I am an immigration and asylum lawyer, practicing in both Idaho and Arizona. In the first half of 2025, several clients have been the subject of aggressive immigration enforcement. This might seem unremarkable, particularly given the now common spectacle of often violent arrests of ordinary workers, students, families, and even children. These operations are conducted under the guise of repelling invaders, arresting criminals, or going after gangs and terrorists. The difference is my clients fit none of those categories. And Erika’s case is particularly compelling, a story of resilience, humanity, and the power of community. The story is also a microcosm of the many legal issues and battles surrounding immigration.

Erika is a young woman from Guatemala. After fleeing her persecutors and traversing Mexico, she hoped to reach the U.S. border to request asylum. Yet, she was left alone to wander the desert for two days, while thirty-five weeks pregnant. Fortunately, the Border Patrol found her. Unfortunately, she was not immediately taken to a hospital, but to a detention facility. Erika’s physical condition further deteriorated, necessitating an urgent visit to a Tucson hospital, where she gave birth to her first child, a healthy girl. Erika was precluded, however, from sharing the joyous news, as Border Patrol agents posted at the maternity ward prevented her from making or receiving calls. Visits were strictly prohibited. A concerned hospital staffer contacted me through a human rights rapid response network, conveying Erika’s precarious situation and Erika’s desire to consult an attorney. When I got to the hospital, a Border Patrol agent blocked me (yes, physically blocked me) from seeing Erika, stating that I would need a signed authorization from her. The type of authorization they were referring to is the ubiquitous immigration form called a G-28. The G-28 permits attorneys to act on behalf of clients and represent them before DHS personnel, like Border Patrol. Clearly, securing her signature on this form was impossible without access to her. Can you say Kafkaesque? The best I could do was to call Erika’s mother in Guatemala to give her the news. Her daughter was alive, having survived the desert, and her family had grown to include a granddaughter, Emily.

The next best thing I could do was reach out to the community and the press and ensure the story entered the public domain.   

The story caught fire locally and by the next day, national and global media outlets reached out for comment about the young Guatemalan woman who had survived the Sonoran Desert; given birth to a U.S. citizen child; was being held incommunicado by the Border Patrol; and was slated for expedited removal without the benefit of due process and proceedings to adjudicate her asylum claim. The outrage was enormous. Concerned people from across the country contacted me, asking how they could help. Local activists organized marches and protested at the hospital. They reached out to everyone they could think of, including the mayor’s and governor’s offices, to demand intervention. Indeed, a prominent law firm contacted me, apparently at the behest of politically influential persons, to offer help in putting together a legal team for anticipated habeas proceedings in federal court. (Fortunately, as will be explained below, habeas proceedings were ultimately not needed, as the government released Erika.) The community and I kept pressing and fighting for a favorable outcome for Erika and baby Emily.

By the time the hospital discharged Erika and her baby, two days after first being refused access to my counsel, the Department of Homeland Security (“DHS”) reversed its position. The groundswell against the Border Patrol had been effective. Erika would be released from custody so she could make her case for asylum in “regular” removal proceedings before an immigration judge and with the benefit of due process. And on day three, she and the baby were free, dropped off by DHS at the offices of a human rights organization where I was able to retrieve them. After a quick debriefing and some time to hold the beautifully sleeping baby, Emily, my partner and I found a hotel for the two to rest. We then made arrangements for their next day highway travel to the East Coast to join the sole person she knows in the United States, a family friend from her same village in Guatemala. Notably, the resilient Erika had been oblivious to her recent fame.

Soon, Erika’s case will be heard in an immigration court where I anticipate representing her to press her asylum claim. Her case is extraordinary in many respects. It represents many points in the constellation of legal issues at the forefront of immigration. There was the matter of an “unlawful” entry, a characterization at odds with a legally established right to request asylum without penalty, as per the Refugee Convention (and the 1967 Protocol, of which the United States is a signatory and party).[i] Recall DHS initially attempted to frustrate this right by announcing its intention to expeditiously remove Erika. That opening salvo signaled the government’s willingness to dispense with constitutional protections, especially the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments of the Constitution. All persons, independent of immigration status, are owed due process, including the right to legal counsel, as well as the right to a full and fair proceeding in which a party can challenge removability from the United States. The 2025 Executive Order No. 14159 (“Protecting the American People Against Invasion”[ii]) would extinguish this right by “enhancing” currently existing expedited removal procedures, a move designed to minimize full legal protections of persons and fast track their removal. 

