JEWISH ACTIVISTS FOR IMMIGRATION JUSTICE NEWSLETTER
Advocacy and Activism, State and Federal: Where are we now?
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- Pressuring the Biden administration to change US immigration policy
- Safety for undocumented people in Massachusetts
- Protesting continued family separation and detention of children and teens in terrible conditions
- 45,000 Quilt Exhibit
- Pledge to #WelcomeWithDignity
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ADVOCACY AND STRATEGY: GETTING OUR U.S. LEGISLATORS TO TAKE ACTION IN A GRIDLOCKED CONGRESS |
During the last two months, JAIJ participated in a national campaign led by HIAS (Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, the oldest national organization devoted to refugee issues since the 1880’s), petitioning our legislators to take comprehensive steps toward just and equitable policy for asylum-seekers. After collecting over 100 signatures in Mass Congressional Districts 1 and 2, we scheduled meetings with our legislators and/or their staffers to ask them to address our priority issues.
Since we knew that the chances of passing anything in Congress are slim, we chose to focus on three issues that could be ended by executive action:
Recently reported in articles in both the Wall Street Journal and Axios, the administration plans to stop applying the emergency order to migrant families by the end of July. Once the order is lifted, families that requested asylum at the border will be permitted to remain in the U.S. for the duration of their cases, which can take years to complete. The Biden administration is receiving pressure from both sides of this issue: from progressives and immigration advocates to end Title 42 immediately, and from conservative voices warning of a “border surge” or the danger that Biden will create “open borders” if allowed to lift Title 42.
Changing Regulations so that Children Aren’t Unnecessarily Separated from Non-Parent Caretakers: Though the Biden administration has continued to enforce Title 42, they did make one change, not to expel unaccompanied children. This has led many families to make the horrendous decision to send their children over the border to unite with relatives already in the United States. However, the Office of Refugee Resettlement doesn’t immediately recognize these relatives as caregivers, and as a result, many children are held needlessly in detention for weeks or months, some under horrendous conditions, like what’s been reported at Fort Bliss. Before the Trump administration started using Title 42 to keep immigrants out, if a child crossed the border with an older sibling, an aunt, or a grandparent, they would be separated and held in detention as an unaccompanied minor until sponsorships were arranged and vetted. If other relatives were recognized as caregivers, the number of children in detention would be significantly lower.
Reinstating Gang Violence and Domestic Violence as Legitimate Reasons for Granting Asylum: This had been part of the asylum process protocols until Trump’s Attorney General Jeff Sessions removed these criteria as qualifications in 2018, limiting asylum to people who were politically or religiously persecuted. We are delighted to report that just a few weeks ago, Attorney General Merrick Garland reinstated them.
To date, we have met with staff from Senator Markey and Warren’s offices, as well as with Congressman McGovern, all of whom have expressed support for these issues. One of our members also had a telephone with a staff-person in Congressman Neal’s Office and we are currently pushing for a more formal meeting. Our goal in having these meetings was to raise awareness of these issues with our Senators and Representatives, with the hope of putting them higher on their agenda. While these issues aren’t legislative in nature, here in Western Massachusetts, our Democratic delegation can and should play a stronger role in urging the Biden administration to act more quickly to do the right thing. While it’s common in these kinds of meetings for legislators to pivot to legislation they are sponsoring, as they also often do when responding to an email or phone call about a specific issue, we can’t let them off the hook for simply sponsoring legislation that has a slim chance of passing. We need to keep encouraging them to take leadership by speaking out about the things we care about.
All of us should keep pressuring Congressmen Neal and McGovern and Senators Warren and Markey to advocate for ending Title 42 and changing regulations defining what is a family so that children are moved out of detention to safe spaces, and families waiting in dangerous conditions at the border have a chance to have their asylum cases heard. The more calls and emails they get, the more they will know that these issues are important to many of their constituents. We cannot let ourselves be satisfied by waiting around for this administration to do the right thing. It is not acting fast enough to prevent children and families from suffering.
