Transcript:

Scott Berry 

Hello, this is Scott Berry. I’ve got a very special guest with me today. We’re in Austin with Kate Lincoln goldfinch. Hello, Kate. 

Kate Lincoln-Goldfinch 

Hi. 

Scott Berry 

And this is so exciting because we get a chance to meet kind of up and coming immigration lawyers all over the US through our podcast and just coaching. Things like that and events, and I’d love to ask people who they look up. To do their kind of watching and and who they use as a little bit of a mentor and case name comes up a lot. And so when we ran into her at AILA, I asked if she would sit down with us and share some of her thoughts because she’s remarkable and she’s just very effective and very unique. So Kate. Thanks again. We really appreciate you giving us. 

Kate Lincoln-Goldfinch 

Some time. Yeah. Thanks for coming all the way. 

Scott Berry 

Down to Austin? Yep, it’s my pleasure. So Kate, tell everybody about where the law firm has grown in the last 10 years. You’ve got this super cool office, very, very unique and a new bus. 10 year anniversary. Congratulations. Yeah. Where are you now? 

Kate Lincoln-Goldfinch 

So we’re in, we’re in a great place just in terms of the firm and how we’ve set up the structure. But it’s it’s taken 10 years to get here halfway through the journey, five years in was when COVID hit. And so we have this little office in Central Austin. And at the time, we had 13 people crammed into that office. I had cubicles in the garage so that people could work, and so we sent everybody home really quickly in COVID. And then we started perfecting the virtual model, and we started growing. And by the time everybody else was going back to work, we were a virtual firm. And so we were allowed to really expand our services and our ability to service clients, but we never really outgrew the little office. So a couple of things have happened. The 1st is we really realize our mission. Is not about having a bunch of offices in big cities around the country. Our mission is to reach immigrants in places where they struggle to receive good legal services, and that’s in rural remote areas, areas where it’s dangerous to drive. There’s not really good legal options. It’s hard to get information. But we don’t want to set up a bunch of brick and mortar offices in these places. That would be logistically complicated. So the idea came. What if we had these mobile offices? And then Trump got elected and we decided to sort of pivot and create this separate sort of community engagement entity that is a bus and we named it El Bosin Fronteras, which is the bus Without Borders. And the whole goal of this bus, this community engagement project, is to go out into these communities. And. Bring information resources but also appreciation and celebration. Because we don’t just want the, you know, the sort of daunting prospect of like family planning and red cards and all that stuff that’s important. 

Scott Berry 

Doom and gloom too as well. Love this celebration piece. Yeah, the celebrations are not everywhere right now, so. 

Kate Lincoln-Goldfinch 

They’re not, and it’s been real fun with the bus, so we, you know, we bring cumbia music and bubble machines and pops. 

Speaker 

To go to the. 

Kate Lincoln-Goldfinch 

Like a fun thing. And then we also hand out the red cards. And so that has been such a fun initiative that we launched this year and then the Little Office has expanded the house next door came up for sale. And so and then we. Got to start. Like painting the whole thing yellow and putting in a yellow brick road and putting a mural on it. It’s sort of, you know, it’s this compulsion that I have to like. 

Speaker 

Yes. 

Kate Lincoln-Goldfinch 

I like aesthetic beauty. That is one of the thing features of Maine that matters. I, you know, I’ve always. Heard about like my clothes and I’ve always loved makeup and I always spaces are really important to me. That’s just how I’ve always been. And so being a business owner, I get to bring in that. Yeah. So it’s like, I love our little compound of little. 

Scott Berry 

You brought it right? In. 

Kate Lincoln-Goldfinch 

Know yellow buildings with all the you know, decorations everywhere and it doesn’t feel like a law firm whatsoever. But our clients want to walk into some law firm, yeah. 

Scott Berry 

It’s it feels like a home. Yeah. 

Kate Lincoln-Goldfinch 

That’s what we want. So. 

Scott Berry 

And. I think for some consumers sitting down, the lawyer is intimidating. 

Kate Lincoln-Goldfinch 

Most for most most people aren’t having fun when they go to their lawyers office. Then maybe the ones who aren’t struggling in some way are like creating an estate plan. But most people are. They’re getting divorced. They suffered an accident. They’re going through immigration troubles, they’ve got criminal problems. 

Scott Berry 

And the last thing they want to do is just is go see a lawyer or a doctor, right. Like, it’s stressful. But you’ve created an environment here where? 

Speaker 

Yes. 

Scott Berry 

People can be very comfortable, you know, coming in and sitting down with you. Or your team. 

Kate Lincoln-Goldfinch 

Yeah, that’s the point. We wanted to feel Posey and inviting. And look pretty. We say we bring Peace of Mind and security to immigrant families. We’re just having our 10th anniversary. Thank you. And we are based in awesome, but we’re a virtual firm. So we have clients in all all over the globe all over the 50 United States and we focus on family based immigration, humanitarian, immigration and we also do removal, defense and detention work. Work so that it’s we’re on that that side, you know, oftentimes it’s like employment post family or family post humanitarian. So I’m on the emotionally challenging side of. 

