The Fallout of Rapid Transfers

“In this episode of "Through the Labyrinth," an attorney and a family member of a detainee held by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, better known as ICE, talk to us about rapid transfers between the agency’s detention facilities.

Listeners get to hear about clients who have been moved to detention centers without prior notice being given to their families or attorneys, as well as how this tactic is used to pressure detainees into self-deporting.

Guest Information

• Ashly Cristobal: Daughter of Former ICE Detainee Juan Cristobal
• Ming Tanigawa-Lau: Immigrant Defenders Law Center Staff Attorney and Rapid Response Team Member
• Sarah Houston: Managing Attorney for the Removal Defense Unit at the Immigrant Defenders Law Center

Fundraisers for Detained Family Members

• GoFundMe for Father of Ashly Cristobal

Legal Resources for Undocumented Immigrants in LA

• CHIRLA's Immigrant Assistance Line: Call (888)624-4752
• Immigrant Defenders Law Center’s Rapid Response Legal Resources Hotline: (213)833-8283
• Know Your Rights Cards (English)
• Las Tarjetas de Conoce Tus Derechos (Spanish)
• Al Otro Lado: Legal and Humanitarian Support
• Esparanza Immigrant Rights Project: Community Programs and Direct Legal Representation
• Central American Resource Center of Los Angeles (CARACEN): Citizenship Consultations, Deportation Defense, and College Legal Services at LACCD and CSUs
• Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles (LAFLA): General Immigration Services
• Catholic Charities of Los Angeles’ Immigration and Refugee Services: Family Visa Petitions, Adjustment of Status Applications, Consular Visa Processing, Naturalization Services, Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) Applications

Host & Show Info

"Through the Labyrinth" is hosted by investigative journalist Morgan Keith. She has lived in LA for six years and worked at several media outlets, including the Beverly Press, Daily Journal, Southern California Public Radio, and Business Insider. Morgan now works as a professor and adviser for student media publications at Pierce College. She is also a co-founder of The Southlander.

Please rate and review our show on Apple Podcasts.

Visit thesouthlander.com to subscribe to our newsletter, follow us on social media, and read our previous reporting.

Transcript

Ming Tanigawa-Lau 0:08

People are already traumatized and overwhelmed from being arrested, put through a processing center, and who knows what else on their way to the detention center, and to be transferred with no explanation to a totally different state, far away from your court systems and your family. It's just really demoralizing. And I think people who go through that kind of see the government at that point showing the lengths to which they're willing to go, to be cruel, to pressure you to give up your case.

Morgan Keith 1:01

You're listening to "Through the Labyrinth." I'm Morgan Keith, an investigative reporter with The Southlander. In this week's episode, we dive a step further into the legal processes and logistics surrounding ICE's deportation machine by examining one of its main mechanisms: rapid transfers. Ashley Cristobal experienced this firsthand shortly after her father was arrested during a raid in Los Angeles last June. Before we can unpack his journey through ICE detention, we have to look at what brought him to the United States in the first place. Juan Cristobal grew up in Guatemala but left to come to the U.S. as a teenager with the help of coyotes, or smugglers who helped to get people across the border. Despite facing many hardships before and after this journey, he eventually settled down and started a family in Los Angeles. He always imparted on his children, including his daughter Ashly, that living in the United States is a gift. He had witnessed what happened to some children back in Guatemala whose parents were not as present in their lives, from addiction to legal problems and even death.

Ashly Cristobal 2:40

Like he would like sit us down, like me and my sister, like always talking to us about like his experience, saying why he why he is the way he is or why he wants us to like act a certain way or like achieve certain goals and why it's good. And since he also worked with um a lot of like like people who were born here, like their whole families were born here, and he would talk about since he didn't know English, they would like there was like an understanding, he would talk about us, and they would always also tell them, like, yeah, since they have citizenship, tell them to take advantage of everything the U.S. has to offer since it's a country that will help, um, if you have citizenship and that they could help you in the future with your citizenship.

