Transcript:

Hello, I’m Scott Berry, your host of Immigration Nation. I’m your co-host, Lucine Aghajanyan, founder and owner of LT Global Practice Management. Today, we have a widely unique attorney, Paul Hunker, that’s joined us today to talk about Parole in Place, election issues, border issues. So we’re really excited to have Paul with us today. He’s a former chief counsel and now a practicing attorney. Thank you, Paul. Thank you, Lucine, and thank you, Scott. It’s great to have you here. So I’m going to set this up really great for you Paul. Because you are unlike any attorney that we’ve ever had on the show. And we’ve had people from all over the U.S. There’s something special about you that gives you a unique perspective and I want the legal consumers, the people who are looking for immigration attorneys. I want them to understand why what you say is something they really need to listen to. So to make that real, will you talk to us about your career and we’re going to set that up that way because yours is different than virtually everybody else is. Sure, Scott. So I went to law school, graduated in ‘92 from Georgetown, and while I was at Georgetown, I interned with the Immigration Naturalization Service. I was hired through the Attorney General Honors program. So I started with the immigration service in 1992 in Dallas and had different positions ever since. And 2003, I became the chief counsel of ICE after we became the Department of Homeland Security. And so up until January 31st, 2024, I was the chief counsel of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. And on February 1st, I was in private practice. I’m working for a law firm called De Mott, Curtright and Armendáriz. I’m a partner. We’re about 14 attorneys and most of our attorneys are in San Antonio. We have attorneys in Austin and Houston, and I’m the one attorney in Dallas. You just opened that office up? Correct. Just opened it up. So for the first time ever, someone that was working for Homeland Security and ICE, chief counsel, other side of the aisle if you would. Now, you’re actually available for people, for non citizens that need immigration help. They can actually come to you now for the first time ever. That’s correct. I remember in my last day in the office, I was finishing things up like 10:30 at night. I’d leave my credentials, leave my badge, lock the door, lock the alarm, the door closes. And I’m like, I am no longer chief counsel of ICE. And the next morning at 8:30, I had my first consultation. So to kind of just summarize that, because it’s a complicated thing if you’ve never even heard of it, is that Paul used to be on the other side representing the United States, if you were potentially getting removed. That’s correct. I was the head lawyer. I was the head prosecutor. And so we’re like, maybe you could think of us… I still say us. Being with the government for 30 years, it’s hard to break that habit. I say we when I talk about the government, but we’re like criminal prosecutors. And so when part of Homeland Security wants to remove and answer this and we would be the attorneys representing them in court, and I oversaw our attorneys and I oversaw different things in the office and it was a great experience. I really have some wonderful experiences. And I really came to appreciate the private attorneys. A number of my really good friends are private immigration lawyers, and I got to know them and their challenges and worked with them in crises. I remember when President Trump instituted the first travel ban, what he called the shock and awe travel ban, he imposed a rule that set as immediately all visas, immigrant and nonimmigrant visas from certain countries are canceled. As you would have non-citizens who left Iraq or left Saudi Arabia, well Saudi Arabia wasn’t one of the countries, but that left a country subject to the travel ban. And while they’re in the air, their visa was canceled. So they showed up at Dallas-Fort Worth Airport and the CBP officers who were surprised as well, were like, “I’m sorry, ma’am, you’re visa is canceled.” And I remember that happened on a Friday afternoon. And this is like a kind of a big deal. You know, I think I should read this order. So I’m like, I just had this premonition that it was going to be a difficult weekend. So I usually didn’t take work home on the weekend, but I took that order home and I’m reading it. And then one of my attorneys calls me and says— Michelle Rodriguez, a very good immigration lawyer. She’s on TV. She’s on the airport. And so what happened was all these protesters came to the airport because there were noncitizens who were sort of being held at the airport because they were sort of in limbo because their visas were canceled. And then those numbers got really big and private attorneys got involved. They established like a war room, and they filed a lawsuit to sort of have these people be released. And so Sunday, I’m getting calls from the U.S. attorney about can you help with this case? Because CBP, who are the officers at the airport, they didn’t have their own counsel in Dallas, and it was impossible like to get in contact with the CBP lawyer. Like I think they were just like they didn’t know what was going on, so they weren’t responsive. So someone had to help. Someone had to sort of work with CBP, work at the U.S. Attorney’s office and work with the private lawyers, to sort of figure out how are we going to resolve this. So I think the fact that I was friends and had good connections with those attorneys helped facilitate a resolution. So we basically agreed that CBP would release these people, parole these people into the United States to eliminate the immediate lawsuit. So that was sort of an example of where we had very different interests. But I think because of the good connections and the good relations with the private attorneys, we were able to reach a very good, a good resolution. In different ways throughout my career, I kind of appreciated the important work that private attorneys