KJZZ is a service of Rio Salado College,
and Maricopa Community Colleges

Copyright © 2025 KJZZ/Rio Salado College/MCCCD
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

What this Arizona civil rights lawyer expects to see during Trump's immigration crackdown

Border wall with road next to it and mountain in distance
Camryn Sanchez/KJZZ
Border wall at the Arizona-Mexico border.

President Donald Trump’s promised mass deportations are underway here and across the country. Federal officials conducted raids and targeted operations and touted thousands of arrests in recent days.

And immigrant communities and mixed-status families are worried. Last week, the administration announced it would allow federal agents to make immigration arrests in places that used to be off-limits: schools, churches and hospitals.

But, Stephen Montoya, a longtime civil rights attorney in Arizona and a principal at the firm Montoya, Lucero, & Pastor, doesn’t think those places are likely to see many ICE agents inside. Montoya joined The Show to talk about what he’s expecting to see as this crackdown in undocumented immigrants plays out — and what he’s hearing from folks in Arizona already.

Full conversation

STEPHEN MONTOYA: I absolutely am getting the exponentially larger amount of calls and questions, and I've actually been asked to appear in meetings containing educators who are fearful that their schools will be raided.

LAUREN GILGER: Right.

MONTOYA: So the answer is emphatically yes.

GILGER: Right, I want to ask you about that, about schools, about churches, about hospitals. There is a change in policy. At least in guidance for ICE here from the Trump administration already saying that the restriction on raiding those places, on going into those places to make immigration arrests has been lifted. How likely do you think it is that we will see schools, hospitals, churches with ICE agents outside or inside?

MONTOYA: I think it is unlikely because hospitals are private. In order for ICE to raid that hospital, it's gonna need a search warrant. In order to obtain a search warrant, you have to first visit with a federal judge and convince the judge that there is probable cause, that illegalities are transpiring in the hospital and that you need to enter the hospital in order to apprehend those responsible for the illegalities. And I don't think a federal judge is going to be inclined to grant the warrant, given the fact that it could disrupt the business, the operation of the hospital, which is deemed crucial, and it's going to be hard to establish probable cause.

Stephen Montoya
Clara Santamaria
Stephen Montoya

GILGER: Right. So what about when it comes to something like schools? You mentioned you're speaking with educators who are already alarmed. What rights would people have in that school setting?

MONTOYA: They would have the same rights that they would have if they were in a private home or a private business. The police don't have the right to enter a public school and just arrest people or search for people. They need to have a warrant in order to enter those premises, like the hospital.

A federal judge is going to say, why do you need to execute the warrant at the school? I've been practicing in the federal courts for over three decades. Those are the types of exacting questions that federal judges ask before they issue warrants in places like hospitals, schools, we'll leave out churches for now.

GILGER: Yeah.

MONTOYA: It’s going to be tough.

GILGER: Let me ask you about your impression of what's going on so far. Right? Like we're hearing reports of, you know, the mass deportations are underway. ICE is conducting raids at workplaces. They are conducting some activity, it looks like in Arizona, maybe it's targeted. From what you can tell so far, like how widespread is this mass deportation at this point? How widespread do you anticipate it getting?

MONTOYA: I think at this juncture, it is more widespread. I still find it difficult to characterize it as widespread. Arresting hundreds of undocumented workers isn't really a difficult task because there are so many. So, in order for it to really make a big impact, they're gonna really need a lot more people than they have.

A lot of this is motivated by publicity, the desire for publicity. You know, President Trump has promised this. So now he needs to do something dramatic to make good on his promise. I do think that he's gonna be tougher than Biden, but, you know, Biden was apprehending and deporting hundreds of undocumented workers every day. So I do think that they will try to pick the low hanging fruit if they get tips that, hey, this factory is staffed almost exclusively by undocumented workers. And that person is able to actually verify that, that could justify a warrant that they would execute.

GILGER: Let me ask you about the issue of rights here, right? Like when raids happen, if an ICE agent shows up at a workplace and starts arresting people, what rights do or or don't maybe undocumented immigrants have?

MONTOYA: Well, they do have rights. The due process clause of the United States Constitution requires due process before arrest, and in reference to undocumented, before they can even be stopped and questioned in the workplace or on the street, there has to be a reasonable suspicion that justifies the stop.

This is very well settled law. It has been settled for literally a couple of decades at this juncture, because, you know, this isn't the first time this has happened. And in order to have reasonable suspicion to stop someone that you believe may be undocumented, You need more than a suspicion.

GILGER: It sounds like what you're saying like is that the law is pretty clear here and that whether or not this administration might take a different approach to it than the last, there are still rights and laws that that have to be respected.

MONTOYA: And I, and I think any lawyer would say that.

GILGER: So what do you see then? You, you but you were around for many rounds of this. You said the first time the Trump administration came into office, you were around during the 1070 era in Arizona. What feels different about what's happening today?

MONTOYA: The intensity and source of the rhetoric. The rhetoric is extremely intense, and the source of the rhetoric is from the chief executive of the United States, namely President Trump. And I think people who don't take President Trump seriously when he says he's going to do something are making a big mistake.

But I do think that he's going to really try to beef up immigration enforcement at the border, but also in the workplace. In the schools, in the churches, and the hospitals, not so much because the law limits him there and those are not, that's not where the low hanging fruit is and that's not where he's going to get a lot of numbers.

But I do think that he will search for those numbers, and I do think that the law is going to restrain him. Federal judges obey the law, and the law is clear, and I've discussed the standards, they're rigorous. And they're especially rigorous and enforced and applied in the United States Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit because it's established a lot of these laws and their rulings have been held by the United States Supreme Court.

I don't think the United States Supreme Court is going to redefine the probable cause or reasonable suspicion. So I do think there's going to be more enforcement activity, but I, I really do think that it's going to have to transpire within the confines of law.

KJZZ's The Show transcripts are created on deadline. This text is edited for length and clarity, and may not be in its final form. The authoritative record of KJZZ's programming is the audio record.

Lauren Gilger, host of KJZZ's The Show, is an award-winning journalist whose work has impacted communities large and small, exposing injustices and giving a voice to the voiceless and marginalized.
Related Content