Episode 7: Ruben Espinoza

Harry Nalbandyan
What effect has the change in the administration or the new ice policies had on on your immigration clients?

Ruben Espinoza
Yeah, I think there’s, there’s certainly a lot of fear out there. That’s for sure. You know, we, you know, we get a lot of calls, right? Basically, just want to know, are they in danger? You know, how can they defend themselves? What can they do. It’s only been about two weeks, right? You know, since new administration took power, but we’ve already seen, you know, quite a bit of action right in immigration law, and undoubtedly, there’ll be more. So it’s almost a day to day thing, you know, where things are coming up constantly.

Harry Nalbandyan
Welcome to Harry handles it, podcast where we dive into the world of personal growth, success strategies and everything in between. I’m your host, Harry Nalbandyan, and today we’re going to chat with an incredible guest who has some amazing insights to share. Remember, no matter what life throws your way, I’m here to help you handle it. Let’s get started.

I’m excited to welcome our new guest, Ruben Espinoza, who’s a distinguished Los Angeles based immigration attorney. Ruben, good morning. How are you?

Ruben Espinoza
Good morning, Harry, yeah, doing, doing okay this morning. Yeah, thanks. Thanks for having me on.

Harry Nalbandyan
Of course. Can you tell our listeners a little bit about your practice area and what you do for for immigration clients?

Ruben Espinoza
Yeah, so, so my firm handles a wide variety of immigration matters, anythingfrom affirmative applications with the civil agency, USCIS, to removal defense cases before EOIR, that’s the immigration court. We also handle appeals before the BIA and the Ninth Circuit. And you know, most of what we do is family based immigration. We do asylum, we do u visas, so we do a variety of work. The only thing we probably don’t do much of, or any of is really employment law immigration, that tends to be its own specialty. But other than that, we’ve pretty much seen everything. Yeah, everything.

Harry Nalbandyan
What inspired you to specialize in this area of the law for immigration?

Ruben Espinoza
Yeah so, I mean, I’m an immigrant myself, you know, my parents brought me here at the age of five from Mexico, and so, you know, I grew up here, and fortunately, at that time, we were able to legalize fairly quickly. My dad had been here, you know, long before we, we got here and so. So through that connection, we were able to to acquire residency and later citizenship. So there’s a personal angle to this, for sure, for me. And I mean, I think that, you know, ultimately, why? Why I do it every day.

Harry Nalbandyan
Awesome, man. I I’m also we immigrated to this country. My kids are first generation. Been here a long time, but you know, the American Dream is what brought us here, and is what is continuing to help us prosper. For sure, people gain that status is, I’m sure, immensely fulfilling.

Ruben Espinoza
It is, to be honest with you, you know, I think that, you know, as an attorney, and I’ve done various, you know, types of law. I mean, coming out of law school, you know, I defended cities and municipalities and public entities, you know, I did a little bit of employment law. I’ve done other things, you know, and it is gratifying. I mean, if you get a win right, to be proud of that. But I don’t think anything quite compares, you know, to getting somebody, you know, their legal status, you know, because it doesn’t have an effect just on them, right? I mean, it’s a generational impact, you know. So, so, yeah. I mean, it can be a pretty good feeling to get that, yeah, for clients.

Harry Nalbandyan
I mean, speaking of that good feeling in giving these people, giving our people permanent status to be here. What effect has the change in the administration or the new ice policies had on on your immigration clients?

Ruben Espinoza
Yeah, I think there’s, there’s certainly a lot of fear out there, that’s for sure. You know, we, you know, we get a lot of calls right from current clients or even prospective clients who you know, just, basically, just want to know. You know. You know. Are they in danger? You know. How can they defend themselves? What can they do? You know. And so that’s a lot of what’s driving it right is that fear, that uncertainty about what you know, what is to come and how things will change. So, you know. And it’s in its almost, I mean, it’s only been about two weeks, right, you know, since new administration took power, you know, but, but we’ve already seen, you know, quite a bit of action, right, in immigration law. And undoubtedly, there’ll be more so, so So it’s almost a day to day thing, you know, where things are coming up constantly, yeah.

