Category: News

JHISN Newsletter 06/11/2022

Posted on June 11, 2022 by - News, Newsletter

Dear friends,

As the first official day of summer approaches, with stunning urban sunsets and the roving jingle of the ice cream truck, we take a local look at two immigration stories. In Central Queens, the community power of Filipinos is celebrated with a new street name. And we explore the shifting grounds of immigrants’ electoral voice in the wake of redistricting in New York State, together with the legalization of immigrant voting in municipal elections and the impending redistricting in New York City.

For lively, engaging podcasts for your summer walk, check out the recent series produced by the Queens Memory Project. Season 3 of their award-winning series presents Queens’ diverse Asian American communities “in their own voice.” And language! Eight bilingual podcasts include Bangla, Hindi, Korean, Mandarin, Nepali, Tagalog, Tibetan, and Urdu. Even if your only language is English, take the opportunity to hear the music and rhythms of these many languages of our neighborhood.

Newsletter highlights:
  1. Woodside recognizes Filipino community
  2. Redistricting, electoral politics, & immigrant voting power in NYC

1. “Little Manila Avenue” Coming to Queens

On June 12, 2020, a beautiful mural “Mabuhay!” ( “to life”) honoring Filipino health care workers was unveiled on 69th Street and Roosevelt Avenue, in the heart of the Woodside neighborhood called Little Manila. Tomorrow, June 12, 2022, at noon, a new street sign at the southwest corner of 70th Street and Roosevelt will co-name the street as “Little Manila Avenue.”

The co-naming represents the success of an online petition campaign, launched after the mural was unveiled, to officially recognize the Filipino community. The law authorizing the name change was sponsored by former council member Jimmy Van Bramer and passed by the city council on December 15, 2021. June 12 is significant as Philippine Independence Day, celebrating the end of Spanish colonialism in1898.

Filipinos are the fourth largest Asian group in New York City, with over half living here in Queens. Filipinos are renowned as health care workers and caregivers. Large numbers of Filipinos began to settle in Woodside in the 1970s when Filipino nurses arrived to fill a shortage of nurses in the US.

Little Manila—stretching across Roosevelt Avenue from 63rd Street to 71st Street—features many restaurants specializing in Filipino food as well as the Phil-Am Food Mart that attracts customers from many surrounding states. 

Currently, Little Manila is split among three State Assembly Districts and two State Senate districts. Residents would prefer to be in a single assembly district with one representative offering a strong, unified voice to counter real estate development that threatens to transform their neighborhood. Even though Queens has been redistricted, Little Manila will for now remain separated into different assembly and senate districts.

WHAT CAN WE DO?
  •  Listen (in English or Tagalog) to Queens Memory Project’s Podcast “Our Major Minor Voices” Season 3 Episode 6 to learn about another art project for the area, and one nurse’s recollection of her work during the Covid pandemic.
  • Take a walking tour of Little Manila and visit the Phil-Am Food Mart or Amazing Grace Restaurant and Bakery.

 

2. Immigrants central to electoral changes

Big changes are on the way for New York’s electoral system, and some will have important implications for immigrant voting power. The 2020 census has set off a cascade of redistricting, which will directly and indirectly affect the influence of various immigrant communities on national, state, and local elections. In addition, immigrants with legal status will be able to vote in NYC elections starting in 2023. The impact of both of these new developments depends substantially on how politicians and activists adjust to the rapidly-growing population of Asian Americans in the state and NYC.

The state legislature’s recent redistricting uproar, which resulted in district lines drawn at the last minute by a judge-appointed special master, is forcing candidates for 2022 and 2024 elections, including those in Queens, to scramble to figure out where they belong in the new geography and demographics of an altered electoral map. For instance, State Senator John Liu is moving his campaign from District 11 to the modified District 16, which will now include his home and much of his political base in Flushing. Rana Abdelhamid, an Astoria-based progressive from an Egyptian immigrant family who aimed to bring more immigrant and working-class voters into the electoral process, is withdrawing from the race for the 12th Congressional District because of the new map. “My community and I were cut out of our district,” she says.

