By Torin Record-Sand
Reporting for West Seattle Blog
Two topics that have receded from the spotlight a bit lately took it back at the April meeting of West Seattle Indivisible, with two presentations aimed at providing a retrospective on the current federal government’s actions.
The first was a presentation from longtime local immigration lawyer Ester Greenfield on ongoing legal issues for immigrants, and the other was from WSI member Karen Lezon, highlighting the importance of climate change and neglect of environmental issues by the current administration. Both speakers sounded a similar theme: With the Iran war dominating the attention of mass media, public consciousness has moved so fast that we have begun to forget about some ongoing political issues here at home.
Greenfield’s presentation was titled “Immigration Whack-A-Mole” – which she explained was her sense that, as soon as one legal issue disappears or seems to diminish, another one reappears, like the “whack-a-mole” arcade game. She began with a brief self-introduction, explaining that she has some of the most in-depth familiarity with immigration issues on a local level, having volunteered at Riverton Park United Methodist Church for the past several years, helping around 800 people with their asylum applications.
She split her discussion into seven ongoing issues:
The first was the “pretermission of asylum.” This legal terminology refers to the action the United States has recently taken to deport asylum seekers. While at face value, these look like simple deportations, she explained that it is in fact because we have deals with other countries for them to take asylum seekers instead of the US, such as Honduras, Guatemala, Ecuador, and Uganda. But, Greenfield said, these places offer no guarantee of safety, and the asylum deals we have with them are poorly explained at best. However, she noted, the government stopped deporting asylum seekers around mid-March of this year, but there was no retroactive reprieve for those already deported.
The second issue the problem of excessive fines many longterm asylum-seekers face. If their initial application for asylum is not granted, they can face fines of up to $1000 per day for up to 5 years – leading to some longterm immigrants facing legal fines of a cumulative $1.8 million. This, she said, is an ongoing court battle over Eighth Amendment rights.
The third issue is one of ongoing detention, particularly for people who have had their deportation withheld as a form of temporary asylum grant. Under the old system, some immigrants could make an appeal after being held in detention long enough that they should be released but not deported under fear of persecution. They would be granted that via the courts, and released. Recently, she explained, the federal government has said that they can be re-detained even if the court had decided on the withheld deportation.
The fourth is the ongoing difficulty of filing fees for immigrants, particularly those filing for asylum, which she said have increased after the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” of 2025. Asylum application and subsequent work permits, she said, used to be free, but now respectively cost $100 and $650. This can be incredibly punishing on immigrants, many of whom have limited access to financial resources.
The fifth is the current pause on adjudications. This, Greenfield said, means that the United States has decided to simply hold off on making any decision whatsoever for asylum applications from 39 countries. These include most of Africa, excluding Uganda and South Africa.
The sixth: Tightening of the appeals process in the court of immigration appeals. Recent legislation from the Trump administration had required a change in the appeals process, cutting the period for appealing from 30 days to 10 days, plus increasing the price of the appeal filing to $1000, and making it so the court must accept the appeal within 10 days. Most of this, in her view, was intended to make the process even more difficult for immigrants: 10 days for a complicated process and a large sum of money could prove difficult to ESL speakers without financial resources. She did say, however, that recent court battles had thwarted most of the planned changes, but some still persisted.
The seventh and final issue she discussed was the ability for asylum seekers to file for work permits in the United States. This is an ongoing issue, she said, with more upcoming legislation aimed at making the process more difficult. Currently, asylum seekers must wait 180 days after applying for asylum to submit a subsequent work permit, and it is decided by random draw who receives the final work permits; upcoming regulation seeks to lengthen the wait period of 6 months to a year, severely endangering immigrant livelihoods. She said public comment to the government on this issue is due on April 24th, and she encouraged those who wanted to make a change to immigration law to file their comment soon. (You can find the public comment form, as well as more information, on the Federal Register here.)
She ended her presentation by calling for donations and support for both Riverton Park United Methodist Church and the Northwest Immigrants Right Project.
Lezon’s presentation was briefer, but no less salient. She gave a general speech reminding the audience of the massive changes that have been made in the Trump presidency to deny the effects of climate change. “’Climate change’ – those two words, she said, cannot be seen anywhere on any federal government site or document any more. Hundreds of thousands of scientists have lost their jobs, valuable research and valuable time is being lost, the U.S. Forest Service is being decimated, and national parks and monuments are no longer valued by the government. “Crimes are being committed against humanity in our name.” she said. “[But] poll after poll of voters show they do not have the environment as a priority.” She recommended that those concerned should look for their best available short-term efforts, such as participating in WSI’s environmental workgroup and continuing to contact legislators about ecological concerns and legislative issues. “As the protest signs say, there is no Planet B.” she closed.
The rest of the WSI meeting went to a recap of their last large protest. On March 28th, they participated in “No Kings Day 3”; this time, along with partner organization Vashon Indivisible, a large contingent of members went to protest downtown. Around 175 members from both organizations organized bus routes and other transportation, and went to march in the Capitol Hill neighborhood – starting in Cal Anderson Park, routing through Seattle University, and going down much of 12th avenue. (Others who did not go downtown gathered here across many parts of West Seattle – you can see our coverage here.) They shared footage and video from the protest, with a large number of interviews asking people their reasons for attending: These included many recent concerns, such as oil prices and the Iran war, the continuing Epstein Files scandal, and immigration-enforcement brutality, among others. Closing their summary of the event, WSI deemed it as a success for future large-scale planning and coordination.
WSI also looked toward future plans. Their next large political event is participation in the traditional May Day (Friday, May 1st) events across the city, which they said aim to demonstrate the potential for a future general strike with 3 core tenets: no school, no work, no shopping. They’re planning a May Day Eve rally about this April 30 4:30-6 pm at Fauntleroy/Alaska; on May Day itself, they hadn’t yet settled on a focus location, but noted that protests are planned that day at Cal Anderson Park at 12 PM, and the DHS office building in Tukwila at 9 AM.
Also ahead, WSI is looking to do one of its first larger fundraisers, with a planned benefit concert at Kenyon Hall on June 20th. They are also planning a collective garage sale for their organization via member contribution on West Seattle Community Garage Sale Day, May 9th, 9 am to 3 pm, at 4557 49th Ave SW. Other upcoming events are on their online calendar.