Morgan Keith 3:26

The Cristobal family planted deep roots in LA, with some of their children starting college and their grandparents saving up enough to purchase a house. Although his children were getting older, Juan continued to search for work to support his family, even if it didn't pay very well, or he was treated badly. This persistence and hardworking mentality had been instilled in him since he was eight years old, when he was told he needed to leave school and start helping his family financially. However, this continued drive to provide financially came with extreme risk, placing him in areas frequently targeted by ICE, including Home Depot parking lots. Many day laborers like Juan wait in the parking lot in hopes of being offered work, from moving to landscaping and construction. His daughter Ashley vividly remembers the moment her mom received a call that their worst nightmare had come true: her father had been detained by ICE while looking for work.

Ashly Cristobal 4:26

And so the next morning, since we came home pretty late, we slept in pretty late. And I just remembered kind of like waking up because my mom was getting ready for work. Like, she wasn't making a lot of noise, but she kept like calling people. I think it was like her work— had to do like with her work. She was calling people, telling them, like, yes, like you need to bring this and I'll bring this, you need to clean this surface and I'll clean this surface. And then it was before she was about to step out the door, which was like she got a call and like she had like the Siri like notification. So it was it was like my dad's name. And I was like barely waking up and I was like trying to fall back to sleep. And then my mom put on speaker because she was putting her shoes and she was like, "Hello, like I'm about to go to work," like um, I did— "are you going with someone?" Because usually he calls like when someone offers him work and he's about to leave. And then I just hear him be like, "Oh, ICE got me, like, call the lawyer." And my mom, like, I kind of like heard her voice like she froze, and she was like, "no." And he was like, "Call the lawyer, tell them that ICE got me." I believe it was North Hollywood Home Depot. And she was like, "Don't say nothing, don't sign anything."

Morgan Keith 5:42

The panic set in quickly. Like so many families who were impacted by ICE raids, the Cristobals felt unsure what to do next and turned to the internet for help.

Ashly Cristobal 5:52

I think it was like the days after we were like, you know, looking online, like what to do, like who to contact, and everything, everything like that. And because of this, I guess like our algorithms changed, like on TikTok, like on my mom, like on Facebook. And my mom like found a video of this girl talking, like on TikTok, and she was explaining how she went to go see her dad, who was detained, and he was detained in downtown. And she was explaining how like the process is what you have to do, what do you have to call. And my mom was like, "Oh, we did all this, but we don't know where to find it." She asked me to message her and the girl ended up responding to me, and she was like, "Yes, like this is my number, call me and like I'll help you." So I ended up calling her and she had told me...

Morgan Keith 6:39

Family members of detainees often scramble to figure out the next steps they should take in the hours after their relative has been picked up by ICE. Oftentimes, this means scouring the internet for leads and even turning to social media to connect with other locals in the same position. After connecting with another woman whose dad had been detained around the same time, Ashley decided to meet her at B-18 during family visitation hours the following day. For more information on B-18, ICE's main processing center in Southern California, go back and listen to episode one.

Ashly Cristobal 7:12

And the girl who was helping us, um, helping us was also helping a lot of other people online. And we got in at the same time. And so um everybody was checking the ICE locator, and then all— for everybody said they were still there, which is why everybody was there. And when we got in, we gave them our identification, and then we were waiting like in this little like— everything was all like near each other, so we were waiting like in a little waiting area. And then since she was first in line, they had told her, " what's your dad's A number?" They're looking for him.

Morgan Keith 7:50

An A number or an alien registration number is a unique multi-digit code assigned to foreign nationals by the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services or USCIS. It is used as a form of identification, as well as a way for the federal government to track immigrants who are living in the country.

Ashly Cristobal 8:09

And then they're like, "I don't think there's anybody here in that name." And she was like, "Yes, there is." She showed them the ICE locator, and they're like, Oh, okay, like "Sorry, like maybe it's just the system because it has been down. It was down this morning," they had said. So they checked again and then they went back. And when like the one of the— one of the security guards that brings out people called her over, and they told her he was taken today, like he was moved to uh to Adelanto. And so she was like, "Well, nobody told me, nobody said anything. Like, and the ICE locator says he's still here." They're like, "No, like they took him this morning, like there's nothing we can do." And she just left, she started crying, and like me and my sister after we got worried because it was our first time there, and we were like, and our dads, our our dad and her dad also got taken, not in the same place, but on the same day and at the same time. So we thought, oh, they also took our dad, like, so we were just worried or we're like scared. And when she left, she told us, like, oh, I hope everything goes well, and she ended up leaving.

