North Texas immigration attorney says burnout, hate make job harder
For immigration attorneys like Jaime Barron, the work never stops. The 51-year-old North Texas lawyer says he’s been averaging 65 hours a week with very few days off since President Donald Trump took office last year.
Barron, who’s originally from Veracruz in Mexico, began practicing immigration law during President Bill Clinton’s administration. He launched his own firm, Jaime Barron PC, in 2000.
Barron told the Star-Telegram that the current administration’s focus on deportation and the frequent changes in how laws are interpreted have made the past year “really painful psychologically” for those in his profession.
“It’s hard dealing with all this,” he said.
‘This job is not easy’
Trump entered his second term in the White House promising “the largest deportation operation in the history of our country.” The Department of Homeland Security announced Sept. 23 that two million undocumented immigrants had been removed or self-deported since Inauguration Day.
Officials insist that Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents target primarily “criminal illegal aliens,” but Barron says many arrested by ICE have no criminal background. A recent Dallas Morning News analysis shows that 62% of the 12,000 arrested in North Texas and Oklahoma between January and October 2025 have never been convicted of a crime.
“As an immigrant, as a lawyer, I have a personal stake,” Barron said. “I get angry every day.”
The high-stakes environment is hard on immigration attorneys and paralegals. Many are reporting high levels of stress and burnout, and some are leaving the profession altogether.
Barron said everyone expresses the pain they’re going through differently. Staff have access to a therapist if needed, and the firm’s 40 attorneys are all on a WhatsApp group chat where they can talk about their experiences.
The firm is also hiring more lawyers to work in deportation defense.
“Right now, what’s different is that the relationship with ICE/Homeland Security is soured because the administration just doesn’t want us to communicate,” Barron said.
Previously, attorneys could contact the Department of Homeland Security and negotiate the release of immigrants in deportation proceedings who didn’t have a criminal record. It was a help to the government, Barron said, because it lowered the amount of cases and allowed them to focus on individuals they considered a legitimate threat.
One of the executive orders signed by Trump the day he took office curtailed prosecutorial discretion, and the cases now end up in court. Those who’ve been in the country for less than two years can be deported without a hearing.
ICE has taken to arresting immigrants at court hearings and routine immigration check-ins. Barron said they warn clients ahead of time of that possibility. The clients, unable to lash out at immigration officials when things don’t go well, often take out their anger on their lawyers.
“When we hire somebody,” Barron said, “when we do an interview, I tell them ... ‘This job is not easy. You will cry.’”
In spite of his busy schedule, Barron makes time to lift weights in the morning and do jiu-jitsu a couple of nights a week. He also finds joy playing with his dogs — “therapy with four legs.” Reading about mental health helps him stay resilient and gives him tools he needs to help others.
“I just know it’s going to end eventually,” he said.
Beginnings
Barron fell in love with immigration law while doing pro bono work with refugees and detainees at the Texas-Mexico border. After graduating from Southern Methodist University’s law school and passing the bar exam, he went to work with a nonprofit organization that served immigrants.
Clinton had signed the Nicaraguan Adjustment and Central American Relief Act a couple of years before, and hundreds of thousands of immigrants were suddenly eligible for permanent residency. Barron said he had around 1,500 cases.
“You start getting the habits of working until you drop,” Barron said of his time with the nonprofit. “And I loved it.”
Unfortunately the nonprofit ran out of funding a few months later, and Barron was out of a job. After living off noodle cups and two for $2 Big Macs while trying to find more work, he decided to start his own law practice in 2000. Several laws that went into effect around that time gave him plenty of work at first, but things dried up for a while after the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
“It’s been up and down,” Barron said. “The only constant is change.”
Outlast the opposition
One of Barron’s favorite books is “Endurance” about the survival of explorer Ernest Shackleton and his crew after their ship was crushed by ice during a voyage to Antarctica.
“(Shackleton had) a motto in Latin, fortitudine vincimus, and it’s just, ‘we win because of endurance,’ just grinding out,” Barron said. “And that’s what I tell the staff every month.”
Barron said his office has gotten hate calls, including a bomb threat. People attack him on social media and accuse him of being unpatriotic because he defends immigrants.
“They want to do it right, but the system, on purpose, is created to make it hard to immigrate,” he said.
In Barron’s experience, the vast majority of immigrants are pro-America. He said many of them express a desire to join the military.
He believes what’s needed is “healthy (immigration) enforcement balanced with humanity.”
Barron said he gets angry when he sees immigrants looked down upon and his clients mistreated, but he tries not to let it show. His strategy for surviving the next three years is outlasting the hate and winning small victories one at a time, he said.
“If I can get these 10 people their green card, it’s a victory,” Barron said. “Now we’re doing federal court litigation, so you know, if I can get this guy out of detention, we’re winning one by one by one.”
