Senate Standing Committee on Judiciary

Welcome everyone to the Judiciary Committee Informational Briefing this Monday afternoon, 2:00 clock, here in 016. My name is Karl Rhoads. I'm the Chair of the Judiciary Committee. Other members of the Committee may join us later.

This Zoom meeting and YouTube live stream event covers the 2:00 PM JDC informational briefing on the impact and legality of Federal Immigration enforcement efforts in Hawaii. As noted, this briefing is being streamed live on YouTube.

You can find links to viewing options for all Senate hearings and meetings on the "Live and On Demand" video page at the legislature's website, capital.hawaii.gov. In the unlikely event that we must abruptly end the briefing due to major technical difficulties, a future date can be arranged with the presenters, the Committee will reconvene, and a public notice will post on the Legislature's website.

Since this is an informational briefing, only the invited speakers will provide testimony to the Committee. There will be not be any public testimony, though members of the public are always welcome to contact my office with their comments and concerns.

Briefing materials from today's presenters are linked from the briefing notice and also will be posted online at the Senate JDC Committee page. These can be accessed on the Legislature's website, which, as I mentioned before, was capital.hawaii.gov.

Today's briefing will, will address the Federal Administration's immigration enforcement policies and actions as they relate to Hawaii and how they may be ignoring commonly accepted norms and violating laws. Some of these actions appear to me to be of dubious legality.

This is the sixth and final briefing I have held over the interim in a series to explore the rule of law and the local impact of actions that have been taken by our President and the Federal government. I expect that issues and ideas raised in this briefing will be further pursued during the 2026 regular session.

Among other issues, this briefing will explore enforcement actions that are occurring in the state, the disregard of due process requirements and standard court or legal practices, the questioning and detention of individuals who are U.S. citizens or whose legal immigration status is clear, the suppression of free speech in the media, and pressure on state and local law enforcement to collaborate with Federal Immigration actions.

We have a great group of speakers planned for the day that will help us explore what's happening on the ground and the impact of increased and somewhat unpredictable federal enforcement efforts in our state that is being experienced by residents of all citizenship and immigration statuses, as well as the legal issues.

The speakers are Bettina Mok, Executive Director of the Legal Clinic, an organization that provides immigration legal services, education, and advocacy to low-income immigrants and migrants in Hawaii. Pilar Kham and Stephanie Haro Sevilla, postgraduate fellows and immigrant advocates at the Refugee and Immigration Law Clinic at UH, University of Hawaii's Richardson School of Law.

The clinic provides immigration legal services with a focus on individuals seeking asylum and other forms of humanitarian relief. Liza Ryan Gill, co, Co-Coordinator of the Hawaii Coalition for Immigrant Rights, which is a coalition of immigrants, immigrants led in serving organizations and allies working together for advocacy and education for equal justice and community inclusion for immigrants.

I am very pleased that Dr. Amy Agbayani has also agreed to join us. She will provide an overview of the topic and then act as facilitator for the question and answer portion.

Dr. Agbayani is a dedicated advocate for civil rights, women immigrant justice and college access, and was the Assistant Vice Chancellor for Student Diversity at the University of Hawaii at Manoa.

She served the state in numerous ways, including as Chair of the Hawaii Civil Rights Commission, Chair of the Hawaii Judicial Selection Commission, and member of the Regents Candidate Advisory Council for UH, and additionally was a member of the White House Commission on Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians, and Pacific Islanders created by President Biden.

She's currently Co-Chair of Hawaii Friends of Civil Rights and active in other organizations. So, with that, Dr. Agbayani, the floor is yours. Afternoon.

Mahalo and thank you very, very much, Senator Rhodes, for conducting this informational briefing. As you mentioned, my name is Amy Agbayani and I am a US Naturalized citizen born in the Philippines and I've been in Hawaii more than 60 years. I came as a five year old, no graduate student. Immigration's been a long part of, of human history and of course, also the history of Hawaii and the history of the United States.

What—but I won't go way back then, but I would like to talk briefly about immigration to Hawaii, some of the demographics as well as the nation, as well as try and look at what are facts and what are not facts about the immigration situation here, as well as some of the policies.

There are actually two, at least two narratives, about what immigrants are to our nation and to Hawaii. One of them is this brilliant editorial by myself, that says immigrants contribute to our economy and cultural fabric. That's one information that should be shared and there's enough evidence to back that up.

And the other narrative is that immigrants are rapists, bad criminals who take away jobs from American citizens. So, those are the two kinds of things that we seem to, you know, one side thinks that the other side doesn't have the facts and what is the reality on the ground? That's the kind of thing that we must look at.

And from that, we have policies. And so, if you do believe one of these narratives, it's easy to understand why the policy is to have mass deportation and also only the worst of the worst, those are the ones to be deported and that immigrants have no rights. And have no constitutional rights and due process.

So, if you believe one, then it's really understandable how the policies and the practices follow from that. But I think we have enough information about the other view and that helps us to give an overview of Hawaii's immigrants to Hawaii.

Many of these people know these bits of information, but it's always good to remind people that one in five people in Hawaii, every fifth person you bump into, are farm born. And of those, many of them live in mixed households with children who are US citizens.

And 60% of farm born people in the state of Hawaii are US citizens. So, you can do the math. And I'm from the Philippines, and that is the largest immigrant group to Hawaii.

Nearly half of the immigrants coming every year are from the Philippines, and every fourth person you bump into in the state of Hawaii has Filipino ancestry. The other groups coming in, of course, are from many countries. China and Japan are the next group, very small, much less than half. They're about less than 10% each.

And Korea, Mexico, and the Pacific Islanders. So, President Elect, President Trump, has vowed to deport undocumented immigrants for, for many reasons. But actually, over the past few months, we've seen him identify policies and actually, on the ground, people who are U.S. citizens, legal immigrants with perfect documentation, as well as those who are undocumented, have been picked up.

So, it's not just undocumented immigrants that are being—that they're trying to deport or arrest. It's many others.

And also later on, people also look at new policies that are coming down that really will impact not only immigrants, and that is the attack or on birthright citizenship and changing many of the legal visa categories that we already have, making it so that they are no longer available, as well as other policies that actually target and take away the rights of people who are legally here.

So, it's not just undocumented. So, Hawaii national data do not support the fact that it's a good idea deporting millions of immigrants because they harm our economy and because they are criminals. Immigrants contribute to our economy. But here in Hawaii, 20% of the labor force are immigrants.

And keep telling everyone, if every immigrant stayed home from some of the hospitals and the hotels, I think we would notice. Over 24—27%—of all entrepreneurs are immigrants. And each year, immigrants pay billions in taxes and spend billions to power Hawaii's economy. This is just not national data; this is Hawaii data.

And what's true is that there are about 40,000 people in Hawaii who are undocumented, but many of those actually have a pathway to being legalized and documented and provided the protection and the benefits they are, would be, are eligible for.

But they're not able to because of the very complicated process, the immigration courts and other barriers. A lot of it by the way, there's a lot of language barriers, access to information, and their rights. Just one more point I wanted to make is that it's demography.

All the economists say, you know, America does not have enough working adults to actually keep the economy going and growing and that the United States is actually dependent on getting more immigrants, farm born people, who are actually higher in the workforce than native born Americans. And so, they are actually the ones paying for a lot of our Social Security and will be dependent on the funds from the workers of this working age group.

And the other point that we really shouldn't have immigrants here is they're really a drain on the government sources. Government, their burden. Well, actually, the data shows that that is not the case.

