Greg Sargent: This is The Daily Blast from The New Republic, produced and presented by the DSR network. I’m your host, Greg Sargent.
Carol Hui: You’re welcome, guys. Thank you.
Hui: I moved to Kennett May 2004. And I was there to visit my friend; she was having baby at the hospital. And after that, we’re just looking around, and I really like Kennett. People say Kennett is really small because by that time we only have a little bit over 10,000 people. But for me, I feel like that’s enough, 10,000 people. This is not small town. I have to know everyone. It takes a long time to know everyone. And I really like it. So I decided to stay in Kennett.
Hui: We don’t marry yet because of the situation we have, but I call him as my husband. I have my husband and my three beautiful children. I got two boy and a girl. I love them so much. My three children, they’re doing really well in Kennett. I’m so proud. People love them and care about them. I have a wonderful church I go to, and I met a lot of good people.
Hui: I didn’t know until after the happening. And then I was so shocked. I didn’t know that many people loved me.
Hui: Because I work, I take care of my kids, I love everyone I [meet] every day. I meet new people every day, and I try my best to make their day a good day. No matter [if] they come in the restaurant sad or angry, when they left the restaurant they’re happy. I care about people. I never think [that] people love me that much. When they do that to me, I was like, No way. I was like, For real? “Carol Day”? I’ve been famous, I joke to my son. He said, Mom, yeah, they make a date. So after the date happened, my son told me about what’s going on. I was like, I love them so much. Thank you so much for what they do for me. Hopefully I will see them soon.
Hui: That’s sad. That’s really sad. Because right now we have 49 women here. We have 20 to 25 women from ICE. Everybody here has a different story. All we want [is] to have a better life [for] ourselves, [for] our family, [for] our children. I hope more people understand it. I know they voted for Trump. Trump wants to make America better—that’s great. But we’re human. We make a mistake. But at least give us a chance to fix it. The other half of the people here, they were locked in here for doing.... They are not from ICE. There are other reasons [why] they were here—other 25 people here. They were doing drugs. They were talking about drugs, drinking. They were so different from us. They were just, Oh, I just need to be here for six months. I can go home and see my family. How about us?
Sargent: Carol, I want to read you something that your friend Vanessa Cowart, who helped you convert to Catholicism, said to the Times. “No one voted to deport moms,” she said. “We were all under the impression we were just getting rid of the gangs, the people who came here in droves.” So that’s your friend Vanessa Cowart talking. She said no Trump people in the town really voted for something as horrible as what we’re seeing right now. How do you feel about that? Do you think it’s true that a lot of Trump voters didn’t know that they were voting to remove people like you?
Sargent: Carol, what originally brought you to this country, and what happened when you first got here?
Sargent: How old were you when you first came?
Sargent: Twenty-four, you were young. What got you to move to Missouri?
Sargent: You’ve worked for many years as a waitress, right? Some of it at the waffle house, and you’ve also cleaned houses. Can you talk about that? You’ve met a lot of American families doing that, right? You wait on American families every day, don’t you?
Sargent: When you wait tables at the restaurant, you must get to know a lot of American families. You must have gotten to know them pretty well over time, right? Can you talk about that?
Sargent: Can I ask, what does it feel like to know that there are all these people out in the town who are hoping that you get released and are rooting for you? Can you talk about what that feels like?
Sargent: Carol, I know that you have three children and you’re separated from them. One of them is 14. Your boy is 14. How old are your other two kids, and what does it feel like to be separated from them?
Sargent: You don’t want your kids to be scared. We understand that you’re trying to get members of Congress interested in trying to turn this around. Do you have a message for members of Congress and other politicians? Would you like to say something to them?
Sargent: Carol, thank you so much for talking to us. We wish you the best of luck. Hopefully your story will get more attention, and hopefully this will end. Thank you.
Sargent: We’re also talking today to Carol’s lawyer, Raymond Bolourtchi. He’s here with us, and he’s going to explain some of the legal ins and outs of the case. Ray, what happened to Carol exactly, and where are things?
Sargent: You mentioned the previous marriage. I just want to clarify that The New York Times reported that she entered into a paid marriage for the sake of getting legal protection. And as you’ve said, she has regretted that ever since; she was desperate at the time. Can you just give us a short overview of that part of it?
Fast forward after all her appeals are exhausted, she’s ultimately placed on what we call an order of supervision. The Department of Homeland Security was not in a position to enforce the order removal. Her son was autistic, and she was not eligible for any type of other defense. And she’s been on this order of supervision. I have a lot of clients that are or have been on order of supervision, but she was so adamant: never missed an appointment, never violated any laws as a condition of her supervision. She was just a model foreign national under this program. Every year, [she] was granted an employment authorization dedicated to working and caring for her family, her autistic son. And the order of supervision had been renewed year to year and it was valid until August of this year. Right after January 20 and the executive orders, we started seeing some very dramatic movements, and then she received a call that she needed to report ahead of her reporting date in August 2025. And she showed up the next day as directed. Again, she followed all the rules and every instruction. And that’s when she was taken into custody.
Bolourtchi: Correct. And that the department wanted to enforce the order. Obviously, the administrative, or rather the executive, order said that the department will no longer want to have anyone in an order of supervision. And if you had a final order of deportation, then you needed to be deported. And our whole point in this particular case was that, Look, she’s been a model participant in the program.
Bolourtchi: Based on a recent Supreme Court decision not too long ago, we believe that there are changed circumstances that would really warrant the case to be reopened because now Carol has a defense that she did not have at the time when her case was heard. We remain optimistic that the case will be reopened. And obviously [with] having an autistic child in the U.S., we feel very confident that we would have a really good shot at it, but we have to get this door opened—or reopen rather. We’re hoping that the Board of Immigration Appeals will do that in light of these chain circumstances.
Bolourtchi: Correct. We’ve done both. Both have been filed at the same time. We filed an emergency request that the deportation be stayed for an order preventing the department to put Carol on a flight. And at the same time, we filed a request that her old case will reopen so she can go forward with this new defense now available to her. And obviously, because she has a an autistic son, we believe that the facts of the case are strong enough and they’re changed enough that she’s deserving of having this opportunity.
Bolourtchi: Thank you, and thank you again for shedding so much light on this story. Really appreciate that.
Read More Details
Finally We wish PressBee provided you with enough information of ( Transcript: Trump Arrest of Immigrant Shocks Small MAGA Town )
Also on site :