How to Survive Trump’s Mass Deportation Plans

Traditional triage models all include some category of people who are suffering “injuries inconsistent with life” beyond any realistic hope of survival, and first responders are trained in mass casualty events to move on to those who can still be helped.

The legal equivalent of these most dire cases include those who have reentered the country after being deported for an aggravated felony, those convicted of multiple serious aggravated felonies (murder, drug trafficking, child sex abuse, etc.), and people with provable connections to gangs and designated terrorist organizations, among others.

These tough cases still deserve review; everyone deserves representation, and as lawyers we just never know what the options are going to be until we have closely reviewed the entire available record and conducted a full intake with a prospective client. But we also have to recognize that there are some people, in lawful status or otherwise, who have never had a reasonable chance of remaining in the U.S. once the system has found them, and certainly far less so now in an era where the phrase “mass deportation” is the closest thing we’re going to get to an actual immigration policy.