Can lawyers save us all?
It was Day 8 of President Trump’s America. At close of business on January 27, the administration announced an executive order to halt all immigration into the U.S for 90 days for individuals from seven Muslim-majority countries: Iran, Yemen, Somalia, Sudan, Iraq, Syria and Libya–effective immediately.
What happened next can only be described as chaos: Customs and Border Patrol received hurried instructions at 3 a.m. Airlines began offloading passengers from those seven countries. People’s immigration status changed in midair. Travelers were stranded and families separated, sending shockwaves around the world.
By Saturday morning, the damage was worse than anticipated. Green card holders and permanent residents were also prevented from reentering the country.
Saira Hussain from the Asian Law Caucus was at a protest in California when she heard the news. “Suddenly, I got a flurry of text messages saying they are signing the executive order now. This is happening,” she said.
Lawyers rushed to airports across the U.S. to deal with the fallout. They set up laptops and charging stations inside airport diners and on the terminal floor.
Travelers were advised not to sign anything before talking to a lawyer. But lawyers were having difficulty determining who was being held in the first place. Some held signs offering legal aid. Others worked to quickly research cases, making phone calls.
Then something pretty remarkable happened: Ordinary people–not just lawyers–started heading in droves to airports across the country.
By that afternoon, international terminals — some of the most militarized spaces in the country — became the setting for large-scale protests. People were handing out everything from food to feminine hygiene products.
They bore signs and chants: “This sh*t is illegal!” “We are all immigrants.” “Love Trumps Hate.” “Never again.”
Hussain says the demonstrations helped move the cases forward for those who were detained. It energized the families of those detained to stay and demand action.
“The attorneys didn’t have all the information. What we were able to achieve, it was because of the presence of the protesters.” —Saira Hussain
In other words, there was momentum.
Images of spontaneous protests played out on cable news channels all day and into the night. When Judge Ann Donnelly eventually struck down parts of the order at a federal court in Brooklyn, allowing anyone currently detained to be released, airport terminals erupted in cheers. Bleary-eyed travelers high-fived protesters as they emerged from the baggage claim area.
It was a temporary victory, but the message was clear: This ban was un-American. More than that, it was unconstitutional. And that weekend, an unexpected hero emerged: the lawyer.
Since Inauguration Day, the number of federal lawsuits against Trump has steadily increased. And this doesn’t include the 75 pending lawsuits he was facing before becoming president.
Zahra Billoo is the Executive Director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations in San Francisco — one of many organizations that filed a lawsuit against the executive order, alleging it acts as a thinly veiled Muslim ban.
“We experience harm when the government singles out any religion,” Billoo says.
Trump, though he’s no stranger to lawsuits, still doesn’t seem to have a firm grasp on the workings of the judicial branch — especially how it functions as a check on broad executive power — or upholding the Constitution.
After all, this is the tweet he sent immediately after the decision from the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals:
It’s safe to say that the judiciary has been the most effective branch of government in pushing back on the immigration ban so far. The unanimous decision from three judges in the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals not to reinstate the ban dealt a blow to President Trump’s plans to bulldoze his proposals through.
Hussain believes we’re living in “a real period of uncertainty.” For her, as an attorney who works to defend immigrant rights, the ban was shocking in its scope.
But seeing the people rise up to resist these policies is giving some lawyers strength to continue.
“The protests show us that this is not reflective of America, that we are not alone,” Billoo said. “And it was really important for people to see that.”
At the Women’s March on Washington, Billoo was energized but concerned about sustaining the momentum. However, the swift action the following weekend signaled the effectiveness of social media in organizing resistance.
“I’ve never seen anything like what I saw on Saturday and Sunday. People get it, and they are committed. It was so intersectional. People who don’t normally protest went to the airport and paid $36 for parking.”
In the weeks since Trump’s inauguration and the airport protests, civil rights organizations have received record-breaking donations. On Jan. 30, days after the ban went into effect, the ACLU said it received more than $24 million in online donations from 356,306 people — a staggering amount.
As the Trump administration wades through a mess of political appointments and staffing challenges, senior advisers are writing a second draft of the ban instead of arguing the merits of the original to the Supreme Court.
Regarding the political chaos, “It’s designed to be that way. It’s expected that we are going to burn out,” Hussain said. “This is a four-year marathon.”
Even if the rollout of ban 2.0 doesn’t cause as much chaos as its predecessor, a movement’s already been created in its wake. Protesters are ready. Attorneys are more prepared than they were a few weeks ago.
And at 75 lawsuits and counting, it’s pretty safe to assume that we will, in fact, see President Trump in court.
