant that says, we'd like to go into the HR files, right? That could be a plausible scenario because then they're trying to crack down on the employment fraud side of things with immigration.
But nurses who encounter, if they do encounter an ICE agent, take that agent to a supervisor or administrator to handle. Do not try to resist. Do not try to interfere or stand in their way because you could get in trouble. You could get in trouble for that.
Legally. Yes, exactly. It's not just like it's up on the wrist. It's your livelihood. Once again, it's very serious. Have you worked specifically with nurses or doctors trying to immigrate? I have not worked directly with them, but I do have colleagues here at McBean law who have, um, who, uh, and we also take on business cases, of course.
The nurses, from what I understand from speaking with my colleague earlier today about this, the biggest issue that nurses have with immigration is certainly the wait time. How long will it take to come to America with my family, right, and start working? And, you know, so the wait time is usually the biggest concern and fears that a nurse, a foreign nurse has.
I asked because there is a lot of people also asking, is now a good time to continue trying to immigrate into the US? Or should we wait until we see what else is going to happen with this administration? Absolutely. I think now is a perfect time to immigrate. If you have a sponsor, if there's a hospital that wants to bring you here, jump on.
jump at that opportunity, take it. Yes, we know that there are more that's going to come out of the Trump administration that will, you know, interfere with the process of bringing foreign workers to the United States. But usually there's some sort of carve out for healthcare workers. And the fact that, you know, here in the United States, from what I understand, I'm not in healthcare, but there's a shortage of good nurses, right, particularly in rural areas. And so,
nurses are always high priority to our government. And so if you have an opportunity to come to the United States, come apply, make sure that you you just throw in your hat and do it. Okay, I love that. Encouragement. How does immigration status impact access to healthcare or does it?
It does. It really does. And this is the saddest part, I think, of my job. Because there are times when I have a consultation with someone who is really sick.
someone who has cancer or someone who has long-term disabilities, and they've been in the United States for many years without status, and they are limited in terms of the type of health coverage or care that they could actually obtain. And so our system, this gets into the issue of, well,
If I had it my way, what type of policy would I really want to see happen? And it's something around compassion and medicine or medical needs because people
These individuals who come to us with these dire health care needs, they have no way of getting status here in the United States. Otherwise, they would have done so years ago. And so they walk away from these meetings with us feeling even more discouraged because not only, you know, are they sick and facing life threatening illnesses, but they don't have a way to get the coverage or the health care that they actually need to live a better life.
here in the United States. And to me, that is the saddest thing. It is sad. I think that's what we see a lot of too, you know, people coming into the ER or the ICU, and they're fearful even before the Trump administration came into office this year,
They're very fearful of what's going to happen to me. Is someone going to be able to care for me? Can I get the right treatment, et cetera, et cetera. And it's like you said, if I wish that we could have more of a compassionate view of a policy because it's,
it's it's rarely malicious of them coming here to receive health care, you know, something as simple as health care. And for many of them, they've been here for many years working. And for some of them, they've actually been paying taxes. Yeah. And they have no way of drawing down on their social security benefits. They have no way of getting good health care.
Unless they're in a state like New York that provides some degree of health coverage to individuals, whether they're documented or undocumented. But for others who are living in other states, they have nothing. They have no way of really surviving. And then truly with the Trump administration, Lindsay, the other issue involving those who are sick.
and benefits is that during the first Trump term, they had a very aggressive policy called public charge, which we're suspecting that they will bring back. They will resurrect this one. And essentially it says that if anyone taps into public benefits or public welfare, then the government will consider them a public charge. And as a result of that, they will not be able to get benefits
lawful status in the United States, they won't be able to obtain a green card, even if they're eligible for a green card. And through litigation by the ACLU and others those years ago, thankfully, the Trump administration was not able to implement those draconian policies, but we're expecting that they're going to bring it back. And so of course, this is going to hurt or impact sick
Because if they do tap into some public benefits to help cover their health care needs, then it could hurt them with getting a green card.
It's like it's extremely confusing how we have undocumented immigrants that can pay taxes. So they're doing the right thing there. But then they get in trouble later down the road. He says you come here illegally to begin with. So you're a criminal, but then they're paying taxes. So they're doing the right thing. But then they could get arrested by ICE because they were a criminal to begin with.