They will bring in millions and billions of dollars that is subsidizing, adding to the Social Security, for example. Without that, we would have a lot more problems with funding many of our programs.

I would just stop there and say that there are wonderful articles that I just have the headlines for that I can't talk, spend the whole time in, and I know that my colleagues on the panel will give a little more information.

But the raids in the corner coffee, picking up children at—and having families that are unable to, well, people don't know what's happening actually. And I want to thank our congressional delegates, Senator Hirono and Senator Schatz and Representative Jill Takuda who have actually tried to help us on many things, just even getting information.

There's a lot of information we need as to the people who's being arrested and where they are and what's happening to them. But a lot of that information is unavailable to their families, as well as many of them have a hard time even communicating with those who have legal representation.

And so, what we need is to get the information, have access to them, and we should also provide the general public with correct information as to the impact and what's happening to the immigrants. The policies and procedures are not making it safe for anyone and it's not increasing our economy and it's actually not producing what this policy is meant to do. So, I'm pleased to have—thankful that we're having this conversation and I know that the others will be able to.

Great. Thank you very much, doctor. Next up is Bettina Mok, Executive Director of the Legal Clinic. Good afternoon.

Good afternoon. I'll just switch this.

Self serve.

Good afternoon, Senator. Thank you for the invitation. Oh, okay. Where do I press? Right in the middle? Okay. It's okay. Immigration is, of course, a human rights matter and globally very complex when it comes to policy. In the United States, it should not be a party line fracturing matter because it affects everybody.

Even presidents before this one struggled with this complex issue and we know that the immigration system in the US is broken. The first slide shows that there is a tremendous backlog of both matters pending before the Federal Immigration Court as well as with the US Citizenship and Immigration Service applications.

So, those who are applying for green cards and renewals of citizenship, or of DACA cards or applying for citizenship, nationwide, there's an 11.3 million backlog of these applications and 3.4 million backlog of immigration court cases. Often, those cases take one to three years or more to process.

So, you can imagine if you're someone in that situation not able to necessarily work or know what your status will be or whether you can travel or eventually vote.

In Hawaii alone, as of I believe August, data showed that there was a backlog in our own Honolulu Federal Court of 1,400 immigration cases pending, with only two federal immigration court judges here. So, because it's such a complex area of law, most people can't navigate related applications and court appearances on their own.

But many people don't know that in federal immigration court, there are no public defenders for those who can't afford an attorney. That's where the legal clinic, where I work as an Executive Director and our attorneys, as well as our colleagues at other nonprofit providers in the state, come in.

There are over 62,000 Hawaii residents who may be eligible for citizenship status but need help navigating our complex immigration legal system. There could be over 30,000 non-citizen residents of Hawaii, many of whom have lived in the US for over 15 years, some of whom could also be eligible for legal status through asylum petitions, etc.

But we only have six or seven nonprofit providers in Hawaii providing immigration legal services for low-income residents. And among them, only a handful of attorneys specialized in this complex area of law who regularly represent clients in immigration court. Are pictured there, and some are in the room with me today.

Studies have shown that those who have to appear in immigration court are five times more likely to obtain relief from deportation if they're represented by a qualified attorney. And if they're detained in our federal detention centers, they're 10 times more likely to obtain relief if they have legal counsel.

When we're able to effectively defend clients petitions for asylum and the right to stay in the US, it often means keeping parents united with young children here or with their aging parents. It can mean keeping a local business owner from being returned to a home country where she may face persecution and life-threatening harm.

Yet private attorneys can easily charge $10,000 per defensive asylum case because they are so time consuming and do require skill and expertise that's very specialized. This is out of reach for most. Meanwhile, federal enforcement activity is dramatically escalating in Hawaii as well as nationwide.

In the first half of this year, ICE deported over three times the number of residents in Hawaii than in all of 2024, according to the Deportation Data Project. ICE arrests have also tripled since last year.

And most of our local residents who are detained by ICE are held at the Federal Detention Center, which is at the airport in Honolulu and have no criminal history. Most of them yet are co housed with convicted felons because there's no other humane place to hold them.

In recent months, the Federal Government has delivered—deliberately complicated the process, using tactics of expedited removal and sending those they've detained in other states across the U.S. for detention court hearings here in Hawaii, where they can't easily get support from family members or their local attorneys.

At the legal clinic, we had one client this year, a young college student with a lawful student visa from Central America studying in Florida, who was arrested by local police for allegedly speeding and then handed over to ICE on the grounds of him having had to drop out of school temporarily due to his financial situation.

No prior criminal record, had been legally in the US. Then, the Department of Homeland Security proceeded to process him in and out of federal facilities six or seven times in Florida, Louisiana, California, back to another one of those states, and finally all the way over here at the Federal Detention Center in Honolulu, where he knew no one.

His mother was a refugee in Mexico, didn't know he had been sent. Think of the trauma, the impracticality of processing someone in and out of federal facilities and all of the invasive tactics that requires and costs to the taxpayer. So, once he came here, somehow I think his mother found us and figured out how to get representation from us.

Her son, who was basically had no access to the outside world, outside of a phone call and he didn't know whom to call, so we were able to meet at the detention center and represent him and found out that he had never charging document. He did not know why he was being shipped around the country and detained and that is a violation of due process and constitutional rights.

He did not receive his notice to appear in immigration court that entire time until he was standing in front of a federal judge in Honolulu Immigration Court with our attorney who requested to see that before his hearing.

The only silver lining—I'll share what happened to him—but the only silver line in all of this is that the lawyers at these other nonfunctional providers and at the legal clinic are tenacious, committed, and win cases on behalf of their clients as best they can.

We secured green cards for three of our clients recently and obtained freedom for that young student from Central America who chose to join in Mexico rather than being—risk being further incarcerated in the United States.

So, times are challenging and we ask the public to support the efforts of immigrant rights advocates and testify for county and state hearings where protective policies and funding bills are being focused at the local level. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Next up, we'll have Pilar Kahm and Stephanie Haro Sevilla, Postgraduate Fellows and Immigrant Advocates, Refugee and Immigration Law Clinic at the University of Hawaii Manoa, William S. Richardson School of Law.

All right. Good afternoon.

Aloha Chair Rhodes. Today thank you for having us today to share with you our experience as immigration attorneys and what it has been, this escalation of immigration enforcement in 2025. My name is Pilar Kam. I am an immigration attorney and Post JD Fello with the William S. Richardson School of Law and Refugee and Immigration Law Clinic.

Presenting with me today is Stephanie Harro Sevilla, also an immigration attorney and Post JV Fellow, and we focus on deportation defense, on detention relief, and together we work what is now the Hawaii Immigration Hotline. The agenda for today is as follows. We will cover who we are and what we do at the Refugee and Immigration Law Clinic.

We will talk about immigration enforcement in 2025 and how it differs from previous years. We will introduce you to our hotline and we will share how it works or how we have worked so far.

We will provide an overview of hotline data collected since inception, and we will leave you with some key takeaways that we hope will be helpful to you and to the public.

Good afternoon, Senator Rhodes and everyone. Our clinic, the Refugee and Immigration Law Clinic, is one of the clinical programs at the William S. Richardson School of Law.

Every semester, we offer students a unique opportunity to develop skills essential to the practice of immigration law, which is a dynamic field that intersects with many contemporary cultural, political and humanitarian issues. We focus on providing services to income eligible non citizens in Hawaii, particularly asylum seekers. But we also assist clients facing other immigration challenges.

