Not On Our Watch: Rekha Sharma-Crawford on Defending Democracy Through Immigration Law
29th October 2025
Date
Interviewee
Rekha Sharma
From the Courtroom to the Front Lines: How One Immigration Attorney Is Fighting Back Against an Unprecedented Crisis
Rekha Sharma-Crawford on Defending Democracy Through Immigration Law
Rekha Sharma-Crawford never planned to become an immigration attorney. Her heart belonged in the courtroom, where she thrived as a trial lawyer. But sometimes, the most impactful careers choose us rather than the other way around.
"I'm a trial lawyer at heart," Sharma-Crawford explains. "My place is in the courtroom." Yet it was precisely this skillset that drew her into immigration work, at a moment when the field desperately needed warriors who knew how to fight.
September 11th Changed Everything
When Sharma-Crawford entered the immigration field, it was shortly before September 11th, 2001. Back then, the practice was different. Collaborative. Attorneys could walk into USCIS offices and work things out. There was a sense of possibility in the air.
Then the towers fell, and with them, the cooperative spirit that had defined immigration practice.
"The entire fabric of immigration practice shifted after September 11th," Sharma-Crawford recalls. What emerged was a more hostile environment that required a different kind of advocate. Immigration attorneys needed to know how to try cases, how to win in court. Most didn't have that training. Sharma-Crawford did.
She discovered she could win these cases. There was a need for her particular skill set. And so began a career spanning more than two decades at the intersection of trial law and immigration defense.
Sharma-Crawford's first book, "Aaliyah the Brave," filled a critical gap she witnessed in her removal defense practice. Parents facing deportation often hadn't told their children what was happening, leaving kids confused and traumatized when attorneys needed them to testify or appear in court.
Unlike the criminal justice system, which offered resources for discussing incarceration with children, the immigration system had nothing. So Sharma-Crawford created a tool for attorneys, teachers, counselors, and families to help children understand deportation proceedings in age-appropriate ways.
"We were creating some generational trauma out of it," she explains. With current ICE enforcement reaching unprecedented levels, her book's guidance on protecting children from the psychological impacts of family separation has never been more needed.
Rising Through AILA Leadership
Today, Sharma-Crawford serves in leadership at the American Immigration Lawyers Association, representing 18,000 immigration attorneys nationwide. It was during the first Trump administration that she made the decisive shift into AILA leadership, recognizing the critical role the organization would need to play.
"AILA has the ability to pivot and address the most pressing needs in a timely way," she explains. The organization provides information in multiple formats to whoever needs it, cutting through the overwhelming flood of chaos that the current administration continues to create.
A System Under Assault
When asked how bad the current situation is compared to the first Trump administration or the Biden years, Sharma-Crawford doesn't mince words.
"It's bad," she states plainly. "That's the reality of it."
But she sees something else happening too. Across the entire immigration bar, whether business immigration attorneys, removal practitioners, or family-based practitioners, lawyers are digging in. They're saying: not on our watch, not with our clients.
"That zealous, passionate advocacy is inherent in most immigration attorneys," Sharma-Crawford notes. "You're watching a bar association and a membership basically meet the challenge."
The response has been powerful. When one door closes, attorneys find another. When that door closes, they find yet another. Right now, litigators like Sharma-Crawford are in courts across every federal jurisdiction, telling judges: you are now the guardrail.
The Public Is Finally Seeing the Truth
Communities are scared. The use of military force, ICE operating with unchecked power these realities are unprecedented. But advocates in the immigration space have always known that ICE acts inappropriately. The difference now is that the public is finally witnessing it firsthand.
"I think the public is getting to see it," Sharma-Crawford observes. "You're starting to see a lot more understanding when advocates for years have said, look, this is a system that's broken."
The current administration's actions are exposing the fundamental flaws in ways that can no longer be ignored. From militarizing immigration court judges to firing sitting judges without cause, from rejecting applications arbitrarily to imposing what Sharma-Crawford calls a "ransom tax" of one hundred thousand dollars on H1B applications, the system is revealing itself.
