What happens to cases of Minnesota immigrants after they are deported?

NINA MOINI: President Donald Trump's campaign to deport thousands of immigrants has had significant impacts for the Southeast Asian community here in Minnesota. At a news conference last weekend by Minnesota 8, an advocacy group helping Southeast Asian immigrant communities, Montha Chum, the co-founder and executive director, told reporters five Hmong Minnesotans in federal detention were transferred to Louisiana and are currently awaiting deportation to Laos.

Sahan Journal reports that as of early June, at least 15 Hmong Minnesotans with criminal convictions were arrested to be deported. That's of early June. Ana Pottratz Acosta returns to the show to dive more into this issue. She's currently a visiting professor at the University of Minnesota Law School and Binger Center for New Americans as well as a former immigration attorney. Thank you so much for coming back on the show, Ana. Always appreciate you.

ANA POTTRATZ ACOSTA: Yeah, of course. Happy to be here.

NINA MOINI: We've been thinking a lot here on the Minnesota Now team about just what different questions we haven't explored, and how can we give our audiences even more information about what's going on, aside from just the individual cases or statistics that we might hear about? So we know that the Department of Homeland Security said that some Southeast Asian immigrants who were deported this month had final orders of removal from an immigration judge, some as early as 2003. What is your sense of what happened there?

ANA POTTRATZ ACOSTA: Sure. So this is a common scenario for many individuals from Southeast Asian countries, particularly Laos and Cambodia. Many people who find themselves with a final removal order in this situation-- oftentimes, what's happened is that the individual came to the United States, usually with refugee status. Often, they came as a very young child. And for all intents and purposes, they've lived in the United States for most of their life.

But because they never became a citizen and only had permanent resident status, that made them vulnerable to removal. And in many of these cases, what happened is they came as children, and then at some point in time, they ran afoul of the law and wound up with a removal order. However, because of diplomatic relations with Laos or other countries, the Department of Homeland Security was not able to execute a final removal order.

So for many of these individuals, they were able to remain in the country under an order of supervision where they would need to do a check in once a year with ICE. But because of the strained diplomatic relations between the United States and Laos, or because they hadn't reached an agreement for Laos to accept deportees, the removal orders were not executed. But it sounds like that has changed, and now, these removal orders are potentially going to be executed.

NINA MOINI: So talking about Laos there-- and of course, we're seeing more orders for removal under the current administration. What happens generally once a judge issues a removal order, like you mentioned, depending on, perhaps, the relationships between the other country and the US?

ANA POTTRATZ ACOSTA: Right. So usually at the trial phase-- so an immigration judge will issue a removal order after the individual has presented an application for asylum or other form of relief before the immigration judge. If that's denied and a removal order is issued, usually, the person has the right of appeal first to an administrative appellate court called the Board of Immigration Appeals and then to the circuit court.

So usually, you have an opportunity to exhaust your administrative or appellate remedies. And then when there is a final removal order, depending on your country of origin or the country where you can be removed to, that may be executed fairly quickly.

Or if you happen to be from a country that does not accept deportees from the United States, then you might be placed under an order of supervision for many years. So, for example, Mexico does accept deportees, so foreign nationals from Mexico often will be removed fairly quickly after receiving a final removal order and exhausting all of their appellate or administrative remedies.

The other issue, too, which is sort of emerging, is that the United States has also recently entered into third country agreements. So in addition to reaching agreements with countries like Laos that have historically not accepted deportees from the United States that are nationals of Laos, we also have agreements with at least four or five countries to accept deportees that are not nationals of that country.

So, for example, El Salvador has reached an agreement with the United States to accept third country nationals or people who are not nationals of El Salvador who have been removed or deported from the United States.

NINA MOINI: So that would present another challenge, I suppose, for people who wanted to continue to fight a legal case. We were wondering. Once someone is deported to a different country-- I mean, whether it be their home country or another, I guess-- how does their legal case change? Do they have any more rights, or does it sort of just end there?