Harry Nalbandyan
Based on what you’ve seen, of course, not legal advice. But what can people do to protect themselves in a situation like that? Yeah.

Ruben Espinoza
So, you know, I think the biggest concern that I have is, you know, the agencies, right, whether it be the enforcement agencies of ice and CBP, or whether it be the civil agency of USCIS, or even, you know judges and immigration court is, is, you know due process issues, right? You know, people not being given a fair shake to be able to present their claims, that’s the biggest concern that I have. And we saw this, you know, in Trump one right, where Trump the first administration is what I what I’m talking about is where, you know, CIS would start to deny applications for, or reject applications for, you know, seemingly arbitrary reasons, right? You know, maybe we didn’t, you know, fill out. There was a moment of time where they expected everyone to put not applicable on certain fields, right, which had never been a practice before. But all of a sudden they just started rejecting applications for arbitrary reasons. That’s what concerns me the most, I think beyond that, for people that you know are here without status, who either have a criminal record, who’ve had hearings before immigration court, or have had applications before cis and who also have a criminal record or who may have outstanding orders of deportation, either issued by a judge or issued by the the enforcement agencies like CBP. I think those people right now at least, are really in the crosshairs. You know, those are the people that you know should probably have a plan right for how to deal with an encounter with ice. So obviously, you know, you can have an ice officer show up at their house, right, if they’ve registered their address right as part of the process they’ve been in before. Then, you know, ice, there’s a good chance, I said, some point, right? We’ll go knocking on their door, and at that point, you know, it really be. It comes down to just knowing, you know your constitutional protection, right? And so what I’m telling people is, well, you know, you have, number one, the right to refuse entry. You know, if the officer does not have a signed judicial warrant. What ice tends to use a lot is administrative warrants, which are not the same. And so we tell people make sure, if they do have a warrant, number one, don’t open the door, you know, ask for the warrant. Ask to see the war and have it pass through the door, right below, the door and and make sure it’s a judicial warrant. Make sure it’s signed by Judge before you go and open the door. So, so, you know, that’s a Fourth Amendment Right, right? And so, so we would counsel them on that. We counsel them on, you know, exercising their fifth amendment right against self incrimination. So again, limiting you know, or refusing to answer you know, any questions you know. Again, for those people specifically, I think it’s really important again without the presence of a an attorney. Now, immigrants don’t have the right to counsel under the Constitution, unlike criminal defendants, however, they do have a right to counsel under federal law. So although it’s not a constitutional right you know for especially for somebody you know who’s who’s vulnerable, good idea to exercise that right and seek to seek the advice of their attorney before trying to answer any questions. And those would be the main things, right, that we counsel people who who are in that kind of situation, right, whether it’s ice showing up at their door, or whether there’s, there’s an interaction, right, you know, where they’re get pulled over, or whether it’s a workplace rate, obviously, you know, we’ve seen all that before. We expect that to, you know, pick up and so, so at that point, you know, it’s really just about being armed and knowledgeable, right with, you know, with that information,

Harry Nalbandyan
the deportations that we’ve been seeing in the news after this admission administration took place. Have there been deportations like this before? Are there different administrations from your experience?

Ruben Espinoza
Well yes. I mean, obviously you have deportations right throughout, you know, different administrations. I think again, going back to my concern, I think the concern is about lack of due process. So, you know, immigrants in the United States are entitled to due process, you know, regardless of their immigration status, right? The problem is, you know, where you have an administration that’s very aggressive about immigration enforcement, they may be willing to cut corners, you know, sometimes little corners, sometimes big corners. One of the things that has been bandied about, it hasn’t been implemented formally, at least to my knowledge, is expanding a. What’s known as expedited removal. So expedited removal is an authority that’s given to immigration enforcement. Usually it’s CBP to issue a removal order at the at the border without the involvement of a judge. Now, typically, that’s reserved for cases where the individual who’s trying to enter the United States has presented some kind of fraudulent application visa or has made a false claim to US citizenship to try and gain entry, that’s when you tend to see the expedited removal orders issued. However, what’s been talked about is expanding that authority to to have ice issue, expedited removal in cases where the individual hasn’t or cannot prove that they’ve been in the United States continuously for two years. Again, that’s been thrown around, as far as I know. That hasn’t quite been implemented yet, but that would be very concerning, right? You can imagine a situation where, you know, an individual is driving down the street, they get pulled over, or, you know, or ISIS, you know, after them, and they don’t have any evidence that they’ve been here for two years. Or, you know, ice won’t give them that opportunity to present it. Or maybe ice, you know, the ice agent looks the other way, and, you know, doesn’t, doesn’t believe that they’ve presented enough information. And so you have the enforcement agency also acting in a judicial capacity. And of course, you know, there’s, there’s a lot of room for abuses there, so that’s, that’s, that’s a big concern.

