Léo Tucker Lawyers

Hi, I'm Léo Tucker and this is Léo Tucker Lawyers. In every episode, I handpick a case from my nonprofit law firm, and I tell you about it. The only thing these cases have in common is that I learned something from them, and I hope you do, too.
Now, before we get to today’s case, I want to share just a bit about my day job. I founded a nonprofit law firm in 2015 called Aiding Survivors of Trafficking and Child Abuse, or AID Arkansas for short. Our mission is to serve immigrant survivors of crime, and especially immigrants who have endured human trafficking or child abuse. For more on that project or to support our pro bono legal services for immigrant survivors and their families, visit AIDArkansas.com.

Now, as a way to keep myself abreast of any changes to the laws that impact immigrant survivors of violence, I will wrap up many episodes with just a few updates. So stayed tuned after today’s case and I’ll address some questions I've been getting about immigration policy changes under the incoming administration.

 
"Now, for today's main story, let me take you back to my very first case... It’s a case about head lice. And a mother. A mother who did her best but still could have lost
it
all.

It’s the story of a mother, herself a survivor of violence, who works hard as a janitor at an elementary school and who is an immigrant from the Republic of the Marshall islands. Let’s call her Amy. (And, please rest assured dear listener that I’ll only use pseudonyms in my podcast for ethical reasons).

And now if you're ready, let's take a deep breath. (long, audible. In through nose, out through mouth. Inhale, then) And, begin.

Léo Tucker versus Head Lice

Today’s case is my first-ever case where I prepped the clients, requested discovery, and went to court before a judge. And, actually, it wasn’t a court at all. And, between us, it wasn’t even really a judge.

The “court” was a room with a window, a filing cabinet, and a table with a telephone in the center and 5 chairs scattered around it.

Now, I know I said that there wasn’t even really a judge, but you see it’s not that simple. I still called this person “judge” and I still addressed them as “your honor” but he was actually just a Administrative Law Judge.

And for this case there was no jury. You could think of it as a bench trial, the kind of case where the finder of fact is the judge herself.

Well, I reluctantly agreed to take the case at the urging and the promise of support from a mentor. My reluctance stemmed from me wanting my client to have better, or at least more experienced, representation! And because I had zero experience, it seemed likely that she could have both better AND more experienced (the two don’t always mean the same thing).

My mentor tried to comfort me and she explained to me that while the stakes were high, at least no one was going to jail if I lost. And, she further persuaded me by explaining that no lawyer with experience would do it for free and that this was a family who had no money to pay someone. So, I met with the mom, Amy, for about an hour and learned the facts of the case from her, through an interpreter.

In short, Amy’s daughter, who was in kindergarten at this time, kept coming down with head lice. And Amy, despite doing her best, could not keep her daughter from acquiring the lice again and again. And the school had no choice but to send her home again and again. (Actually, from a legal standpoint maybe the school DID have a choice, but hey--they said that they didn’t.)

Anyhow, this young girl began accruing a whole lot of absence. Like, a whole lot.

Now, the Arkansas Department of Human Services (DHS) has a lot of discretion and they did not HAVE to charge the momma with any maltreatment findings, but, they did. They charged her with educational neglect and environmental neglect.

These charges might have just been an embarrassment without any real ramification except that Amy worked in a school and she was told that if she lost this case, her employment at the school would be terminated because of the educational neglect finding. So, no pressure, right?

I did my best to convince my mentor to just let me shadow her but she was even more persistently insistent than me and if I’m being honest, I did want the thrill of the fight.

After a couple of more meetings with my client and my mentor to review all the applicable laws and the evidence that we’d acquired, it was time for our day in court. Or, well, our day in front of the judge. Or, well, you know what I mean.

The day came and I was there with one of my best friends, then a Marshallese language interpreter working for the Arkansas Office of the Courts. So, that was some boon to my revved-up nervous system. My mentor helped me get to the office but quickly departed with a knowing sort of glee on her face. And then the attorney for DHS explained to me that I would be fine in law school. That she had sailed through with passing Cs and look at her now, she was fine and happy. And, about to try and take away a mother’s job? Well, she didn’t say that last part.

The hearing started and the judge laid the ground rules, which I’m sure my opponent, I mean, adverse counsel, had heard dozens of times before. I got to ask my questions of DHS and of my client. We all seemed to agree that, as DHS’ own agents had put in all of their reports: my client was an excellent momma, clearly doing her best at vacuuming, using the special head lice-killing shampoo, and in every way doing a great job of being the sole breadwinner for an apartment with three generations living in it.