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Keeping MA residents out of the Detention-Deportation Machine: Update on the Work and Family Mobility Act |
On June 23, the Transportation Committee of the Massachusetts Legislature held a public hearing related to the Work and Family Mobility Act. As many of you know, this bill would allow all state residents to obtain driver’s licenses, regardless of immigration status. When people are stopped for a minor traffic violation and can’t produce a license, they often end up in ICE custody and find themselves facing deportation. For this reason, immigrants and immigrant advocacy organizations see passage of this bill as a top priority. Sixteen states already allow undocumented residents to obtain driver’s licenses.
At the hearing 52 people spoke in support of the bill and only about 7 people spoke against it. Most moving were the testimonies of those directly affected by their or their family members’ inability to obtain driver’s licenses. Especially in our more rural part of the state, people often have no alternative but driving to get themselves to work, to get their children to school, to go to medical appointments, or to buy food.
At this point, it looks like the Transportation Committee will recommend the bill favorably to the state Senate and House of Representatives, and advocates are feeling “cautiously optimistic” about getting the bill passed in the current legislative session. However, there is still a lot of work to be done; the bill was reported favorably by the same committee in 2019—and then the bill was never brought to the floor! Why not? Because Massachusetts is saddled with one of the least transparent and least democratic legislatures in the country. Legislators can hide behind secret votes, the Speaker has enormous power to determine what gets voted on, and most bills die without a floor vote. A group called Act On Mass is working to change this.
In order to ensure that it is brought to a vote in both houses during the current session, we need to make sure that The Work and Family Mobility Act has enough people committed to voting for it to withstand a threatened veto by Governor Baker. In the State Senate, we seem to have exactly the required number: 27 Senators have either signed on as co-sponsors or committed to voting for it. But in the House, we are still short 10+ votes. For that reason, the Driving Families Forward Coalition is laser-focused on having constituents lobby those representatives that might be convinced to support the bill. Apparently the Speaker of the House ( Ron Mariano) is reluctant to bring up a vote that is likely to be vetoed, unless he has the necessary votes for an override.
Rep. Brian Ashe - 2nd Hampden District (413) 754 4184
Rep. Michael Finn - 6th Hampden District (413) 363 1965
Rep. Joseph Wagner - 8th Hampden District (413) 592 7857
Rep. Susannah Whipps - 2nd Franklin District (617) 722 2090
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End the Use of Emergency Intake Sites for "Unaccompanied Children" |
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JAIJ is one of 127 organizational signers to this letter urging the Secretaries of HHS and DHS to end the use of emergency intake sites for children, which are large group holding facilities where supposedly “unaccompanied” children are being warehoused. Publicized by Detention Watch Network, this excellent letter summarizes all the important issues involved in this practice.
This includes the need to change the policies creating the large numbers of children and adolescents categorized as unaccompanied in the first place, such as Title 42 admitting children while excluding adult asylum seekers, and the too-narrow definition of “family” caretakers, when children arrive at the border with relatives or caregivers who are not their biological parents. It outlines all the traumatizing conditions inherent in these large, overcrowded facilities, where untrained staff are totally unqualified to provide trauma-informed care to children and adolescents.
Frequently children in these holding facilities have already undergone horrific experiences in their home countries and on their way to the US, only to be separated from any familiar or comforting adults when they arrive. As the letter and numerous other advocates are demanding, if the children are not allowed to stay with the adults they arrive with or go immediately to family or sponsors in this country, they need to be placed in small family-style settings with social workers and case managers to facilitate their rapid placement with family or friends.
In addition, there have been several whistleblowers' reports just in the last week or so detailing the terrible conditions in some of these sites. The site at Fort Bliss, Texas, has been particularly called out, but another investigative report by Reveal also details the practice of criminalizing adolescents by calling police to deal with behaviors such as fighting or refusal to obey restrictive rules, behaviors that might be expected in response to these teens’ traumatizing situations. Often they get turned over to the criminal justice system, which in most cases results in their being deported back to the life-threatening situation they fled from. Reveal has investigated many incidents at many sites, and claims that the sites run by Southwest Key Programs and BCFS Health and Human Services, primarily in Texas, are the most abusive and should be shut down immediately.
