Analí Looper grew up in Waco attending a bilingual church and learning the stories of immigrants that her family had befriended.
She never considered a career in law until several years after she graduated from Baylor University, when a friend suggested law school as her next step in her advocacy for helping those new to this country.
She earned her degree from Baylor Law School in 2014 and went to work for American Gateways, an Austin-based nonprofit legal service for immigrants.
She opened the organization’s full-time Waco office in 2017, just in time for the first term of President Donald Trump, who vowed a crackdown on illegal immigration. She and her small staff have helped hundreds of lower-income immigrants with advice and direct representation in the labyrinthine world of the immigration system.
Since 2025, Trump has made restrictions on immigration a cornerstone of his second term after a campaign that stressed chaos at the U.S.-Mexico border and concerns about crimes committed by unauthorized immigrants. Looper has been busier than ever as she directs the Waco office and serves as co-director of legal services for American Gateways.
The administration has made sweeping changes to immigration policy, persuaded Congress to increase immigration budgets fivefold and set a goal of deporting an unprecedented 1 million people a year.
Border crossings plummeted to the lowest level last year as the government stepped up enforcement and rejected asylum cases. Meanwhile communities across the U.S. are seeing the effects of an aggressive deportation policy.
Looper spoke to Waco Bridge Editor-in-Chief J.B. Smith in June about the uncertainty and challenges the new policies have created for Waco’s immigrant community. The interview aired on June 19 on “Friday Forum With The Waco Bridge” on KWBU-FM 103.3 and is available in its entirety on the station’s website.
The following is an edited and abridged version of that interview.
The Trump administration has had a particularly aggressive stance on enforcement, not just at the border but in the heartland. How has this job changed in the last couple of years for you as a result of that?
The mark has moved a lot. One thing about attorneys that you can probably guess is we like to have the answers. Under this administration … it’s become particularly hard to counsel clients on what will happen if they do XYZ.
We are left guessing much of the time as policies are shifting constantly. There will be an announcement of a new policy, and then, two days later, it’s walked back. And we don’t know if or when it will be implemented or how, and so it’s become very confusing.
So there’s a danger that if you follow the guidance that was valid a couple years ago, it may actually get you in more trouble?
Or even last week. That’s how quickly things are changing.
Of all the policies that have changed, what has been the most significant one?
There are so many, I don’t know how to name just one, so I’ll name a couple. I would say third country removal has been a particularly cruel policy. This would be people who have come to seek asylum in the United States. There are cases being denied and then people shipped off to another country, often on a different continent. So this would mean a Venezuelan that ends up in an African country, not speaking the language, and often what we hear is with very few rights or access to resources.
Another policy that started being implemented last summer was courthouse arrests. As a reminder, immigration law is civil law. It’s not criminal law, which means that there’s a whole separate court system for immigration cases. And for Waco folks, that immigration court is in San Antonio.
People show up to court to fight their asylum case, to ask for some sort of relief from deportation. Last May, what we saw happening was ICE would be present at the courthouse to arrest people that were showing up to court. Many of these people had no criminal history and had entered the country lawfully with a parole or another format and were following the rules to have their day in court, and they ended up in a detention facility, many pressured into signing for their own deportations.
This is probably one of the cruelest policies that we’ve seen, and it has caused a lot of fear and is a huge due process violation.
I bet that makes it difficult for an attorney to advise their client on making a court hearing.
My job as an attorney is to tell people what the law says, and the law says you have to appear for a court hearing. If you don’t, you will get ordered deported, and then ICE can come to your home at any minute to arrest and detain you.
But I also advise what might happen if you show up, what might happen if you don’t show up. And then it’s my client’s job to make that decision themselves.
During the Obama administration, there was a policy called DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) that allowed certain undocumented people who came here as youth to have a protected status that prevented them from being deported. How has life changed for those people?
Yes, so it has become very complicated. Under the first Trump administration, Trump attempted to revoke DACA completely. That decision became embroiled in various court cases. Where we are now is that initial DACA applications are no longer approved. And that’s since 2017, when Trump took office. You have to be 15 to apply for the benefit, which essentially means all our high school students and all our college aged into DACA when it had already ended for initial applications. None of those folks qualify.
However, the court said that people who had DACA and were continuing to renew it every two years had a vested interest in that benefit, and it could not be taken away from them without more reason from the government. So people with DACA have been able to continue renewing it.