As I went in for the final strafing of DHS’ claim that Amy was a bad mother, I asked if the mother had any idea how her daughter kept getting kicked out due to head lice, even though Amy was doing her very best.

“She gets kicked out of school, and then I kill all the lice in her hair, and then she goes back to school and she hugs her best friend.”

“What’s her best friend’s name,” I asked Amy.

“Anna Laura Smith,” she said.

Now, I’m going to pause here to say that this best friend’s name was very important.

You see, when I got all the documents used as evidence against my client, my mentor noticed that the name of another girl had not been redacted as it should have been. Another girl who had been repeatedly sent home from school and who seemed to always get head lice just a couple of days before my client’s child would come down with a case of head lice.

And so I asked my client a few more questions: in addition to doing regular applications of the medication and cleaning her house as the DHS investigators had admitted she had done so well, what else had she tried? “Amy,” I asked with an incredulous expression, “have you asked your child to stop hugging her best friend?” Amy said “There’s not a chance she would even remember me asking her that.” She even laughed. And I let my questions get a bit more illustrative of my point: did she think there was anything she could do to stop her little girl from hugging Anna Laura? Had she tried to shave Anna Laura’s hair off? Or her daughter’s hair?

As I was asking more and more ridiculous questions to sort of close out my case, the DHS attorney grew angry and began to talk with my beloved friend, our interpreter, about her paycheck! While my friend was interpreting. It was catty and unprofessional and just the move of someone who knew that they were about to lose to a newby. Fortunately my friend made it clear to the judge that her missing some of the interpreting work was due to this interference. I don’t think the DHS attorney realized that she was dealing with an army vet who had a low tolerance for BS.

Anyhow, the judge took about two months to send us a decision but dear listener, you’ll be glad to know that our client *drum roll* did NOT lose her job, kept on providing for her parents and her children, and the DHS attorney wrote me to apologize for wasting everyone’s time. Just kidding about that last part.

 
Ok, dear reader, every episode of Léo Tucker Lawyers will end with some bit of good news. So, while we will cover all sorts of horrific stories about trafficking, intimate partner violence, and so much more, I will never leave you on a sad note. Today’s episode ends on a high and so we’ll let it speak for itself.

You know, a case like this is really one that makes you ask: why did so much time get wasted? When DHS’ own investigators said to not charge her, who made the call and why? Was someone up for a promotion and needed a win? Or was it that Amy wasn’t sufficiently submissive when dealing with the Department? Who knows. But, I’m glad to say that this case happened about 11 years ago and that in just the last few years the Arkansas Dept of Health and the Dept of Education together published a report that strongly discourages sending kids home. The report says that “mass screenings are no longer recommended because they lead to social stigma and decrease accuracy of detection.” Now, as a kid I was both embarrassed to get head lice because it meant being sent out of the classroom and everyone knowing that I had bugs in my hair! Buuuuuhuuuut, I was also glad because it meant long baths with my parents reading to me. And school gave me a lot of anxiety and so together it balanced out the embarrassment. Hopefully neither schools nor DHS are doing this any more.
And in any case there is just such a greater need for the types of services my team and I offer at our law firm because no one in the nonprofit world is meeting the needs of child survivors of trafficking. No other nonprofit law firm is handling Special Immigrant Juvenile Status cases, for example. (That’s something you’ll learn LOTS about in a future episode)
If we were in Seattle, where I attended law school as a Gates Public Service Law Scholar, up there survivors would have multiple options: the Northwest Immigrant Rights Project, the Northwest Justice Project, Kids in Need of Defense and maybe even pro bono legal clinics at the area’s law schools. But here in Arkansas, there's just one nonprofit law firm accredited by the Department of Justice, and that’s AID. We’re the only nonprofit, for example, to represent child immigrant survivors of trafficking and abuse with Special Immigrant Juvenile Status work. So, head over to AIDArkansas.com to learn more about Aiding Survivors of Trafficking and Child Abuse - or AID for short. And hey, if you'd like to support us in this work, become a monthly donor while you're there.

 
Now let’s get started with our Q&A.
Q: This week’s first question was what about ICE raids—is anywhere safe?

As an ED and as an attorney, I get to work with a few people who are really passionate about homelessness and acting in effective ways to address the issue. Monique Jones and Solomon Birchfield in South Fayetteville are a couple of my favorite advocates around these issues. Monique is a pastor and runs St. James Historic Baptist Church’s Squire Jehegan Outreach Center and Solomon founded and helps lead New Beginnings. So when someone asked about potential ICE raids and if homeless shelters were gonna be safe from them, I immediately thought of these two advocates from my town. So, the question: are schools and places of worship and hospitals and homeless shelters going to remain relatively safe from Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids?