do. And so maybe about a few years ago, I just said “I would really like to become a private lawyer.” So I started in February 1st, and it’s been wonderful. I wanted to add to that, Paul, you’ve always been known, to be fair. And one of the things that you talk about is families, so it’s important to you. Born and raised Catholic, you went to Catholic schools, graduate from Catholic law school and what do you think about Parole in Place. What do you think and how do you think this is going to go? What are the elements and how would someone need to understand this proposal? What’s your point of view? So I mean, to back up and go to your first part of the question. The importance of keeping families together has been sort of perspective, it’s been very important to me as the chief lawyer for ICE. So we exercise a lot of discretion. We can dismiss cases, we can agree to relief, And keeping families together is an important factors. And sometimes the person may have such a serious criminal history that person is not possible. That person is going to have to go. But sometimes you got to make hard calls about, maybe there’s an old crime, but the person’s rehabilitated. He’s got a number of children. And so if you remove the father or the mother, that’s going to have negative implications on the children. So in exercising my discretion, that was a very important factors to consider those matters. And one reason I like Parole in Place is that it’s an initiative of the Biden administration to help keep families together. So it applies to a noncitizen who entered the United States illegally, who’s married to a U.S. citizen as of June 17th, 2024, who’s been here for ten years. And in some cases, those people can get their green cards in the United States without having to leave. The immigration law is very punitive in a lot of ways. It makes it very, very hard. The one of the things that shocks people is if I’m a citizen and I marry a non-citizen who is outside the country, it may take that non-citizen two years or more to get here. It’s sort of ridiculous. And for these non-citizens who were here illegally, who were married to a citizen, even if they got no criminal history, they’re going have to go through this very painful process where they’re going to have to leave. They’re going to have to show that it’s going to be a hardship, extreme hardship. They may not be let back in. The family gets separated for some time. And it’s just a very painful, expensive time consuming process. So Parole in Place allows those spouses to be able to stay here. They get an initial grant of parole, which can give them work authorization and then when they’re paroled. They can then apply for their green cards. And like you’ve stated in one of your presentations that I’ve listened to, the measurement of everything that you looked at in a case was around is this good for America. So if the father is forced to leave, deported or forced to leave the country to then come back on the consular council processing, for example. So is it good for America? And I always look at, is that the U.S. government cares about their U.S. citizens. So this Parole in Place actually solves the problem because at the end of the day the U.S. citizen relatives, children and spouses, they end up winning. They have their family together then the foreign national, doesn’t have to go through this hoops. And a lot of times the foreign national is actually the breadwinner of the family. So why separate? That’s exactly correct. I wish the Biden administration had gone broader than it did. There’s still a lot of non-citizens who— because they’re here illegally, have really no way to get their green cards. And it’s unfortunate that the law is so punitive in that regard. Yeah and the way I look at it, it’s giving the opportunities to the people that are already here. They’re working hard. So it’s taking care of the people that are already here doing something right. So it keeps their family safe, keeps them together so they can contribute. So it’s an election year and immigration always seems to come up. And I mean, at the top of the topics that are being discussed in an election year, the most recent debate immediately thereafter, most people don’t know. But if you go back and search on Google and what was trending, immigration was the second biggest trending topic of people searching in the United States. Out of all the things that they can be looking for, they wanted to understand. Here’s two guys, what’s going to happen to immigration? Is it going to get tougher, easier? Like what is the impact and what is the impact to me, my family? I mean, how do we know? So I think we could go back and look at what happened under the previous administration, under the Trump administration. You get a sense of some of the things that could happen if there’s a new Trump administration. So I talked about how I would have a fair amount of discretion to dismiss cases because the person, it would be very bad for the person’s family or the person has a pathway in the future to get his green card. So currently, ICE attorneys have a fair amount of discretion to do that. I think under the Trump administration there would be less. There definitely was less when I was chief counsel. I remember a case where the kid, he was Vietnamese and he had some juvenile delinquency matters and he had a possession when he was 18 years old, possession of Adderall. And then three years later, he seemed to get his life in order, he was working hard. He went back to Vietnam to help his dad immigrate. And when he came back at the port of entry, he had the possession of a controlled substance offense which made him inadmissible. And he didn’t have any way to stay here. The law didn’t give the immigration judge discretion to allow him to stay. And so the private attorney reached out to me and said, “Would you agree to dismiss this case?” And I’m like, “Well, this is a different world. It’s the Trump administration, then things are kind of tough.” I