At 2 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 23 at the Teton County Library, the ACLU of Wyoming is hosting a “Know Your Rights” workshop.
At 5:30 p.m. on Monday, Nov. 25, the Wyoming Immigration Advocacy Project will host a community forum on immigration policies at St. John’s. Episcopal Church.
Other Jackson-based immigrant resources include Immigrant Hope — which also helps immigrants with citizenship applications.
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Arriving at her office in the freezing dark around 6 a.m., Elisabeth Trefonas wears an unexpected uniform: unicorn flannel pajamas.
At some point, she changes into a suit. Then changes back into the pj’s when the office empties out. The outfit change has helped the immigration attorney of 20 years make it through 16-hour days spent with clients.
She’s often surrounded by tears and stress, but Trefonas herself is quick to laugh. It’s a coping mechanism.
Trefonas points to a map where her clients have placed a pin from their home countries. Many have lived here for decades, Trefonas said. (Sophia Boyd-Fliegel/KHOL)
“We have, sort of, a motto around here,” she said, “that we laugh so we don’t cry.”
Ever since President-elect Donald Trump won the presidential race earlier this month, the phones have been ringing at Trefonas Law, PC, across the street from the Teton County courthouse in Jackson.
As lead attorney and a public defender across the state, Trefonas had to start turning people away, adding them to a waitlist.
“We’re getting to the point where we probably will be shutting our phones off and not answering during the day,” she said. “It’s just constant.”
On the wall in the entrance is a framed world map filled with gold pins spread like buckshot marking her clients’ home countries. Some fled to seek asylum. Some have come via student visas. Many have been in the United States for decades, and now they all need the same impossible thing: expedited applications for citizenship. Even for those who have been in the system for a while, legalized residency takes years. There are government backlogs and not enough lawyers.
In Teton County, immigrants — both with paperwork and without — are a bedrock presence. Data from the U.S. Census Bureau show about 2,000 people, or 20% of Jackson residents, and 12% of the Teton County population were born outside of the United States. The American Immigration Council said Wyoming has over 19,000 immigrants, just over 3% of the population. Not all of those, however, are undocumented and experts say there are no reliable statistics for the demographic.
Deportations in Jackson — the risk and the reality — are not new.
As recently as August, five men living in Jackson were detained by ICE officers from Craig, Colorado, Trefonas said.
Trump, in his first term, deported fewer people than Obama, Clinton or Bush. But under the Trump administration, worries of deportation loom with heightened dread.
But, as Trefonas explained, the federal agency Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, has been more predictable under President Joe Biden.
In Jackson, Trefonas said that ICE under Biden would only go after people with known criminal records. Raids were rare.
Under the first Trump term, Trefonas recalled boots on the ground about every other month.
A piano player, Trefonas keeps her childhood instrument in the conference room of her law offices. She plays it at night when the office is empty, she said. (Sophia Boyd-Fliegel/KHOL)
“Under Trump, we don’t have any priorities. It’s just detaining everybody,” she said. “This community has a right to be afraid.”
Agents went to businesses and homes sometimes without warrants. They looked at local news and Facebook profiles to find targets. They’d be in unmarked cars and out of uniform. She would warn her clients about being approached on the streets, at work or in the grocery store.
People give ICE information because they don’t know who they’re talking to, she said, and that could end up in an arrest.
Do local lines matter?
One of the largest unknowns is how deportation enforcement could change from county to county.
While Trump has routinely called for local law enforcement to essentially become de facto ICE agents, Teton County Sheriff Matt Carr said that’s not their role.
“It’s not anything that we at the local level are going to be involved with or have ever been involved with,” Carr said.
Sheriffs and police chiefs, elected or appointed to their positions, all have to follow the same state and federal laws. But to what degree they cooperate and protect or leave distance from federal officials is, up to a point, up to them.
Asked what would change in the new administration, Carr has said as little as possible. His department is “not in the immigration business,” he said.
But Lincoln County Sheriff Matt Johnson struck a different tone. Johnson oversees another significant immigrant population in the south of Jackson Hole with more affordable housing. Johnson emphasized cooperation with federal agencies if they reach out for more assistance.
“We’re going to do the right thing,” Johnson said, “where you cooperate with enforcement on the federal side.”
Teton County, Idaho is similar to Alpine in Lincoln County, with a significant immigrant population, many of whom commute to work in Jackson. The Idaho sheriff didn’t return multiple calls for comment.
Carr reiterated a desire for Teton County residents to feel safe reaching out to law enforcement if they are the victim of a crime. Jackson Police Chief Michelle Webber confirmed she is on the same page.
Law enforcement will, however, flag someone if they are arrested and undocumented. According to the Jackson Police Department, no one has been deported for a minor crime since the Trump administration.
What to do?
In keeping with her realism, Trefonas is telling people to plan for the worst. She suggests a few ways Jacksonites can prepare.
The first is to memorize phone numbers, since phones are seized upon detention. Numbers could be for an immigration attorney, to coordinate a bond or pick up kids from school. Trefonas also recommends deciding on a power of attorney, which means giving someone else the power to act on one’s behalf.
Then there’s knowing one’s rights. No one is obligated to reveal their immigration status or let someone into their home, she said, unless a warrant is served and signed by a judge.
“I try not to give my clients doom and gloom, but to prepare them for the reality of things,” Trefonas said.
When she hears that ICE or U.S. Marshals Service detention officers are in town, Trefonas tries to take to Facebook and alert her clients. She’s careful to do this after arrests are made so as not to interfere illegally.
It doesn’t always work.
This summer, she posted when the five Jackson residents were detained, most on criminal charges. Those charges included driving under the influence, possession of marijuana and domestic violence. One did not have a criminal history but was with one of the individuals who did. All had one prior detention and reentered the U.S. without permission.
After posting, Trefonas’ law firm’s Facebook page that federal was suspended by the social media platform’s parent company, Meta. She fought the suspension and it was ultimately overturned.
Though frustrating, the social media snafu was a relatively small headache in what Trefonas sees in a devastatingly sick body, a system that profits off and benefits from the same people it claims to exclude.
America relies on undocumented work, she said. Immigrants pay into social security used by retirees and people with disabilities, but they never receive those benefits.
“From my perspective, apparently we want it this way. We made it up,” Trefonas said. “If we want to do something different, it’s in our control to do that. ”
