Esther Yoo, Assistant Law Professor and Director of the Refugee & Immigration Law Clinic at the University of Hawaii Richardson School of Law joins producer/host Coralie Chun Matayoshi to discuss how the Trump administration is going after immigrants that are the easiest to find – at Immigration Court, ICE Check-ins, and children who arrived at the border without parents; how the Trump administration has taken unusual enforcement actions against immigrants like ending Temporary Protected Status and humanitarian parole for individuals from certain countries, rescinding deferred action for kids with Special Immigrant Juvenile Status, and suddenly revoking student visas without notice; and local resources available for immigrants including a hotline for those facing deportation, and for businesses and schools whose employees or students might get caught up in a raid.
Esther Yoo is an Assistant Professor and Director of the Refugee & Immigration Law Clinic at the University of Hawaii William S. Richardson School of Law, which has served hundreds of low-income immigrants and asylum seekers in Hawaii.
Q. In January, we talked about President Trump’s campaign promise of mass deportations on Day 1. The target was supposed to be criminals. In Hawaii, over 100 immigrants have been arrested in raids, and even teachers here on a cultural and educational exchange program from the Philippines were detained and questioned under scary circumstances. Mass protests are being held in cities across the country including Los Angeles, New York, Chicago and Seattle over intensified raids and the Trump administration’s deployment of National Guard troops and even U.S. Marines. Who is Immigration & Customs Enforcement (ICE) going after?
Many people are shocked by what we’re seeing in immigration enforcement. President Trump clearly promised “mass deportation” during his campaign, but I think many people didn’t realize what that would look and feel like. “Mass deportation” hasn’t been confined to people arriving at the Southern border or people with serious criminal records. It has meant federal law enforcement dressing and behaving in a scary, unrestrained manner and reaching deep into our communities in Hawaii to arrest and detain our family members, friends, co-workers, employees, classmates, students, and the like. Rather than deporting violent criminals, as many seem to think President Trump had promised, his administration has been targeting the easiest to arrest in an effort to boost deportation numbers. I’ll give you several examples of what’s happening, including here in Hawaii. In the last few weeks, Immigration & Customs Enforcement (ICE) has been arresting people appearing at their Immigration Court hearings, their check-in appointments with ICE, and their interviews with U.S. Citizenship & Immigration Services (“USCIS”). These people are trying to get legal immigration status the “right way,” but they are being arrested, detained, and then deported simply because they are the easiest to find.
Immigration Court
In the cases of courtroom arrests, ICE’s attorneys have been moving to dismiss pending cases. The attorneys have been coordinating with ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations (“ERO”) to let ERO know which cases they will be trying to get dismissed and when. That way, when the Immigration Judge grants the motion to dismiss (and in some cases, even when the judge denies the motion), ICE agents are waiting outside the courtroom to arrest the people whose cases have been dismissed. ICE then places them in “expedited removal.” Once they’re in expedited removal, they no longer have the opportunity to present their case to an immigration judge and are usually deported within a few days.
The prospect of being arrested and imprisoned after their hearings is obviously scaring people from showing up to their hearings. However, this is a Catch-22 situation because if people do not show up for their hearing, they will automatically get a deportation order. This is such a pernicious scheme that violates very fundamental notions of fairness in our system of justice. In a fair and orderly legal system, we don’t want to scare people away from showing up to their hearings. In fact, we usually punish people for not appearing to their hearings. As lawyers, we want everyone to have due process, their day in court, no matter the outcome of the case. No part of our legal system should be ambushing people like this.
ICE Check-Ins
Similarly, those who are going through the legal process in court and are currently not detained are required to check in periodically with ICE. Sometimes, ICE puts people on a check-in app or an ankle monitor. However, recently, ICE has been calling people to check in at their office in person and then detaining them.
We received a call recently from a woman with a 3-year-old and a 9-year-old. She and her family had an active court case and a pending application for asylum. They were just awaiting their final hearing date. The day before she called, ICE had arrested her husband at a check-in and then called her to come to their office the next day so that they could take her and her kids into custody too. They told her they were planning to send her and her kids to a detention center in Texas, where she would have to fight her case while she and her kids are imprisoned, thousands of miles away from their attorney.
Children Without Parents
Unaccompanied minors are another example of ICE targeting the most vulnerable and easiest to catch. About a month ago, Civil Beat ran a story about federal agents targeted children in Kona (https://www.civilbeat.org/2025/05/ice-takes-aim-at-immigrant-kids-in-big-islands-coffee-belt/). Unaccompanied minors are children who arrived at the border without their parents. In many cases, these kids are fleeing extremely dangerous conditions in their home country, particularly violent gangs and cartels that recruit kids and often kill the ones who refuse to join them. In other cases, the children are escaping parents who abused, abandoned, or neglected them. In these situations, our laws provide that they can apply for asylum or Special Immigrant Juvenile Status, respectively.
