Raha Jorjani is an Immigration Defense Attorney in Alameda County, home of California’s first public defender Immigration Representation Unit. Because our immigration law is founded on the principle that deportation is a civil issue and not a criminal proceeding which, there are few immigration specific public defender units. This denies millions of people the basic right of public defense.
This episode covers the ideals of America and how our government is willfully disregarding its responsibility to help the people fleeing the countries we have destabilized. Raha shares her personal experience working with clients who may appear like criminals on paper but are often victims of wider circumstances enacted by our own government. To tell their story without those crucial details is not just dishonest but dehumanizing.
Raha hopes that by sharing these stories and making Americans aware of the reality of what immigrants go through, just to have the opportunity to plead their case, we can break down these antiquated systems. Her office is the first of its kind and is being replicated across the country, hopefully to one day become the standard. America is founded on the principle that all men are created equal so it is up to us to ensure that includes the right to due process, evidentiary hearings and access to counsel. Without these standards of human treatment we are failing as Americans.
Key Takeaways:
[7:27] Raha’s journey into the role of removal defense attorney
[11:00] Providing seamless representation from one system to the next
[12:40] The distinction between criminal versus civil protections
[19:00] How the needs of non-citizens differ from citizens within criminal proceedings
[25:30] The difficulty comes in conveying the complicated information accurately to the client
[30:00] How policies have changed through each administration
[39:00] The Department of Homeland Security is using detention as a litigation tool
[46:10] The burden to prove why you should be given the opportunity to remain in America
[50:00] Offering asylum for our benefit and not on principle
[53:50] Walter’s case: The consistent failings of our legal system
[60:30] The opportunity we have to make a positive change
Guest:
Raha Jorjani, Deputy Public Defender and Supervising Supervising Immigration Defense Attorney, Alameda County Public Defender Office
Resources:
Alameda Public Defender Office Immigration Unit https://publicdefender.acgov.org/Immigration.page
Patel v Garland https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/596/20-979/
Fong Yue Ting v. United States https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/149/698/
Demore v Kim https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/538/510/
Jennings v Rodriguez https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/583/15-1204/
Silent Holocaust Guatemala https://cja.org/what-we-do/litigation/the-guatemala-genocide-case/
Manufacturing Consent by Edward Sherman and Noam Chomsky (El Salvador) https://www.amazon.com/Manufacturing-Consent-Political-Economy-Media/dp/0375714499
Somoza Family Dynasty of Nicaragua https://www.brown.edu/Research/Understanding_the_Iran_Contra_Affair/n-background.php
Haiti https://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/29/international/americas/haitis-president-forced-out-marines-sent-to-keep.html
Chilie https://www.tni.org/es/node/1362
The Jakarta Method by Vincent Bevins (Indonesia, Brazil and many others) https://www.amazon.com/Jakarta-Method-Washingtons-Anticommunist-Crusade/dp/1541742400
CIA Secret War (Laos and Cambodia) https://warontherocks.com/2017/02/the-secret-war-that-transformed-the-cia/ https://www.npr.org/2017/01/23/511185078/america-in-laos-traces-the-militarization-of-the-cia
Iran https://www.npr.org/2019/01/31/690363402/how-the-cia-overthrew-irans-democracy-in-four-days
Title The Story of Walter Cruz-Zavala
The Long Campaign to Deport Walter Cruz-Zavala (theintercept.com)
https://theintercept.com/2022/09/20/walter-cruz-zavala-el-salvador-state-of-exception/
Memorable Quotes:
“In the immigration system, the government can put you behind bars and then tell you it’s your burden to prove. They don’t have to justify why they imprisoned you. You have to justify why you should be free. So you have to prove why you’re not a danger to the community, you have to prove that you’re not a flight risk and Hunter, that's people who are eligible for bond.” [33:40]
“The power of detention is ultimately used as a litigation tool by the Department of Homeland Security. This is one of the only areas where, if you win, you stay in.”[39:30]
“When people end up in the deportation system, it is almost always after they have been dealt with by the criminal legal system. So even to the extent that people believe in the criminal legal system and the need for accountability and punishment; the double irony is that these folks have already been through that system, so they’ve already served their time.” [43:40]
“Our relationships with countries define how we view people. So, if we don’t agree with a certain country’s position, we tend to welcome people from those countries because we basically want to further entrench the idea that what’s happening there is bad. Whereas other people from other countries could be facing similar types of persecution or violence and we have very many closed door policies.” [50:24]
Contact Hunter Parnell:
[email protected]
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