Scott Berry 

Yeah. Yeah. Well, kind of all the way over there is removal and deportation and a lot of people are struggling. Immigration attorneys are struggling to stomach that. Like they they they they really struggle. It’s emotional for them. So much involved. So what’s going on right now? How would you describe today’s environment and what does this mean for legal consumers? 

Kate Lincoln-Goldfinch 

It’s tough. It’s no surprise everybody knows that we are living under a regime. The Presidency that has designs to eradicate the undocumented population out of this country. And by any means necessary, and that they’re taking very aggressive and inhumane measures unprecedented. Unprecedented. I mean, we have alligator Alcatraz. We have cancellation of birthright citizenship. We have people getting detained in courthouse, you know, trying to cancel asylum, arresting protesters, I mean, everywhere you look. Immigrants are under attack and I would say not just undocumented immigrants. Of course, people from naturalized citizens all the way. 

Scott Berry 

Down under, getting caught up in it, yeah. 

Speaker 

Get. 

Kate Lincoln-Goldfinch 

Yeah. So that’s true and it is worse than it’s been since I’ve been doing this, which is 20 years. And. We also know this won’t last forever. We also know this as a nation of immigrants whose economy desperately depends on immigrants. And we know that we’ve been through periods like this before where, you know, Germans or Irish Catholics or Italians or other Eastern Europeans, or Jewish people or Chinese immigrants were vilified and talked about as if they were disposable. Invaders and each of those moments of that rhetoric has been a blip on our radar, a painful blip. But we’re in another one of those periods of time. So I think the first thing to know is that this will last forever, and we’re going to get out of this one too. The second thing to know is that the the majority of Americans in this country understand that we are all immigrants. We are a nation of immigrants. Have a deep respect and appreciation for immigrants. And then the third thing that’s really important to know is we got to protect ourselves. And So what are our constitutional rights? How should we interact with law enforcement and definitely please every immigrant needs to consult with an immigration lawyer and find out not only what you’re eligible for, what your rights are, but how to protect yourself. I can’t tell you how many people I’ve talked to that. Listen to Tik Toks or they talk to their neighbors or they you know, or they go to another ratio or they think they know. 

Scott Berry 

Right. Isn’t that’s a big concern, right? I’ve been hearing about people that thought that they were covered. They thought it was all dealt with. The paperwork was dealt with, and then all of a sudden they find out under the microscope. 

Speaker 

Yeah. Huh. 

Scott Berry 

Oh no. 

Kate Lincoln-Goldfinch 

Yeah. 

Scott Berry 

I’m exposed and that could mean very bad things right now. 

Kate Lincoln-Goldfinch 

Yeah, I mean it. Look, immigration law is unnecessarily complex, but it is the reality. It’s really complicated system. And it’s important to go to a an expert attorney who understands the system. And in a good consultation, we’ll talk about what are you eligible for? How long does it take? How much does it cost? That’s usually that’s the surface level part of a consultation. But then the next level is OK and then what? And then how do we protect yourself and who’s going to pick up the kids if you get detained? And do you have the important documents all of that? Stuff is an additional. Layer to the conversation that I think people really need to make sure they’re having. 

Scott Berry 

Right now and you guys are having these consultations with people all day, every day. 

Kate Lincoln-Goldfinch 

We have a lot of consultations and in fact, right now we’re doing free consultations. 

Scott Berry 

Right. 

Kate Lincoln-Goldfinch 

Because people need the information we don’t want there to be a barrier to good advice, so we’re having a lot of conversations right now and a lot of these people aren’t eligible for relief. I’m working on doing it’s we’re calling it loose and outcome, you know, it’s it’s a packet for people who are ineligible for relief. Right now. But they need a relationship with an attorney where we give them a list of docs we need, we give them VIP access to an attorney. If anything happens, we help them do their safety planning. And we’ve formed a relationship with a letter of representation that they can carry around just in case. Because I think one of the things that’s really important for people is like. 

Scott Berry 

Just in case. 

Kate Lincoln-Goldfinch 

OK, I’m a document and I don’t qualify for. Anything, but then what? It’s still good to have a good relationship with a lawyer who can act because. Doing detain cases what we find is there’s such a delay in the moment where someones hired us and we’re able to have an impact and so shortening that delay where we’ve already got the documents we already know the facts of the case. We’ve talked to the person and we know their immigration history. 

Scott Berry 

You can jump right. 

Kate Lincoln-Goldfinch 

We can jump right in so. 

Scott Berry 

And time is of the essence in a lot of these cases. Right. 

Kate Lincoln-Goldfinch 

Especially because they’re trying to do expedited removals on everybody, so somebody can be gone in a matter of hours and some. 

Speaker 

Go quickly. 

Scott Berry 

Yeah, they. Show up for a meeting and you’re in handcuffs and you’re being walked out the door. Right, like it’s happening all over the country right now. 

Kate Lincoln-Goldfinch 

It’s horrific. It’s so upsetting. I mean that that they’re going after the people who are following the rules. It’s. There are natural consequences to this and and we’re going to see them. People are going to stop showing up for stuff. It’s going to drive more people underground and all of this, more immigrants, afraid of law enforcement and showing up for their hearings only makes everybody less safe. 