ICE has been looking for them to arrest these children and/or their undocumented family members. These children are generally easy for ICE to find because when they came to the border, they were processed through the Office of Refugee Resettlement (“ORR”), which is under the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. ORR is supposed to be more oriented toward social welfare than ICE. Recently, however, the Trump Administration forced ORR to give ICE access to its database containing the names and addresses of these children. Recent arrests in Hawaii have resulted in children being taken away from their families, attorneys, schools, and communities, and taken to be held in facilities thousands of miles away on the mainland.
Q. Has the Trump administration taken any unusual enforcement actions against immigrants?
One thing that has been unusual aboutthe Trump Administration’s immigration enforcement program has been the way it is creating more undocumented immigrants to be arrested by suddenly ending entire immigration statuses. For example, this Administration has ended Temporary Protected Status (“TPS”) for Venezuela, Haiti, Afghanistan, and Cameroon. There are many more countries, including Ukraine and Myanmar, that were designated for Temporary Protected Status, which the Trump Administration could, and will likely, decide to end.
On May 15, 2025, when the Supreme Court decided that the government could end Temporary Protected Status for Venezuelans, up to 350,000 people suddenly went from living here with permission to being undocumented. On the day of this decision, we received calls from Venezuelans in Hawaii who had TPS and were frantic at the sudden loss of their status and were terrified that they would be arrested by ICE.
In May, ICE arrested an Afghan soldier (https://www.houstonpublicmedia.org/articles/news/politics/immigration/2025/06/03/523004/former-afghan-soldier-arrested-at-houston-area-home-by-ice-stripped-of-asylum-protections/) who had helped guard a base where American and Afghan soldiers worked. He had entered the United States legally on humanitarian parole and had no criminal record. He and his family had a pending asylum application. When ICE arrested him, the officer said, “We have canceled everything, and you’re out of status.” Now, ICE is threatening him, his wife, and six kids with deportation to Afghanistan, where they would likely be killed by the Taliban for helping American soldiers.
The same idea applies to the Trump Administration ending humanitarian parole for Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans (“CHNV”). Everyone who had humanitarian parole under the CHNV program had to apply for it from abroad, have a U.S.-based sponsor who promised to support them, and undergo background checks and vetting before they could come here. They came here legally and were allowed to work. Then, suddenly, the Trump Administration decided to yank their status. They are now undocumented and able to be arrested, detained, and deported.
Similar actions include the Trump Administration ending deferred action for kids with Special Immigrant Juvenile Status or suddenly revoking student visas without notice. These actions, which has affected many of our child clients as well as international students at UH, suddenly transform noncitizens who were living here with permission into people who can be arrested by ICE.
I think many people would agree that this is extraordinarily unfair. These people followed the law. By doing things the “right way” and giving the federal government all of their information during their legal process, they became easy targets for ICE to arrest.
We also heard recently from a detainee that there are close to 200 immigrant detainees in the Federal Detention Center right now, and many of the recent detainees are tourists, from places such as Japan, China, Thailand, Tahiti, and Argentina. Because of the wide latitude that is given to Customs and Border Protection (“CBP”) officers, they can exercise their discretion to detain anyone that they suspect might be intending to violate the conditions of their visa. Furthermore, their decision is effectively unreviewable. This is what happened recently to the Australian spouse of a U.S. military member (https://www.hawaiinewsnow.com/2025/05/24/im-not-criminal-australian-woman-recounts-detention-experience-while-trying-visit-us-military-spouse-hawaii/) as well as the German teenagers who were planning to backpack in Hawai‘i (https://people.com/german-teens-detained-hawaii-during-post-graduation-trip-11719907).
Unfortunately, none of what we see the Trump Administration doing in immigration enforcement is making our communities safer. In fact, I believe it’s making us less safe. The Administration is diverting agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigations (“FBI”), Homeland Security Investigations (“HSI”), the Drug Enforcement Administration (“DEA”), and other federal agencies to civil immigration enforcement. These are agencies that used to work on combatting drug and human trafficking and terrorism. Now these agents are arresting undocumented families, including women and children, with no criminal histories and just a desire to work and to raise their kids in a safe place. The Trump Administration has detained 9.3 times the number of individuals without criminal records as the previous administration did. It’s done so at a great cost to its capacity to keep us safe from serious threats to public safety.
Q. What resources are there in Hawaii for immigrants who may be worried about getting deported, and for businesses and schools whose employees or students might get caught up in a raid?
Our law school immigration clinic, in partnership with the Hawaii chapter of the American Immigration Lawyers Association (“HAILA”) runs a rapid response hotline (808) 204-5951, for those who are arrested or about to be arrested. When we are notified of someone who has been detained, we will find out where the person is being detained (usually the Federal Detention Center) and send an attorney to visit the detainee. During these visits, we generally advise people of their rights and inform them of the process they should expect. We also screen people for relief, and if they request it, we will refer them to immigration attorneys. In some cases, our clinic will take the case ourselves. The purpose of the hotline is to ensure that every person receives due process.
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Disclaimer: this material is intended for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. The law varies by jurisdiction and is constantly changing. For legal advice, you should consult a lawyer that can apply the appropriate law to the facts in your case.