The new map makes a significant change to Congressional district borders in our own community. Woodside and most of Jackson Heights will be subtracted from Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s current Congressional District 14. The removed neighborhoods include many of the Asian American voters in her district—mostly immigrants from South Asia, the Philippines, and Tibet. Those areas will now be part of Congressional District 6, currently represented by Grace Meng. CD 6, which includes Chinatowns in both Flushing and Elmhurst, already has a large bloc of East Asian voters. How this consolidation of Asian American voters will affect future elections in Queens is difficult to predict.

Over the next year or so, the New York City Council will be redrawing its own 51 districts as well. The city’s population grew by nearly 600,000 people from 2010 to 2020; Asian American/Pacific Islanders made up the majority of that increase. Asian political representation is certain to be a major consideration in adjusting Council district lines. Significant Latino population increases in the Bronx and Brooklyn will also have to be taken into account. A Districting Commission (made up of seven mayoral appointees plus five commissioners chosen by the majority Democrats and three by the Republicans) will decide on district borders. The Commission has started holding hearings and drawing preliminary maps.

In terms of NYC elections, the biggest transformation is likely to be the impending rollout of non-citizen voting which, assuming it survives a court challenge, will begin in 2023. An estimated 800,000 immigrants with green cards or other legal status will become eligible to vote. Registration is scheduled to begin this December. If immigrant communities sign up to vote in big numbers, it could dramatically reshape city elections. Between the infusion of new immigrant votes and the reshuffling caused by redistricting, immigrants may soon play a much bigger role in New York electoral politics.

WHAT CAN WE DO?

 

In solidarity and with collective care,

Jackson Heights Immigrant Solidarity Network (JHISN)

Follow @JHSolidarity on Facebook and Twitter and share this newsletter with friends, families, neighbors, networks, and colleagues so they can subscribe and receive news from JHISN. 

 

JHISN Newsletter 05/28/2022

Posted on May 28, 2022 by - News, Newsletter

Dear friends,

Sometimes the face of violence is stark and hypervisible … like the latest nightmare massacre in a US school where, this time, 19 children are gunned down in a Texas border town. Or the spectacle of mass murder the week before in Buffalo, with 10 people killed by an avowed white supremacist with a semiautomatic rifle.

But violence can also be slow, and unspectacular, even invisible – at least to those who are not its target. This week we look at two scenes of less visible violence. We highlight the story of immigrant women of color, denied abortion rights and reproductive health care. And we report on an NYC-based immigrant justice group fighting the state violence directed at queer and LGBT detainees in the US.

Newsletter highlights:
  1. Reproductive Justice for Immigrants
  2. Queer Detainee Empowerment Project (QDEP)

1. Migrant Women and Abortion Rights

The destruction of abortion rights in the US has the biggest impact on women of color, a fact that is often missing in mainstream media. Even less widely reported are the specific obstacles faced by immigrant women of color who seek an abortion.

Black, Brown, and Asian immigrants often face reduced abortion access due to language barriers, a problem that only grows as the number of community-based clinics declines. Traveling to find an abortion provider is difficult, expensive, and risky, especially for undocumented people. Medical insurance may be hard or impossible to get without legal status. For women locked inside the public/private US immigrant detention system, regulations governing reproductive health are confusing, vary widely from facility to facility, and may change overnight when a detainee is relocated.

 Already struggling against a wave of racist violence, Asian American immigrant women are subjected to an extra layer of scrutiny as a result of anti-choice laws that target “sex-selective” abortions. Supreme Court reactionary Clarence Thomas has alleged that this sort of “feticide” is a common practice among “certain populations in the US,” even though this racial profiling myth has been thoroughly debunked. (Asian American women actually give birth to more female babies than white women do.) Legislation denying abortion if there is “suspicion” that it is being used for sex selection is popular on the Right as a stepping stone toward the complete elimination of abortion rights. This profiling is already enacted as law in several states and has been proposed in many others (including New York), as well as at the federal level.