It's extremely confusing. It is very confusing. And as a matter of fact, most people come here legally. They come here legally with a visa and they just overstay. And there are more of those individuals who are here in that 11 million or 15 million bucket than those who are actually coming in illegally through the southern borders. So that's another aspect of things that folks don't always talk about. They always think that
folks are coming here illegally and forgetting that a whole lot of people came here legally and decided to stay. And that just shows once again that the whole process is still very lengthy. And even if you come here legally, it could take a long time to get the correct documentation that proves you're now a U.S. citizen. Exactly.
Scratching my head because I'm like, I know it's so confusing. It's very complex. It's very complex. It is. What is your advice to those right now? I watched your live this morning, actually. And there's the questions pulling in. What are the top few questions that you've gotten that maybe we haven't hit yet?
that you can think of? A lot of questions that we see come in every day truly is, well, first of all, people are asking us, can I leave my home? Can I leave my home? Can I go outside? Can I take my kids to school? Right. And when I hear those types of questions, it's really heartbreaking because
The fear has stifled so many people, they just don't want to move, they don't want to live, they are depressed, they are sad, they don't want to leave their homes. And so for me, that question about can I leave my home? Can I go outside keeps coming up like every day. And it's one that we you know, I tell people, you can leave your home, you can live your life.
But for some people, they have a real fear of taking their kids to school because now we have a policy that says that ICE can also go near schools or in schools to arrest individuals. And so now some parents are making different decisions. They do not want to drop their kids off at school. They're having other people drop the kids off at school and also churches, houses of worship.
The houses of worship, they're no longer a sanctuary place, right? The new policy is that ICE can go in and near courthouses, schools, and churches, houses of worship. And so people are asking a lot of questions about, well, can I go to church? Can I go to the school? Can I just live my normal life? And that's what we're hearing more so than anything else.
Yeah, that's hard. That is heartbreaking. They're, they're scared. They're scared for their lives. Can I arrest a minor? Are they going to the school to arrest the children are going to a school to find the parents that are dropping the children off? I think what what is happening right now, certainly, this is very, you know, we're only two weeks into the new administration. And so what we're seeing is that typically, they're targeting an adult,
I have not seen any verified reports quite yet that says that they're actually going into the classroom of a second grader and arresting that child. Because the first question that I have is, well, where are they going to put that child? Right.
Right. Because we don't really have the infrastructure to house these children. Right. So the focus really isn't on the children, at least not yet. The focus is on maybe there's someone who's working at that school who ICE is targeting, or it could very well be a parent who they're targeting. Okay.
Something popped into my head just now about the misinformation. Do you have websites or where do you point people to look at correct factual information of what's happening right now? Aside from McBean Immigration TV on YouTube?
I, you know, I tell them to read, I tell them to, you know, there are a lot of people obviously are getting their information from TikTok, right? Which, you know, makes us all feel what, what is happening, right? The person who is making that video crying in her car about,
something real that just happened in her life, it makes TikTok allows us to feel that pain or that sadness. And so a lot of people gravitate to TikTok. And I would say, do not use TikTok as the primary source of information. I would read the newspaper, right? The New York Times, the Washington Post, the Washington Times, read the newspaper, political axios,
Those are the sources that I usually go to for information. And certainly through my association, the Association of Immigration Attorneys, AILA is what it's called. That's where I go primarily every single day for factual information because they're tracking it. They're tracking it for us immigration lawyers. So once I get that information daily from AILA, I then try to put it out there for people in a way that they could understand.
I feel like, are you taking care of yourself too? Yes. I have a vacation coming up. Yes, I am. I am. I go on three mile, three mile walks and I, I pray. I go out to eat a lot with my husband. I walk the dogs. Certainly I'm living my life as well. And I try to
hone in on self-care each week. It's tough because there's just a lot that's happening in the news and people are, people need the information. So I try to make it available to them. But self-care can be
It's very important. I understand. It is important. And I saw you post something about being on a Zoom with like a thousand other immigration lawyers. And probably you guys were all like getting together trying to figure out exactly what's going on. What can we do? Exactly. So I think that's cool. You have each other as a resource. And that's a weekly call. Exactly. That's a weekly call. And that helps us to understand, well, what's going on really around the country? Because
These are immigration lawyers all over the US. And so if something is happening in Wichita, Kansas, or Los Angeles, or Brooklyn, New York, you get to hear about it each week. And so it's such a valuable resource, the American Immigration Lawyers Association. Awesome. I'm going to put all these in the description. For those looking to help, are there any red flags people should watch out for when seeking legal help for immigration issues?
