Her Parents Were Undocumented. She Became an Immigration Attorney.

Welcome to Work Unscripted, I'm your host Savan, and today I've got my good friend Gladys. Gladys, how are you?

I'm doing well, I'm doing well in the middle of spring break, so juggling kids and work and changes in immigration law.

Nice. all the things.

Yeah, that mom life is crazy, right? Like who would have thought when we were going to college together that this would be our lives now in 2026. Like it's just amazing how fast it comes.

just remember taking geology with you and Ken. And I actually have pictures. I have pictures of us holding rocks.

Yeah.

my God. You've got to send that to me. Send that to me. Send that to me. I'm sure. I don't even remember that class. All I just remember was that like that was probably the most fun I had in school was in that class. And I don't remember any of it, you know.

I have to find them. I have to find them. my god.

I hated rocks, but you and Ken cracked me up the whole time.

Yeah.

You were like one of the first people I met at OXIE. Yeah.

I know, I remember that. I remember that. We spent a lot of time studying at the library. I used to tell my wife, was like, yeah, we used to like study and hang out. And now, you know, we're taking our kids to volleyball camp and trying to figure out what the next meal is and all these things. man. Yeah.

It's so busy. And I'm a mom of a teenager and a soon to be eight year old. And it's consuming. And like.

OOF Yeah, I feel like eight is like the perfect age though for kids in my opinion.

She's so fun and she's so sweet. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah. That's like before they get too sassy. Like Sammy, my daughter's 12 now and she's like, she's at that age where she has enough of the influence from her friends, but also, you know, she's got her own personality she's building and it's like, man, where'd you get all this sassiness from? I know it's not me, it's probably from your mother.

Both of my girls are very sassy.

yeah, definitely from you. God. Well, Gladys, it was it's good to catch up. It's been so many years and, you know, such is life that a lot of times it just pulls ahead of us and we forget to reconnect. the greatest thing about this podcast is I'm now able to talk to friends I haven't talked to in so long, man. And

It's so much. It's so much. Yeah.

It's been like 26 years.

26, I know, a whole lifetime, whole lifetime. And you've done so much. You've done so much with your life that I'm so impressed by and that's what we're gonna talk about today. But I wanna open up the show by asking you to describe yourself to a stranger that you just meet on a bus. Like, how would you describe who you are and what you do?

Dude, we're middle aged.

I am the proud daughter of Mexican immigrants who were both undocumented at some point. My heritage, my culture is very, very important to me. It's a driving force in my life. I would say that I'm a protector, I'm a defender, I'm an advocate.

Mm-hmm.

Nice.

very strong sense of fairness and justice from the time I was a kid. I'm doing exactly what I set out to do when I was 16. I decided at that age that I was going to be a civil rights attorney. I didn't know exactly that it would be immigration. But I really, grew up seeing

Yeah.

Wow.

and experiencing a lot of discrimination against undocumented people, against my family. And so I always wanted to grow up and rectify that and have all of the legal tools to fight.

Yeah, I mean, it's interesting. You're the only person I've had on the show that has described themselves in that way. Typically, people open it up by saying, here's what I do for a living, but you definitely didn't use that. And I feel like that is so much more genuine and true to who we really are.

Thank you.

The thing that stands out about your description of yourself is the influence of your parents coming over as undocumented at some point. I'm sure when they were growing up, it was very different than what we're going through now. But watching your parents grow up and navigating the system back then, I'm sure it was probably broken, but not as broken. And then knowing

.

you know, that your parents were immigrants here. How did that influence, you know, some of things that you were doing in your early 20s? I mean, even, you know, Occidental into UCLA, like, was that always in the back of your head?

Was immigration law always in the back of my head?

Well, just something along those lines. Did the influence of your parents coming here impact the things that you'd studied or the path that you were taking? Was that a very purposeful thing for you?

was all very purposeful. We grew up working poor. Thankfully, my parents were both able to. My mom became a citizen, I think the year that I was born or maybe the year before. And when I was born, my dad was undocumented, but he was able to get his residency through my mom when I was about two. So

Mm-hmm.

okay.

Thankfully, I didn't grow up like concerned that my parents were going to be deported. But I still have family members who are undocumented. have a huge extended family. So my dad is one of 14. My mom was one of like nine or 10. Everybody lives in Salvin, California, which is in Santa Barbara County. And so, yes, I felt that.

Right?

Mm-hmm.

Going back to your original question, it was all very purposeful. My dad had a sixth grade education. My mom graduated high school. So I felt that I had to be perfect and I had to be an overachiever. So I ended up getting a scholarship to go to an independent school in Los Alamos called Dunn School. And it was a place that really

Yes.

changed my life and I felt then that I started to take ownership of my education and I was very lucky to have teachers at Dunn that pulled me aside and would say, Gladys, I bought you this book on Chicano history or here's an author by the name of Gloria Saldua who I really think you would connect with. And so I took my education very personally. I felt like everything was adding tools to my toolkit, to my tool belt, because I did have that ultimate goal of becoming an immigration attorney. And so a definite like going to OXIE, the classes that I took, it was all in preparation for this.

Yeah.

Wow.

Right. Yeah, that's...

So I feel like my work is very much like I'm living my purpose. Like it's an extension of, it's a natural progression.

Yeah, I mean... That's such a... Yeah, mean, it's such a meaningful thing to know that and to feel that. you know, of all the people I've talked to on this show, I don't think anybody's ever said that they are currently living that purpose out. Probably because the show's focused on people that are struggling to try to find, you know, what to do next and trying to figure out what that path looks like. But for you, you know, having all these things planned out already in your head, it seems like you were just manifesting this reality as you were going in some ways. What was some of the hardest things that you had to overcome when you were going to UCLA and Occidental? What were some of those challenges? Yeah, great.

Yeah.

I mean, Occidental was amazing. Had such a great time there, built lifelong friendships. I feel like Oxy is one of those places that is not just about churning out a student. I feel like Oxy is a place that is about creating responsible and engaged citizens of the world and preparing us for leadership. it was the right place for me. I ended up there by accident.