The lack of abortion rights for migrants is particularly dire today along the US southern border. According to advocates, a large percentage of the Latina, Caribbean, African, and Indigenous women who risk the dangerous land route through Central America are sexually assaulted or raped while in transit, making abortion access even more urgent.

However, migrant women who reach the US needing abortion services find little urgency. The Trump regime was able to populate the immigration system with anti-abortion fanatics, pushing already conservative agencies even farther to the right. Right-wing anti-immigrant agents and administrators treat immigrant women’s reproductive health rights as one more reason to criminalize and punish them. Immigration bureaucrats often drag their feet on making medical appointments, finding excuses for denying or delaying even emergency reproductive care.

“The Trump administration’s efforts to undermine access to reproductive health care for women and girls in immigration custody is exemplified by former Director of the Office of Refugee Resettlement Scott Lloyd. During his tenure, Lloyd did not approve a single request for a minor seeking abortion care; those who were able to obtain abortions did so only after court intervention.” –Center for American Progress

Lloyd is gone, but other anti-choice zealots remain, such as Roger Severino who, ironically, is head of Health and Human Services’ Office for Human Rights, which is supposed to oversee refugee resettlement programs for the Biden administration.

Immigrants incarcerated by federal agencies like ICE and the Border Patrol are subject to the abortion laws of the state where they are held. The drastic time limits imposed on abortion in Texas and other border states will result in the exclusion from reproductive care of even more migrant women who became pregnant during their journey north.

 Texas and other states are also trying to criminalize easy-to-use medications that would allow safe abortions at home, painting women into a corner. They are aware that immigrant women of color often lack the money, childcare, and employment flexibility needed to seek abortion care in another state. For undocumented people living in border regions, this kind of travel is especially risky because of a web of Border Patrol checkpoints deployed as far as 100 miles inland. Today more than ever, large numbers of immigrant women are forced to weigh the risk of deportation against their abortion and reproductive health needs.

WHAT CAN WE DO?

2. Queer Politics of Immigration

“I think ultimately this is what we’re fighting for … the ability to be human. The ability to just laugh, and just get up in the morning and not worry that you’re going to get killed if you step out your door. We’re fighting for the ability to not have to worry about food, or not have to worry about shelter, or not have to worry about making the hard choices of, stay in my homeland, experience violence, [or] go to places like the US, experience a different kind of violence …. And I think at the very basic level, it’s just the ability to be human, and be in community, and not be afraid.” – Ola Osaze (interview, Black LGBTQIA+ Migrant Project, 2019)

 Immigrants detained in the US face a host of dangers and vulnerabilities. But queer and LGBT and HIV+ detainees often face more specific challenges related to their gender identity or sexual orientation. Sometimes those challenges are, literally, life-threatening. In 2014, Jamila Hammami founded the Queer Detainee Empowerment Project (QDEP) here in NYC to address the state violence and structural barriers that target lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex, or asexual (LGBTQIA+) migrants. Operating in the first months out of Hammami’s living room in Brooklyn, QDEP has grown into a vibrant organization providing direct services to queer detainees and fighting for systemic change through community organizing.

 “LGBTQIA+ migrant rights are invisible to the public,” notes Ian Zdanowicz, Co-Director of Direct Services at QDEP. “They often immigrate from their home country without family or support due to their identity not being accepted. When they are incarcerated in detention centers, there is an abundance of transphobia and homophobia.” With most advocacy and legal services for immigrants amplifying a ‘heteronormative’ narrative—one that presumes heterosexual marriage, family, or sexual practices—LGBTQIA+ immigrants lack a collective voice advocating for the specific resources that they need. QDEP is committed to building that voice.

