MSNBC Film’s “Guerrilla Habeas” pulls back the curtain on the intricacies of the broken U.S. immigration system by revealing how hard immigration lawyers must fight to reunite immigrant families with their children and loved ones.
In an exclusive clip shared with TheWrap, lawyers Sarah Gillman and Gregory Copeland navigate an almost impossible circumstance as they desperately work to halt the deportation of Baba Sillah and reunify him with his family. When the attorneys hear that Sillah is about to be deported from New York’s JFK airport, Gillman and Copeland immediately hustle to file a petition to block his deportation — despite being a three hour drive away in a snowstorm.
While the lawyers were certain they wouldn’t make it to JFK before the flight was scheduled to depart, they determined they would stretch the rules ever so slightly to file their petition online before calling the judge and demanding a hearing.
“Sarah is driving down the highway [in the snowstorm],” Copeland recalls in the clip, adding that he used his phone as a hotspot as the group whizzed down the highway. “I start writing this thing at 5, I file it at 6:10, I call the court — my phone’s not working.”
After the lawyers pulled up at a gas station in the middle of nowhere and called into the chambers, the judge agrees to hold a hearing at 7:20 — 45 minutes before the plane is slated to take off.
“I’m out of my mind,” Sillah’s wife Mamou Drame recounted of this tense period.
While the attorneys made their case that Sillah should be granted the right to stay due to other legal avenues available to his immigration case, Sillah boards the place alongside four I.C.E. agents. “As soon as they take off, there’s just no coming back from that obviously,” Copeland said.
Just in the nick of time, at 7:45 the judge gives the order to take Sillah off of the plane and the lawyers’ hands unclench as they shut their computer during what they know won’t be the last time they have to fight.
You can watch the full clip above.
Betsy Hersey and Emma Wall direct and produce “Guerrilla Habeas” and Ashley Dizon serves as co-executive producer alongside Amanda Spain and Rashida Jones, who executive produce for MSNBC Films in association with TIME Studios, Day Zero Productions, Sugar 23 and Mainstay Entertainment.