Since President Trump’s immigration policies took effect earlier this year, Alexandria Iwanenko has been busy. She’s an immigration attorney in Erie. 

“I think chaos is the best word to describe it,” she said. 

She’s had to navigate the changes with her clients. 

“We’re giving legal advice to people in consultations, and sometimes I have to call them and say, ‘You know the thing we talked about last week? That’s not true anymore,’” she said. 

Special programs for people from places like Cuba, Ukraine, and Afghanistan have been terminated. She said that it has affected many people in Erie.

“There are people who had legal status, and that legal status has been terminated, and now they’re trying to figure out if there’s a way they can permanently stay in the United States,” she said. 

It’s now easier for the government to deport people faster. 

“We have found that [the] deportation process [is] going much quicker than we had ever seen,” she said. 

One of her clients was one of three men detained by Border Patrol officers in Erie last week, she said. 

“I received confirmation the following Monday, so only six days later, that that person had already been deported and was in their home country,” she said. 

She said he never had a chance to have a hearing or say goodbye to his family. 

“The person who was deported said he did not sign any documents, he did not want to voluntarily leave,” he said. 

She said local police have pulled people over and reported them to Border Patrol “if they have a reasonable suspicion that that person might not be here lawfully or if that person can only produce a foreign document.”

“CBP is responding to the traffic stop, and they are then taking people into custody,” she said.

Then they’re moved into Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody in the Erie County Prison. Erie County Executive Brenton Davis said there have been 390 short-term ICE detentions this year.

Iwanenko said the immigration system in the United States needs reform, but thinks this isn’t the way to do it. 

“I think our government resources could be used for things other than prosecuting people who crossed a border without a piece of paper,” she said. 

Erie police chief Dan Spizarny said he won’t comment on whether his department has had interactions with Border Patrol.

We reached out to ICE for an interview, but haven’t heard back.