An overwrought piano cover of "My Foolish Heart" is blasting here on the #Boston #immigrationcourt ICE detainee docket while the judge waits on an Arabic interpreter via phone and while it's no Bill Evans it is oddly soothing to this former quasi-pro jazz pianist rn
The #immigrationcourt ICE detainee docket is a sort of hellish cyberspace unmoored from space or time, like a casino or a McDonald's. I imagine they're the same everywhere. If you told me this endless but not unpleasant piano ballad had been going for an hour, I might believe you
As in at least 50% of my appearances here, I'm not being paid & don't expect to be. I barely made my mortgage payment this month. I threw my back out this weekend & have to do 2 full asylum hearings & teach 4 decades of immigration policy tomorrow. Piano jazz is a lovely reprieve
I am categorically addicted to doing these cases, even more so when they can't pay. Each pro bono case costs my office thousands, and I just keep taking them. I'm starting to think it's a self-destructive impulse. I'm past being able to explain it to myself or anyone else.
The closest thing I can compare these high-stakes/low-reward detained deportation cases that no one else wants to is maybe a gambling addiction--which is at least sometimes occasionally profitable.
This is much more than I'd usually care to share, but I feel like putting this out to the world is a way to hold myself accountable. It took me many years too long to get a handle on my mental health, & I want 2020 to be the year I achieve something resembling financial stability
Even as I write this, I'm feeling shame for complaining about existential threats to my privileged life in the presence of ICE detainees, some of the most vulnerable and mentally tortured people in the US rn. That's part of all of this too.
I hope this unusually personal thread on a tough day is an appropriate caution for law students who want to get into #immigrationlaw. Don't get into this w/o a plan to pay your bills, or just assume the money will come in bc you're doing the right thing.