The individuals that we serve often encounter significant barriers in accessing legal representation. We at the Refugee and Immigration Law Clinic seek to bridge that gap in legal services. Since launching our Detention and Immigration Hotline, we have helped support over 200 individuals and families separate from our own caseload, which is about 7080 cases.

We are among one of the few pro bono immigration legal services providers.

With that context in mind. When President Trump was inaugurated In January of 20251 of his very first actions was to issue an Executive order that dramatically reshaped the nation's approach to immigration enforcement. This order drove unprecedented and far more aggressive enforcement practices.

It overturned prior guidance that had been followed previously by previous administrations that limited Ayes activity from sensitive locations such as, say, schools, hospitals, place of worship, and other spaces that were perceived originally as being safe. This year, under the President's direction, DHS and Ayes have implemented arrest quotas and Ayes has to arrest. 3,000 immigrants a day nationwide.

This has obviously escalated the number of people being arrested and people being held in detention centers all across the country. Many of these arrests are occurring without Judicial warrants, or even probable cause. And when I say probable cause, I mean having a reasonable belief that the person is unlawfully in the United States.

This has opened the doors to questionable practices such as racial profiling, for example, or the separation of families and things of that nature.

Like Dr. Agbayani mentioned earlier, under previous administrations, immigration enforcement was focused primarily on folks who had already been convicted of serious crimes, and the system would allow the rest to go through their processes through USCIS or through the legal, the courts, immigration courts, and they didn't really have to fear detention. But that framework is completely gone.

In its place now, we have a strategy that cast a much wider web and has broadened the pool of immigrants, including non immigrants, who are being arrested and detained and subsequently deported. This includes people with very minor offenses or even no criminal history whatsoever. It has impacted. Visa overstayers.

So folks who have entered the country legally but have overstayed or even at airports, they have permission to arrive and enter the United States. And however they're being detained there, and even if it only takes 23 days to be sent back to their countries, they're still being detained at the federal detention center.

This ramp up has not been limited to policy alone.

We have seen the Federal Government pulling manpower, agents, and other resources from other federal agencies, such as the FBI, the DEA, U.S. marshals, from the Department of Defense, for instance, when they use the military, or even using the National Guard or local law enforcement, so local police force, and all of this to carry out this mass deportation program.

Typically, federal agencies focus on the investigation of very serious crimes, such as human trafficking or drug trafficking or terrorism. However, this reallocation of resources is unprecedented and is strategically targeting civilian immigration enforcement. The scale of the investment from the Federal Government is also very telling.

The new Federal budget triples Ayes annual budget to nearly 29.9 billion a year and increases immigration detention budget to at least 14 billion. With this level of funding and manpower, what we feel is that what we're seeing today in terms of the arrest, arrests and the detentions and the removals is just the beginning.

And what we fear is that this is going to start affecting folks who are lawful permanent residents. So basically people with green cards and even eventually to naturalized citizens. Although we're smaller in population compared to other states, we're still experiencing the impacts of these new federal policies.

In Hawaii, from January to July of the current year of 2025, Ayes arrested approximate 150 people, which marks a 380% increase over the same period of time. In 2024. Currently, and I should say in any given day now, you can find anywhere between 40 to 80 civilian immigrant detainees at the Federal Detention Center.

And as it has been mentioned before by Ms. Walk and Stephanie will delve into it a little later. This is not an immigration detention. It's not an immigration facility, it's a prison. The majority of these folks do not have a criminal record.

To give you a more detailed example of what's going on, for instance, on the Big island where we have the coffee growing regions, federal agents are focusing on targeting farmers, their families, and sadly, this includes their children. On Maui, for instance, enforcement has begun reaching into courthouses.

And in October we learned of a case where a gentleman who was appearing on a hearing that was for a traffic related violation was actually detained by agents who were just wearing plain clothes and were not easily identifiable. In MAU, in Kauai, they have started doing raids and serving warrants not only in residences but also in businesses.

Last month they conducted a search warrant. And out of that one search warrant, more than 44 people were detained and all of them were transported to Oahu and placed in the federal detention centers.

To give you a little bit of background, in 2023 and in 2024, the Refugee and Immigration Law Clinic received no calls from individuals detained at the Federal detention center. Since January 242025 we have received repeated calls.

And because of the rapid rise in the calls that we received, we decided to set up the Detention and Immigration Hotline, which is currently the only HALA funded hotline in our entire state.

The purpose of this hotline is to provide emergency response for individuals and their families who have been detained by ICE or when ICE is on the scene. This number has been distributed widely in attempts to bridge the gap in providing immigration legal services. Since the beginning of this hotline, we have received more than 200 calls.

When a call is received, either myself or my colleague Pilar will answer the call and will get the basic information needed to locate the individual in the detention center. The calls typically come from loved ones of the detained individuals, their friends, their co workers.

But sometimes we do get calls from the individuals themselves because when someone is detained, all their personal belongings are taken from them. We are often the only form of communication and information that the family has regarding their loved ones that have been detained at the detention center. With this in mind, we attempt to provide comfort.

We attempt to provide information on how to deposit money into their loved one's account and other basic needs and questions that they may have. And the Next step is that we visit the individuals in the federal detention center. As has been mentioned before, the federal detention center here in Honolulu is not an immigration only detention center.

It is a federal prison where individuals convicted of federal crimes are housed and also state crimes are housed as well. The majority of the immigrant detainees in these detention centers do not have any any criminal offenses or convictions, yet they receive the same treatment, which for example, requires a full body cavity search when in the detention center.

Every time they leave and arrive the detention center. When we finally get permission to visit the detainees, we are then able to go in. Prior to several months ago, we were able to go to the detention center as soon as we received the name of the individual.

However, the federal detention center policies have changed and now it takes several days to get approval. This is critical for the immigrant detainees because often they are taken to court before an attorney is even approved to visit them. And that is potentially harmful in their relief in knowing what to do when it comes to the court.

Once we are approved to visit the detainees, we will go inform them of their rights, do a potential screening, and when appropriate and requested, refer them to another organization that also practices immigration or other immigration attorneys as well. Because every detained immigrant case is unique, screening is important to properly assess their case and possible relief.

So this year, Stephanie and I alone have provided bilingual support to approximately 125 detainees and their families.

This support has includes conducting legal visits at the FTC, locating individuals in custody, guiding families on navigating the Bureau of Prison Systems, and assisting with logistical matters with ICE, which would include things like making case follow ups and assisting in the coordination of flight travel and that sort of thing.

We also complete screenings, which is like a form of triage if you may, to make decisions regarding referrals or even possible representation. On our end. We have screened individuals from Latin American countries such as Mexico, Honduras, Guatemala, Venezuela, Colombia and Argentina. Other countries affected.

Have been Pacific Islander nations such as Samoa, Micronesia, Fiji and Tonga, or even the Philippines, Vietnam and South Korea. Perhaps more surprisingly, we have visited detainees from European countries such as Belgium and Denmark, and even Australians have been detained. Out of this very large pool of detainees.

The majority of our screenings or intakes involve nationals of Central America. Folks who work primarily on agriculture and in hospitality in the neighboring islands. And therefore our data skews a little bit towards Spanish speaking consultations.

The way we explain this is that the clinic has been working many years with a large Latino population in the Big Island, and therefore it's easy for us to disseminate the information there and the hotline information and things like that.

Last but definitely not least, we have provided support to approximately 36 non detained immigrants and their families and in their cases what we do is assess their immigration situation and screen them for referrals, whether it is to the American Civil Liberties Union, to other legal services providers, or even to social services.

