Attorney Luis Cortejomero gets a call. The other person on the other end of the phone says, his name is Tony Ramirez. He's calling on behalf of his brother Daniel, who, like Louise, is a doctor recipient and he just got picked up by eyes. He might be the first doctor recipient, the first Dreamer arrested by the Trump administration. Confused, Louise asks, did he miss up somehow? Was he in jail? Did he lose his DOCA? No, they just picked him up.
The voice on the phone says it's a Friday, and Daniel's on the verge of having to spend the weekend in a detention center in Washington. His brother Tony tells Louise that he was in their first call. All the other lawyers told Tony he'd have to wait until Monday. Louise can't get the image of Daniel, a fellow DOCA recipient forced to be in captivity for several days, out of his head. That could happen to me, he thinks,
So Louise drives to the detention center. He tells the front desk that he's there to meet his client, Daniel Ramirez for a second the idea that they might arrest him to runs across Louise's mind. After a while, they leave Louise into a room where Daniel is waiting. Louise can see that Daniel is scared and very confused. They were looking for somebody, Daniel says in a soft voice. They were looking for my dad, but they just assumed I was him. They didn't even ask me any questions.
They just put me in cuffs because of my tattoos. Louise notices the letters BCS tatted on Daniel's arm. It stands for Baja California, so the initials of Daniel's birth estate. The ICE agents are calling it a gang tattoo. It's an intimidation tactic and it's working. Louise tries to stop Daniel from panicking and says everything's gonna be okay, but
Louise is not sure what's happening. DOCA was supposed to protect people like Daniel, people like Louis two, but in the following months, the Trump administration is going to strip Daniel of his protected status and fight to deport him, and also to end DAKA for everyone, and as far as Louise is concerned, there's nothing okay about that. I'm Patti Rodriguez, i'mmeric G.
Lindo.
This is Out of the Shadows, a podcast about America's tangled history of immigration. Last season, we tackled Ronald Reagan's nineteen eighty six Amnisty Act. This season, we're tracing the origins of DACA, or Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, a contentious executive order to protect undocumented young people from being.
Deported issued by former President Barack Obama in twenty twelve. DACA was meant to be a temporary gap on a broken immigration system. It was like putting a bucket under a leaky roof. But with multiple Supreme Court challenges and looming presidential elections, the roof feels like it may collapse at any moment, impacting the US economy and American culture as we know it. Meanwhile, the future of millions of lives hangs in the balance.
Welcome to Out of the Shadows, Dreamers.
All right.
So it's twenty seventeen Trump's first year in office, and he's already killed DABA, Obama's short lived program that would have extended deportation protection to undocumented immigrant parents of American born children. Then, in September, the Trump administration makes its next move on immigration. Attorney General Jeff Sessions announces the end of DACA.
Good morning, I'm here today to announce that the program known as DACA that was effectuated under the Obama administration is being rescinded.
The move is led by Sessions and then Senior adviser Stephen Miller, whose fingerprints were on some of Trump's harshest decisions.
The policy was implemented unilaterally, to great controversy and legal concern. In other words, the executive branch, through DACA, deliberately sought to achieve what the legislative branch specifically refused to authorize on multiple occasions. Such an open ended circumvention of immigration laws was an unconstitutional exercise of a authority by the executive branch.
In the same way that Obama uses executive power to bring DACA to life, Trump used his to stick a dagger it's beating heart. Just like that, hundreds of thousands of dreamers were about to lose their work permits, their way to make a living gone, or worse, that all be deported. Trump's sudden decision raised all these questions, especially for lawyers like Louis.
We were still working on Daniel's case when when we heard about the news about DOCA NY there was rumors around there being a big immigration announcement being done and that it was going to happen. I remember it was like on a Friday, so we were all kind of waiting to see what would happen Friday, and nothing happened, And it wasn't until it was that following Monday where then Attorney General Jeff Sessions came out and announced the.
Ending of DACA in Daniel's case from the top of the show. He was stripped of his DAKA status, but Louise and his team worked hard to reinstate it. The case snowballed and made it to federal court.
We were able to map out a legal blueprint as to what is DACA illegally and how can the courts defend it and what can the government do with it and what can they do with it.
