‘It Cost Me My Job’ How Helping Immigrants Can Make You a Target in the US

It doesn’t take much under Trump’s authoritarian system of governance for anyone to find themselves in the crosshairs of one agency or the other. For attorney Clay Jackson, it was the simple act of telling an immigrant family their rights and offering to find them pro bono counsel.

“I'm licensed in three states. Every one of those states has a rule that says lawyers have an obligation to provide pro bono assistance to people in their community, I thought it was that simple.” Sadly for Jackson, it was not.

Following his meeting with a family, Jackson received a visit from state agents who refused to identify themselves, and then accused him of obstructing an immigration investigation. When Jackson went public with the story, he was immediately fired.

“I didn't think that doing something like this would cost me my job,” he says, “When I see big white shoe law firms, quote, ‘make a deal’ with a presidential administration that's pretty clear in its intent to test every single constitutional boundary that exists, it would be impossible for me as an attorney to tell a client that their interests are represented to the fullest extent.”

Watch the full interview above to hear Jackson’s account of how he thinks he was targeted, the status of the family he was helping, and whether this was a high-level attempt at intimidating lawyers who help immigrants under threat of deportation.

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