To conclude, the directives that are coming out of Washington D.C. do not just impact big states like California, Texas, North Carolina, they impact Hawaii directly. There are a few key takeaways that we hope that you can take from this presentation. First, in immigration law, having the right to an attorney does not guarantee a court appointed attorney.

Individuals that are taken to the Federal detention center by Ayes do not get a court appointed attorney or for them, and this often results in. Individuals being faced with deportation.

The American Immigration Council has said that of the immigration court cases decided from the fiscal years 2019 to 2024, 62% of immigrants without an attorney were ordered deported versus just 27% that had legal representation. This shows how critical legal representation can be to individuals that are being detained. Second, immigration law is complex.

It combines statutory, regulatory and constitutional law and the constant shift makes it complex even for experienced practitioners. Lastly, Hawaii has a current shortage of low cost immigration services. There are about only a dozen individuals that provide immigration services and organizations, but not all of them are pro bono or low bono services.

And this is disproportionate because about a fifth of Hawaii's population is foreign born. Staff often experience burnout, secondary trauma and have no choice but to turn away individuals with dire legal needs for immigration because they are at max capacity or over capacity for their organization and legal services.

We hope to work together to increase the pipeline of immigration attorneys who can meet this urgent need and manage the challenging immigration climate and ensure due process for all detained individuals and their families.

Thank you, thank you. Thanks very much. Next up we have Liza Ryan Gill, Co Coordinator, Hawaii Coalition for Immigrant Rights.

That's Ian. Good afternoon.

Hello, Senator. It's a pleasure to be here with you today. The Hawaii Coalition for Immigrant Rights represents about 30 immigrant serving in lead organizations across the PA. We've obviously been pretty busy over the last, is it December, so, 10, 11 months now.

And I just want to mahalo all of my colleagues here for their incredible work because it has been a, a tremendous lift to respond to the dramatic and very human needs that our residents of Hawaii have experienced over the last several months, including many, many Keiki and their Ohana.

What I wanted to talk about today is, is what we are preparing for and what we think the feds might continue to do and where they might go in the very near future. And what, if anything, can we do, at the state and the county level, in response to some of those issues?

Now, immigration is a federal issue. Most of that Kuleana resides with our...and in their response and we would hope that Congress would act and recognize how much we need comprehensive immigration reform.

In lieu of that, what we see across the country right now and what we're seeing currently in New Orleans and in Minnesota and that has been experienced in many major cities across America right now, is this expansion of force through National Guard and through targeted attacks that are deeply scary.

And having talked to organizers in almost all of those cities and visited some of them while they were under duress, I can tell you, we don't want that here in Hawaii. But also, we don't know what would bring it here. And I think that's something to be very cognizant of at this point in time.

Previously, the Department of Justice held a definition of what is "a sanctuary jurisdiction." It was very, very limited. It meant any local law enforcement, arena, city, county or state that did not honor a detainer request. So, that was a very, very limited.

Several months ago, overnight, the Department of Justice changed their definition of what a sanctuary jurisdiction is. Now, even if you just communicate that you are in support of immigrants or a diverse population or the beautiful many ethnicities that you have in your community, the Department of Justice now considers you a sanctuary jurisdiction. This changes the game.

And it also means that whatever actions are taken, we're not sure how the Federal Government will perceive them. One thing that we have seen by the numbers is expansion of what are called 287 agreements. 287 agreements deputize local law enforcement, either in a jail-based warrant or task force model with the powers of immigrations and Customs Enforcement.

It's a force multiplier, which is something that we know that the Federal Government is looking to do. They cannot achieve their aims. As the incredible attorneys from UH had talked about, this expansion of rolling in other federal agencies and giving them new jobs, taking them off of sometimes their extremely serious work of trying to track down cartels.

And now, they're working to find children. And so, previously, as of early January 2005, there were 135 287 G agreements in the country. As of today, I just checked the USCIS website, there are 1,220. There is a rapid expansion of deputizing local police officers, state troopers, and other local law enforcement agencies with the powers of ICE.

Now, when I looked at the map by state, Hawaii is one of four states that does not currently have any 287 G agreements, but neither do we have any prohibition on 287 G agreements. There are six states that do not have any 287 G agreements but have prohibitions. Those are California, Oregon, Washington, Illinois, Connecticut, and New Jersey.

On USCIS's map, they cite Hawaii as under—a state in which the agency is pursuing opportunities. This is something I think we need to be cognizant of, is that the Federal Government is going to try to find as many force multipliers wherever they can, as best they can.

Previously, these agreements were not very attractive to local law enforcement agencies because the feds were basically saying, hey, would you come and do our job for us even though you're not obligated to, but by the way, we're not going to pay you for it?

In HR 1, billions of dollars were put into a pot for grant money funding for local law enforcement agencies if they would participate in these 287 G agreements.

So, we know that they are working very, very actively to expand into as many places as possible because despite their best efforts to recruit and hire as many ICE agents to expand their force, that is slow going.

And it would be much easier if they could find local law enforcement agents, you know, agencies and police officers who already know their communities to do that work for them. So, that is something that we see coming.

As many of the attorneys have already commented, the budget that was recently passed expands the force of ICE in ways that are unimaginable. And that means that they will also be looking for land and places to detain that many more folks.

I think we need to be cognizant of the fact that money of that gravity or, or of that size has its own gravity, and it will land someplace.

And so, we need to think about where it is that that money is looking to go. Now, what does that leave us with here in the state of Hawaii as far as what we can do to even respond, given that this is a federal issue, as I believe that Pilar mentioned that the sensitive locations memo is no longer being followed.

It was rescinded by ICE at the beginning. And so, that means that our places like hospital, churches, schools no longer have that special protection where Immigrations and Customs Enforcement is not going to conduct operations there.

Now, there's nothing that we can do as a state, county, or local jurisdiction to keep ICE agents with a valid judicial warrant from coming into any place that they want to. If they want to walk into an elementary school and they have a judicial warrant, they have the rights to do that.

In many cases, they do not have those judicial warrants and they are relying on the fact that people will just do what they ask them to.

That is a space where the state or county has an opportunity to provide additional protocol in places where the state has authority or funding, whether that is our courts or our local schools, some of our hospital systems, to be able to say, in these places, we are just going to make sure that you are doing things the way that has been prescribed and that you are talking to an individual at the door who has the ability to review the paperwork, hopefully a judicial warrant that you have.

And to be able to communicate to patients, students, and the many amazing professionals, the nurses and the doctors and the teachers that are there, that they are not responsible for being that individual to review a potential a warrant or whatever paperwork is presented to them and to know that difference and then to make such a dramatic decision at that time, that it should be an appointed person.

A bill like this was filed last session, HB 440. We'll be bringing that bill back this coming session because it is something that we can do to make sure that every resident is, is pursuing their health education for their children and getting access to justice in our courts.

A couple of other bills that we have seen move across the country are around a standardization of UNT Visa process which the legal clinic has been pursuing to make sure that if you have been the victim of trafficking or crime, that our local police departments are, are certifying that you have been supportive as a witness in that investigation.

That makes sure we know that women, especially, in heightened immigration enforcement periods, are much more likely to be victims of assault and violence than their native-born counterparts.

So, we want to make sure that women are safe in every situation and that our local police are following all the right protocols to make sure that they can come forward and report crime. Those are just some.