When Louise got the federal judge to restore Daniel's DACA status, it was a huge moment for Daniel. But that fight was about to become much bigger than about one guy with the Baja tattoo.
Hard Well.
I had a great arte. Folks were talking a great love for them. And people think in terms of children, but they're really young adults. I have a love for these people, and hopefully now Congress will be able to help them and do it properly. And I can tell you in speaking to members of Congress, they want to be able to do something and do it right, and really we have no choice. We have to be able
to do something. And I think it's going to work out very well, and long term it's going to be the right sellers.
After the break, Louise takes on Trump.
Louis had one Daniel's case by proving that the Trump administration couldn't just end for one person, so how could they end it for hundreds of thousands of people? Luista he stumbled onto the answer.
We were able to defend DACA for an individual when we felt like the government was acting unlawfully. Can we scale this to defend all of DACA?
His team cut wind of other suits against the administration, none of which were representing DACA recipients.
One of the things that we realized is that immediately when that happened, there was some lawsuits that were filed and we saw that the state of California filed the lawsuit. We saw that the University of California system, the U See Regents, you see Davis, UCLA, they filed the lawsuit, but no one was filing a lawsuit on behalf of the actual dreamers. And these stories are important to tell.
Worry that those people who were actually impacted by Trump's policies weren't being represented, and his team saw an opportunity to represent those voices. His team's early plans considered filing the suit with Louise as the face of it, but Louise wanted to work on the case rather than be the case.
And so I started calling doc recipients that I knew, a doctor, a lawyer, a teacher, and I wanted to make sure that we had a cross representation of folks and said I told them, Hey, we're trying to file a lawsuit to try to stop this, and we need people to be our plaintiffs, to be our clients. Do you want to be this person? By the way, I need to know tonight, So I'll give you time to think about it right now, but I need to know
like later today. Uh, So I need to know in a few hours, talk to whoever we need to talk to, but it's going to We're going to file a lawsuit. And six people said yes. We quickly started filing, putting it together, and we filed. We filed a lawsuit on behalf of the doctor recipients on a Wednesday, and by that Monday, we were in court and things were moving fast.
Attorney to Sessions gave six months before the program would end, so things were moving at lightning speed.
And this team of people who were there there was so there was a large team of people because now we were with the state of California, we were with the UC regions, and I was by far the youngest person there. So I just assumed that people who were older like would want to like argue the case and you know, be in court and do whatever. And you know, I was. I was just happy to be there. So
I just assumed that was going to happen. But the judge in California said, you know, like, hey, this thing is moving fast, and so we're gonna I remember one time he said, We're going to have a court hearing to see if I'm going to give an order to keep the program in place, right the injunction that ultimately kept the at least part of the doctor program alive during this entire fight, because I want to hear it on that but I need to know how DOCA works.
I need to know the historical context stuff deferred action but decades ago, like how did this program come to? I need to know everything about it.
Louise felt like this was his moment. All those sleepless nights studying the mechanics of deferred action would finally pay off. He joined the battle as the expert on the subject, but it was a fine line. The stakes are now suddenly higher because even though he wasn't the face of the case, it was like he was defending himself in court.
I actually went to law school specifically not wanting to do immigration law. I had told myself I'm not going to do immigration law because it had just it was just all over my life and I lived it, and I think it's almost like almost like a fear of confrontation too. It had impacted every aspect that my life, had, had separated me from one of my parents and had stopped me from doing so many things that I almost just didn't want to face it. Not only had I
lived it, but I had like really studied it. I had really really studied it on my own because I really like, I wanted to know how it worked, and I needed to know how it worked because I needed to know how this impacted my family. So I really nerded out on some of the historical parts of it.
And everybody else who was there, you know, they were civil rights attorneys, some of them were corporate attorneys, but they didn't have time to get caught up to speed on this, and so when they needed someone to have these hearings, They're like, is you you have to go?
And it was a little bit like it kind of felt like that movie Slim Dog Millionaire, a little bit like a lot of it is because of my lived experience, because I had already gone through it, and then I just get placed in the situation where I'm like, this is where your knowledge goes.
Theresa's DOCA status gave him a keen insight that no other person had. He could speak from experience because he lived it.
