{"id":210244,"date":"2025-09-08T13:04:09","date_gmt":"2025-09-08T13:04:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/210244\/"},"modified":"2025-09-08T13:04:09","modified_gmt":"2025-09-08T13:04:09","slug":"the-ice-men-cometh-chicago-magazine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/210244\/","title":{"rendered":"The ICE Men Cometh \u2013 Chicago Magazine"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mary Meg McCarthy knows what a dictatorship looks like. In the early 1980s, before starting law school at Loyola University Chicago, she lived in Chile, helping protect people\u2019s rights under the regime of Augusto Pinochet. \u201cThere was no access to the courthouse,\u201d she says, \u201cand people disappeared, were subjected to murder, extradition, torture. There was no rule of law. There was no way for anyone to be held accountable.\u201d<\/p>\n

So as the executive director of the Chicago-based nonprofit National Immigrant Justice Center, McCarthy is concerned when she sees the Trump administration chipping away at the American legal system, particularly when it comes to deportation cases. In July, NIJC joined in a lawsuit against the Department of Justice and the Department of Homeland Security, claiming they colluded to strip immigrants of due process.<\/p>\n

McCarthy sat with Chicago to discuss why she believes defending immigrants\u2019 rights is a fight to preserve America\u2019s rule of law.<\/p>\n

What prompted NIJC to sue?<\/p>\n

We\u2019re seeing courthouse arrests in the immigration court system. That historically has not happened because, as a policy, we have recognized that people are going to court to comply with the law and to have an opportunity to present their case. This has changed in the past few months. We\u2019re seeing people going to court and finding that the government is asking for the case to be dismissed without any notice and without any legal basis, and the judges are often being forced to grant the motion. Once that happens, the individual is then subject to potential arrest because they don\u2019t have a pending case. They walk out of the courtroom, and there are masked men there to arrest them. People are afraid to go to court, and the consequences of that are devastating, because now they\u2019re going to get an order of removal because they didn\u2019t appear in court. They\u2019re being trapped when they\u2019re just following the law.<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cThe most vulnerable right now are immigrants. But who\u2019s next?\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

What makes you say judges are being forced to grant dismissals?<\/p>\n

We believe there\u2019s a memo out there from the Department of Justice saying: You should be granting these motions. Immigration judges are not independent. They are part of the Department of Justice, and the executive branch has control over what they do. We\u2019ve even seen that when judges have denied the motion, people are still being arrested in what\u2019s called an expedited removal order, in which their deportation can be fast-tracked.<\/p>\n

So what should an immigrant facing this situation do?<\/p>\n

We are now advising that if this happens, you should ask the judge for time to brief this request to dismiss, or if the judge grants it, to appeal it. A lot of the counseling we\u2019re doing right now is about risk analysis: Do you even apply for protection right now? Because you\u2019re putting your name and address in the system.<\/p>\n

In the lawsuit, in addition to NIJC and the Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services, there are 12 people listed as plaintiffs. Who are they?<\/p>\n

They\u2019re individuals from all over the world who for one reason or another are caught in this new policy undermining their due process rights. Some have asylum claims, whether it\u2019s a gay person or an individual who was against their government or had a family member involved in political activity and was being persecuted because of that. All that is recognized basis for seeking asylum under U.S. law. Some have other forms of legal relief, like they\u2019ve been married to a U.S. citizen.<\/p>\n

When it comes to immigration practices, how has this second Trump administration compared with the first?<\/p>\n

We did scenario planning this time, and I feel like we were ready with what we anticipated. But we never anticipated the administration to go so quickly. Within hours of the inauguration, the chief immigration judge was fired. Since February, we have filed more lawsuits than we did the entire four years of the first Trump administration. What is really harmful right now is that we are seeing this massive enforcement operation and detention, and money being poured into that, billions of dollars. We\u2019re seeing new jails popping up all over\u2009\u2014\u2009county jails and governments like El Salvador\u2019s are all making money off this. It\u2019s become a big business. There is more money now in immigration enforcement detention than in any other federal enforcement agency. This kind of infrastructure is going to be filled with people. Their lives, their family\u2019s lives, communities are going to be destroyed. And our economy is going to be harmed.<\/p>\n