Unfortunately, we have seen people with DACA who have been detained and even deported, even though DACA is supposed to be a protection from deportation. We also know that in the state of Texas, our Texas government sued the federal government over DACA and claiming it’s a hardship to prepare driver’s licenses for people who receive a work permit through DACA.
If you have a work permit through immigration, you are able to get a driver’s license in the state of Texas. And so Texas said, that’s a burden. And the court sided with Texas, and we’re waiting at some point in the state of Texas – a DACA holder could lose their work permit.
And that’s for people who already have that status. For somebody who just graduated from one of our high schools, what’s life like for them right now?
Well, if you’re an undocumented student, unless you have another pathway to status, you don’t have a work permit. This is what I face when I talk to young people: What’s the point of graduating if I’m not going to be able to work in the formal work sector with the work permit and all I can do is work under the table? You don’t need formal education for that. There’s not an incentive to continue your studies. It means that our investment in these young people for their education is many times wasted because they’re not able to use that in a concerted way in our economy.
So there’s no way, even if you’re top of your class or something like that, that you could work legally after that point?
Unless you have another pathway into the system, which is a very narrow system.
Speaking of legislation that has gone back and forth: Texas Senate Bill 4 passed in 2023 and has sort of been in legal limbo until May, when the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals allowed it to go forward. That’s a law that gives state and local immigration authorities immigration duties, which have traditionally been a federal duty. What is going to be the effect of that?
Wow. We don’t know. I mean, I think it’s going to be extremely chaotic. Because SB 4 allows for the state of Texas to deport immigrants. We don’t know how that will work because that’s never been done in modern history. It would allow magistrate judges to be involved in deportation. It’s chaotic and messy, and there’s no infrastructure set in place and usurps the federal government’s job and rights.
Have we been seeing an increase in local detentions of immigrants in McLennan County?
We have. I would say that’s separate from SB 4 in that the arrests we’ve been seeing have been primarily conducted by the (Texas) Department of Public Safety. They have been conducting these arrests under 287(g) agreements. It is a contract between the federal government and a law enforcement entity that allows them to do the work of ICE.
So what we have seen is Texas DPS inside the city of Waco, making traffic stops. And when someone reveals that they’re either a noncitizen or don’t have a driver’s license or proof of some sort of status, they’re being handed over to ICE. And this includes passengers in cars.
And those end up in our jail?
Most end up in our jail and then are eventually transferred to the Montgomery processing center, which is an ICE facility outside of Houston in Conroe.
Every time you see a story about a case where somebody’s been deported, you hear, well, they should have just gotten legalized. How hard is it to get legalized here if you’re an undocumented person?
The four ways to permanent status in the U.S. are the visa lottery, employment, family or humanitarian, and that’s it.
If you don’t have a close family member that can petition you, you don’t have this highly skilled employment and an employer that will sponsor you, then your only hope is that something bad happened to you, which sounds awful. …
It’s a very, very long process. There’s just not a pathway for a lot of people, and when you hear folks talking about the need for comprehensive immigration reform, by and large, this is what they’re talking about is more pathways to permanent residency that makes sense for our country, for our economy. We need more pathways and Congress needs to do that. That is the work of Congress, to create those pathways to residency.
There was a bipartisan effort to do that under George W. Bush about 20 years ago, but that ran aground. And there doesn’t seem to be a lot of effort to do that right now.
Yes, and unfortunately, it seems that when we get close to that, both parties tend to use immigrants, and in fact, Dreamers (DACA-eligible immigrants), as pawns to attach other types of legislation as well. So, yeah, we seem to be getting further and further from comprehensive immigration reform.
How do you feel that the current crackdown on immigrants is affecting Waco, where you grew up?
It’s been sad to see there’s a lot of fear in the community, not just in groups of undocumented immigrants but for mixed-status families, where you have U.S. citizens and undocumented immigrants.
But also I’ve heard fear from Hispanic people who are concerned that they’ll be stopped just for driving while brown. It’s naturalized U.S citizens. I’ve had former clients calling me asking if they can be stripped of their citizenship. There’s just a lot of fear right now in the community because it’s unclear who’s doing what and what’s happening. But people know that there are arrests happening in the community.
How do you feel about your decision to become an immigration attorney?
Besides marrying my husband, it’s the best decision I made. I am very grateful for this work. I feel that it’s very meaningful, but I also get to work closely with clients and people in the community. I’m just grateful for the support we’ve had from the Waco community to continue to do this work here in Waco.