I also want to highlight the fact that we work very closely with our partners at the ACLU Hawaii and that we'll be looking at other bills, including ensuring that federal agents are identifying themselves and not wearing masks and other ways in which, as that are becoming more and more obvious as the days go by and we are seeing them get passed in other jurisdictions and as we see the feds and increasing their aggressiveness in lots of in cities and state across the country.

So, those are some of the things I don't want folks to feel that we are hopeless or helpless. There are things that we can do even though there is—even though it is as limit—more limited—than we would prefer.

Okay, great. Thank you. Next is Dr. Agbayani for closing remarks. And then I'll have questions for everybody.

Thank you very much. It was very informative for myself as well, and, and I just—to summarize, it was very difficult to summarize other than the situations and the numbers that they presented are current. And I think we do have good information about some of the practices and the numbers of individuals being questioned or arrested or detained and deported.

We don't have the ability to share really the personal, more individual, real-life picture of the people that are being affected and because of client privacy or also because the government doesn't share any information, even when requested by appropriate officials.

So, I just wanted to say that the landscape is changing and that I expect that things will get worse and that it's incumbent on us to provide—to be a watchdog—to provide support for those and share that information and hopefully identify areas where we can make a difference. So, I think, at this time, I would like to have the panelists come up.

Yep. Well, everybody who presented, please come back up. And I think we have an addition to that too, right? Yeah. Donna Cole Ramos from the Equal Justice Works Fellow. He is an Equal Justice Works Fellow and Immigrant Veterans Advocate, Refugee and Immigration Law Clinic as well. So, all, let's see, how many is that?

1, 2, 3, 4, 5 of you, if you could all come up.

That's why I'm angling these nameplates slightly so folks know who's.

Maybe we can.

Yeah. If these mics, these mics on the end will cross over. I don't know if they're long enough or not but we're going to try. So, we don't have to pass the mics up and down. Okay, well your, your testimony is certainly triggered lots of questions in my mind so. Guess I'll start with the Bettina Mok.

So, testimony from several people was that you do have a right to an attorney in an immigration case but there's no parallel to the public defender that's available. So, what happens if somebody goes into a, into immigration court and, and they say I want an attorney?

So, I will take this one.

So, basically when that happens, all the judge can do is allow them more time to try to find legal representation somewhere and they are sent back to the Federal Detention Center and this is when we step in, do the screenings, and try to connect them with other organizations who are providing these services.

Unfortunately, a lot of times, whether it is because a case is, I don't want to say hopeless, almost no case is hopeless but some cases have a higher chance of success than others.

And so, a lot of times, people are bounced from one place to the next and they are unable to locate an attorney that can represent them. That, with the fact that a lot of times people cannot afford the $10,000 that costs representation and.

Let me follow on from there.

Yes, of course.

I mean you've, I think more than one testifier said that the, the Federal Government is moving people from place to place when it would appear to you that it's, it's intent—an intentional way—to make it difficult for them to obtain an attorney. Oh, I guess that first of all, is that true?

I don't know, whoever would like to answer that?

I mentioned that—this is Bettina with the Legal Clinic. We don't have proof obviously because they say that the Federal Detention Center in Honolulu has more bed space or more cell space than other places but there just seems to be a pattern that points to there being more.

Yeah, but I don't know of any written policy on that.

Seems like that would be the most expensive possible way to deal with. I mean if you're going to...

Oh, definitely.

We're out in the Pacific.

If you're going to detain people at all, I mean detention itself is a very expensive proposition, but if you're going to move them around in addition to that seems like the most—least—cost-effective way to deal with, a self-generated problem.

But in the, in past times, I guess coming back to Newscom, instead of going back to the Detention Center, you'd be released with an order to come back to court at some point, for the most part. I mean, there was always a possibility you could be detained, right?

Yes, now there is. And unfortunately, because of the pressure of the quotas, a lot of times a person may have paperwork showing that they have some process in place, whether with USCIS or with the courts.

For example, they can have a working permit, which means they have already been in process and the system is aware that they are immigrants waiting for the resolution of their cases. And even then, the agents are arresting them and detaining them. For a while there, we were able to request bond hearings to get these folks out.

And then, at some point, the Federal Government said, no more bond hearings for anybody. And it took quite some time, more than a couple of months, for lawsuits to go through the Judiciary and for the ability to request bond hearings to be reestablished. And that only happened like one or two weeks ago.

So, for a lot of these folks, they got stuck in there, and the only way they could get out was by actually getting to the resolution of their case through the immigration court.

Okay. So. It's just—there's so many question targets here that's hard to focus. That's probably, that's probably intentional. Let's see.

Could I ask one question?

Yeah.

I'm, I'm a non, non-attorney, but many of these people don't know they have the rights to ask for an attorney. Is that correct?

That is correct, yes. And that is one of the main reasons why we try to get to that Federal Detention Center the moment we hear a person is in...for them. But the truth is, they do get a pamphlet that has at least some level of information, but is, is quite bare and unfortunately, doesn't have a lot of contact information.

So, that also delays their ability to reach out.

Probably in English.

Correct. There, there is a, in Spanish, that I have seen. Yes.

Okay. Now, one of these cases, I, I'm sorry, I forgot who was mentioning it, but there was no charging document presented of any kind until the person was already in front of the judge. Who, who is?

That's right. Yeah. That was at the Legal Clinic.

What a—I mean, isn't there a, I mean, the lawyer in me is just like, what? I mean, how do you, how do you end up in prison if there's no warrant of any kind?

That's what we wondered. It's quite shocking, but more and more we're seeing these workarounds or you know, I, I think people can talk maybe.

Isn't it just a false imprisonment at that point?

It is, it is. And to be transferred in and out of so many federal facilities without that and you're not told why. You know, you got a speeding ticket, but why are you being transferred in and out of states and then ending up in Honolulu with convicted felons? That is. Yeah, it's a violation. So, I don't know.

I mean, the habeas issue might come up later around bonds, but I think there's going to need to be more support from other types of attorneys on some of our cases because there's some violations happening at that level.

So, okay, so, yeah, that's a good point. A lot of times, lawyers sit around and we know what we're talking about. We know the jargon, but I mean, just pretend like I didn't go to law school. With regard to the due process, does that apply to everybody? Or is that just US Citizens or is it just criminal cases?

Or what's the, what's the—if you get picked up for whatever, whatever reason, do you always have the right to some sort of due process? Maybe, maybe not?

It should apply to everyone but what we have seen in our state and in other states is that the same rights that should be afforded are not being given to immigrants or detained individuals, nonimmigrants in the Detention Center. They are being picked up with administrative warrants instead of judicial warrants.

But unfortunately, because of how fast it is moving and how limited they have access to attorneys, many individuals don't know that their due process rights are being violated.

What would be the normal thing that someone in that situation would—I mean, that sounds like a lawsuit waiting to happen to me. You've, you've grabbed me off the streets, you haven't charged me with anything, so, I'm going to sue somebody. Is that just outside the realm of people's conception that they might be able to do that?

Or, or is it, is it just impossible to do because of all this moving around?

Yes, so both. And also keeping in mind that a lot of the times they're in the Detention Center, so it really takes a toll on their mental health and the resources that they have. They might spend all the money they have on an immigration attorney and many organizations here that do nonprofit work have a waiting list.

So, that can also impact.

And I suppose that also leads sometimes to what we would call self-deportation, where you just said, enough of this, I'm going home. Is that something that you would. Mr. Ramos, do you want to comment on or do you know something about?

