academiccompositionab
Empowerment Equalizer
SSaragian
Antony Sammeroff
Ann Sterzinger
Rodney
RJ
busterjames
cainusmaxus
Craig FitzGerald
David Heleniak
Caity & Dan Greene
keirmartland
Keith Preston
Bill the Butcher
ljp711
MRDA
Jack Donovan
Rachel Haywire
comrade hermit
Michael
Vince
robertstark2014
Noonan
S E Pearson
Rachel Haywire
Nexus X HumectressRepost from a credible source :
If you’re horrified by news of families being separated at the borders, here’s a bit of news you can use.
First, the policy: It helps to be incredibly clear on what the law is, and what has and has not changed. When Donald Trump and Sarah Huckabee Sanders say that the policy of separating children from their parents upon entry is a law passed by Democrats that Democrats will not fix, they are lying.
There are two different policies in play, and both are new.
First is the new policy that any migrant family entering the U.S. without a border inspection will be prosecuted for this minor misdemeanor. The parents get incarcerated and that leaves children to be warehoused. The parents then typically plead guilty to the misdemeanor and are given a sentence of the few days they served waiting for trial. But then when the parents try to reunite with their children, they are given the runaround—and possibly even deported, alone. The children are left in HHS custody, often without family.
Second is a new and apparently unwritten policy that even when the family presents themselves at a border-entry location, seeking asylum—that is, even when the family is complying in all respects with immigration law—the government is snatching the children away from their parents. Here, the government’s excuse seems to be that they want to keep the parents in jaillike immigration detention for a long time, while their asylum cases are adjudicated. The long-standing civil rights case known as Flores dictates that they aren’t allowed to keep kids in that kind of detention, so the Trump administration says they have to break up the families. They do not have to break up families—it is the government’s new choice to jail people with credible asylum claims who haven’t violated any laws that is leading to the heartbreaking separations you’ve been reading about.
So that is what is happening.
Next: Which groups you might want to support.
• The ACLU is litigating this policy in California.
• If you’re an immigration lawyer, the American Immigration Lawyers Association will be sending around a volunteer list for you to help represent the women and men with their asylum screening, bond hearings, ongoing asylum representation, etc. Please sign up.
• Al Otro Lado is a binational organization that works to offer legal services to deportees and migrants in Tijuana, Mexico, including deportee parents whose children remain in the U.S.
• CARA—a consortium of the Catholic Legal Immigration Network, the American Immigration Council, the Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services, and the American Immigration Lawyers Association—provides legal services at family detention centers.
• The Florence Project is an Arizona project offering free legal services to men, women, and unaccompanied children in immigration custody.
• Human Rights First is a national organization with roots in Houston that needs help from lawyers too.
• Kids in Need of Defense works to ensure that kids do not appear in immigration court without representation, and to lobby for policies that advocate for children’s legal interests. Donate here.
• The Legal Aid Justice Center is a Virginia-based center providing unaccompanied minors legal services and representation.
• Pueblo Sin Fronteras is an organization that provides humanitarian aid and shelter to migrants on their way to the U.S.
• RAICES is the largest immigration nonprofit in Texas offering free and low-cost legal services to immigrant children and families. Donate here and sign up as a volunteer here.
• The Texas Civil Rights Project is seeking “volunteers who speak Spanish, Mam, Q’eqchi’ or K’iche’ and have paralegal or legal assistant experience.”
• Together Rising is another Virginia-based organization that’s helping provide legal assistance for 60 migrant children who were separated from their parents and are currently detained in Arizona.
• The Urban Justice Center’s Asylum Seeker Advocacy Project is working to keep families together.
• Women’s Refugee Commission advocates for the rights and protection of women, children, and youth fleeing violence and persecution.
• Finally, ActBlue has aggregated many of these groups under a single button.
This list isn’t comprehensive, so try to find sources on what else is happening. And please call your elected officials, stay tuned for demonstrations, hug your children, and be grateful if you are not currently dependent on the basic humanity of U.S. policy.
Update, June 17, 2018: Thanks to readers who updated us with more organizations fighting this policy. Other good work is being done by the following:
• CLINIC’s Defending Vulnerable Populations project offers case assistance to hundreds of smaller organizations all over the country that do direct services for migrant families and children.
• American Immigrant Representation Project (AIRP), which works to secure legal representation for immigrants.
• CASA in Maryland, D.C., Virginia, and Pennsylvania. They litigate, advocate, and help with representation of minors needing legal services.
• Freedom for Immigrants (Formerly CIVIC), which has been a leading voice opposing immigrant detention.
• The Michigan Immigrant Rights Center represents all of the immigrant kids placed by the government in foster care in Michigan (one of the biggest foster care placement states). About two-thirds are their current clients are separation cases, and they work to find parents and figure out next steps.
• The Northwest Immigrant Rights Project is doing work defending and advancing the rights of immigrants through direct legal services, systemic advocacy, and community education.
• Young Center for Immigrant Children’s Rights works for the rights of children in immigration proceedings.
• The Women’s Refugee Commission has aggregated five actions everyone can take that go beyond donating funds.
• And finally, the International Refugee Assistance Project (IRAP)—which organizes law students and lawyers to develop and enforce a set of legal and human rights for refugees and displaced persons—just filed suit challenging the cancellation of the Central American Minors program.
Attack the System
Categories: Culture Wars/Current Controversies, Immigration
Not a big fan of this Immigration Tidal Wave.
What are they doing with the Children ? Taco Gate……..?
I see this issue as not so much a question of whether large scale migration is good or bad, or whether enforcement of immigration law is legitimate, and more of an issue of the excessive methods that are presently being used. Denying entrance to migrants is one thing. State-sponsored abduction is another.
Who is the source for this post?
It was on the FB page of Priya Reddy (Warcry) a somewhat well known anarchist in the NYC area. Not sure of her original source, mostly likely an immigration attorney. The credible source comment was hers not mine. I didn’t post her name initially because I’m not sure she approves of ATS or wants to be associated with us.
They come from crappy countries but lots of the kids are not with their parents since they are street kids back home. I wonder if coming to the US helps since they could end up in Latino enclaves that have gangs too. The original MS-13 got formed because people sent El Salvadorians LA which had a lot of street gangs instead of keeping them in Tucson. It depends upon whether they end up in a place in the US where there are no Latino gang gangs or not.