"Did you have immigration lawyer watch list on your 2025 authoritarianism BINGO card? If so, congrats! But for everyone else, it's yet another sad slide into federal control to learn that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) posted what appears to be a covert roster of immigration attorneys buried on its own website. The list was discovered by attorney Arlene Amarante, who stumbled upon the list while interacting with ICE's website and found her own name on it."
"Why does the list exist? Whether it's an innocent incursion or something that is more intentional or nefarious, we need to get to the bottom of it. It's troubling because there's a pattern of threats by the administration - the implication by the government is that offering support to a client is the harm in itself and the names on the list sort of seems to support that."
Immigration and Customs Enforcement posted a roster of immigration attorneys on its public website and later removed the list. Attorney Arlene Amarante discovered her name on the roster while using the ICE site and flagged the document. Advocacy organization Al Otro Lado filed a Freedom of Information Act request seeking the list's origin, purpose, and creators. Amarante observed that many listed practitioners were people of color, raising civil liberties and potential targeting concerns. A March 2025 White House memo criticized immigration lawyering as “unscrupulous” and directed enforcement attention toward attorneys, heightening fears of federal surveillance of counsel.
Read at Above the Law
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