Harry Nalbandyan
And so when you have the enforcement officer making also a judicial determination, that’s when the due process coroners can potentially be cut.

Ruben Espinoza
That’s, that’s a concern. That’s certainly a concern, yeah, and, you know, and we’ve seen, you know, most recently this week, as a matter of fact, you know, the Laken Riley Act get passed, and so that’s a law that obligates detention of undocumented immigrants where there’s been a criminal charge levied against them, not a conviction, just a charge for burglary, theft, assault of a police officer or other crimes involving serious harm to others, you know, or death. So obviously, you know, nobody wants, you know, a dangerous people out in their communities, you know. And certainly, you know, I’m one of those. But I think that the concern here is, is that if, if we’re detaining people simply based on an accusation that, again, there is room for abuse there, right? Because, once you’re detained, the ability to to present your case, for example, you know, the ability to gather evidence work with your counsel is severely limited. You know, because these, especially because these detention centers tend to be, you know, in remote areas. You know, I, you know, my office is, you know, you know, earshot from downtown LA but, and we have, you know, an immigration court in downtown, but, you know, the nearest, you know, detention center is out in Adelanto, which is, you know, maybe an hour and a half drive from here. So there’s some real practical limitations right to trying to defend that kind of case.

Harry Nalbandyan
Circling back on what individual immigrants can do for themselves, having some sort of evidence on their person while they’re at work or wherever, where these ways may occur, you think that would be helpful for them to be able to present their case.

Ruben Espinoza
Yeah for sure, for sure. So you know, citizens are not required to carry proof of their citizenship. That that’s not a requirement. Unlike people who are, for instance, residents of the United States, they are required to carry that proof with them. So certainly, you know, anybody that is a resident, legal resident, should carry that around with them. Anybody that has a application that’s pending before the agency or before the court, they should carry that paperwork around with them, right the likelihood that an ice agent would go and detain somebody who’s already registered with the agency, who’s already has hearings or proceedings before the immigration court? It’s not impossible, but it’s highly unlikely, unless that person is is determined to be a risk, a security risk, basically, to the community, right where they maybe they’ve committed some crime or something along those lines, but, but yeah. I mean, carrying that paperwork is going to be really helpful, you know. And it doesn’t hurt to have, you know, paperwork, especially for recent arrivals that can speak to their presence in the United States continuously for two years. Again, we don’t have an indication that the policy has been formalized, but is is floating out there. And so in anticipation that it may be enacted, we want to be ready for that.

Harry Nalbandyan
Do you think that we mentioned the criminal backgrounds or they had a hearing in the past? Do you think that immigrants without a criminal background or without pending charges are still at risk during these, these first phase ice rates.

Ruben Espinoza
Well, I think there, there’s still, there’s still some risks involved. I mean, you know, you’ve seen, you know, some news reports, right? Of US citizens, you know, getting, getting questioned or detained, right? You know, so, so there’s, there’s still risk. I think at this point those risks, risks are not especially poignant or not realized just yet. I think there’s just a danger there again, of abuses, right? But, you know, I think that again, it doesn’t hurt, you know, to carry that documentation with you, right? Yeah,

Harry Nalbandyan
yeah. When we talk about immigration status, what does adjustment status mean for a candidate in immigration court?