Morgan Keith 9:12

Rapid transfers of detainees are quite common, creating heartbreaking situations for their families. Several Southern California immigration lawyers have spoken publicly about their clients being shuttled between holding centers without any sort of prior notification to their families or their legal teams. Although this was not the case for Ashly's father, he watched several of the people he was transferred alongside to Adelanto, one of ICE's main long-term detention facilities in Southern California, be shipped across state lines.

Ashly Cristobal 9:46

After that week, that's when they had transfered him to Adelanto. But my dad was telling us that he wasn't sure if he was gonna be for sure because there were also like once people got to Adelanto, like the people that that were with him, they kept moving them around. Like they would— he said one guy went to Texas but then came back because the facility in Texas was like overpopulated, and so they sent him back to Adelanto.

Morgan Keith 10:12

Lack of space is one of many explanations that ICE agents have given lawyers or family members when someone held in detention is moved to or from a particular facility. But this line of reasoning appears flimsy at best when you begin to push back on it. Why are more detained immigrants being brought into these long-term detention centers day after day if they are moving others out due to overcrowding? Either detainees are being transferred for reasons other than overcrowding, or these facilities are being operated in a way that jeopardizes their safety and well-being. Both of these possibilities, regardless of whichever is closest to the truth, capture the anguish and unpredictability that families face when navigating the U.S. immigrant detention system.

Morgan Keith 11:35

At The Southlander, we believe that our reporting should help the communities that we cover. So we want to share with you how to create an emergency preparedness plan in case you or a loved one is detained by ICE. While being detained is the worst case scenario, it is important to have measures in place in order to reduce stress as much as possible. You can find many examples of emergency preparedness kits online from groups like United We Dream. We've linked theirs in the show notes in case you're interested in downloading the template for yourself. These kits provide a place to list emergency contacts, both in the United States and your country of origin, medical conditions, and immigration history. Typically, they also include checklists for essential documents and financial planning tips. This kind of contingency planning can be scary, but in the words of United We Dream, preparation is power.

Ming Tanigawa-Lau 13:00

At this point, the vast majority of people that we're seeing who are detained in Southern California are being sent to Adelanto or Desert View Annex. But we as ImmDef, as an organization, we've had clients, many clients, sent to Otay Mesa or even other states like Washington, New Mexico, Arizona. So, I would say it's pretty common. It's very frustrating. It brings up all types of issues for us as attorneys and then also for our clients.

Morgan Keith 13:38

That was Ming Tanigawa-Lau. As a staff attorney on the rapid response team at Immigrant Defenders Law Center, she has witnessed firsthand how the haphazard nature of transfers conducted by ICE can end up violating the due process rights of detainees.

Ming Tanigawa-Lau 13:53

Yeah, like you said, we don't usually get notified of any transfers. If we do, it's not until after our client has already been taken away from the first detention center. So, at times I've had calls scheduled with a client and they don't show up to the call, and I have to ask the ICE officer why weren't they here? And they say, "Oh, they were transferred, today, to a different detention center," and no one notified me. And it takes days to set up these calls, so it's extremely frustrating and honestly a violation of due process when we have to file things right away. But we can't even meet with our clients because they're being transferred all over the place. And then also, like, oftentimes the first time we find out someone has been transferred is because the client is in the new detention center, has finally been able to call a family member, and the family member tells us. So it's just very inefficient and very inappropriate. You know, we should— we are attorneys of record. It's actually against ICE policy to transfer a client away from the area of responsibility of their attorney without like a specific reason or supervisor approval. So they are not even followed following their own ICE policy here.

Morgan Keith 15:14

Even though many immigration attorneys have spoken out against rapid transfers of their clients, the practice still persists. Sometimes this means detainees are sent to one or two other holding facilities after they are initially processed. In more extreme cases, some immigrants have been hauled thousands of miles across the country, rarely staying in one place for long.

Sarah Houston 15:38

I just want to emphasize that one of my clients, and this is not just like a crazy one-time story, one of my clients that I'm representing right now, he was transferred six to seven times between different detention facilities within the first two weeks he was arrested. And I'm arguing unconstitutionally arrested based on a warrant for someone else. But like they use this. So they do like B-18 to Santa Ana to Adelanto to out of state. We've seen this several times. They transfer someone out of state, and then based on advocacy or pressure, they— instead of deporting them, they send them back. I've seen that three times, not like— with different people at ImmDef.

