Airport Lawyers Resisting Trump Travel Ban: We Now Have A 'Replicable' System To Keep Fighting Trump

Emma Whitford, Gothamist, Feb. 6, 2017 - "Around 2:00 p.m. on Sunday, more than a dozen lawyers, translators and other volunteers—tech specialists, a communications team—milled around behind a cubicle partition wall in John F. Kennedy Airport's Terminal 4, packing up what had become, over the last seven days, their central command station.

"Tomorrow I go back to Staten Island," said Daniela Crespo, a Legal Aid staff attorney who represents tenants in that borough. Last week, Crespo took three vacation days to volunteer at JFK, helping out with communications. "I've been spending a lot of hours here and then I have insomnia," she said, smiling tiredly.

Lawyers who rushed to JFK a week ago Saturday, the first morning of President Donald Trump's travel ban, transitioned from hunching on the terminal floor on their laptops to working out of a makeshift office, complete with multi-language signage and a check-in booth. Chairs and tables were supplied by the terminal (an agreement reached after a temporary lawyer encampment at Terminal 4's Central Diner started cutting into the restaurant's business). The majority pro-bono group also adopted a name—NoBanJFK—a Twitter handle, and a 24-hour shift schedule.

According to organizers, the group has assisted over 130 families whose loved ones were held for lengthy questioning as a result of the ban, which bars all refugees for 120 days and travelers from seven predominantly-Muslim countries for 90 days. After a federal judge in Seattle issued a restraining order on Friday blocking the ban—the Justice Department's appeal was rejected on Sunday—travelers from impacted countries have been able to pass through customs without incident.

"We're tracking, but everyone seems to be making it in without a problem," said Camille Mackler, Director of Legal Initiatives at the New York Immigration Coalition.

Now, Mackler added, "We're transitioning to the next phase."

... NoBanJFK has created a system this past week the group believes will help them combat President Trump's immigration policies in the weeks and months to come. In addition to the travel ban, Trump has signed executive orders that could empower Immigration and Customs Enforcement to deport a much wider swath of non-citizens than previous administrations. One recent analysis, from the Los Angeles Times, estimates that as many as 8 million people could be considered a deportation priority under Trump.

Lawyers predict that Trump's ICE may hold up an Obama administration legacy, performing large-scale raids at New York farms, factories and restaurants with non-citizen workforces.

"We were saying this setup is going to be replicable, and that's what we meant," Mackler said. "We didn't mean for another airport effort. We meant when they [ICE teams] go to a dairy farm in Upstate New York and we need to all pile out there. Or on Long Island. So, that's what I have in mind." "