actually went out. It was funny, like a week later, I took the bishop of Dallas out to Prairieland Detention Center for a tour because he wanted, he was concerned about the implications of, sort of the increased enforcement. So I took him out for a tour and we’re in one of the pods and he’s very pastoral. He’s praying with the people and giving out prayer cards and things like that. And as I’m sitting there talking to him, this kid comes up to me and he’s got a rosary around his neck and I could tell he was Vietnamese. I know, some Vietnamese people. I could sort of tell he was and I’m like are you so and so. And he’s like, yeah. Did you come at the airport two weeks ago? And he’s like, “How do you possibly know who I am?” And I’m thinking to myself, “Yeah, your attorney has reached out to me.” So I actually followed up with the bishop and I said, “You know, Bishop, I don’t believe in coincidences. Like, what are the odds of this kid coming up to us while we’re here? You know, I think it’s a sign from God. I should agree.” And it wasn’t even actually my call. It was the call the field office director. It was sort of her call. So I presented the case to her and said “You know, I think we should dismiss this case.” And she agreed. And like a week later, I got a call from my boss saying, “Paul, you know, I’m not telling you, you shouldn’t have done this. But, you know, we are in sort of a different world here.” One type of discretion we exercise is reopening cases. So a lot of noncitizens have removal orders from back in the day, but then they marry a citizen and they can reopen their case. Right now, we have a fair amount of discretion to do that. That might get tougher under the Trump administration. I was talking to a client, one of my first clients in private practice, and I was like, “You really should, you know, hire us to file your motion to reopen now. Because you don’t know what’s going to happen under a new administration.” She still hasn’t done that yet. But I would encourage people to reach out to me, reach out to attorneys and consult, because it may be much better to try to get your case reopened now than it will be come after the next inauguration. At least now we know what to expect. Great point, why take the chance? So if you’re watching, now’s a good time to act because it’s not likely to get better, could get worse. So don’t wait for it to get worse. Yes, exactly. And for those watching, Paul is going to share his information at the end of how to contact him. So if you want to ask more questions, if you want a consult, you’ll actually be able to do it. So thank you for that. Sure. I think it’s good to consult before— as soon as you can. Like the Parole in Place, so the government has not issued regulations to allow that to happen yet. So that’s one point I wanted to make about Parole in Place. So if a notario or someone is telling you, you can apply now. You can’t apply yet. You can sort of consult with counsel to sort of get things lined up. So council can apply for you as soon as the rules are issued. But right now you can’t apply. So it’s just good to go talk to me, talk to a lawyer as soon as possible. Especially if there’s a lot at stake. Because if there’s a lot at stake, you want a guy like Paul who knows the other side, you can help you get the best possible outcome. Paul, you’ve written an article about what’s happening at the border and as a former chief counsel, you used to get a lot of those questions as to what the hell is going on the border. I would train new ICE attorneys. When we would hire them and I would say something like, “Congratulations, you’re now the most interesting people at your cocktail parties because you can actually talk about immigration with some.” So yes, One thing that’s been nice about private practice is I’m not limited. Like when I was the chief counsel, I would have to get anything I would say approved by the public affairs officer. It just wasn’t worth it to do that. So now I feel like I have a lot more freedom to talk. And that’s why I’m quitting, by the way. This is what the hell is going on now? Because I get that all the time. People come up to me. What is going on. So I can talk about that a little bit if you want. So with COVID, under the Trump administration, and it was funny when Trump became president, you have what’s called the Trump effect. So the numbers on the border actually went down for a few months after Trump was president. But it was simply because people thought things were going to be different, but they really weren’t different on the border. And the numbers was starting going back up again. So he did some nasty things like family separation, where he would— if a family unit would cross together, he would prosecute the parents for illegal entry. But then they would separate the children and the children would end up being unaccompanied children and being placed all over the country. And an incredible amount of trauma, I feel bad for our Border Patrol agents who had to do those sorts of things. And there was a great outcry and it ended. But that caused the numbers to increase even more, so under the Trump administration. You see the numbers go up. And then one thing he did was called Remain in Mexico, which is for Central Americans who would cross the border. He would say, you have to wait in Mexico. Mexico loves that. Well, I don’t like it because you’re putting people back in dangerous situations. These areas are controlled by the cartels. I think a better system would be for us to process, to have more humane, sort of like humane living space on the border, a place where people could sort of live together as families and then have their cases and have the opportunity for them to have attorneys. Right now, our system doesn’t facilitate that. And I’ve written about these things and then COVID hit. And then you had the numbers just dwindle because of the COVID restrictions. And then you had the election and President Biden became president and some things were changed. I