Oh really? Tell me a story.

yeah, so again, because my family didn't have a lot of resources when I was applying to colleges, I would say that the main decider was financial aid, right? So I felt like I had to go to the school that gave me the most money, not necessarily where I felt was the best right fit for me. I ended up getting a full ride to,

Right. Right.

a small liberal arts college in Connecticut called Trinity. And I thought I would be great going away. It was going to be fantastic. I lasted all of two weeks before I was a college dropout. I left. I was so homesick. I needed all of my, you know, hundred and fifty, hundred and seventy five cousins and family members. So I left. came home.

Yeah.

My mother was furious with me because we had spent the whole year fighting with my dad to let me go to college. Because it's not really, I was the first girl in my extended family, the first of the girl cousins to graduate high school. Everyone else had, my cousins had gotten pregnant in high school, so I was the first one to even graduate high school. And so it wasn't really a thing for,

Right.

Bye

Mexican girls to go away to college. Like what do mean you're not going to be living at home? So she was really upset with me because she had really advocated and fought with my dad to let me go. So I was grounded for that whole first semester. I was allowed to go to work and come home and that was it. And so I was desperate to get out of the house and so I called all of the California schools that had accepted me the year before.

Right.

Right.

Yeah.

Yeah.

and Oxy let me come in at the spring semester. And actually the same day that I had gone to tour Oxy, I had gone to tour UCLA and I had left my purse at the cooler. I forgot my purse at the cooler and it had cash in it. And tell me why the purse was returned with all the cash in it. And I took that as also a sign of that.

Yeah.

assign.

that I was supposed to be at OXIE. And so I started in the spring semester. Yeah.

Crazy, I never knew that. Yeah, I don't remember seeing you when we did the freshman orientation and all that stuff. I never knew that story. That's a wild story.

Yeah, I ended up going in in the spring and I remember thinking to myself that I had to be really outgoing and like really put myself out there because in my mind everybody had already made their friends. They didn't need new friends. So I was so annoying. I remember, hi, my name is Gladys. What's your name? And just like.

Yeah.

You were very good about that. I remember that. I remember that.

Yeah, so that's how I ended up at Oxy. But your question was about hardship. Sorry, I go off on tangents.

Wah. Yeah, yeah.

just say, and I think it's something that I've grappled with now as an adult, was like... kind of that obsession with perfection, like getting perfect grades, making sure I exploited every opportunity, that I was a go-getter, that I was ambitious. Cause that ends up creating a lot of fear of failure. And I recognize that now that I was scared to take risks because I felt like I had to get straight A's and I had to get into the best schools so that I could go to law school, so that I could be a lawyer. So I think I think in law school I really started to struggle with anxiety. Like that pressure all kind of caught up to me. And law school was just really challenging and it was actually a very racist environment. Which I didn't expect. I didn't expect at UCLA, in the city of Los Angeles, right? I didn't expect that.

I believe it, 100 % believe it.

Definitely not very many students of color, just like people who came from families of generations of lawyers. And then the study of law is really the study of white supremacy. you learn, the case that you learn on the first day is how Europeans took land from Native Americans and used the law to justify it, right? So it's.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

the study of white supremacy, the codification of white supremacy and how the elite really maintained power and how we structure laws to protect that power and that wealth. So it was an alienating environment. The subject was rough and then, you you don't have very many people around you. So I think.

Dang.

Yes.

I had like a crisis of confidence in law school where I was like, whoa, this is a lot.

How many years were you at UCLA? That's wild. So what did you use to sort of get yourself through those times? Because I would imagine you have this perfect storm of the anxiety plus the workload plus institutional racism. I completely agree. think like the things that institutions, especially educational institutions that have the ability to teach things also have the responsibility to be able to teach them in a fair way.

and

Yeah.

And depending on where you go, feel like it could be a mixed bag, but for your time at UCLA, how did you push through all that bullshit and eventually graduate? Like, what did that look like?

There was, even though there were a few of us, there was a really, really small but mighty and strong and brilliant and caring community of Latino students and just generally students of color. And that community really got me through. The La Raza Law Student Association was great. Like they were looking out for us from day one. They assigned us mentors.

Mm-hmm.

So that community was great and there were also some programs that I got myself into. So I graduated from law school with concentrations in critical race studies and public interest law and policy. So whereas the study of law and the things that we were learning was difficult, I had those programs to, you know, how to use the law to fight these systems or these injustices. So that's what got me through. Also therapy, therapy was great. That's the first time I ever went to therapy was in law school. So, you know.

Mm-hmm. Wow.

Yeah, therapy is great. I just started going. I haven't gone recently in my 40s. And I'm like, where the fuck has this been all my life? Should have done it long time ago, you know?

Yeah.

Yeah. That was the first time and yeah, it was like the very first time that I had paid attention to my mental health.

Yeah.

Well, it's funny, like, I don't know what it was like in your family, but in my family, the talk of mental health, like, is non-existent, right? It's like, refugee immigrants, you have this just push it through mentality, and you just shut up and put your head down and you continue working, and at some point, something breaks, and by that time, it's too late. I don't know, was that like, that for you?

Absolutely.

Yeah, it almost felt like a 100, 100%. It was like a luxury and a privilege to like stop and think about your feelings. I remember from conversations with you that our families didn't have the luxury of doing that. It was just like work, work, work, survive, get ahead, create stability for your children.

Mm-hmm.

Nope.

Yeah.

Thankfully, my parents are, my mom has always been very evolved in terms of mental health. And now they're very, like, very supportive of all of those efforts, because I think we all need to go.

crap.

100 % we'd be a much better planet. I feel like if we Although it is sort of expensive. So there's that insurance, right?

That's true. There's access issues for sure.

Yeah, yeah. Gladys, I want to talk a little bit about your time in law school, especially as a woman of color, especially as a daughter of an immigrant. What were some of the things that you had either done or seen in law school that one... you know, made you optimistic about continuing on in this practice. And then on the flip side, what were some of the things that you saw that just really scared the shit out of you? Like, man, why am I trying to commit the rest of my life to this? Right? Like if this is sort of like what I'm signing up for.