So, for self-deportation—this is Danicole Ramos from the Refugee and Immigration Law Clinic. It depends on the case of the individual and the person and their situation and circumstances, because if they were to leave on their own, they might trigger certain bars that, that may not allow them to come back to the United States for a certain amount of years.

From my experience with the specific case, I think that you're probably talking about, which is the purple heart veteran who self deported, in that instance, so as we've mentioned before.

I'm sorry, just repeat that for me.

Purple heart veteran, somebody who served in our military, got shot or something. He self-deported because we.

So, in the specific situation that you're talking about, Mr. Sae Joon Park was a purple heart veteran who was a green card holder, so not just U.S. citizens can join the military. Green card holders are allowed to join the military as well.

I'm sorry to interrupt, but joining the military is a gateway to citizenship as well, right?

Can be a pathway to citizenship. But in his instance, the reason why he had to self deport was because ICE, as was mentioned before, they have certain quotas, they have to certain enforcement standards that they now have to abide by this Administration.

And so, when you have these really strict quotas and standards that you have for arrests, you start to pick whoever you can to make that number.

And so, in this specific instance with Mr. Park, what happened is that even though he was put on what is called deferred action, so he had a prior removal order because of drug convictions that he had back in 2010.

Even though he, for the last 14 years, since ICE didn't enforce his removal order, he stayed clean and sober, they allowed him to check in on a yearly basis.

They said that because of the Administration's priorities, they said that they would either have to detain him and put him in the Federal Detention Center to deport him, or they decided you can, you know, get your own will put you on an ankle monitor and you have to schedule your own flight to go back.

Regardless of either way, he was forced to self deport. And I think it highlights really the impact of what's going on in immigration enforcement. It's not just, you know, those who are without status or overseeing visas. Now, they're deporting veterans, they're deporting military families as well.

And it's all because of, I think, the cruelty and the impact of the immigration enforcement. It's not necessarily like, it's really the quantity. And when you focus on quantity, you focus on people who don't deserve to, to be in that situation like what Mr. Park was in.

Well, let me ask a related question. And so, about right after the second Trump Administration started, I got a phone call. I mean, my—I'm a politician. I want people to be able to reach me and my, much easier. It's easy to find my phone number.

So, somebody who claimed to be from ICE, he said, he said he's a local officer, told me that I'll b—I'll use the polite version because the words he actually used were as insulting as he could come up with.

But he said that I, I didn't understand what ICE was doing, that they were not going after Joe the dishwasher. They were going after criminals. They were going after criminals. Let me repeat, we were going after criminals. The data that you guys, I forget who present presented, but that is not the case. Right?

It, it is Joe the dishwasher that they're going after for the most part. Anybody who would like to comment on that or refute me or whatever you would like to do is fine.

I can briefly. So, from the number that I cited earlier, we have held 125 immigrants in detention, approximately. And we—part of our screening is checking to see what their criminal background is. And I can count with my right hand the number of folks who actually had serious criminal convictions. So, it's a very, very low number.

Okay. So, to meet these quotas, basically, they're just grabbing everybody that they have, whether or not they have any reason to or not, it sounds like.

We feel that that is the reason behind it, yes.

Okay. But now, there's also been reports, and it's always hard to tell what, what's true and what's not, but reports of people—I didn't even know you could have your green card revoked. But I mean, I guess there are certain circumstances where you can.

But is that becoming more of an issue and is it happening here in Hawaii?

Yeah, I can speak to that. So, you know, even though you have a green card status, I think this is a lot of the misconception that a lot of immigrants face, and I think that's why it's important to expand our legal services is that green card holders can also be deported.

And there's various crimes that, that are under the Immigration and Nationality Act that can trigger a deportation order, so, or notice to appear. So, for the ones that I've seen most common, it's usually drug use. There are also, in immigration laws, some things that are considered aggravated felonies.

So, aggravated felonies are considered very serious crimes that essentially bar a green card holder from getting US relief from deportation or barring them from applying for naturalization. So, those are usually things like murder, rape, robbery, human trafficking—those very serious crimes.

There are, depending on the crime that the green card holder is facing, they can be eligible for something called cancellation of removal in immigration court. But that depends on whether they have aggravated felonies and the severity of the crimes. But it is a possibility.

And I think what you're seeing now, with the rise in enforcement, is they're now really targeting to make that quota and arrest green card holders with those, those with those criminal records and issuing them notice to appear based on something that happens in state court.

So, you think that's something that is different than prior? I mean, Obama, for example, was criticized roundly for deporting so many people. And I think he probably still holds the record for most deportations just because he was in office longer, but.

Yeah. I, I think with the, with the priority of immigration enforcement and to make, as we talked about, the quotas and the numbers that they need to make now, they have to look into not just those without status, but also those who are green—green card holders.

So, more of an emphasis.

An emphasis on that, correct.

See, that's the, that's the weird thing about this issue. There are certain parts of it where I think if Donald Trump would just dial back the, the excesses, that it would actually be quite popular.

Most people don't sort of approve, in a macro sense, of having undocumented people in the country, especially if they've committed crimes. But of course, previous administrations have focused explicitly on that.

And this, this seems to be a whole new level of just, just animosity towards immigrants, whereas before we—well, at least some, some people seem to understand that they also do things, take jobs that Americans don't particularly want to take that are dangerous and hard and are physically demanding and don't pay very well. Okay, I'll ask some more questions. Sorry about that, the, that tangent there.

So, I think Liza Ryan Gill said that at the moment, there are no 287 agreements in Hawaii, but there are also no prohibitions.

Correct. Yeah.

So, are you aware of all, are you at all aware—are you aware of any attempts by the Federal Government to enlist our local law enforcement agencies?

Or do you think it will happen just because it's—they're doing it everywhere else?

We have spoken with three of the four police chiefs, though we've had quite a bit of turnover in her police chiefs. So, it's tough to keep up. And those individuals have not—those chiefs have not—been approached to have a 287 G agreement at this point in time. They have all—three of them or two of them are interims right now.

And so, those interim chiefs that we've been able to talk to have said they have no interest in a 287 G agreement. I think previously there was very, very little funding that might even be attached to it. Now, that funding is much more considerable.

So, we want to make sure that those police chiefs understand, and I think they do, the, the harm that it comes to a community when a police officer who's supposed, you know, fostering community trust has a second job essentially as an ICE agent and how challenging that can be, especially for women, especially with reporting domestic violence.

Yeah. Do we have any idea what the, the dollar figures are? I mean, how is it a—is it like a contract where you say we'll pay X number of dollars a year to help us, or is it, is it a bounty system where you bring us in.

And I think it is a contract as far as I—it's a grant right now. I think they cutely named it with the acronym BIDEN or something for it.

There are cooperative agreements that we currently still have, so MOAs, Memorandums of Agreement, between different portions like Homeland Security Investigation and our local law enforcement. Sorry. And so, those, those do exist. So, there is some information sharing.

Different than the 287 G?

Yeah, yeah. Our agents are not deputi—our police officers are not deputized with the powers of ICE, but they do have cooperative agreements at times.

I think one thing that is important to remember is that many of these agencies had different Kuleana and now they are being pulled into doing the job of whether that is like of removal officers. Right?

So, Homeland Security Investigation, their job, you know, they were out, supposed to be, you know, supposed to be investigating cartels, and now they are going after Joe the dishwasher or individuals that would not necessarily meet their criteria for a, for a criminal investigation that they would be pursuing.

I mean, I guess the obvious question is, so then who's doing their jobs now?