think he did some things that weren’t wise. He did some things that gave the impression that the border was open and it sort of led to this rush. And so it led to the point where so many people were crossing, that the officers really couldn’t even process them and they had to release them into the country. I don’t think he wanted this to happen. I think that part of it was like in his mind or his leadership’s mind, well, let’s do the opposite of Donald Trump. And it ended up causing, in some extent, causing the crisis. But I think people overstate that it was purely Biden’s fault, so what you have post-COVID, you have the U.S. economy humming along, recovering pretty quickly, big demand for jobs because a lot of people weren’t working. So you had this incredible rush. There were so many jobs that incentivized a lot of people to come to the United States. We have the biggest movement of people since World War Two after COVID. Worldwide, we had the biggest movement of people in terms of refugees moving all over the place. So part of it was the United States. There was a lot of jobs here. And so people came. There is demand and they came to meet that demand. Right now on the border, there’s still a lot of people coming, but the numbers aren’t as high as they were like in 2021, 2022, 2023. The Biden administration has done some things which I don’t particularly like. Whatever deal they cut with Mexico, the Mexican police, border Patrol people will then send Central Americans to Southern Mexico to make it harder. I think that may be the main reason you’re seeing apprehensions down a bit. He’s implemented some, I think, very unfair rules that make it much harder to apply for asylum and give people almost no chance to assert their claims and have counsel. I’m not sure how much that’s deterred people. I think the main thing is sort of him relying on the Mexican authorities to sort of bring people back. One thing we see a lot, we call them non-continentals. So people not from Mexico and not from Central America. So we see big numbers of obviously Venezuelans. Venezuela is like the biggest group of noncitizens that have entered post Biden administration. But you see a lot of Chinese, a lot of Haitians, a lot of Russians, a lot of Nigerians. I was outside of church one day, I wrote about this, and this Nigerian couple came up to me and they were like, “We were told to come to Dallas for benefits.” I’m like, “What doesn’t makes sense.” Like what they’re just trying to get money from me? But then they show me their paperwork and it was immigration paperwork. So they had just crossed about two weeks ago and they flew from— it was part of this international smuggling ring. So they’d be flown to Brazil. They come north through the Darién Gap. They come north and pay a lot of money to smugglers and then eventually cross the border. And because they’re from Nigeria, it’s not easy to remove them. So one thing we are seeing is a lot of non citizens from countries like China and places where they’re going to almost always be released in the United States because we don’t have a quick means… The government doesn’t have a quick means to send them back to their countries. So we’re seeing a lot more people from other parts of the world than Mexico and Central America. So there is a slowdown of people from Mexico coming to the United States due to this process? I think because of some things that President Biden has done in early 2024, you’re seeing a little bit of reduction, especially the Central Americans. But still the numbers are still very high and you’re still seeing a lot more people coming from other parts of the country. So Mexico can send the Central American semi back to southern Mexico, but they don’t do that with the Chinese or the Russians. And so those people, they end up being let into the country. Are you seeing the separation of families that you mentioned during Trump’s administration? Are you seeing the same happening now? No. Or they would just let the whole entire family to cross and apply for asylum? Are they still sending them back or separating? So a family unit that crosses often will be released for different reasons. We don’t have family detention and for humanitarian reasons often family people like say they are released into the United States. Okay Paul, so we just finished talking about the border. So for all those that have issues that are border related, removal related, how many of those people can you help? Our firm does almost 100% immigration. We do some criminal defense. We can help everybody. So if a person’s at the border and they want representation, they can contact us. A lot of people, even if they illegally enter the United States, they may be entitled to apply for asylum. So we can help pretty much everybody. The firm does the gamut of immigration. We do what’s called removal defense, helping people in removal proceedings. We help people apply for their green cards. We help people counsel a process if they’re outside the country and they’re trying to come in. We help victims, people who are abused. We can help them get status. We can help people get temporary protected status. We’re doing Parole in Place. We help people with DACA. So our firm really does it all. And can they hire you? They can hire me. If people want to get in contact with me, probably the best way to do that is just send me an email at paul.hunker@dmcausa.com or our firm also has a number and people can reach out to talk to me and the toll-free number is 866-690-1844. Don’t miss this opportunity to get one of the best to represent you. Lucine, thank you very much. Thank you, Scott. I appreciate you being here. Paul, Thank you for sharing all your feedback. We’d love to have you again. If you know someone that needs to hear what we talked about today, please share. This podcast has been prepared for general information purposes only and is not legal advice. This information is not intended to create receipt of it does not constitute an attorney client relationship.