And then.

So I'll start with what scared me. And that was, I think it was, I think it was property class. And there was a professor that was infamous for publishing a paper called The Mismatch Theory. His name is Richard Saunders. And his theory was that

yeah.

Okay.

elite law schools were doing a disservice to students of color by allowing them in because we didn't have the academic credentials to be there. So basically he was arguing that students of color were being let in through like disguised affirmative action programs and that that was actually hurting. students of color and that we didn't belong there, that we belonged in like second tier law schools. And so he was my professor. And so it was very challenging to sit in a class where you felt that the professor, where you knew that the professor thought you didn't have a place there. So that was, that was really challenging and painful.

What's

Right? Holy shit.

frankly. And then the things that gave me a lot of hope were the people that I met and the people that I established connections with because I knew that they were going to be change makers and work for good. And also the clinics. Clinics are where you as a law student will go out and for example there was a wage in

Mm.

like a labor case that I took on as a student. we represented with, under the guidance of a professor, we represented a worker who hadn't been, who'd had her wages stolen basically, and we won the case. And so that was really, really empowering. I won an asylum case as a student. And so actually getting to help people.

Mm-hmm.

Wow.

Mm-hmm.

as a student was really empowering and that gave me a lot of hope.

Yeah. What does that feeling like when you win a case like that? Is that like hitting a home run or like what? I'm sure your endorphins were just fired up, right? Like.

It's really emotional because, you know, the particular case that I won was he was a gay man from El Salvador who had suffered sexual abuse, persecution by the police and the government. And he had been through much, through so much, and he was in immigration detention while we were fighting his case. It's intoxicating. It's intoxicating. It's emotional.

Yeah.

It's beautiful.

I want to talk a little bit about that. The roller coaster of being in a profession like yours has got to be tremendous. How do you handle that?

I just have to chuckle because it's really hard. It's really hard and you need to find ways to take care of yourself because you're responsible for someone's life. Like if I mess up, someone might be going back to a really unsafe country for them. That might be a death sentence for them. And so you really have to take care of yourself. have to...

Yeah.

Yep.

celebrate every win no matter how small. Early on I adopted like a mindset of you've got to we get we're living to fight for another day right we got one more day we're just gonna keep pushing for days right. So yeah it's challenging it's been especially challenging during this administration.

Yeah. Yeah.

Yep.

during Trump 1 and Trump 2. We had never seen anything like it during Trump 1. And now it's even more unhinged.

Yep.

The first time I feel like there were some, it wasn't as bad, but the kid gloves have come off this time.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, now that I'm not employed by the government, you know, one of the things as I do reflections on my life, one of the things that we're seeing now in this second Trump administration is his ability to really be extra aggressive in the things he wants to do that he didn't, he didn't sort of like take on in the first administration.

.

Whether that's through policy or his cabinet or you name it, it's like across the board. He's just being extra aggressive about all these initiatives that would never, I don't think he would ever get passed in the first one. And now that he's got zero fucks to give about whether he's gonna get reelected, he's just like, I'm just gonna swing for the fences on everything that's out there. And we're seeing sort of like the impact of that.

There's, it's lawlessness. I mean, literally. the administration is not following immigration laws, know, the Supreme Court greenlit racial profiling. It's almost like they know what the law is and they don't care because I think it's like, who's gonna stop me? know, like they'd rather do it and then if they have to scale back, maybe they'll follow.

Mm-hmm.

Yep. Yep.

You know, the court orders, they have no regard for the law. And immigration is a really weird thing because we have immigration judges, but they're not independent judges. They're employed by the Department of Justice. And so that's under Trump's purview. It shouldn't be, but it is, right? And so now we have situations where judges are being fired for...

Right. Mm-hmm. Yep. Yep.

following the law or for exercising discretion in favor of immigrants. The courts were always bad for immigrants, but they're being purged of anybody who is decent.

Yeah, agreed. Gladys, I want to talk about the time after UCLA to now and how you got to where you are with your practice. What did you end up doing right after law school?

I went to work for a Chicano civil rights firm in LA, Moreno V. Serran Casillas. They were my first job. I was the, I interned for them while I was in law school. And I was just always at, I was at every Mexican American Bar Association event. I was at every Latina Lawyers Bar Association event.

How'd you find him?

as a student volunteering and I made myself business cards as a law student that I would hand out to people and introduce myself and I was just relentless really. And so.

Yeah, I mean, that's who you are though. I think I've always known you to be that way. I don't know of a Gladys that operates on any other level than that.

No, no. And so I made it my business to like, find my legal heroes in the Mexican American legal community. And they were very active in the rampart cases in Los Angeles. So getting justice for people who were victimized by the rampart division and I wanted to work for them. But was the only immigration attorney there and I was brand new. So I didn't know anything. You don't know anything when you graduate from law school. So I would say my first year was terrifying. I was doing my best to learn and represent people, but I also didn't have really anybody to learn from. So I quickly reached out to, I would say like the preeminent immigration lawyer in Los Angeles.

Mm-hmm.

Mm.

at the time was Enrique Arevalon. His firm was known as like immigration bootcamp. Like there had been immigration judges that had worked for Enrique. And know, like really the best, the best lawyers, best immigration lawyers had been at Enrique's office. And so I just kept bugging him. I just kept bugging him and reaching out to him and saying like, hey, remember me? I would send him cards. Like when an opportunity pops up.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Think of me. And so after about a year, he brought me onto his firm. you know, there was a spot for me. And so I started to work with him and I made some of my best friends at that office. I learned so much. It was great. There were like, I think it was a team of six of us and we discussed case strategy. We worked closely together. We had so much fun together and

Yeah, yeah,

To this day, they're my best friends.

Yeah, that's that's got to be such a fun time. It just it sounds a lot like college But you get paid for it and you're doing good work

You know, we took shots every time we won a case. And we won a lot of cases. We won a lot of cases. was a great, right? I know. But you you can do that when you're 27, 28.

Yes, I'm sure you guys took a shitload of shots too. Your husband's like, why are you always drunk coming home?

