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Be prepared, not scared: Damjan Denoble at WNHH FM.
New Haven immigration attorney Damjan Denoble is preparing for Trump II Administration sweeps — by ramping down his immigration practice.
What a difference from his experience during Trump I.
Denoble announced his decision to pull back from handling immigration cases in a blog post on the website of his firm — which has added “labor” to its name to reflect a pivot to labor law work.
He called it a “moral” decision. For himself. And for his clients.
“As someone who remembers the emotional and mental exhaustion of representing clients during the 2017 – 2021 period, I know how devastating it can be for clients — and for attorneys — to pursue applications that are likely to go nowhere. Filing applications in good faith, only to see them entangled in bureaucratic limbo or dismissed outright due to systemic changes, is not something I am willing to do again,” Denoble wrote.
The landscape has changed since 2016, when Denoble reacted to Trump’s election on an anti-immigrant platform by building out a 10-person office in North Carolina that helped asylum seekers stay in the country and snuck into detention centers to document and oppose policies in conjunction with activist groups. He ended up working around the clock throughout the Trump administration. At one point he had a heart arrhythmia, at the age of 32.
Back then Trump’s election seemed like a fluke, he said in an interview Tuesday on WNHH FM’s “Dateline New Haven” program. This time Trump clearly won the election, including a plurality of the popular vote. With Republicans controlling both houses of Congress and the U.S. Supreme Court, and with harder-line appointees in the dock, Trump will be able to carry out sweeping changes to limit border crossings and deport many of the estimated 15 million undocumented immigrants living in the U.S., Denoble predicted. Immigration-related agencies will pivot from “servicing” asylum-seekers and citizenship-seekers to just enforcing laws with an aim of clearing people out, Denoble argued.
So he can’t in good conscience take clients’ money for cases unlikely to prevail, he said. And even pro bono work would in many cases offer unrealistic hope. And like some other veterans of The Resistance, he isn’t ready to re-rush to the ramparts.
The activists who do return to the ramparts to resume the immigration fight “should be celebrated and supported” to help them avoid burnout, Denoble said.
Legal Advice: Be Prepared. Not Scared
Despite his declaration, Denoble, an immigrant himself (from the former Yugoslavia), did end up offering free advice during the “Dateline” interview for New Haven immigrants girding for potential federal raids like the ones that terrorized Fair Haveners in 2007.
“I would encourage you not to be scared,” Denoble said. Instead, “be prepared.”
While sweeps will certainly occur, he argued it will take the Trump administration months to staff up and start carrying them out. He predicted they will begin in Texas (where state laws makes it easier to locate people with local law enforcement help), Colorado and California. And he predicted raids will more likely take place in workplaces, not, as in Fair Haven in 2007, at people’s homes.
Still, all immigrants need to prepare themselves for potential deportation efforts this coming year, Denoble advised. And people have more resources at their availability to resist, especially in New England, which has more immigration-friendly governments and judges.
“If you can’t show that you’ve been in the U.S. for more than two years, and it’s shown that you’re undocumented, you could be a target of expedited removal, which means you could be removed from the country without much of an immigration court hearing date,” he said. “It could be quick.”
To avoid that, Denoble advised:
• Carry copies of utility bills, children’s birth certificates, customs service receipts, and other documents that show you’ve “been here for two years.”
• But don’t carry around your passport, which could be used as probable cause to charge that you’re not a U.S. citizen. Also, an agent could remove your passport if you have one on you.
• Don’t answer questions. “You don’t have to tell them, ‘I’m not a U.S. citizen.’ You never have to utter those words, particularly at the point of arrest. You need to be prepared to just shut up. Say nothing.”
• Instead, have an attorney or other advocate ready to speak on your behalf in any legal proceedings.
While Denoble is not planning to be that attorney, he is not yet ready to completely drop all his immigration work, at least for now.
He plans to continue representing family employers seeking to keep workers in the country on H‑2B and EB‑3 visas. He believes he can still be effective, he said. because those particular programs have bipartisan support, including from otherwise anti-immigration Republicans.
That said, given the Trump II Administration’s stated plans and evolving roster of agency heads, “even those programs are not immune.”
Click on the video below to watch the interview with immigration attorney Damjan Denoble on WNHH FM’s “Dateline New Haven.” Click here to subscribe or here to listen to other episodes of “Dateline New Haven.”