Ruben Espinoza
Yeah, so adjustment means that you’re going from one status to another, right? So you know, you might be adjusting from a person of no status or no permanent status to a person who does have permanent status, right? That’s a green card holder. But there are other adjustments there, you know, there are adjustments from, you know, say, student visa, to something else, or, you know, it just means a change, basically, in your status, right? That’s technically what adjustment refers to. Most people, from a practical standpoint, when they ask about adjustment they’re asking about green cards, right? They’re asking about legalizing their status permanently in the country.

Harry Nalbandyan
Got it. So the adjustment status is going from a unimmigration status, whatever that may be, to to a different level, right? Right? Right? And so when people seek immigration help services from you they’re seeking an adjustment change.

Ruben Espinoza
Most of the time, yes, most of the time. You know, although you know, sometimes people understand, right? Maybe they’ve consulted with other attorneys and they know they don’t really have a claim to be able to make to get green card status. And so, you know, barring that, then people are looking for, you know, work permit, right? Something to be able to live and work legally in the United States. And there are some options for that, you know, again, right now, they’re, they’re more limited, they’re more restricted, but, but, yeah, I mean, that’s also a possibility.

Harry Nalbandyan
And with the US kind of being the apple the eye for immigrants, I feel like still worldwide to be able to come here. Do you have any specific advice for asylum seekers to be able to enhance the odds to get protective status?

Ruben Espinoza
Yeah, that that, that’s, you know, definitely one of the groups that that I think has been targeted the most right with these initial actions. So right now, for instance, President Trump has reenacted the remain in Mexico policy, which was active during the COVID lockdowns, and so that policy basically obligates asylum seekers presenting their claims at the border to remain in Mexico, if that’s obviously, if that’s the border where they presented their claim to remain there pending hearings in the immigration court. So the first go around, you know, you’d have people transported from, you know, these border communities like, you know, Tijuana, Mexicali, into, you know, courts along the border, right? So it might be San Diego. There is a, you know, there are others right in El Centro and, you know, throughout Texas. So, so, so you have that, okay? And of course, that, you know, makes it very difficult for somebody to be able to present their claim in the best possible light or in the best possible way, because usually in Mexico, they’re not residents there, you know, they’re in a precarious situation, particularly in Mexico where, you know, asylum seekers, immigrants have been targeted, you know, by organized Crime and so, yeah, it’s just, it’s a mess, you know, on that front, on the for, for, for refugees, right? These are people who are applying into the asylum program, the refugee program, from abroad and getting resettled into the United States. Those have been suspended right now. So, you know, so right now we’re not doing any refugee resettlement. When that’ll change? How that’ll change is up for debate. We don’t know just yet. I think what somebody can do is obviously saving evidence, right? That is going to help their claim, making sure that that evidence is maybe backed up in various locations. I know how many times, you know, I’ve had clients come to me and say, Well, I had the evidence on my phone, and my phone got stolen, right? You know, people, for instance, you know, and so, so that’s a problem, right? You know, because now you don’t have the evidence that maybe could have made a difference. So having the evidence right, backed up maybe in the cloud, you know, I mean that that’s going to be really helpful, right, to somebody who who wants to do that.

Harry Nalbandyan
So has the the current stance for the administration changed for asylum seekers that they have to remain in the country that they’re trying to enter from while their case proceeds through the immigration courts?

Ruben Espinoza
Yeah, so, so not, not quite to that extent just yet, you know, but, but there are, there are more restrictions. I mean, there certainly are more restrictions. So they are working on trying to designate particularly countries. I believe what’s been floated is the possibility of designating El Salvador as a Safe Third Country, which might allow the administration to obligate people to try and claim asylum or claim status there, before coming into the United States, right and doing the same here? I mean, you’ve already, you started to see that already during Biden, where, you know, where he instituted a policy referred to as the Safe Third Country policy, which basically just makes it harder for somebody to claim asylum in the United States if they cannot show that they tried to claim asylum in another country that they were they were passing through, right? I mean, if they were in the country, they had the opportunity at least to claim that that status, and if they didn’t do it, then that makes the possibility of getting asylum right much more difficult. Now that wouldn’t necessarily apply for somebody who’s maybe has a visa to come into the country, they’re here already, and then they decide to apply for asylum, right? Because they’re here already thus far. You know, the changes and the propositions for changes wouldn’t apply to those people just yet, but, but again, you know, things seem to change every day. Yeah.

