Four days after protesters converged on Los Angeles International Airport in opposition to President Donald Trump's executive order on immigration, troops of lawyers have set up shop in the airport to help foreign travelers navigate the new process.
About 100 volunteer lawyers are working in shifts out of the Tom Bradley International Terminal to assist families being detained by customs officials. Attorney Talia Inelender said she's heard of people being detained in groups of 20, 40, and even 100.
Inelender, an immigration lawyer with the nonprofit Public Counsel, said her grandfather's resilience surviving the Holocaust encouraged her to volunteer.
"My family history is certainly a large part of why I feel an obligation to give back, and also a moral sense of responsibility to heal the world and do what I can to help those in need," she said.
Mona Iman, the daughter of immigrants who came to the U.S. from Iran to avoid persecution of their Baha'i faith, volunteered her legal skills as well.
"A lot of people — now they don't have a place in Iran and now they can't come to the United States. Families are being separated," she said. "It's not good for anyone."
"Sex and the City" actress Kristin Davis, a volunteer with the United Nations Refugee Agency, visited the lawyers' makeshift office to offer her support.
"The fact that these people have volunteered their time and their actual skills...it's beautiful," she said with tears in her eyes.
