San Francisco, California – December 17, 2025
In the dim fluorescent glow of a federal courthouse hallway, Milli Atkinson scribbles notes on a yellow legal pad, her voice a hushed urgency amid the shuffle of anxious families. "If your case gets dismissed today, don't linger—ICE is waiting outside," she warns a young asylum seeker from Honduras, her eyes scanning the crowd for the next client in need. It's just another morning in Trump's America for this 42-year-old immigration attorney, but one that underscores the escalating human toll of the administration's aggressive enforcement policies.
Atkinson, director of the Immigrant Legal Defense Program at the San Francisco Bar Association, embodies the frontline chaos gripping the nation's immigration system. Since President Donald Trump's return to the White House in January 2025, her days have blurred into a relentless cycle of crisis management: advising detainees in 15-minute court windows, coordinating rapid-response teams to ICE arrests, and fighting to stave off burnout in a field where emotional exhaustion is the norm. "Some days you break down in tears," Atkinson admitted in a rare moment of candor, her voice cracking as she recounted the arrest of a breastfeeding mother mid-hearing last week. "It's not just the cases—it's the sheer volume, the fear in their eyes, the way the system feels rigged against hope."
The numbers paint a stark picture. Under Trump's second term, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has ramped up operations, with total arrests surpassing 307,440 nationwide as of early December— a 17,560 increase in just two weeks. In San Francisco alone, at least 88 asylum seekers have been detained directly at court hearings since September, a tactic critics decry as "ambush enforcement" that chills access to due process. Compounding the crisis, more than half of the country's immigration judges have been dismissed or reassigned, leading to backlogs that stretch cases into years and force snap decisions in overheated courtrooms.
Atkinson's routine begins before dawn. By 5 a.m., she's glued to her phone, sifting through encrypted Signal messages from the Rapid Response Network—a volunteer brigade of lawyers now deploying two to three times a week, up from once or twice a month during Trump's first term. By 8 a.m., she's at the federal courthouse on 630 Sansome Street, where she leads the Attorney of the Day program, doling out free legal counsel to immigrants from across Northern California. Language barriers add another layer of frenzy: Her team speaks 32 languages, but when interpreters for rarer dialects like Kazakh or Mam are unavailable, glitchy phone lines can mean life-altering misunderstandings—such as a husband learning too late that his wife's asylum petition doesn't extend to him, dooming him to deportation for a visa overstay.
Mid-morning brings a sobering tour of the ICE holding facility on the building's sixth floor, a stark contrast to the bustling halls below. Detainees huddle in frigid rooms under unrelenting fluorescent lights, deprived of basic amenities: no private toilets, sparse medical care, inedible meals, and hygiene kits that run dry within hours. A recent ACLU lawsuit prompted a November preliminary injunction demanding improvements, but conditions remain dire, with even pregnant women fitted with smartwatches for tracking—even during labor. "It's dehumanizing," said one detainee, speaking through a glass partition in the cramped attorney-client room, which limits visits to two people per side via outdated phones. For transgender asylum seekers, the lack of name privacy turns consultations into high-stakes gambles.
Atkinson's emotional ledger is equally burdened. Staff meetings devolve into tearful debriefs, with vicarious trauma—witnessing clients' shattered lives—now a daily hazard. She's implemented training sessions, but admits the toll is mounting: "We're all one bad call away from breaking." To cope, she enforces a hard stop at 5 p.m., swapping case files for runs along the Embarcadero or escapist historical romances. Weekends bring tap dancing lessons and mahjong nights with family, though immigration talk is strictly off-limits. "My parents ask about the weather, anything but this," she said with a wry smile.
Yet amid the despair, glimmers of resistance persist. Since September, Atkinson's team has filed habeas corpus petitions that have secured 44 releases on due process violations, a small but vital win rate. Community rallies and a surge in volunteers—fueled by viral TikTok videos of ICE raids—offer solidarity, reminding her why she entered the field two decades ago, shaped by a multicultural California upbringing that prized helping the vulnerable.
As Trump's "Operation Aurora" deportation push accelerates—aiming for millions amid a parallel "gold card" visa scheme for wealthy investors—lawyers like Atkinson brace for worse. "This isn't the America I know," she reflected, staring out at the fog-shrouded Bay Bridge. "It's an alternate universe where laws bend to cruelty. But we keep fighting—because if we don't, who will?"
Advocacy groups echo her plea for reform. The American Immigration Lawyers Association reports a 40% spike in pro bono sign-ups since January, but warns that without congressional intervention, the system risks total collapse. For now, Atkinson suits up for another day, her resolve as unyielding as the policies she battles.
This report draws on interviews and observations from The Guardian's in-depth profile of Milli Atkinson, alongside data from ICE trackers and legal advocacy reports.
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