The Administration's Real Goal
Sharma-Crawford is clear-eyed about what she's witnessing. The administration doesn't care about the law. They don't need new laws because they don't care about the ones already written. If they don't care about court orders, they certainly don't care about what's in the statute books.
"The goal here isn't necessarily about trying to make the system better," she states. "I think it's one hundred percent about breaking the system altogether."
The trend isn't just to limit undocumented populations but to limit documented populations as well. That's why we're seeing attacks on H1Bs, students, and people in status being pushed into states of non-status. They're creating the crisis, then pointing to it and saying: look, there's a crisis.
Even more concerning, they're attempting to denaturalize citizens to take away citizenship from people who have already earned it.
"That's not about undocumented populations," Sharma-Crawford emphasizes. "That's about we're going to make you undocumented."
Hope in the Courts
Despite the darkness, Sharma-Crawford sees reasons for cautious optimism. Litigation has been filed challenging the administration's overreach, including the controversial H1B proclamation. Major corporations are involved plaintiffs with serious resources who won't sit idly by while talent drains away from America.
She believes courts will ultimately find many of these actions far-reaching and impermissible, just as they have with other administration initiatives. Whether relief comes through judicial intervention or through economic reality when the U.S. economy suffers remains to be seen. But one way or another, she believes, there will be a response.
The Survivor Edition of Immigration Practice
Sharma-Crawford's message to immigration attorneys and immigrants alike is grounded in resilience. She frames the current moment as the "Survivor Edition of Immigration Practice," borrowing the reality show's motto: outwit, outplay, outlast.
"Community is everything," she stresses. Lawyers are working together in a beehive mentality to address the threat. The Sevis litigation showed this power multiple lawsuits filed across the country every single day, rather than one massive class action. That's what turned the tide.
"Stay the course," she advises. "If we give up, they win."
But survival also requires redefining what winning means. Sometimes winning is finishing your degree. Sometimes it's getting your employment authorization. Sometimes it's simply getting through the week.
"Celebrate every win," Sharma-Crawford urges. "We made it through the day. We made it through the week. We made it with one habeas win."
She calls these moments "pockets of joy" and insists they're essential for maintaining the fight. Take breaks when needed. Meditate. Do whatever brings peace. But then get back in the race, back in the game, back in the fight.
"There's more of us than there are of them," she insists. "Those people that want to make sure that the American democracy is secure, that the rule of law is solid we've been made divided, but I don't think we are divided."
From Tragedy, A Message of Kindness
Beyond her legal work, Sharma-Crawford has authored three books. The first two addressed gaps in immigration practice: helping parents talk to children about deportation proceedings and educating families about human trafficking.
Her third book, "The Ripple," took a different direction. Written after serving on the board of SevenDays, a nonprofit created following an anti-Semitic shooting at a Jewish community center in Kansas City, the book teaches about spreading ripples of kindness rather than reacting with anger.
The founder of SevenDays, Mindy Corporon, lost her father and son in that tragedy. Rather than responding with rage, she created an organization dedicated to putting more kindness and understanding in the world.
"In the world that we live in right now, I think the world could use a lot more kindness," Sharma-Crawford reflects.
A Perspective Forged in Trial
Sharma-Crawford's approach to this crisis is shaped by her trial lawyer background. She understands that American democracy itself is at issue. The guardrails are off, and if they can't be put back up, there is no system, no policy, nothing left to change because it's all come down.
But she also knows something about endurance.
"We've seen worse," she notes, pointing to Covid. "No one thought we would survive. Here we are five years later."
If we can survive a global pandemic, she reasons, we can survive this administration.
For now, Sharma-Crawford remains in the fight, filing federal habeas petitions and appeals to the Tenth Circuit, representing clients in immigration and federal court, and leading through one of the darkest periods in American immigration history.
She's doing what trial lawyers do best: standing in the courtroom, making her case, refusing to back down. And she's reminding everyone who will listen that winning isn't always about the trophy. Sometimes it's simply about showing up to the race and having the courage to run.
"Stay the course," she says again. "Because if we give up, they win."
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