Mother Jones – September 01, 2019

46 MOTHER JONES |SEPTEMBER / OCTOBER 2019

on election night in 2016, Carlos

Spector turned off the TV as soon as

the networks called it. He shifted on

the couch toward his wife, Sandra,

and said, “We’re fucked, honey.”

The next morning he awoke at

4:30 like always and drove across

El Paso to the two-story law offi ce

with his name out front. The ma-

hogany desk upstairs was littered

with case fi les. As he sat in front of

the large windows that overlooked

the border, he asked himself, What

are we going to do? Soon attorneys

all along the US-Mexico line called

him asking that same question, be-

cause he was Carlos Spector, and

surely he had a plan.

His plan, he said, was to wait.

Spector specializes in arguing

asylum cases with the worst odds,

and after working for nearly 30

years in one of the country’s strict-

est immigration courts, he’d learned

the value of patience. Sometimes

it was only a matter of fi nding the

right client, like in the early 1990s,

when he represented a border-town

mayor who, threatened by machine

politicians, became one of the fi rst

Mexicans to win asylum in the

modern era. Since then, Spector

had become something of a border

celebrity. Sandra complains to this

day that they can’t go to a restau-

rant without someone—a local who

Donald Trump has made it even

harder for people to seek refuge in the

United States. Attorney

Carlos Spector has pushed back—and

pushed himself to the brink.

BY J. WESTON PHIPPEN