It's not being done. Well, that's one of the workarounds of the 287Gs is that they pay for overtime. They find some loopholes to pay our police forces for training, over time, things like that. That's what they found in other jurisdictions.

I know other jurisdictions have welcomed it, but.

In some states, they've made it mandatory. Some states have.

Have state laws to make it mandatory on the local police forces.

Yes, so.

Okay.

Definitely questions of anti-commandeering there, so.

Going off on another tangent here, so the Big Island coffee growers—so my understanding is that Big Island coffee growers depend pretty heavily on foreign labor. Is that, is that, does any—does anybody know what the situation is right now? I forget who talked about this to start with. It was, it may—might have been one of you two.

Yes, we did a general comment about that. That is accurate, and.

They actually showing up to work anymore? I mean there must be some fear. Yeah?

Absolutely. And a lot of them end up staying at home. So, my understanding—and I, I may be wrong—but my understanding before this Administration, I think growers were losing anywhere between 20% to 40% of their crops because they were unable to collect the fruit.

So, you couldn't find anybody else.

And this was before this Administration when people were showing up to work. And now that immigrants are being removed and everything else, I can only imagine the effect that this is having on the growers on—on the owners of these.

It's hard to imagine would have gotten any better anyway, to—but there's some special skill involved with picking coffee, right? Do you have to be able to know which one, which, I forget what they're called or not?

Cherries.

Cherries, is it?

You have to know which cherries to pick and which ones will leave there for a while, so.

Correct. Yes, and this is, well, I get, you know, it's hard to comment on that without like very specific knowledge, but Central American folks are good in doing these things. Like they, they have this knowledge because they do it in their home countries as well. Colombia, Honduras, Guatemala.

They are coffee growers and so, they come already with, with this knowledge, with this know-how, and they can easily transition and do it here, and—but I can only speculate as to whether that is the reason why they have been doing these jobs here, like, I, you know.

Sort of in that same vein because my understanding is well, most of most of the people who work in the coffee industry in Hawaii are either Brazilians or from Central America or as you've just described, but the— now, this is really more of a, this a little, another tangent.

But all the, all the images we see from the continent when ICE is involved are our masks and riot gear and AR 15s of some kind that seem grotesquely over armed for the situation at hand. Are we seeing that same sort of thing here in Hawaii?

I mean I haven't seen anything on the local news with, with images of that but is that, is that how they do their work here in Hawaii? Anybody who knows any about that?

Well, I only read the newspapers but, and Civil Beat too, but an example would be the Philippine—five Filipino teachers, who, teachers from Lahaina they brought here to the United, to Hawaii on, on J1 visas.

It's a, they have to have certain credentials and, and, and they have the, the right to teach and stay in the United States for a certain time, a limited time. And the five people, Filipinos in Lahaina, four of them had J1 visas, which are legal.

One was a US citizen and at 6:00, 7:00 o' clock in the morning, a bunch of ICE agents came and they had, they were saying, hey we have visas. And they said we don't want to look at those. You stand outside and they came in with, with guns and frightened everybody.

You know, many of them were still in their pajamas and they had to stay outside with their children. It was a multi-room, multi-house—I mean multifamily house. So, there are other people there. The U.S. citizen person said she is a U.S. citizen and was able to talk a lot.

The others were frightened to death. But, but they, they, that, that's what happens. They, they, they didn't tell them what was going on. They didn't have—they didn't get to see a war until afterwards, and.

So, did somebody let them into the house?

Oh yeah.

So, they came to the door, they said, can we come in? And they said yes. It wasn't—they didn't have a warrant to search the premises?

Well, they said we have a warrant.

But they didn't show it to them?

But they didn't show it to them. Plus, it was a warrant for a Mexican person who had lived there a long time ago who's a bad guy.

But, but they came in with their, but this is the, this is just an example of the approach where you get.

It's the same, it's essentially, it's the same approach using on the, on the continent.

Yeah.

Oh, they did apologize.

Yeah, okay.

It's better than nothing. So, I'm going back to the coffee growers and starting to think about the demographics of the people who are of an undocumented or even green card holders in Hawaii. How, how many, how many Spanish speakers do we have in Hawaii or do we, do we have any stats on that?

14% of the population speak Spanish.

Of the undocumented or just in general?

In general.

And so, then how many—do we have any stats on how many arrests or however you want to call them, kidnappings, that are occurring with, with Spanish speakers?

Somewhere along the line, I got the impression that there was a, a disproportionate number of Spanish speakers who were being detained.

I feel that there is without, you know, knowing the exact number, when I think of our...

Compared to the official numbers of foreign born people and, and what languages they speak and stuff, definitely, they're overrepresented in, in the top country countries, be—being—arrested from where they're being arrested are Central American countries. That is not, no, not that. And then China is included and others. But it's disproportionate.

Okay, so this requires a little—if you don't want to answer because it's too speculative, that's fine, but it suggests one of two things to me. Either they're targeting Spanish speakers and that's part of the policy or they just haven't gotten around to the Filipinos yet. Is that?

Probably it's more difficult to identify the Filipino community. And they've been here longer.

They're much more integrated into the community and so they, but, but if they are going after industries, for example, more than 50%, more than 40% of the agricultural workers are foreign born and you know, more than 50% of the chefs are farm born, bakers and so forth.

So, if they want to go after certain industries then and tourism, for example. But, but I think that all of these communities are target.

By the way, we have national data about the impact of, of picking up laborers, farm born laborers, and the impact on the US economy and some CEOs are getting freaked out.

Okay.

So, I think you guys had said that there was, there were some examples of, I think you said a Belgian had been picked up and an Australian maybe. I guess my impression, at least from watching the news on from the continent, is that not very many—sorry to use the shorthand, not very many...are being picked up. It's mostly from other countries. Is that, I mean, I don't know, do we have any data on that here? It's just fewer, fewer whites?

No, it's specific to that. But that is, it would be accurate to say that the white folks being detained is a much smaller number.

But does that just mean that there are just fewer undocumented whites in Hawaii or we do we know?

No, I think we wouldn't know how to identify a lot of people.

White people for example, could come from Canada and Ireland and actually, there are a percentage of undocumented Canadians and Europeans in the United States, but they don't seem to bbe getting picked up.

Okay.

I mean, I think there is a question of racial profiling in all of this across the country. And we haven't documented that here to the extent they have in places like California and Arizona and other places, but that is a concern.

Okay. So, just be, well, and just because it's not happening right this moment doesn't mean that it could at some point.

There were, I don't know if you recall, there were the two German tourists that were stopped at Honolulu Airport and turned back.

And that was a hit, I think, for our economy because my own cousins and friends in Germany said, we're not coming to the US anymore until there's a new Administration.

Yeah, well, I've heard. Well, there was an Australian. It was a similar kind of story where I think she was married to an American. And I don't know all the details. I just read the newspaper article, but she—well, that brings me to another question. You know, some, there was, when you're, when you're detained at the Honolulu Detention Center, does everybody get a body cavity search? Is that standard operating procedure?

Yes.

Not just the, not just the deportation detainees, but anybody who's a prisoner there.

From our understanding, yes, it is their policy to do a full body cavity search.

So, like the German immigrants might have.

Were they detained at FDC? I'm not sure they were. Yeah.

So, even if they come out to go to court hearings, our clients have to go through that.

On the way out or on the way in?

Back in, I would.

Oh, goodness. Yeah. Well, that would seem to sort of dampen people's spirits to come and visit the United States if you thought that might happen to you. Okay, let's see what else we got here for you.