Harry Nalbandyan
What changes do you hope to see in this administration, or any other next administration for our US immigration system, working in it so detailed as you have been?

Ruben Espinoza
Yeah, well, I think you know, I think there are different things that that should be done. I think that you know, certainly one thing you know, and it’s not necessarily a law specific issue, right, but particularly for Central and South America. You know, instituting a foreign policy that is going to prop up those economies, that’s going to make the situation, the security situation, specifically right in other countries, a better right, where people are not needing to, you know, to travel abroad, right, and seek asylum, maybe somewhere else, or even immigration for economic reasons, right? I think that’s, that’s definitely one area where maybe we haven’t, you know, as a country, right, paid enough attention to that’s one thing. The other thing, I think that would be great to see, is consideration for people, a greater consideration, I should say, for people with children, US citizen children here in the United States. So one of the big problems in immigration law is the lack of a practical way for people who are here without documentation, but who have US citizen children, the lack of a practical way of getting from no status to green card, right because the way the law is written right now, if that is the only qualifying relative that you can claim is a US citizen child. When that child turns 21 that child can file a petition for his or her parents, but those parents, if they came here without documentation, have to depart the United States and remain outside of the country for up to 10 years before they’re allowed to return with lawful immigrant status. And so the only way around that 10 year bar is if the immigrant also has a spouse or a parent who’s a resident or a citizen. But a lot of these people don’t have that relationship, and so they’re kind of stuck in this, you know, awkward, legal place where they have US citizen children. Maybe they’ve been here 10, 20, 30 years, but there’s no practical way for them to be able to to to adjust their status and get their green card here.

Harry Nalbandyan
They don’t have a spouse and over 21 but it’s not practical or feasible for them to leave the country for 10 years. For 10 years, yeah, kind of in this low state of unsure status.

Ruben Espinoza
Well, I mean, they can have their kid file the petition for them, but I mean that that doesn’t get them the green card. That just gives them the opening for the green card, you know. But then the, you know, the ability to actually get it is a real problem there. And, you know, before 911 you know, there was this law that would be renewed every so often. It was called The Life Act, where it allowed people to pay a penalty for coming into the country without authorization, but allowed them to file for an adjustment of status here under the under the INA is 245 I now what ended up happening is that that law got cut off for petitions that were filed for beneficiaries as of April 30, 2001 so everyone that had petitions filed for them on or before that date got grandfathered right to be able to seek adjustment of status here, but everyone who had petitions filed for them thereafter, they’re the ones that need to are forced, basically, to do that consular processing. In other words, having to leave the United States and be subject to a 10 year bar. So, you know, it’s still a big problem, and I think, you know, it’s an area that that’s really ripe for for legislative attention.

Harry Nalbandyan
Well, Ruben, I mean, I’ve learned a lot about immigration law today from you. I appreciate this conversation, and I hope, you know, the listeners of this podcast get some useful information that they can use to protect themselves and to protect their family members. And you know, most importantly, how would they get in touch with you so they can protect them?

Ruben Espinoza
Yeah, yeah. So, yeah. So, you know, social media, Espinosa Law Group, you know, we’re active and website, bright, Espinoza, Law Group, com, and our phone numbers, 213-228-3232. And, you know, I hope everyone you know can can do whatever they can right to stay safe, to keep their family safe during these trying times. And and, yeah, we’ll, you know, we’ll, we’ll keep up the good fight and do everything we can right to protect your community.

Harry Nalbandyan
You’re the man. Ruben. Keep fighting the good fight. I appreciate talking to you today, and I hope we can meet in person soon. We’re both Okay, yeah, likewise. Thank you, Harry. Thanks for joining us today on Harry handles it. I hope you enjoyed our conversation and found some valuable takeaways. If you’re facing challenges in your own life or business, whoever, then you’re not alone together. We can handle anything that comes our way. Don’t forget to subscribe and leave a review if you liked what you heard until next time, keep pushing forward and handling life with confidence you.