ANA POTTRATZ ACOSTA: Well, the issue is that once somebody is no longer present in the United States, it becomes very difficult to assert any remedies or assert any rights that would allow you to return. The other thing, too, is that under the law, once you have a final removal order and that removal order has been executed, you're statutorily barred from returning to the United States or gaining any sort of immigration benefits.

So, for example, if you have a family member that might be able to sponsor you for permanent residence, you would be barred either, let's say, for 10 years, or if you have a particularly serious criminal conviction, you might be permanently barred from ever returning to the United States. So your remedies are limited, and then you may also face hurdles with even being eligible to return at any point in the future because the removal order has been executed.

NINA MOINI: And you mentioned looking for remedies, resources for the person deported. But I'm also curious about families of someone who perhaps they believe their loved one was wrongfully deported or detained, or maybe they're in one of these third countries that you talked about. Are there resources for the families that remain here?

ANA POTTRATZ ACOSTA: Yes. So if anyone has a family member that is in this situation-- let's say they have a family member with a very old removal order who's now at risk of being removed either to their country of origin or to a third country.

The best thing to do is to consult with an immigration lawyer to see if there are any remedies that would allow-- you can apply for a stay or some sort of remedy to prevent the person from being deported in the first place. Or you would want to explore what remedies or waivers or forms of relief might be available once the person is outside of the United States if that is applicable in the person's situation.

NINA MOINI: And I mentioned off the top there that we had some numbers that Sahan Journal had reported from early June of at least 15 Hmong Minnesotans with criminal convictions that were arrested to be deported. Do you have a sense for how the past few months the summer has gone or know who or how that's being tracked?

ANA POTTRATZ ACOSTA: It's very difficult to exact numbers because it's a very fluid situation. The issue right now is that with enforcement being ramped up the way that it is and also because the action to either remove people with old orders or remove people who have been present in the United States for shorter amounts of time is happening pretty quickly, it's hard to get a sense of what the numbers are in real time.

But we're all kind of keeping our finger on the pulse to see what the numbers are and what remedies might be available. And I think the other thing, too, to keep in mind is that significant funding and resources have been allocated to ICE and the Department of Homeland Security in the recent reconciliation bill, or the One Big Beautiful Bill, so I anticipate that enforcement and removal of individuals and detention of immigrants overall is going to increase pretty significantly over the next six months to a year.

NINA MOINI: And just lastly, Ana, we've done some reporting here at MPR News on just some of the conditions of the places that people are being detained, if they have access to all of the things that they need, which could really be a question for anybody who is detained, I suppose. But do you have a sense for how those experiences have been going? Are you concerned about what it's like for folks as they're there waiting to-- I mean, awaiting their hearings to see if they're going to be deported?

ANA POTTRATZ ACOSTA: Right. Yeah, there are a number of different concerns that myself and other lawyers have with respect to detention conditions and then also just access to counsel and the ability of lawyers to be able to reach their client and communicate with their client.

One issue that I have heard of is that because people are being transported to different detention centers fairly quickly, it's becoming more difficult to track down clients once they are arrested and put into immigration detention. And this is something that has been an issue even before the Trump administration.

But conditions in detention centers really vary. In Minnesota, immigration detention is through county jails, so the two that are more prominent are Sherburne County and then Kandiyohi County, in Willmar. But in other states, immigration detention is through private prison companies.

And with the ramp up in immigration detention, particularly since there appears to be a move to construct these facilities fairly quickly to meet the demands to increase the capacity to detain people, I think that also raises concerns about, what are the conditions going to be of people who are in these very quickly constructed facilities, oftentimes in the middle of nowhere, where it's difficult for a lawyer to have access to their client to communicate with them and work on their case, so on and so forth?

But yeah, there are a lot of open questions and concerns related to detention overall.

NINA MOINI: Yeah. Ana, thank you so much for stopping by Minnesota Now again and keeping your pulse on this and keeping us informed. We appreciate you.

ANA POTTRATZ ACOSTA: Of course. Thank you for having me.

NINA MOINI: That was Ana Pottratz Acosta, a visiting professor at the University of Minnesota Law School and Binger Center for New Americans.