Yeah!

But it was a great place. Yeah, we went on retreats. He took us to Costa Rica one year, he took us to Mexico. So we worked really, really hard, but we played hard. Yeah.

Yeah.

Wow. Wow.

Right, right, right. Man, that sounds so fun. So what do you do after that?

It was fun. Okay, so I got married while I was there and then got pregnant like seven months after we got married and I knew it wasn't really sustainable to be a mom and work like we worked at that firm. And so even though I loved it, I decided

Mm-hmm.

Right?

I had it in my mind that I was gonna be a stay at home mom. Which is.

I could not imagine you as a state home.

Right, and so let me tell ya, I was a shitty stay at Homer. I hated it. I learned after six months that that's the hardest job in the world. Nobody pays you for it. It's not really appreciated. I love this kid, but I can't be with her 24 seven. It's too much. And then I didn't have family around. So I was by myself all the time. So after about, I had decided that I was gonna be a stay at home mom for two years. I tapped out after six months. I was like, this is ridiculous. I can't do it.

Yes! Yeah! Yes!

Yeah.

Okay.

So I remember that I took my first, my first case on my own was a citizenship case. And it was a citizenship case for someone that was from my dad's hometown in Mexico, like a little village. And so that was my first case that I took on my own. And then I gradually started taking on more cases. My old boss would give me a lot of appearance work. So I think honestly, he probably didn't even need.

Yep.

Okay.

appearance attorneys, but I think it was a way of helping the attorneys that recently left his office to establish themselves, which I think is really cool. There was like, there's no jealousy. was just support and love. So I did a lot. Yeah. sorry. So for instance, if an attorney can't cover a hearing,

Wait, can I ask a dumb question? Can I ask a dumb question? What is an appearance lawyer? Like, what do they do?

from that office and they need coverage, they would ask me to step in and go represent the client at this particular hearing. like with immigration, there's two agencies that we deal with. There's EOIR, which is immigration court. And then there's USCIS where you go to interview. So you would go with a client to a green card interview or to a citizenship interview. And that doesn't involve judges. So immigration court judges USCIS is basically administrative. So he would hire us to go cover a citizenship interview or something. And so then gradually I built my practice, but I was very part-time because my daughter was little. And I would say I didn't really, because I was so occupied with the littles and being a mom, I don't think I really, really leaned into my practice and started.

Yeah.

working full-time plus, I would say. until like five years ago.

Wow. Did you always want to run your own practice? I know some people want to be partners at a bigger practice, probably gets paid more and more, you know, spotlight, but you always want to run your own?

No, not five years ago.

No, not necessarily, but I think as a mom, I created the job that I wanted and I needed. Because the spaces don't necessarily exist for us, right? So I created the firm that I needed. And I actually share space with a UCLA friend of mine, someone who I went to law school with.

Hmm.

Right.

Right? Yep.

Sorry about that. And we created a practice that's like working mom friendly and we have a conference room where we have coloring books and a television where the kids can hang out if we need to be here and they need to be with us.

Nice.

That's amazing. mean, all the stuff you've just manifested and it's happened, you know, based on all these circumstances you've had in life. Tell me about your practice now. Generally speaking, how does it work? I've never had to hire an immigration lawyer for anything, so I don't know generally how it works, but like, if you were somebody that needed somebody from your practice or to hire you, what would that look like?

So my business basically comes from word of mouth. So you help one person, they tell their family members, they tell their friends. And so then those are the people that call. I've recently started to do a lot more like television appearances. So thanks.

Yeah, yeah, congrats.

I'm doing a lot of like immigration legal commentary for Telemundo and some for Univision. And that's actually something I want to talk to you about because I had had those opportunities before, but I always felt like I wasn't good enough to do it. Or what if I didn't say the right, what if I didn't use the right word in Spanish? And so.

Yeah.

Right? Yes. Yes.

I realized that I was saying no out of fear. And I think about a year and a half ago, I did like a check-in and I said, every time you're asked to do something, I'm going to ask myself if I'm saying no out of fear. And if I'm saying no out of fear, I'm going to make myself say yes. And so really good things started happening for my career once I made myself say yes.

Right?

Right.

Right?

I ended up going to Telemundo and they were pleased with how I did. so they asked me to come back every other week. So now I go one week and then there's another attorney that goes basically like we rotate doing the legal commentating. So that was, I think that that's really important for people to do is recognize

That's awesome.

Uh-huh. Yeah.

Like, are you stopping the opportunities from coming your way? And I know that I was, I was. And once I leaned in and I started saying yes, I feel like I'm reaching a new level.

Right?

And you just learn so much about yourself when you put yourself in those uncomfortable positions. you know, a lot of the listeners that we have here, almost everybody is in this weird place where, you know, we feel like we want to lean into the comfortable known things, but the future, you just never know what that looks like. And I've always said, you know, the there's a privilege of being put in uncomfortable positions.

Yes.

Thank you.

Okay.

Right? Like when somebody asks you to do something like go on TV and you've never done it, that is a privilege. You're like, not, not everybody gets asked to be on Tilemundo or whatever. And it's really, really fucking hard. but, but for you Gladys, like you're leaning into these things and you're essentially becoming this voice. want to ask you about what that weight is like for you to be a voice of not just, you know, your law practice.

Right.

It is a privilege and it's a responsibility and I really appreciate it. It's really...

But for all immigrants across the entire nation, they're watching you on the biggest networks. What does that weight like? What does that feel like?

I take it seriously that I'm trusted to give information and to advise people. So it's like a beautiful responsibility. It's scary and kind of going back to like leaning into being uncomfortable. You know, when I was a first year attorney and appearing before immigration judges, I would be so anxious in the morning that I would be nauseous. And so I would get to court

Right. Right.

Yeah, I agree.

Really?

I would go to the bathroom, throw up, and then, okay, game face on, let's go. So then you sit in front of the judge and you represent your client to the best of your ability, but you gotta, know, eye of the tiger, let's go.