besides just coming to you because you're a green flag? Sure. So there's a lot of immigration scams happening. Even before President Trump took office, there's just it's rampant. It's even more so now because of the fear factor. So I would, I often caution people to
really be careful about who they work with. If you're going to work with someone to file some paperwork with immigration, well, you've got to make sure that those individuals are qualified to do this. Otherwise, it could very well be a scam. And we see a lot of people who come to us as who are victims of scam, immigration scams. And for some people, they could recover from it. For others, they cannot recover from it.
So look at the reputation and the background of the individual who says, I just want to help you with your paperwork. Well, what are your credentials?
How can you help me? What have you done for others? Is there any proof of that? Is there social proof? Is this person on Google? You could find them on Google. How are you paying them? Are they only asking you for cash, right? Or you could sell them and that's it, but you cannot pay them in any other official way. Are they asking you to come to their home?
late at night to work on your paperwork. Those are signs that something might be going on there, something fishy. So be very careful because truly now is not the time to submit a fraudulent case to immigration because you could be deported. Yeah, very, very good point. So how do we make the changes we want to see in immigration happen? I think a lot of people are saying at this point, we kind of just have to ride the wave.
which is probably true. Or you can say something, right? You can like what you're doing, right? You're bringing awareness to a lot of people who are on your platform, right? So I think creators and entrepreneurs like you need to just, you could talk about it and reach more people and bring awareness and advocate for people
Advocate for justice. Of course, we could enforce our laws. I'm a lawyer. I believe in our laws. I believe in what Congress has set up, right? And our constitution, the laws can be enforced in such a way where immigration is
where where fear it doesn't have to be injected in it right we could enforce our laws without injecting so much fear into it right and so you can bring the awareness on your platform you can talk to other people you can share stories if you know an immigrant or an immigrant story tell your tell the story so that people can understand what immigrants are going through or have gone through absolutely i think the easiest way to understand something you don't know is by
putting yourself as close to that as possible, which is meeting new people, talking to people, listening to them before you just blabber on about whatever you thought was actually happening. Actually listen to these people and their experiences because I think it opens up our minds like so much more by being transparent with each other. Let's end on a high note. Do you have any stories that you can think of that...
I don't know, helps encourage others to keep doing the right thing or an inspiring story that you helped with legally or anything like that. Oh, yeah, we have so many wonderful success stories. But what came to mind as I was preparing for today's podcast is a case that we worked on not too long, some years ago, actually, involving an American citizen
This woman had been here for many years, a naturalized citizen, and she was getting up there in age and she had filed for her son, her adult son and his wife to come to the United States to be with her. But along the way, well, because as we've discussed, the process is really lengthy. It took more than 10 or 12 years. So along the way, she developed Alzheimer's and she neglected the case and the
the case was terminated at a very critical point when they got so close to the very end it was terminated because she neglected it she was developing Alzheimer's she just couldn't manage it anymore and so her son came to us and he said we had a case for many years and my mother really needs the help I've gotta come to America permanently to take care of her
And my wife is a nurse, we're trained, we want to do this. Can you help us? And so we were able to help them get the case reinstated and get them back on track. But then Trump became president and made all of these changes with the visa rules and process. And there was a travel ban and some other things were happening. So then they faced more delays. And then after that, we got them back on track.
And then finally they were able to come here permanently to take care of his mother who has Alzheimer's. So for me, that's what it's about. It's so real. It's connecting people, bringing them here together to share their journey together and be there for each other. To me, that's that.
that's what immigration is all about. Absolutely. I love that story. I think you answered literally every question. I really appreciate your time. I know that it's valuable. So I thank you so much for even carving out a piece of your day for me and our listeners. I hope that they learn a lot. If they have more questions, I will have your social medias, all the handles, your YouTube. Are you on TikTok?
We're on TikTok. Yes. Okay. YouTube TikTok. Perfect. All your handles to your social medias will be in the description for people to go follow along and learn more. And because you answer so many various questions about immigration on your pages. It's very useful. So I thank you again for being here so much. And it was wonderful. I really enjoyed this. Awesome. Thank you. You're welcome. Until next time. Bye, guys.
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