Clients apprehensive as detentions rise

A different reality existed in late November when Joe Lavetsky helped a Hudson Valley man from Turkmenistan apply to become a naturalized U.S. citizen.

In that reality, Lavetsky, a Beacon-based immigration lawyer, represented a model candidate for naturalization: a taxpaying green-card holder with letters of support from the correctional facility where he works and the fire department for which he volunteers.

Then there is reality since Dec. 2, when the Department of Homeland Security announced a pause on applications for asylum, green cards and naturalization for immigrants from 19 countries, most of them African and Muslim. The announcement came six days after an Afghan native granted asylum killed one member of the National Guard and wounded another in Washington, D.C.

Lavetsky, who specializes in green-card and citizenship cases, said he has recently represented people from three of those countries — Cuba, Turkmenistan and Venezuela. The Turkmen is "a really good guy" who has had a green card since 2021 and is ready to become a naturalized citizen, he said last month. But the application "is going nowhere anytime soon."

Lavetsky and other immigration attorneys have a front-row seat to the fear and anguish of immigrants whose hopes of remaining in the U.S. are being delayed or dashed as the administration of President Donald Trump works to fulfill his vision of mass deportations.

ICE, in a news release issued Dec. 31, said its officers are focused on removing criminals: "While ICE's law enforcement officers risk their lives to arrest the worst of worst criminal illegal aliens, including murderers, rapists, child sex abusers, terrorists and gang members, they have faced a 1,347 percent increase in assaults and an 8,000 percent increase in death threats against them thanks to the lies and smears from sanctuary politicians and radical activists, and hoaxes spread by the media.

"Their heroic efforts have led to historic results, helping DHS remove more than 622,000 illegal aliens, including tens of thousands of the worst of the worst criminal offenders."

But the agency also targets immigrants applying for asylum, legal permanent residence (green cards) and naturalization, advocates say. More people are being detained when they show up for what used to be routine check-ins with ICE or hearings in immigration court, said Rubie Alicea, an attorney with Pollack, Pollack, Isaac & DeCicco, which has offices in Peekskill.

At the end of November, ICE detentions nationally (53,520) and at its facility in Goshen (166) were more than two times higher than a year earlier, according to the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University. Nearly three-fourths of detainees, 73.6 percent, had no criminal convictions, according to TRAC.

Amid the agency's push, accompanying clients to those appointments "is the most stressful thing," said Alicea, who mostly handles deportation cases and has represented people from Dutchess and Putnam counties. "It's hard for me," she said. "I cannot tell them not to go, but I cannot guarantee they will not be detained."

In addition to pausing asylum, green-card and citizenship applications, DHS said that anyone approved for those benefits since Joe Biden's inauguration as president on Jan. 20, 2021, will be subject to a "comprehensive re-review, potential interview and re-interview."

Some of the affected are immigrants who have overstayed their visa but later married U.S. citizens and are applying for a green card, said Lavetsky. Detaining them "never happened in the past," even during the first Trump administration, he said. But now, even if they have a strong application, Lavetsky warns them that they may be detained during their interview.

He has started accompanying clients to interviews at the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services offices in Albany and Manhattan. At a recent interview for the client applying for a green card after marrying a ...