And so I'm at the court and this is like in California, like at the first level, and I'm answering all the judges questions and then he starts asking me about like how does this actually work? Like you apply and then what happens. I'm like, you go in, you take your fingerprints, they ask you a few questions. These are the questions they ask you. They take your photo. Your photo's got to look like this.
Louise was sounding like a DOCA scholar, but no one else in the courtroom knew Louise had DOCA.
At one point, he's like, wait, wait, how do you know this? Like, how do you know that this is how it works? I told him, like I went through it. I'm a doctor recipient myself, and I went through it. And I think it dawned on him like, Oh, there's somebody right in front of me who this matters to. This isn't just an abstract legal issue or something that is going to impact the people outside. This is going to impact somebody who's arguing in my court right now.
And there was a change in tone and feeling that it happened when he found out that I was a doctor recipient. I think for the better.
Louise's DOCA status was like his secret weapon and added weight to his case. It made it that much more real. After that hearing, there were signs that Louis and his team might actually have a fighting chance.
Doesn't mean that we've won yet, but we have a strong likelihood of winning the case. And so because we made a showing that we have a strong likelihood of winning the case that the government ending DOCA was unlawful. In other words, the way that they ended it wasn't right. The judge gave us what is called an injunction, which means that he put an order that essentially stops the government from ending the program.
So things are looking up for DACA, but this is just one judge at the state level. After the break, Louis is going to have to convince the Supreme Court that ending DACA would be catastrophic. DOCA was on life support, but it wasn't dead yet, and the fight in the courts was just ramping up. The injunction was like a shard of glass stabbing DACA and heard, but it was also what was keeping it from bleeding out entirely.
The government wasn't happy about that. They weren't happy about the injunction, and so that's how the case got fast tracked, because then they appealed to that injunction, that court order that said you have to keep the DOCA program at least partially alive. So that goes up to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, and that goes up in May of twenty nineteen. It goes up to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in Los Angeles, and the arguments are
presented there. Eventually, the Ninth Circuit rules in our favor, unanimously in our favor, and again rejects the government's arguments that the way that the end of the DOCA program was correct and lawful.
It was in the Ninth Circuit Court where Luis and his team started to unravel the human elements of this hearing from DOCA recipients, hoping, like the dreamer activists before him, that if people just heard their stories, they'd understand why the program matters.
And I remember telling the plaintiffs that I called my friends. There were my friends that I called it. I was like, hey, you want to be part of this lawsuit? And I told them, I was like, I can't guarantee that we're going to win, but I can guarantee you that they're going to know our stories. Guarantee you that much, and I'm going to push for it, and I felt a responsibility amongst the team there that that wasn't lost on us.
And it felt like I felt very proud that that strategy had worked because it seemed like the Ninth Circuit really took it to heart. So the Ninth Circuit rules in our favor again. The government now takes it up to the Supreme Court.
Now, Luis was entering the biggest national stage for legal proceedings. It had moved so fast that he couldn't really take it all in. But when he arrived in DC, his heart swelled when he saw the overwhelming support for DOCA. It fueled him.
There was a big gathering of all sorts of folks right pro and against DACA, but the folks that showed up on support of DACA. I mean there was thousands of people there, people who had walked from New York as a form of a demonstration that they were supporting DOCA. The day of the hearing was was an amazing day because we really felt that the you know, the support from the community.
In the previous episodes, we heard Luis's story. He's come a long way from being an undocumented lawyer that couldn't practice to representing people like him in the Supreme Court.
It was very surreal to me because I went to law school before there was DACA, and I remember being told like, hey, you might graduate from law school, but you can't practice law, man, because you don't you know, you have obstacles to go through because of your status. And so I when I remember, you know, for almost finishing law school thinking like, man, I'm not even going to get to practice law, to now being at the Supreme Court, like, I get really choked up about it.
I'm not going to lie, like even still when I think about it, because I had the honor to help represent my community and a community that's very near and dear to me, and you know, the doc recipients and the trust that they gave me about it, I'll say this, it went by so fast. We get in there, and I, you know, we it's a lot of spinning plates that we have to keep our eye on. There's a lot that we have to kind of make sure that we're considering.
And so I feel very focused like making sure that we have the eye enterprize and and that's kind of all that mattered at that point, which is a little bittersweet because it kind of in retrospect, I kind of wish I would have taken a little bit more time to kind of sit there and take it in. But I was almost there for like with with one thing in mind, right, like this is the focus.