In the case of little Emily another legal issue emerged: birthright citizenship. Emily was born on U.S. soil to an undocumented mother. The January 2025 Executive Order No. 14160 (“Protecting the Meaning and Value of American Citizenship”[iii]) would seemingly dispossess Erika’s baby of constitutionally guaranteed U.S. citizenship. And to be clear, it is a constitutional guarantee, as per the language of the Fourteenth Amendment: “all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the states wherein they reside.”[iv] For law nerds, this provision simply reflects the ancient legal concept of jus soli (“right of the soil”). The Executive Order disingenuously attempts to read ambiguity into the long-established meaning of birthright citizenship, especially regarding the phrase “and subject to the jurisdiction there of.” The Executive Order states: But the Fourteenth Amendment has never been interpreted to extend citizenship universally to everyone born within the United States.”[v] True, children of diplomats born on U.S. soil cannot acquire U.S. citizenship, as diplomatic families are not subject to the jurisdiction of the United States. However, it is settled jurisprudence that the immigration status (or lack of status) of the parents of children born on U.S. soil does not deprive the children of birthright citizenship. We can go as far back as 1898 for this proposition in the Supreme Court case of United States v. Wong Kim Ark.[vi] The Executive Order’s legality is in litigation now. Recently, the Supreme Court in Trump v. Casa, Inc.[vii] failed to rule on the merits, but rather, addressed the matter in the limited context of nationwide or universal injunctions, holding them to be inappropriate. As for Emily, she is in the process of applying for a U.S. birth certificate in her birth state, Arizona. We can only hope the language and long-held interpretation of the Fourteenth Amendment will hold in her favor.

Erika’s case should also remind us how imperative it is for our sensitive spaces to remain safe for hospital patients, students, worshipers, and persons attending their court hearings. For context, DHS long refrained from operating in sensitive spaces. DHS policy (drawing on several internal memoranda) directed agents to avoid schools, houses of worship, courthouses, and hospitals when conducting immigration enforcement. The broader societal interests were clear. As a matter of public policy, we do not want to dissuade but rather encourage people to go to these kinds of places. Moreover, as a matter of humanity, the government recognized the cruelty of arresting children, patients, or worshippers. On January 20, 2025, the sensitive space policy was reversed, and prior DHS memos were rescinded.[viii] The reversal allowed the Border Patrol to more easily and aggressively operate in hospitals, as I witnessed with Erika. I should add that in her case, the hospital staff was extraordinarily kind to both mother and baby and seemed visibly disturbed by the specter of a young woman detained, effectively as a prisoner in a hospital maternity ward.

Erika’s recent experience in Arizona should matter for Idahoans because it is a harbinger of what may come to our state, particularly if enhanced enforcement resources are put into place by federal and state governments and if enhanced enforcement is not checked. At the time I write this, federal legislation was recently passed, increasing funding for ICE to hire 10,000 more personnel. Moreover, some states, including Idaho, have also joined the deportation frenzy by attempting to enact laws that would allow state law enforcement and judges to enforce immigration laws. Lawyers everywhere must continue to be a bulwark and zealously advocate not only for clients, but for adherence to the Constitution and the rule of law. Our government must be held to account. And as a community we should not stand on the sidelines undisturbed when the constitutional rights of foreign-born persons are targeted for extinction. The current state of immigration in the United States requires our government’s attention, but not at the expense of our laws and our humanity.     

Luis Campos Vasquez is an attorney and former assistant professor of law, having taught and practiced in the areas of immigration, asylum, and international humanitarian law. He currently splits his immigration law practice between Idaho and Arizona. Whenever he can find a bit of free time, he is an avid reader of Latin American literature. The views expressed here are solely his own.

[i] Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees (adopted July 28, 1951, entered into force April 22, 1954) 189 UNTS 137; Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees (adopted January 31, 1967, entered into force October r4, 1967) 606 UNTS 267.

[ii] 90 FR 8443 (January 20, 2025).

[iii] 90 FR 8449 (January 29, 2025).

[iv] U.S. Const. Amend. XIV, Section 1.

[v] 90 FR 8449 (January 29, 2025).

[vi] 169 U.S. 649 (1898).

[vii] 606 U.S. _____ (2025).

[viii] See the DHS Directive, Enforcement Actions in or Near Protected Areas (January 20, 2025) and the subsequent ICE memorandum, “Common Sense Enforcement Actions in or Near Protected Areas” (January 31, 2025).