Wow. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, how often like when I get in those situations, you know, when I was at the Pentagon, I was in rooms where I always thought I was like, what the fuck am I doing here? Like, how the fuck did I end up in this room with these generals and admirals?

did you end up there? That's like not the career path that I thought you would pursue. I didn't see Pentagon on your resume,

I don't know, I don't know. I did not either my friend and it's been wild, but you're in these rooms and you're like, how did I end up here? But in the back of your head, I'm always thinking, you know what? My parents didn't come here. My parents didn't raise a fool. I'm here because I'm meant to be here and you're meant to be there doing the things that we're doing. And by all means, just taking advantage of that shit and representing them correctly, that's the best feeling. Even if you fuck it up.

Yeah.

and

You've still made it to the stage and you're still doing the dance, you know

That's right. And I also think that we are in these rooms not by accident. It's not just our parents' histories and their immigration journey to this country, but we're also in these rooms because of our lived experience and because of what we bring to the table, you know, which is a lot. And so we deserve to be in those rooms. And it's really important to...

Right.

Exactly.

Remind and you know other people are lucky to be in the room with us

huh, I completely agree. completely agree. Gladys, when you're on these shows, what do you do commentary on? I'll be the first to admit, I've actually never seen it because I don't watch Tillamundell and it's like not on my regular schedule, but when you go on, what are you talking about? What are you telling the people?

Savannah under this administration, there are daily changes. So the immigration landscape is constantly, constantly shifting and the danger points are different and more intense every day. So for example, ice in airports, know, avoid the airport if you don't have some sort of status because

Right?

Right?

TSA will share your information. They're going to be sharing passenger manifests.

Yeah, it's all under DHS. It's all under the same umbrella.

That's right. So I talk about, you know, what things make you more vulnerable. And that's kind of a hard thing to talk about because, you know, people really like to say, Obama was the deporter in chief. And I get so fucking irritated when people say that because, yes, there were a lot of people that were deported under the Obama administration, but

Mm-hmm.

there were enforcement priorities, which means if you're a rapist, yeah, you're going to get deported. If you're a murderer, you're gonna get deported. But if you have no crimes, then you were not a priority for the government to deport, right? And so under Obama, we had things like administrative closure of cases in court. So,

Yeah.

you would reach out to the DHS attorney and you would say, hey, listen, are you willing to administratively close this case so that my client can remain in the United States? You know, single mom to five US citizen kids, no crimes, pays for taxes, and the government would agree, they would close the case. Of course, if you had serious crimes, then they weren't going to agree.

Yeah.

We also so we had that we got DACA under Obama we got State-side waivers so the policy Really shifted to really go after people who?

Right.

weren't behaving, right? Under this administration, there was a memo that came out and he said, there are no enforcement priorities. We're going after everyone, which is a stupid waste of our resources. But now that they have all the money in the world, they're just going after everybody.

Right.

What?

Yeah.

Yeah, they're just burning cash right now. mean, like you would think, and this is just Savannah's hot take. I don't know shit about any of this stuff versus like experts in the room. But you would think just looking at it from a balance sheet perspective, let's just even take the humans out of it. It's more expensive to put people through this process than it would be to put them on some sort of like, what was it called? A waiver or administrative thing where if they didn't have any products.

administrative closure, right. Where there's still, I mean, yeah, but, you know, I think somebody's getting rich off of detention, right? And so I'm sure that those are Trump's friends. I believe the GEO group, which does a lot of detention of immigrants was one of like,

Yeah, like you would think that'd be like, right?

Yeah, agreed. Agreed. Yeah.

They contributed tons to his campaign. So it's a business making people rich on immigrant detention.

Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, and we'll actually touch a little bit on that later on as well, because I definitely want to dive into that and get your opinions on it. But Gualtis, I want to ask, like the people that are listening to you on Telemundo and Univision, more times than not, they probably aren't keeping up with every single policy change that's happening on a day by day basis. And I know like when my parents were here and we immigrated here, they didn't know shit about any of these policies, right? Like I think by the grace of God, we had made it where, you know, 20, 30 years and finally they get their citizenship. But how do people live in a state like this where this stuff is constantly changing? And for educated people, it's hard to keep up with, let alone people that are not educated that don't have the time to do that, that are raising multiple kids. two or three or four generations of people in their house, like how do people right now keep up with all this stuff? And then for you, as the voice that's telling them that these things are happening, how are you communicating with them to let them know about these things so that they're better off? What does that even look like?

It definitely feels like triage. So, you know, what are the most important things for you to know? What are some things that you can do to make yourself less vulnerable? It's a lot of know your rights, even though we're seeing that, you know, these rights are being violated, not just immigrant rights, but residents, citizens.

Yeah.

white Americans protesting ICE, everybody's rights are being violated, but it's still really important that you exercise those rights. So yeah, mean, just constantly, constantly learning and prioritizing information. But in terms of the community, I think that we're going through a period of trauma to the entire

Yeah.

Yep.

immigrant community in this country. we're not just traumatizing the immigrants, but we're also traumatizing children because, you know, I made my kids start carrying their passports because I'm concerned that they would be stopped and detained and separated from me. So I think we're causing a lot of harm to kids who don't

Yeah.

Yeah.

who are scared for themselves and are scared for their families.

Right, right. I mean, even to that note Gladys, like, you know, your kids have a mom and dad that know this subject as experts, but I wonder, what is it like to be a kid and you have, let's just say 10, 20, 30, 40 friends in middle school and high school. Like, how does that even affecting them? they, have your... Have your kids talked about sort of like the impact of all this with their friendships and how that's sort of like rippling throughout the community?

Yeah, it's really interesting because my daughter Shaila is 14. They go to a private school. And so there's a lot of privileged families at this school. And I think that now that she's older, she's developing her own political consciousness. And...

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

It's been really great to see her develop her own thoughts and to see her have these discussions with her friends. My little one has a lot of thoughts about Donald Trump too, and I have to remind her, these are conversations that we have at home with mommy and daddy, but you don't need to tell your friends that you hate Donald Trump, right?

Right.

She's like, you're too young to be having these conversations. But the older one is pursuing her opinions and developing them and learning. Yeah.

