There are about 220,000 undocumented immigrants in Nevada. According to Pew Research Center, one in 10 Nevada households includes an unauthorized immigrant. Immigrants are part of the fabric of our community, attending schools, contributing valuable work and supporting our local economy.
But President Donald Trump, who campaigned on a promise of mass deportation, is seeking to tear that social fabric. His administration has ramped up enforcement across the state and in Southern Nevada, where 443 people are in immigrant detention as of September 15, according to Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse.
“One of the questions we ask in all of our [surveys] with folks in detention is, how did you end up in ICE detention? And we’re hearing people just stopped on the street, dropping their kids off at school, people leaving their house, people getting pulled over by the police for no license during a traffic stop,” says UNLV Immigration Clinic managing attorney Alissa Cooley Yonesawa.
Attorneys at the clinic, which is part of William S. Boyd School of Law at UNLV, defend “the most vulnerable” in removal proceedings—“folks who are in ICE detention, adults and unaccompanied children.”
Deputy managing attorney Melissa Corral says the current administration’s policy of mandatory detention takes no consideration for constitutional rights.
“Some of our clients are in this limbo where we won bonds for them, and they haven’t been released. Now, we have this task of filing habeas petitions in federal court,” Corral says. “We have clients that have committed no crimes. ... We need to stop saying he’s going after criminals.”
The duo are members of a team of five attorneys who are the only pro bono deportation defense attorneys for detained individuals in Nevada. The Weekly sat down with Cooley Yonesawa and Corral to discuss how they became involved in the clinic, the growth in demand for defense services and the current immigration landscape.
You are both William S. Boyd School of Law alums. Alissa, you became manager of the Immigration Clinic in 2021, and Melissa joined in 2022. At one point, you were students at the clinic. How did that experience help shape your career and yourself as an attorney?
MC: When I did the Immigration Clinic, we were put in court right away. ... And my professor, Director [Michael] Kagan and the other adjunct professor at the time, pulled me aside and said, you can really do this. You’re good at it. ... You can talk to people on a level that I will never be able to. You talk to them in Spanish. They see the way you look; their defenses are going to come down. ... [With] him telling me that, my career shifted completely. After that, it was like, OK, this is exactly what I want to do.
AC: I wanted to be a public defender, to defend the Constitution and hold the state to their burden. ... And then I did the Immigration Clinic. I ended up falling in love with it because it was every reason why I wanted to do criminal defense and be a public servant. It applied in immigration, too. The Constitution needs to be protected even more because, in immigration proceedings, if you can’t afford [an attorney], you’re out of luck. The government can go unchecked in a situation like that. ... So I decided to shift.
Immigration is the Trump administration’s top priority, and a large part of that is sending ICE and other federal agents into communities to crack down and, as the president’s deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller said, “go out there and arrest illegal aliens.” How has this affected your workload?
AC: Immediately; it increased by three times. We were getting three times the number of calls, from folks in detention in particular. As of July, it was four times the amount [we’d usually get].
At the same time, the Trump administration canceled the Immigrant Justice Corps fellowship grants that make up about one-third of UNLV Immigration Clinic’s funding.
AC: We [used to have] a team of eight lawyers. And now, we have a team of five attorneys, but only four can do detained work. [So] we have an increase in calls, but we also have less attorneys who can help. And the demand is higher than it’s ever been—more people in detention to the point where there aren’t even beds for them.
In June, the Supreme Court gave Trump and federal agencies the green light to detain people based on their race, language or where they work. The high court froze a lower court’s ruling against the practice of “roving patrols.” How do you think it affects the immigration landscape?
MC: Do I think this decision makes it worse for people [of color]? Definitely. It has been a conversation in my family about, should we talk in Spanish? Should we go to these places?... Those are sad conversations that I never thought I would have to [have], especially in a country that is all about liberty and freedom.
AC: I think that will result in more people being not “the worst of the worst.” We’re already seeing that about 70% of people in ICE detention, at least in Nevada, are not the worst of the worst. They have no criminal conviction, or it’s very minor from a long time ago. I think it’s just “arrest whoever you think looks like a bad hombre,” which is anybody with brown skin. Mistakes will be made [on] people who have status, who are citizens.
Detention facilities are getting crowded. According to the Transactional Records Access Clearninghouse, Southern Nevada Detention Center in Pahrump is the eighth most overcapacity ICE facility in the nation. What have you heard from your clients about the conditions?
AC: Nevada Southern [Detention Center] historically, before this administration housed somewhere in between, like 120 to under 200 but now in the last report from [September], they had [365]. We have heard a lot of stories. People are sleeping on the floor. They’re putting more people in the facility, and not adjusting the number of phones so people can call loved ones and lawyers. They have terrible access to medical. We’ve had lots of people with pretty serious health issues say that they have to wait a month or more to see a doctor.
Earlier this year, Homeland Security Investigations was doing “wellness checks” on undocumented unaccompanied children across the country. Did this happen in Las Vegas?
MC: Earlier this year, out of the blue, there were HSI agents, FBI agents knocking on our clients’ doors. They didn’t put out a memo. We found out because one of our clients called. I believe it was like two to three calls later that we noticed a pattern, and so we figured out what was happening. They were visiting these kids under the pretense of, we’re just checking up on you. ... There was an [ICE] memorandum then that basically says that those are, those are likely the people that are going to be detained next. ... And unfortunately, not only their kids, but their sponsors ... might have also received that child in their home, but not be documented, not have legal status here. So that’s an easy target. “The kid might not be 18 yet, ... but if I arrest the sponsor, nobody’s going to have a problem with that.”
What’s something you wish people knew about immigration law?
AC: It’s not easy. “Get in line” is a common soundbite from people who are opposed to illegal immigration. I really wish people would find more information before saying things like that, because sometimes, there’s no line for people to get into. “Do it the right way” doesn’t exist for certain kinds of people. When you say [that], you’re speaking from a place of privilege. We’re all part of the same community. We’re all neighbors.
Those interested in donating to the UNLV Immigration Clinic can visit law.unlv.edu/clinics/immigration.
