Pittsburgh immigration attorney says she's seen uptick in new client calls after Trump's inauguration
PITTSBURGH (KDKA) — President Trump has announced a slew of immigration-related executive orders and actions so far this week. It's sparking some families in the Pittsburgh area to call immigration attorneys for legal help.
There are 10,000 outstanding immigration cases right now in the Pittsburgh area, KDKA Consumer Investigator Meghan Schiller learned.
The phones kept ringing Wednesday inside immigration attorney Kristen Schneck's Downtown Pittsburgh office.
"I would say that our new client intake calls are up probably 70%, 80%," Schneck said.
Schneck said she's getting inquiries from undocumented people who have lived in this country for decades.
"We're getting calls from families, like I said, a spouse who married a U.S. soldier has been here since 1978 and she doesn't want to have to go home to Europe," said Schneck.
She said she also got another call from a man who was brought to the U.S. by his mother in 1991 from Mexico. He was a Dreamer and now Schneck said "he's married with three kids, probably ages 16 to 4, and he's never done anything to legalize, even though he would have been eligible for DACA."
Schneck believes federal U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents will work with willing local law enforcement, primarily in the suburbs, to find undocumented people by checking license tags or watching traffic court summary offense dockets.
She expects ICE raids, saying they happened during Mr. Trump's last administration.
"They were primarily at construction sites in western Pennsylvania where ICE would go in," said Schneck.
"I think that will absolutely happen again," said added.
As for timing, she said, "If they have removal orders, they could have them expedited and removed from the country within 24 hours before family members at home know they're gone."
The Justice Department ordered federal prosecutors Wednesday to investigate any local officials interfering with Mr. Trump's immigration policies, which included the removal of so-called off-limit "safe havens."
"He rescinded the long-term policy of churches and schools as safe havens that they wouldn't go into and they now paved the way to be able to go in there. If they want to remove whole families of people, they'll be able to. They can grab the parents at work and then go in and get the children at schools," said Schneck.
Schneck said she fears this will result in undocumented people no longer sending their children to schools or not taking them to the hospital for needed care.
Schneck said she expects multiple consultations every day with concerned local families. She said right now, all immigration-related appearances and court hearings are handled virtually out of Philadelphia because they removed the city of Pittsburgh's immigration court in 2022.