If you don't mind, I'd love to—I know this is going to generate conversation, but often after a, after a presentation like this, the comments from our viewers and listeners will be, you know, it's very simple, if you're here illegally, you should be deported. And I think that we have this opportunity to sort of address that, because it's not that simple.

Go ahead.

And I'm not, I'm actually not an attorney, even though I work at the Legal Clinic. But it's very complex. The Kauai Incident was reflective of that. Venezuelans are here on temporary status, which is a lawful status, which was overturned very recently. And so, those folks barely had time to adjust their status or even seek an attorney.

And now, 44 of them or so are deported. So, I think that's classic example of how you could be here lawfully, but not have the due process afforded to you to become lawful permanently or long term. I don't know if others have other opinions on that.

Another thing I might add is that our own laws allow individuals to come to present themselves at the border and seek asylum. And even though they may not have a "legal status" at the time they do that, they have a right to seek asylum, to go through that court proceeding.

And even though they don't fit in a specific category, that is one of the processes. And also, immigration benefits can take years, sometimes over 20 years, sometimes even over two years for the most simple cases, maybe even five. I think people don't understand the complexities that come with coming here the "legal way."

Every case is specific, unique, and requires an attorney to assess the situation. And even in the best cases, people are still at risk until they are naturalized citizens to be subject to deportation. And even then, we have proposals to strip naturalization from citizens. So, there is that as well.

Let's talk about that a little bit more in terms of, I mean, due process is, I'm asking the lawyers at the table, I guess due process is—everybody's entitled to it. You don't have to be a citizen to be entitled to due process, correct? For criminal cases too.

If you're in the United States, you commit a crime, if you're here in an, in a, a non legal status on your immigration side and you commit a crime or, or you're accused of committing a crime, you do have due process rights, just like an American does. Correct?

That is accurate. Yeah. It's a 14th amendment clause that any person is afforded due process.

Okay. So, does that, in that ex—so, when, when it comes, if you're, if you're picked up by ICE, presumably it's ICE, because you can't really tell. But if it's ICE, we're all entitled to due process.

Now, some people say, well, immigrants shouldn't have due process, but that's, that's—not to put words in everybody's mouth. But what, what does that mean in practice? What do you get to do if you have due process? I guess the lawyers would—I'm looking at the lawyers. What does that mean? What do you?

It'll ensure everyone has a fair date in court and not just non citizens, but citizens as well. If we start limiting due process for certain individuals, who's to say a different category isn't next? Who's to say citizens aren't next?

Stripping away rights when we don't allow for due process, what we're doing is creating an imbalance in the court systems and having the 14th amendment, having the 4th, the 8th amendment that says that citizens and non-citizens alike should have these rights, it is very scary to see how we are progressing away from that being the norm.

Okay, so if you, I'm going to take myself as an example. I was born in Michigan, white guy, obviously. If, if I get picked up by ICE and they don't give me due process, does that mean that I never have the opportunity to show them my passport or my birth certificate? So they, if they don't, if they don't give me due process, they can just send me to El Salvador like anybody else?

Essentially, yes. So, even in some cases, I haven't heard of anything here, maybe others have, for citizens.

But I do know in the mainland where citizens have been held at ICE detention facilities until they were finally listened to, that they are U.S. citizens.

So, that entire time, they had no right to essentially an attorney or anything because they were denied the due process rights of being told why they are being held, being given the right to speak to legal counsel.

I mean that's—not the most, the most emotional guy in the world, but that's appalling. I mean, it's so easy to resolve. You could just say, well, you know, call your wife or whatever and have her send over a copy your birth certificate and we'll resolve this and you can leave.

I mean, I don't know why they would want you to stay anyway. It costs money to keep—well, maybe that, you know, I hate to be so cynical, but maybe that's the reason.

If they're, if these are for-pay jails, maybe there's somebody making money off the fact that a US citizen is, is kidnapped, put in a, in a prison, has, and the, and the taxpayers have to pay for them to be there for however long before they get around to finding out that they're actually a citizen.

They have every right to be in the country. I mean, that's what it feels like it's going to. I don't know. If you would like to comment on that, you're welcome to, but you don't have to. Go on my own ransom.

I think that's why it's so important that every action that we can take as a, as a state, whether one of the bills that has been passed in California is called a Truth Act.

So, if you are being held in a local jail and ICE does want to have an interview with you, it's essentially kind of like a Mirandizing type bill, which would be to say that in a language that you can understand, the local law officer there needs to present and say, you have the right to decline this in this interview.

And protecting all of these little pockets where we are able to ensure due process at the county or, you know, municipal or state level are so important because we see this erosion of access to justice and due process rights federally. So, we need to make those moves as much as we can at the local level.

Okay, anyone else? Yes, go ahead.

A comment. Another piece of due process is the due notification of changes, whether it is that they're revoking a temporary protective status or they're changing the lower, but not in a way that affects the person.

In theory, folks who are covered by that protection be notified and allowed some time to find representation. Unfortunately, in a lot of cases, we have seen that that is not the case. People are not notified that their protections have been revoked. And then, next thing you know, what they face is an ICE agent coming.

So, so essentially what's happening is that ICE is changing the rules and then taking advantage and then saying, okay, you're, you're—the new rules that we've instituted without telling you, now we're going to arrest you because you're not following those rules.

Essentially.

Correct. Or you're no longer covered. So therefore...

We're going to.

You know. Yes.

Any other comments?

Yeah, I mean, there's a need. I believe ACLU is going to be putting on trainings for attorneys who want to help with habeas writs because there is such an expedited process to deport folks that they aren't getting properly served or notified. I believe this is also for bond hearings, if I'm not mistaken.

So, that's something that's very timely and needing to happen immediately. We expect this to ramp up even, you know, triple what we are seeing this year, next year. So

Why is it, do you think that's going to happen?

Because of the budget, the federal that was passed. Yeah.

I mean, if they can bring armored vehicles to a small place like Hawaii and, you know, arrest and deport 44 people in the matter of a month or less, just wait until they have time to mobilize across Oahu. That's right. We're way outnumbered.

I mean, you're looking at three out of the eight public interest attorneys in immigration here in Hawaii. We need more help.

Is there, is there any possibility that people just will quit, quit hiring on with ICE? I mean, there's, and it pays well, but not everybody, it's not, it's not a job that everybody's going to want. Is there any, any indication at this point that people are, that they're having a hard time filling them?

I mean, the fact that they're charging, that they're paying that much says to me that they're having a hard time filling the positions because otherwise they do it for 50 or whatever.

But I just, again, the media says that they're, they're having recruitment problems, but that, you know, the incentives are gigantic to, to apply for and get that. And I, I think they think it's easy to do.

Another point about recruitment, but they're, they need more immigration judges, so they've been firing just a hundred, you know, you go, duh, what's happening.

I thought they were firing them.

They are, but they, they need to hire more and they know that, so they're going to put some military people to fill in some of those, apply for or fill in for the, some of those judges, but in the between time, because they supposed to need more judges, they have been firing the good ones, a hundred of them.

Okay, well, none of that makes any sense to me either. Okay, well, I think we'll leave it right there. Thank you all so much for coming in for a couple hours this—couple hours this afternoon—and for your insights on what's happening here in Hawaii, and keep doing the, keep doing what you need to do to be sure that people do have due process.

And just for all those who are listening, just because you're an American citizen doesn't mean you might not need those due process rights at some point.

Thanks very much. We're concluded.