Immigration Law in 2026: Fighting the Cruelty Machine

5-4

Prologue Projects

News Commentary, News, Government

4.5 • 3.7K Ratings

🗓️ 3 March 2026

⏱️ 85 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

This week, Rhiannon and Michael talk to two immigration lawyers about what it’s like to practice under the second Trump administration, the unprecedented uncertainty their clients face, why habeas petitions are taking off, the freaks who become ICE lawyers and ICE judges, and why there’s actually…reasons to hope??

If you're not a 5-4 Premium member, you're not hearing every episode! To hear this and other Premium-only episodes, access to our Slack community, and more, join at fivefourpod.com/support.

5-4 is presented by Prologue Projects. This episode was produced by Alli Rodgers. Leon Neyfakh provides editorial support. Our website was designed by Peter Murphy. Our artwork is by Teddy Blanks at Chips NY, and our theme song is by Spatial Relations. Transcriptions of each episode are available at fivefourpod.com

Follow the show at @fivefourpod on most platforms. On BlueSky, find Peter @notalawyer.bsky.social, Michael @fleerultra.bsky.social, and Rhiannon @aywarhiannon.bsky.social.

Our Sponsors:
* Check out Mint Mobile and use my code mintmobile.com/FIVEFOUR for a great deal: https://www.mintmobile.com
* Check out Quince and use my code quince.com/fivefour for a great deal: https://www.quince.com

Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Hey everyone. This is Leon from Prologue Projects. On this week's episode of 5 to 4,
0:08.7	Riannon and Michael are marking the occasion of Peter's first beach vacation by speaking to two lawyers
0:13.8	about the daily realities of immigration law under the second Trump administration.
0:18.2	Our first guest, Matt Cameron, practices in Massachusetts, where he is seeing
0:22.3	a new generation of defense attorneys mobilizing to oppose the federal government's deportation efforts.
0:27.4	Honestly, we can thank the first Trump administration for a huge new wave of immigration lawyers.
0:31.4	Minneapolis, just like setting the standard for how we resist and how we respond on the ground.
0:35.7	Our second guest, practices in Texas, where the courts tend to be very sympathetic to the Trump
0:40.2	administration. Because lawyers there can sometimes be targeted for speaking out about what they
0:43.9	see, we will only be identifying her by her first name, Stephanie.
0:47.3	Trump 1 and Trump 2 definitely feel different. Trump 1, it was fucking chaos. They didn't
0:53.7	know what they were doing. I feel like in Trump
0:55.9	two, they're way more fucking methodical and meticulous. One of the throughlines connecting these
1:01.8	interviews is that while it's easy to read the news and feel demoralized by the cruel strategies
1:06.2	being used to speed up and dramatically increase deportations, there is in fact reason for hope, if only because there are ways for lawyers like Matt and
1:14.5	Stephanie to slow down what's happening and mitigate the damage it's inflicting on their
1:18.4	clients.
1:19.1	When somebody finally takes their naturalization oath, their citizenship oath, it's huge,
1:25.9	and you can see the ramifications and like how it changes
1:28.8	that person's life and then changes like the rest of their family's life.
1:32.2	This is 5 to 4, a podcast about how much the Supreme Court and Trump's immigration policy suck.
1:42.4	Welcome to 5 to 4, where we dissect and analyze the Supreme Court cases that have stolen our civil liberties.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Prologue Projects, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Prologue Projects and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.