On the morning of April 11, immigration attorney Pamela Rioles received an unusual email. It was from the Department of Homeland Security, notifying her that she had seven days to leave the country.
Had she not been born and raised in Boston and studied law, she would have panicked.
That Friday, she realized she would be working all weekend because, like her, several of her clients in the process of regularizing their immigration status received the same threatening email: “You have seven days to leave the country (…) Do not attempt to remain in the United States,” the threatening communication read.
Thousands of people are threatened
Like her and her clients, thousands who entered the United States through the CPB One app and applied for asylum are now being threatened with these types of messages.
Pamela’s case clearly illustrates what has been happening since Donald Trump’s return to the presidency. Attacks against the migrant community, threats, and deportations, in addition to this type of threatening emails, are received by migrants who arrived in the United States with government permission through the CPB One app, as well as by a lawyer born in the country and knowledgeable about the Constitution.
After reviewing the email and reading the number of threats in its four paragraphs, the attorney from a firm in Tucson, Arizona, says she has no fear of what the government might do to her. “However, I have clients who received the same email who had a different status. For example, an asylee received that email; he already won his case in court, and he even received that email.”
Pamela Rioles says that unlike her clients who save a lot of money to have legal representation in court, more people lack the resources to obtain legal assistance in their immigration cases.