A: Like so many legal questions, the answer is maybe. Homeless shelters were included in Secretary Mayorkas’s guidance about protected areas. The Secretary used them as an example of a place where people receive social services. Houses of worship, schools, hospitals, or events such as funerals, weddings and public demonstrations were--and as of January 12, 2025 are-- all considered sensitive locations.

This really started—the policy preventing agents from making arrests in sensitive locations without approval from upper level management--under President Obama, in 2011. The policy continued through the first Trump administration and has remained under Biden’s administration. The idea behind the policy was that our communities are all safer when people feel like it’s safe to get healthcare or go to church or temple, for example. Or put another way, it was intended to allow undocumented people to operate freely in certain public areas with the idea that doing so will ultimately benefit not just them, but also the larger community. In 2021, the Biden administration issued its own guidance expanding the areas that “require special protection.”

The idea that Trump might allow ICE agents to make arrests anywhere, even inside schools and houses of worship, without the current limitations began circulating as part of Project 2025. If you don’t know about Project 2025, just google it. In short, it’s a list of policy proposals distributed by the Heritage Foundation prior to the election.

Anyhow, I am told that President-elect Donald Trump plans to rescind the “sensitive locations” policy as soon as the first day he is in office. But outside the president-elect’s circle, no one knows for sure.

Q: Next I’ve gotten several questions regarding news about the incoming administration’s intention to set about removing "birthright" citizenship.

My Answer is that birthright citizenship isn’t going anywhere. The 14th Amendment of our Constitution provides birthright citizenship so this would be very, very difficult to overturn. If I’m wrong about this one, then we will truly have a lot to worry about. But, my thinking is that

Trump might try to change this through an Executive Order, as a sort of political stunt, knowing that it would likely be tied up in litigation. And in the event that it made it even to our current Supreme Court, which is very much aligned with President-Elect Trump’s policy goals, the Supreme Court of the United States—SCOTUS—would very likely protect birthright citizenship.

Q: Has changing the timeframe to apply for citizenship been mentioned? making it longer/harder for LPR to become citizens.

A: During Trump first term, anti-immigrant rhetoric and policies led to an increase in people trying to become citizens, leading to a backlog and delays. I even heard that moneys were diverted from processing applications to other things. It’s possible that some or all of this could happen again. It’s also probably fair to say that moving people through the naturalization process is not going to be a priority of the administration.

In fact, Project 2025 briefly mentions ramping up "denaturalization efforts" or the revoking of citizenship to folks who became US citizens other than by birth.

Q: What’s your crystal ball say?
I think budget reconciliation will likely provide for the first legislative attacks against my client communities in the new year; it could include harmful immigration enforcement provisions as well as limits to the Child Tax Credit for children with Individual Taxpayer Identification Numbers (ITIN), and maybe also potential limits on U.S. citizen children with parents who file their taxes with ITINs.

If you don’t know about the Child Tax Credit, you can read about it on the IRS website. It is actually a huge help to a lot of my client families who’ve survived child abuse or trafficking. Unlike the Earned Income Tax Credit, the Child Tax Credit is available for folks who do not have a social security number.

 
Aright, that’s it for our Q&A this week. If you want to support immigrant survivors in Arkansas, sign up for monthly donations either through our Patreon or at AIDArkansas.com/donate. When you do, you'll automatically join our AID Amigos circle, which gives you free access to all of our Patreon content. What's on there? Well, videos of each episode, of course! And all of our monthly donors get to hang out together and visit with me and/or my incredible staff, our dedicated board members, and sometimes even our clients. You'll also get my detailed notes from each podcast episode. And here's something that I really enjoy - every few months, I document my daily work activities for an entire week, giving you a real behind-the-scenes look at what it is to work as an attorney, a grant writer and a nonprofit executive director at Arkansas’ nonprofit immigration law firm.
And even if you never take advantage of these neat perks, your monthly donation will help ensure that immigrant survivors in Arkansas have access to the specialized, culturally literate and trauma informed legal help they need. No survivor should have to navigate this system alone and you can help make sure they don’t have to.

Aright, you curious denizens, that is it for our first episode of Léo Tucker Lawyers.

Léo Tucker Lawyers is produced by Ginger Doss. If you would like to learn more about the nonprofit immigration law firm I founded to serve people who have survived trafficking and child abuse, then head over to AIDArkansas.com. If you want to learn more about me or my consulting work, visit LeoTucker.com. Our theme song is by one of my favorite local bands here in Northwest Arkansas, a beloved group called Léo Tucker & Their Lovers. You can find me on the socials at LeoGabrielTucker. And remember, change happens when we keep on learning – so, until next time, stay curious.