Photo by Sarah Jackson

On Monday, July 23, attorney Laura Lunn with the Rocky Mountain Immigration Advocacy Network (RMIAN) went to immigration court at the Denver Contract Detention Center in Aurora unsure of what would happen. She was scheduled to represent a client from Central America, who had been separated from her son at the U.S. southern border, in a bond hearing that was still on the court’s docket. This despite the fact that on Friday, Lunn had received word that her client, along with about 30 other parents at the Aurora facility, had been transferred down to the Port Isabel Detention Center in Texas in an attempt by the federal government to expedite reunification ahead of a court-ordered deadline.

As the week progressed, Lunn’s uncertainty quickly turned to frustration. The procedures that usually dictate how she represents clients in immigration proceedings continued to change.

“This is not normal,” she says. “We have really mobilized to create this infrastructure to accommodate the people who are impacted by [the Trump administration’s zero tolerance] policy. And then it’s shattered when ICE changes their plans and people are taken away from their lawyers, the doctors who want to help with their cases, they’re taken away from homes people have prepared for them. This is not how things usually go.”

In the wake of Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ May announcement of the zero tolerance policy promising to criminally prosecute people crossing the border, the lawyers at RMIAN have worked to place about 40 cases of family separation that have come through the Aurora facility with pro bono attorneys in the Denver area. They’ve also taken on eight cases themselves. They’ve created a network of social workers, doctors and mental health professionals to help their clients’ cases. And they’ve connected them with organizations like Casa de Paz, a nonprofit based in Aurora that hosts immigrants released from the detention facility, and recently has been specifically helping parents separated from their children.

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