Yeah, that's so interesting. You talk about the ripple effect. I didn't think about that until you said that. And I wonder in communities that are largely affected by these policies, by DHS and Trump and ICE, give me like a top level comparison of what these communities are like now versus even 20 years ago.

.

You've lived in SoCal pretty much your whole life. What is that like? How has it changed?

I don't think there's ever been this period of fear and panic. Like when the ICE raids were happening in LA, it felt a little bit like COVID. people weren't out. I think something crazy like LA USD's enrollment went down by 20%.

Yeah.

Mmm.

And I think it's still down 20 % because people are scared to send their kids to school. They're scared to be out on the street. You know, this is like a very trivial thing, but during the raids, like I'm a good Angelina. I like, I love the fruit carts. I love my mango with tahini. You couldn't find, you couldn't find, you couldn't find street vendors. Street vendors were not out.

Me too. Me too.

A lot of businesses were closed. Downtown was a ghost town because that's where the raids initiated.

Yeah.

My people have a really, really strong work ethic. So for my community not to show up to work is next level crazy.

Yeah.

Yeah, I was gonna say it has to be really fucking bad because a lot of times that's their only means of any type of income. What's the downstream?

Right. And missing a day of work. I'm sorry.

I was asking Gladys, I apologize. But what's the downstream effect of that? Like you've got communities that are largely now either protesting out of fear or just, you know, out of principle. But what's the downstream effect of them not being able to work now or have the street vendors out or all these things like, because this is not just, you know, happening for the last week or two weeks or three weeks.

Yeah.

Trump's been here for close to a decade now, and even under Biden, you still had Trump's influence in so many places. I just wonder long-term, how is that impacting places like Los Angeles?

Well, I think long term, it affects kids who aren't going to school. It affects their mental health because they don't know if their parents are gonna be there that day. It affects the economy. People aren't working, people aren't out purchasing, right? I think that we are going to be seeing these effects for a long time.

Yeah.

Yep.

Yeah.

And you know it's interesting because... Trump's administration has to know that this is bad for the economy, right? But white supremacy is hell of a drug.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Get a shirt that says that. We'll print it out and sell it here on the podcast. Gladys, I want to ask.

Yeah, crazy.

the most powerful thing that Trump has peddled.

Yeah, yeah, this could be a whole podcast in and of itself to do this, but I wanna switch gears a little bit and talk about, we had mentioned, in Dilley, Texas, they have a South Texas Family Residential Center. And one of the things that they have in headlines, and I'm just reading here,

Yeah.

It says that children's rights attorneys have visited Dilley nine times their court filing say conditions have not improved DHS followed its own report calling the facility safe and sanitary You've spent your whole career in these spaces whether physically or talking about them or representing people that have been affected by them I mean, what is what are these two side-by-side accounts say about something like this? What's the takeaway from somebody like me? hasn't lived this, how do we one, parse this information to be better educated and better supporters, but also two, are these things actually happening? Because a lot of times people say it's like either fake news or whatever. What's your reactions to that?

It's absolutely not fake news. The detention center realities are atrocious. The food is sometimes, you know, spoiled.

Yeah.

These facilities are always in very remote rural areas and that's not an accident. It's to isolate people from their family, to limit access to legal counsel, and because immigration law is federal, you could be detained in California and then shipped out to Texas to Florida, which is going to make it even more difficult for you to find an attorney.

Right?

to make it more difficult for you to talk to your family. But the conditions are really bad. My husband was actually involved. did some, my husband's not an immigration attorney. He does like corporate law basically, but he did some pro bono work representing fathers who were separated from their children during Trump 1.0, but.

Mm-hmm.

I think really the takeaway here, Savan, is everybody needs to have their eyes wide open because this is panic time. If they're building all of these facilities, you have to wonder what the next plans are. How much worse are enforcement priorities going to be? Honestly, it's reminiscent to me of Japanese internment camps. You know, our country sadly has a history of rounding people up and... You see how he's attacking birthright citizenship? So I wonder, like, are people like me going to be in those facilities?

Mm-hmm.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I wondered the same thing. Shit. I just got my citizenship when I was like 22. hmm. Now, 21, 22. My parents were always worried about the implications of a citizenship here. And, you know, there was there was a long time where having a green card at least for at least for the Cambodian population was almost

Did you really?

Interesting.

the best of all the worlds, because we had a lot of the benefits. And especially if you had young kids, you didn't have student loans you needed to take out or anything. And the big thing for us with my parents was they didn't want me to get drafted into a war. so, yeah, yeah. So they were like, you are 21, you can take the test if you want by yourself. And they waited until I...

Anymore.

Mm, that's interesting.

became 21 to get their citizenship. And then I got student loans for college and stuff like that. So I had to be like, okay, I gotta do all this shit. But for the most part, those times have come and gone. And if you don't have a citizenship, you're essentially a walking target in so many ways. God.

And the next.

Absolutely.

Yeah, you know, these detention centers, Gladys, like, I wonder how they make money. Are they owned by the federal government or are these private places or what?

Good night. They're privately owned companies. So this administration is making people very rich on cruelty to immigrants on these detention facilities. I think one of the biggest owners is GeoGroup. And so the government pays an exorbitant amount per day per immigrant.

Mmm.

Yeah.

her bed. And then also, you know, they make so much money because they're charging immigrants to make calls, you know, all of these thoughts. So very, very rich.

Mm-hmm.

Who sets up policies for what's appropriate to happen in these centers? Like, because they're privately owned, but the government's sending people to them, how do they know that bad things are gonna happen? Like, one of the things I read was some 13-year-old girl was on suicide watch, like, over at Dilley. Like, how do they make sure that it just doesn't become all-out chaos over there?

I'm actually not sure, but I think that they don't care. They'll deal with it once they're getting sued. They're not trying to prevent, they're not trying to prevent that shit from happening. They don't care. They don't value immigrant brown lives. just, it doesn't matter.