Morgan Keith 16:16

That was Sarah Houston, who I spoke with in episode one about what happens in the initial hours after someone is detained by ICE. For immigration attorneys like Sarah and Ming, they have to jump through even more hoops when their clients are transferred out of state. Each legal jurisdiction has unique procedures and practices, creating challenges for those representing detainees who have been moved elsewhere.

Ming Tanigawa-Lau 16:42

Detention centers are supposed to have ways for attorneys to set up virtual visits with their clients, so phone calls or video calls. But obviously every detention center has its own policies for scheduling that. They have their own hours, they have their own contact people. So , in cases where I've had to do that, it means figuring out how to do that and set up a virtual call with my clients, usually asking local practitioners in that area about how visits work, how procedures work with that local immigration court. And then it really depends also on the judge that you have because some of them will not. Some will allow virtual appearances in immigration court, but some won't. So if they don't, you have to fly there to be there in person for your court hearings.

Morgan Keith 17:38

Although virtual meetings can be a convenient workaround, it hinders the ability of immigration lawyers to truly connect with the people whose freedom they are trying to secure.

Ming Tanigawa-Lau 17:49

As an attorney, I mean, I think maybe this is personally, but I just really like being able to see my clients in person, you know, to have like a human connection, and having to build that through a video call, if we're lucky, but probably most likely through just a phone call is really difficult.

Morgan Keith 18:15

When I asked Ming and Sarah if they thought these logistical challenges created by the deportation system were intentional or a result of disorganization, they told me it was a bit of both. At the end of the day, however, the goal of the Trump administration remains very much the same. Ramp up arrests and deport as many immigrants as possible.

Sarah Houston 18:38

So it is this confusion, this like we can't give you information, sorry, is all meant to make it easier for them to convince certain people, like, come on, get deported. Because if people immediately had access to like a legal consultation, an intake, you know, talking to their loved ones about how their loved ones are reaching out for people for them, I think it would be much less likely that some people would just say, you know what, I want like voluntary departure or ask for a removal order.

Morgan Keith 19:07

You would say that that the rapid transfers essentially function as a pressure tool, then is the main reason that's that's done.

Ming Tanigawa-Lau 19:21

I mean, they will— they have occasionally given us reasons, such as space, you know, there's not enough space at some detention center or maybe like medical needs of a certain individual can only be addressed at one location. But we are rarely given an actual reason. And when we are like, for example, the space issue, like at the same time we'll be hearing of other people who are transferred to Adelanto. So yeah, so when we are given a reason, it's very hard to to believe that that's really what what a consideration was.

Morgan Keith 20:01

As the number of people who have been detained or deported by ICE continues to climb, Ming, Sarah, and other immigration attorneys remain vigilant on behalf of their clients, even if that means representing them from several states away.

Ming Tanigawa-Lau 20:16

I want to say that every step, every roadblock that we run into is, you know, it's by design. And it's to make our representation hard and it's to make people suffer. I would also probably say even if it weren't by design, the system that exists was not meant to ever detain, transfer, house the numbers of people that are being detained right now.

Morgan Keith 21:03

If you're interested in learning more about immigration detention and processing facilities in Southern California, check out the show notes and visit our website, thesouthlander.com, to stay up to date on our latest reporting. Become a paid subscriber today to get early access to all remaining episodes of "Through the Labyrinth." For anyone who isn't in the position to become a paid subscriber at this time, but still wants early access to the remaining episodes, there's still a way. You can visit our show notes and click the Send Us Fan mail link at the very top. Here you'll be able to leave us a voicemail letting us know your thoughts, feedback, comments, and any other questions you might have about the show. We're checking our inbox daily and really hope to hear back from you. In order to gain early access this way, please make sure to leave us your email spelled out in the voicemail so that we can provide you with that benefit. As Los Angeles' only worker-owned investigative newsroom, we strive to bring you stories that would otherwise go uncovered by other local outlets. You can support our work by becoming a subscriber and following us on Instagram, Blue Sky, or TikTok. Thank you for listening to "Through the Labyrinth." I'm Morgan Keith.