Scott Berry 

What do you think it’s going to look like over the next like the second-half of, say, 2025? More the same. You think it might get worse? What are your thoughts on? 

Kate Lincoln-Goldfinch 

That well, we’ve got the budget bill that just passed, which double s the immigration detention and increases the enforcement budget. So that sent a signal from Congress to the president that they are supportive of what he’s doing. And that’s a really unfortunate. Thing, because I think what it means for us is that we’re going to see an increase and a continuance of what’s been happening. And you know, real. Creative, clever design of the budget bill was that they increased the budget for DHS immediately, but they didn’t implement the Medicaid cuts and the cuts to middle Americans, you know, until after the midterms. So by the time people vote, you know, in 2026, they’re. They won’t have felt the impacts of what Congress just did and and that was by design and and unfortunately I think that that, that might impact. The midterms in a way that allows all of this to continue for even longer. 

Scott Berry 

So for the a common person, the BBB is a little hard to understand. Could you just summarize the part that is going to be important for immigrants to understand? 

Speaker 

Uh-huh. 

Kate Lincoln-Goldfinch 

Yeah, I mean, you know, overall what it did was it it continued. Tax cuts for the wealthy. And for corporations. And it paid for that by cutting SNAP benefits, Medicaid benefits for poor Americans and and the reason that so many members of Congress were willing to go along with that cause, you would think, why would they do that? That doesn’t make sense. That only hurts most of their constituents. Why on Earth would they do that? The reason they did it is because they said, well, this is a good compromise because we’re getting so much enforcement because the American people have been sold a lie that we are under an invasion from immigrants. And fear is a really powerful motivator, and people get this message and they vote and they support their Republican legislators because they think that they’re going to do something about this invasion that isn’t actually real. But they believe that it is. So this big bill comes through. It’s like we’re going to give all this money to enforcement. And everybody likes that because they’re scared of immigrants, because they’ve been lied to. And then, oh, we’re going to slip in all of these tax cuts and all these Medicaid cuts and all that stuff. Maybe it’s a little unsavory, but we get the, you know, enforcement stuff. And that’s honestly what? They tell themselves. 

Scott Berry 

So this bill is going to do nothing but kind of just up the anxiety, quite frankly, right, because there’s more for enforcement it it’s it’s going to fund. Almost a double the activity. 

Kate Lincoln-Goldfinch 

Yeah, $45 billion for beds. It’ll double the detention beds, billions and billions. For for enforcement. And so we’ll see more. 

Scott Berry 

So what people are experiencing? Plus some right, maybe double. 

Kate Lincoln-Goldfinch 

Militarization, all of that. And so it’s going to be up to the court system to protect us, cause Congress won’t do it. And the president won’t. 

Scott Berry 

No. Do it. I mean, isn’t it even more important than ever for someone to come in and build a relationship? You know, if you think that you might have. Status issues, even remotely might. They’re better just to come in and especially you. You guys are doing free consultations. Is it all summer? 

Kate Lincoln-Goldfinch 

All summer, yeah. 

Scott Berry 

You’re great about, you know, doing stuff that people really is meaningful for them. I I saw when you announced it all the comments, hundreds and hundreds of comments, so many people thankful. Yeah, because, you know, consultations. I mean, this is your life. Livelihood, you know, and the waive that so that people can ask questions is pretty cool. And that’s you definitely don’t need to do that. But but now is the time people need to come right and and and build a relationship get a file on you and be prepared with all this increased activity. 

Kate Lincoln-Goldfinch 

Yes. 

Scott Berry 

So at least you have a chance to not just wake up in another city or another state or another country, right? 

Speaker 

Yeah. 

Kate Lincoln-Goldfinch 

That’s right. I think the best piece of advice is to be prepared. Meet with a lawyer, understand. What you’re eligible for file for something if you are eligible for something in either way. Also have all your documents in order and have a whole safety plan in order and understand who’s going to pick up the kids and all that because. They are just picking people up and you go. We need to be able to act. 

Scott Berry 

Yeah. Fast and you know when you don’t buy net like that, you catch all kind of fish. So it’s not just the ones you’re fishing for. You’re catching a lot of other stuff too. Yeah. So it’s going to be chaotic, I think, for the whole like the communities like. Entire community. Are gonna be in chaos over people. So would you mind sharing like, if if people wanted to talk to you or one of your attorneys or whatever, would you share some of the best ways for them to get a? Hold of you. 

Kate Lincoln-Goldfinch 

The probably the easiest way to find us is to go to any of our social media platforms and send us a DM. My team works. In the DM’s and they’re very they respond within 5 minutes. And and it’s I have different handles on all the different platforms, but if you search my name wherever you go you’ll find it. And so it’s Lincoln, like the president goldfinch. Like the bird. And there you’ll find me. But it’s also easy to Google us and call or text or WhatsApp and basically anything but smoke. 

Scott Berry 

We’re with Kate Lincoln, like the president, goldfinch, like the bird. Thank you for joining. This podcast has been prepared for general information purposes only and is not legal advice. This information is not intended to create and receipt of it does not cause an attorney-client relationship.