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. I want to talk a little bit about ICE's plan called the Detention Re-engineering Initiative. That's essentially what we're talking about before. It's like $38 billion for these large-scale detention centers. The thing about these centers is this massive investment by the government to build them and to staff them. But I do wonder, for your clients and the things that you're doing within the community, are there things that you're telling people about these detention centers that if they do end up getting shipped out, what can they expect or what can they do? Because it seems like it's a black box to me. It's sort of like jail for most people where you're sent off and Lord knows what happens there. It's just like, is it jail or is it like? more like a cave or what like what can people expect?

It feels like a black box. think that's a really good description because a lot of times you can't find people. There's something called the ice inmate locator where you're supposed to be able to find people by typing in a name and a date of birth.

Right?

People have been lost for weeks. Their families don't know where they are. You've seen congressmen and senators try to enter ICE facilities and they're being denied access, right? So what I tell people, I think that the biggest advice is memorize a phone number. Memorize the phone number of a family member because you're not gonna have your phone. And you know, in this day and age, we all just

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

hit a button, call husband, call daughter, and we don't actually know their phone numbers. And also, when you are detained, ICE is going to give you what's called an alien registration number. And so it's a number, yep, yep, it's a number that starts with A and it's eight or nine digits. And you need to give your fa... That's the first piece of information that needs to come out of your mouth is your A number, because that's...

Right.

Yeah, I have one of those. Yep.

Yep.

Okay.

That is the only way they're going to be able to locate you. If you don't have an A number, you might as well not exist. They're not gonna be able to find you.

Wow. Wow.

And you know, I've had friends of mine who are immigration attorneys who have advised their clients to put an air tag in their shoe so that they can be found. Because ICE will hide people. They hide people.

Yeah.

That... Yeah. God. That's nuts. I mean, in some ways, going to jail is even better because I had my first guest on the show. He was a chef actually in federal prisons in L.A. for 20 years talking about what it's like there. I was, you know, asking about the food and all these things. And he's like, you know, man, like they get fed pretty well, you know, holidays to get all these things. And Relative to that story, these detention centers seem so much worse. They're very inhuman in terms of how they're processing people. And I wonder if there are things in the legal community that you guys are doing to help maybe push back against some of these things. What are some things that make you optimistic about some of the things that's happening in your community to help people out?

Tavan, you're asking me a really hard question. You're like, what makes you optimistic during Trump's reign of terror? You know, the only thing that makes me optimistic is our community and the people that are fighting the good fight. Our community is strong. We're not going anywhere.

Yeah. It could be very little.

Mm-hmm.

Right.

There are definitely legal heroes that are out there doing amazing work. The ACLU, immigrant rights defenders in Los Angeles, Caresen, Chirla, MALDEF, all of these organizations that are filing lawsuits against the government. That's all we know how to do in this country, right? Is sue each other. That's the way that we get people to comply or to follow the law. So my community spirit gives me hope. The kids give me hope. These kids are smart. They're paying attention. And frankly, I've been really surprised and happy to see non-immigrants, like an awakening of American consciousness, I think, around these issues.

Mm-hmm.

I never thought that Minnesota would show up the way they showed up, right? People out there taking care of their neighbors gives me a lot of hope. But the ruthlessness and the cruelty and just the sheer hate and racism of this administration is terrifying. And the fact that they're not respecting the laws.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's the Wild Wild West.

Yep. Or they're just changing policy as they go, right? It's like...

They don't know what the fuck they're doing.

Probably a good summation of it. Glad to have you talk about May Day a little bit. So on May 1st, 2026, the May Day Strong Coalition is calling for a no school, no work, no shopping day across the country. The Chicago Teachers Union endorsed it and Solidarity has been at schools in San Francisco, New York, Boston. I wanted to ask you, you know, You were in rooms with immigrant workers, ESL students, all these things. What do you think the real potential impact of this moment is for something like a May Day?

think that I actually don't know of very many of my clients that actually participate in these things.

Do you think it's only a subset of people that are privileged enough to be able to participate? Okay, that's what I sort of got the feeling. Yeah.

Yes, 100%. And that's important. It's important to recognize your privilege and to show up in the way that you can. But I think immigrant families don't necessarily have the luxury of missing work. A lot of families need to send their kids to school because that's where they eat. That's where the kids eat, right?

Mm-hmm.

Right.

Right?

So it's actually not something that I hear my clients or my family talk about a lot. But I do think it is important for people that have the privilege to do so to participate.

Mm-hmm. We had things like, you know, the No Kings March just happened. We've got May Day coming up. If you had a magic wand, Gladys, and you could wave a magic wand and change anything about our country to make something like May Day more impactful or more positively impactful for the community, what would you change? What would be like the single thing that you would change?

Hmm, you're asking all the deep questions.

That's why we're here.

Well, I think that the protests and the acts of solidarity are very important because it signals to the country that we're not alone, that there are a lot of like-minded people who are true patriots and are really fighting to uphold the values and principles of this country. But ultimately what we need are changes in policy and People need to wake up. People need to wake up. you know, it's not just this administration. It's what is going on in our country that people voted for this hate.

Yeah. Yeah.

You know? So I don't have the answer to that, but we need substantive change and not just demonstrations. But I do think the demonstrations are important.

Yeah. Last set of questions, Gladys. And I want to ask about your thoughts on what allies can do to help. are, you know, for somebody like me or somebody in my family, maybe not somebody like me, because I am brown and I do have family that were deported, but somebody that's not brown, that's an ally, what can they do to help? What can they do to either support current initiatives like a May Day or support their direct community of families or people or students that are directly impacted by what's happening. What are some pro tips on what they could do?

I think that you start in the community and in your neighborhood. So I think that Minnesota is, you know, exhibit A. This is what you do. This is how you show up. I know that in LA, you know, people, it's not uncommon now to see people walking around with whistles.