After the hearing, things went silent, Louise was starting to get anxious. He developed a routine. As soon as he woke up, he checked his phone, hoping to see the announcement. Nothing. He logged onto his computer, clicking, refreshed constantly, over and over and over and over. It was like that for weeks, obsessively refreshing, hoping to find out Doca's fate.
And I've been doing that for for weeks. I've been doing that, And the day the decision came in, I planned to wake up early and I like overslept a little bit, and so the decision, when the decision was announced, like I was just waking up and I just figured, like, it's not going to come today because I've been checking literally every day for weeks, and it just felt like any other day, Like that's how much I was not
planning on it, at least not that day. And so then I see the decision comes out, in my heart just drops and I'm on my phone looking at it, because usually I'm on my laptop, but I was running late. I've overslept, and so I'm going through my phone and I'm trying to get it load. And I see that the decisions there, the way in which the government terminated the program was lawful, and so that the Ninth Circus
decision stands. I could not believe it. I had to like read it over and over and over again just to make sure that that that's that that I made sense of it. And I immediately called one of the other attorneys who was working on the case, and I was like, did you get the decision? And you know, he's very emotional. He goes, we won, we won, we won. And that's that's how it was confirmed to me, because I was like, I must not be reading this right.
After a hard battle in the courts, Louise and his team beat the Trump administration and brought DOCA back to life. It took a lawyer with docca's status to ensure its survival, but Louise is the first to acknowledge that DOACA exists because of the fight by dreamers, and it wasn't just some handout.
What's important. I think to know if nothing else about DOCCA is that it was not a gift from them, President Obama. It's not like you woke up one day and said, here's DACA. The reason that DOCA exists is because community activists and immigrants rights activists like really pushed Obama during his re election year and kept his feet to the fire and called him the deporter in chief
and all that. And we know now from his latest book that like that really got to him, That really got to him, and he didn't He didn't like that. And so DOCCA was a political concession after a sustained, sustained and direct activism. And so that's why DOCCA is so important to the immigrant rights movement, because it was heart fought and earned.
The win was monumental. I remember exactly where I was the day the decision came down from the court. I traveled to the affluent Alley neighborhood of Pacific Palisades. I'd gone there to talk to a DOCCA recipient who also owned a popular taco truck out there. We were both expecting it to be a bad day for DACA holders, but it turned out to be the opposite.
I am a DACA recipient.
Today, I feel relieved, and I feel more energized than ever to continue with this fight for our rights and for.
A chance for a better future.
That's rolod Fo Barrientos, the owner of Taco Truck Garcia signor. I highly recommend the fish Tacos if you ever get a chance to get out there. I'm not gonna lie. I was relieved. Or roloada fole that day could have
gone the other way, but it didn't. Instead, there were almost a million roloada fols across the United States, all of whom must have felt a collective sense of relief that morning from Luis's fight to reinstate DACA, people who contribute so much to this country, not just as our neighbors and community members, but I'm talking billions of dollars. The Supreme Court may have ruled that the Trump administration ended DACA the wrong way, but by that point DACA
had basically proved too big to fail. In other words, the amount of money DACA beneficiaries contribute to the economy might have had something to do with the courts ruling.
Fortune five hundred companies got together and collectively signed on to a brief I'm talking about like Airbnb, Yahoo, like a lot of them. There's like a whole list of them saying if DACA ends, like, let us tell you about the economic impact.
If conservatives only understand profit incentives, Well, next time we'll get into the huge stacks of cash DAKA folks bring to the economy.
Out of the Shadows Dreamers is as Medo Production in partnership with Iheart's Michael Duda Podcast Network. It's created, posted, and executive produced by me, Patti Rodriguez, and Eric Galindo. This show is written by Sessa Hernandez and executive produced by Jaselle Banzis. Our supervising producer is Arlene Santana. It's
produced and edited by Brianna Flores. Our associate producer is Claudia Marti Gorena Down the sign mixing and mastering by Jessica Cranecicch and a special thanks to all our Dreamers. Remember to subscribe to the podcast and share it. For more Michael Duda Podcast listen to the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.