\"ICEICE agents in Chicago Photograph: Brian Cassella\/Chicago Tribune<\/p>\n

How do you fight against an administration that disregards law?<\/p>\n

One way is through litigation. We filed a lawsuit [in February] after Trump issued the proclamation that closed the border to asylum seekers. That violated U.S. law, international law, our obligation to provide protection that goes back to World War II, right? And the court recognized that. The whole judicial system, right now, it\u2019s shaky. But nonetheless, we\u2019ve got to keep fighting. As lawyers, if we don\u2019t stand up, who\u2019s going to? I also think we need to see a narrative shift, and that has to come from civil society. We\u2019re seeing some shifts right now where people are like, \u201cWait, they\u2019re not criminals, that\u2019s my neighbor who is now facing rapid deportation to a jail in El Salvador, they\u2019re part of our community.\u201d People don\u2019t want that to happen.<\/p>\n

What about people who believe undocumented immigrants committed a crime just by coming here?<\/p>\n

If we\u2019re not recognizing the right to seek asylum, the right to marry an immigrant and go through that process, then we\u2019re no longer a country that recognizes the rule of law. If we don\u2019t have these fundamental rights as a country, we are living in an environment of mounting authoritarianism. The most vulnerable right now are immigrants. But who\u2019s next?<\/p>\n

Are you seeing any other deportation actions you would consider unlawful?<\/p>\n

We\u2019ve heard instances of potential ICE [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] agents at schools, at restaurants, at Home Depots. They\u2019re going to places where they think they\u2019re going to be able to pick up a lot of immigrants without warrants. Our laws provide that you don\u2019t arrest or detain someone without a warrant, without probable cause. So we have to keep holding this administration accountable.<\/p>\n

Is Chicago doing anything to protect immigrants that you would like to see happen elsewhere in the country?<\/p>\n

I\u2019m thrilled that the State of Illinois and the City of Chicago and Cook County have all stood up for immigrant rights and defended those in the courts and in the communities, and with good reason, because we have a very thriving immigrant community and people value and appreciate that. It\u2019s going to be hard when you see states that are working with the Trump administration, working with ICE, lose that population. That is going to cause such harm and loss economically, communitywise. You lose the breadwinner, what\u2019s happening to that family? Where are they going to go?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mary Meg McCarthy knows what a dictatorship looks like. In the early 1980s, before starting law school at…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":210245,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5124],"tags":[5229,8015,115334,115338,960,4515,51500,5404,2398,9611,8005,25982,2321,5410,5386,1818,20523,115333,115332,115335,115336,115337,59849,115339,277,4352,1439,115331,41048],"class_list":{"0":"post-210244","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-chicago","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-american","10":"tag-augusto-pinochet","11":"tag-authoritarianism","12":"tag-chicago","13":"tag-chile","14":"tag-city-of-chicago","15":"tag-cook-county","16":"tag-department-of-homeland-security","17":"tag-department-of-justice","18":"tag-el-salvador","19":"tag-executive-branch","20":"tag-home-depot","21":"tag-ice","22":"tag-il","23":"tag-illinois","24":"tag-immigration-and-customs-enforcement","25":"tag-loyola-university-chicago","26":"tag-mary-meg-mccarthy","27":"tag-national-immigrant-justice-center","28":"tag-nijc","29":"tag-refugee-and-immigrant-center-for-education-and-legal-services","30":"tag-rule-of-law","31":"tag-state-of-illinois","32":"tag-trump","33":"tag-trump-administration","34":"tag-u-s","35":"tag-vox","36":"tag-world-war-ii"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/210244","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=210244"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/210244\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/210245"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=210244"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=210244"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=210244"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}