Yeah.

around their necks because if you whistle that means ICE is in the vicinity. There's patrols that go out and see if ICE is at the local Home Depot. In my community in Solving there were people who were volunteering to take children to school so that the immigrant didn't have to go out. There were people doing grocery

Yeah. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Dropping groceries off at people's homes It doesn't have to be It doesn't have to be this thing where you're you know going to protest or it's all appreciated, right? But really you start in your neighborhood, it's the conversations that you have it's Don't think that because You know, you're a citizen or you're white

Yeah. Yeah.

that it doesn't involve you because it's the country, right? Look out for your neighbors. It's not that deep. Take care of the people that are in your community. And I think that more, I've seen that more now than I ever have in my life. Like people who aren't directly impacted speaking out and taking care of people. So talking about hope, that's something that gives me hope.

Yeah.

is seeing people that don't necessarily have skin in the game start to wake up and start to see this and start to speak out.

Yeah, I love that. I love that. What's one thing that well-meaning people are doing now that isn't helping that you're seeing, whether it's online or offline?

think it's all helping. Honestly, people are having conversations that I never even knew cared before.

Right. Yep.

Yeah, I welcome all of it, honestly.

Do Gladys, do your clients or the people in your community in Southern California, do they feel like there's an end to this, a light at the end of this tunnel? Or is it something that they feel like it's just the way of life now and we're just gonna figure out how it works.

You know what's really shitty is that none of this cruelty surprises my clients. It's almost like they expect bad shit to happen to them.

Mm-hmm.

They expect the racism. It's not surprising to them. My clients are so hopeful and optimistic. They're scared. They're definitely scared. A lot of my clients are very religious, so they're always like, you know, we're gonna pray and God's gonna help us and, you know, we're doing the right things. We're doing the best we can in this country.

Yeah.

So they're just. They are optimistic, ambitious people. I mean, think that immigrants are very American, you know? How much more American can it be to give up everything that you have, leave your home, put yourself in danger to try to pursue a better life?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yep. Agreed.

Like that embodies the American dream and American work ethic.

Yeah, it's, you know, as I'm sitting writing this memoir that's taken me longer than I thought it would. One of the things that I'm trying to sort of like understand is, you know, what are the common themes across different generations of people that have come to America, but also within the span of those generations across, you know, different races. And I think the one consistent about all of us is everybody came to America with some sense of hope, right? Like when we, when my parents came here, they were hoping for, to get out of the killing fields of Cambodia and not get bombed on and all these things. Same thing with the immigration story in Southern California and across the United States. Like you don't come here if you don't have some semblance of hope to do something better, whether that's work or family or something. The theme I see with the policies that are here now is like the purposeful dismantling of that hope through institutions, procedures, policies, people, whatever it may be. And it's so demoralizing. I couldn't imagine, you know, being affected directly by those things, how you continue to tell people to keep hoping when you consistently see, you know, all these things put in front of you. It's really hard.

Yeah. One thing that I've noticed a shift in and it's heartbreaking is that you talk about the hope that immigrants have and the belief that this is a good country and if you come here and you work hard,

It's gotta be hard for them, it's gotta be hard for you.

Either you or your children's lives are going to be better, right? And one of the things that has been heartbreaking to me is like the crack in the hope of the United States of this country because so many of my clients are like

Yep. Yep.

Yeah.

yes. It's okay.

Sorry. I was like, hold on, I'm trying to figure out how to turn my light on.

okay.

And why is this not working?

First world problems.

First world problems. Okay, this should work.

thing as being temperamental today.

You gotta get like a social media team Gladys.

I was dragged kicking and screaming into that.

I didn't have like TikTok or anything. And I hired a young college grad and she's like, you're getting a TikTok.

Yeah.

there we go. Okay. All right.

Nice. Perfect. Perfect. Yeah, you were talking like right before it cut off, you were talking about the crack in hope. So continue from that train of thought.

Yeah, I think that's been one of the hardest things to see is I feel like immigrants hold America up here. Like it's on a pedestal. Like this is where things are better. And there's rule of law and there's no corruption or that's what people thought. And more and more, when I'm talking to clients, they're like, but how is he getting away with all of this?

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Why is he breaking the law and there's no consequences? Why isn't anybody stopping him? And that's been hard to see and it's also really shitty to make my clients study for citizenship.

Yeah.

where they're civics, literally one of the questions is, what is the rule of law? And my clients have to sit there and fucking lie and say the rule of law is that no one is above the law, not even the president. It fucking kills me.

Yep, just kidding. Just kidding. God. Glad it's last question, my friend. And I like to ask this question to all the parents that have come on the show. But if your girls or when your girls watch our interview today, 20 years from now, what do you hope they get out of this conversation?

Just kidding.

Mm.

What do I hope they get out of this conversation? Well, first of all, I hope that in 20 years, my girls still have access to reproductive rights in this country. That's like foundational. I hope that what they get out of it is that it's up to each generation to continue to fight.

Right, Preach.

and to make things better for those that are coming after us.

and to protect people, to take care of people. It just goes back to being like a good human being. And if you see an injustice against somebody, it's important to fight for them.

Yeah, I love that. Yeah, hopefully your girls find my daughter and then she can tell them about that the same takeaways.

These girls are brilliant. They're smart and they have so much spirit and they're paying attention. They're paying attention and the kids are alright.

Yep.

Yeah.

The kids will do fine, I'm just worried about the adults. You know?

Yeah, we just can't fuck it up too much for them.

Yeah, right. That should be another slogan. That can be a shirt that we...

Yeah, got a lot of shirts.

I know. I know I shouldn't be paying you for these ideas.

You

Gladys, it has been an honor my friend. I am so glad the universe brought us together way back when in our paths crossed because the things you're doing right now makes me so impressed. But also, you know, I just feel like there are certain people in the universe in the world that are doing amazing things with Herculean effort and you are one of them. And it's an honor to call you a friend and I appreciate you coming on.

Thank you so much, Savan. And I think that somebody needs to interview you because I need to hear all about your career path and your trajectory. I mean, you have such a unique perspective on the government now, I feel.

Yeah, I don't think anybody wants to hear that. It's probably a snoozer. we'll see how goes. Okay, my friend, have a good day. I appreciate you. Give the family hugs for me, okay?

Yeah, right. I want to hear it.

Absolutely. Likewise, thank you so much.

All right, talk soon.

Bye bye.