Cincinnati immigration attorney Trisha Chatterjee had a problem. She needed to ask U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement how best to submit paperwork for her clients detained at the Butler County Jail.
After days without a response, she finally got through to an ICE officer who said he could give her the phone number for someone who could help.
Chatterjee said the number was for a Columbus-area Taco Bell.
“For the very first time, finally somebody answered me and I was genuinely so excited to have somebody who was going to help us and give us some information,” she told The Enquirer. “So, to get a Taco Bell phone number instead was definitely disheartening.”
Chatterjee shared her story on TikTok, where it has more than 38,000 views.
ICE did not respond to The Enquirer’s emailed questions. Here’s what Chatterjee said happened.
Trisha Chatterjee is an immigration attorney based in Greater Cincinnati. She graduated from Miami University in 2020 and the University of Dayton School of Law in 2023, according to her LinkedIn.
ICE, Taco Bell and a viral TikTok
Chatterjee has practiced immigration law in Greater Cincinnati and Dayton for two years. Currently, she said she has at least eight clients detained at the Butler County Jail in Hamilton, Ohio, which has a contract to hold people with immigration violations for ICE.
Chatterjee wanted to submit a “stay of removal” for some of her clients. This protection prevents the Department of Homeland Security from deporting immigrants who are actively pursuing legal status or humanitarian protection, or are challenging their removal order. Homeland Security accepts or rejects these applications.
“We have a number of people who are detained right now who have cases pending before U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, or before the court,” Chatterjee said. “They’ve got immigration proceedings already pending.”
Applications for a stay of removal have to be submitted in person to the regional ICE field office. For people with immigration cases in Ohio, that office is in Detroit.
Chatterjee, who is based in Greater Cincinnati, was hoping she could submit the applications another way. She said she called and emailed ICE and the Detroit field office asking if she could instead submit these applications at a closer ICE office in Blue Ash but got no response.
She was given another ICE phone number from the Butler County Jail, which she said has connected her with helpful agents in the past.
The ICE agent who picked up the phone gave her another number to call, Chatterjee said. That number went to a Taco Bell in Columbus.
“I called and they answered and they said, ‘Hello, Taco Bell?’ And I said, ‘Taco Bell?’ And the guy who was working said, ‘Yeah, Taco Bell. Ma’am, you called me,” Chatterjee recalled.
It’s not clear if this was a one-time prank or something repeatedly done by the ICE agent. A Taco Bell employee answered the phone when The Enquirer called the number, but hung up when asked if they had received other calls from immigration lawyers.
Chatterjee felt it was a prank this ICE officer had played before because of how quickly he provided the phone number She did not know where the agent was based.
“I was in such disbelief,” she said. “So, I called the ICE officer back, just really frustrated with what had just happened. He says, ‘Oh, I’m sorry. I was trying to lighten the mood and make you laugh.'”
“Like, there’s no lightening the mood right now,” she said.
Chatterjee asked for the agent’s supervisor, who said he would file a report about the incident. She said she never saw any proof that a report was filed.
The Enquirer emailed the ICE spokesperson and the Detroit field office, and requested any reports related to the prank.
A fellow TikToker came to the rescue
Feeling frustrated, Chatterjee went to TikTok, where she has around 900 followers.
The video, posted July 23, quickly blew up ‒ getting thousands more views than Chatterjee’s other posts. More than 100 users commented, most of whom sympathized with Chatterjee’s situation.
The clip’s virality also led to a solution. One of the commenters was able to put Chatterjee in touch with an assistant field office director for ICE at the agency’s office in Blue Ash. Chatterjee quickly connected with the agent, who is working with her to find a better way to submit stay of removal applications.
“The power of social media is so cool. I’m on TikTok and I’m complaining, and I’m trying to make it light-hearted and funny, but I was very frustrated and everybody in the office heard how frustrated I was,” she said. “So, to get somebody who truly just wants to help was so ‒ it was the coolest day of work I’ve had in a long time.”
The Blue Ash agent “has been really, really helpful,” Chatterjee said.
“But not everyone is that lucky. I got very lucky that somebody saw my TikTok and was able to help me,” she said. “Getting in contact with anyone (with ICE) is really hard.”
Butler County Jail has detained people for ICE since March.
Local immigration lawyer: ‘Clients are disappearing’
When Chatterjee recalled the phone call and the confused Taco Bell employee’s answer, she laughed. But the stunt underscored the new reality of her job.
“Every day has been a new headache. A new problem,” said Chatterjee, who graduated from Miami University in 2020 and the University of Dayton School of Law in 2023.
Chatterjee works for the Law Office of Emily Feliz Garcia, a small firm based in Springdale. Before that, she worked for Abdallah Law Offices in West Chester.
The latest hurdle for Chatterjee and her colleagues is ICE’s new interpretation of an old immigration law that makes it harder for detained immigrants to be released on bond if they entered the U.S. illegally.
Securing these bonds, which allow immigrants to fight their deportation cases outside of a jail or detention center, was already challenging. Chatterjee said they range from $20,000 to $50,000 and have to be paid in full, up front.
Chatterjee also said her “clients are disappearing.” Some people are choosing to self-deport or abandon their asylum cases, returning to countries they fled.
Others feel it’s safer to no longer seek legal status. Cincinnati imam Ayman Soliman and 19-year-old Emerson Colindres, two local high-profile cases, were both arrested during check-ins with ICE while pursuing their immigration cases.
“Everyone coming into our office is really scared, and rightfully so,” Chatterjee said. “I can tell them, ‘You’re taken care of. We’re doing everything we can for you.’ But nothing really takes that fear away.”
This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Lawyer says ICE agent answered her request with Taco Bell number