On the ORR website there is a call for additional social service organizations to apply to provide care to unaccompanied children: this would be in licensed shelters, not Emergency Intake Sites or "influx sites." If they are able to increase the number of shelters run by reputable social service agencies such as Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Services, and Title 42 is ended and the definition of “family” is changed, hopefully these terrible conditions can be improved.
Here is just one excerpt from the organizational letter End the Use of Emergency Intake Sites:
Reports about conditions at EIS are alarming, including unsanitary conditions, poor food, and lack of outdoor access. Two facilities have already been shut down due to poor conditions, including lack of proper heating and children being instructed to use plastic bags rather than being allowed to use the bathroom. At Fort Bliss children are held in large tents with rows of metal beds without enough properly trained or licensed staff to provide care or case management. Children report being unable to leave their cots most of the day and unable to sleep due to the cold at night. There are reports of widespread depression among children and elevated levels of stress and desperation.
Staff at Fort Bliss have reported unsanitary conditions, including limited access to showers and poor food such as raw chicken. Just this week, two whistleblowers, current federal civil servants detailed to Fort Bliss from mid-May to early June, came forward to disclose multiple instances of gross mismanagement at the Fort Bliss EIS endangering the safety of countless unaccompanied migrant children. The whistleblowers were eyewitness to numerous concerns including dozens of children in emotional and physical distress in dormitory tents housing upwards of 1,000 or more children, active discouragement of reporting problems and failure to respond to concerns or attempts to improve the site's condition, and failures in case management leading to poor coordination and lack of communication between case managers and children, sometimes for weeks at a time.
The primary demands of the group of organizations involved in this letter are:
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Closing all existing Emergency Intake Sites by the end of September and not opening new ones,
- Establishing a safe and rapid process for keeping children together with trusted non parental caregivers at the border,
- Improving the reunification process to more quickly place children with family or sponsors in the US by working with trusted community-based organizations,
- Expanding ORR’s network of licensed care facilities for unaccompanied children, with a focus on proactively engaging trusted, community based non-profits to open licensed, small-scale, homelike shelters.
Many progressive people in our communities are urging that advocacy groups “give President Biden a chance,” and cite his many statements that he wants to overhaul the immigration and asylum-seeking systems but that he needs time to do this. Of course this is true, and we believe that he has good intentions in this area, but the details of what children are suffering every day in great numbers at the hands of the current system calls for immediate action, not incremental change.
Please contact your members of Congress and ask that they urge the administration to act now to close these abusive sites. You can also write your own letters to Secretary Becerra of Health and Human Services or Secretary Mayorkas of Homeland Security; their addresses can be found on the organizational letter linked above. You can also sign a petition on the HIAS website addressed to ORR (Office Of Refugee Resettlement),demanding that the conditions at Fort Bliss be ended.
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"Neighbor is not a geographic term. It is a moral concept."
Rabbi Joachim Prinz
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45,000 Quilt Exhibit
We'd love to bring this amazing immigration justice quilt to the Valley in Sept, but we've been unable to find a suitable space!
Initiated by Glen Ring in Concord, NH, the Quilt was created by activists and artists from 12 U.S. states and Oaxaca, Mexico. Evoking the famous AIDS Quilt, it calls attention to the 45,000 people who, on an average day in 2019, were imprisoned by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Members of JAIJ created one of the squares, under the able leadership of Betty Lynne Wolfson!
We need an exhibit space that can accommodate six tall panels, each 9' by 9'. We have contacted all the usual venues in Amherst/Northampton, but If you know of a possible space we'd love to hear from you. Please email us at jewishimmigrationjustice@gmail.com.
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Pledge to #WelcomeWithDignity
"Everyone has the right to be safe and everyone has the right to seek asylum. We are building a movement to reimagine the way our country and our communities treat people seeking safety. It is time to welcome asylum seekers with dignity. Will you join us? "
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