 In March 2022, QDEP in solidarity with Families For Freedom joined a national “Communities Not Cages” Day of Action, calling for an end to all deportations, and the closure of immigrant detention centers–including Orange County Correctional Facility in NYS. In 2021, the group distributed $240,000 to over 370 queer and trans immigrants in NYC to pay for rent, groceries, utilities, medication, and mental health services during the pandemic. They also connected over 40 queer and trans detainees with free legal representation for asylum hearings, and parole and bond proceedings.

 Uchechukwa Onwa, the current co-director of QDEP, came to the US in 2017 after the passage of the Same-Sex Marriage Prohibition Act in Nigeria, his home country, criminalized LGBTQ relationships. Upon arrival in the US, he learned a quick and brutal lesson in ‘American’ racism and xenophobia when he was shackled at the airport, then driven to an ICE detention center where he was incarcerated for three months. “I know that there are so many other people like me who want to be safe,” Onwa says. How to promote that safety?

“At the end, it is our stories, as migrants. Our stories matter. And at the end it is our stories that are going to change that narrative.” –U. Onwa (2020 Deep Dive Interviews)

 WHAT CAN WE DO?
  • Volunteer with QDEP, or Pen Pal with QDEP members in detention. Email eliza@qdep.org for information.
  • Join Immigration Equality to support the recent complaint filed with Homeland Security to investigate the Houston Asylum Office’s handling of Credible Fear Interviews for asylum seekers, including LGBT migrants. 

In solidarity and with collective care,

Jackson Heights Immigrant Solidarity Network (JHISN)

Follow @JHSolidarity on Facebook and Twitter and share this newsletter with friends, families, neighbors, networks, and colleagues so they can subscribe and receive news from JHISN. 

 

 

JHISN Newsletter 05/14/2022

Posted on May 14, 2022 by - News, Newsletter

Dear friends,

For many of us, Jackson Heights is an extraordinary example of a vibrant immigrant neighborhood. We may not know all the statistics–that over 60% of residents are immigrants; that over 80% of households speak a language other than English at home; that we have the second-highest percentage of immigrants among any neighborhood in NYC. But we know that immigrant communities are the heart of Jackson Heights. This week, JHISN takes a critical look at how immigrant politics are playing out at the national level, under a Democratic-led government. We offer our report with an eye on the future and grassroots justice struggles in our own backyard.   

1. Here We Go Again: Democratic Party Failing Immigrants

There’s a recurring, predictable pattern for many decades to the betrayal of undocumented immigrants and immigrant justice struggles by the Democratic Party–which now controls the White House and has a majority in Congress. It’s like clockwork:

First come the big promises. During Biden’s campaign, he vowed to create “a roadmap to citizenship for the nearly 11 million people who have been living in and strengthening our country for years.” 

Then the flawed proposals. The actual plan Biden submitted to Congress treated immigrants like criminals who were “earning” the chance for citizenship instead of welcoming them as essential workers and valued members of the community. It laid out a complex process for attaining citizenship, full of pitfalls and exclusions, that would take most immigrants 8 to 13 years to navigate; many would not be successful.

Then the watered-down Biden bill immediately met with Democrat defections and unnecessary obstacles. The Senate parliamentarian decided to oppose including immigration reform in a large omnibus bill; Joe Manchin and other Democrats refused to override her. Therefore the Biden plan is dead in the water. So is another proposal by Democrats in Congress that could have helped legalize roughly four million Dreamers and farmworkers.

Predictably, now comes a proposed “bipartisan” consolation prize. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Durbin’s bipartisan “compromise” initiative apparently follows the classic DC sellout pattern. As always, it promotes a fake “balancing act”: more money for “border security,” more “guest workers” with limited rights, amnesty for Dreamers if they are good, and no pathway to citizenship for their parents, or millions of other immigrants.

If the classic pattern holds, Congress will fail to pass even a deeply compromised bill like this. 

 In the meantime, the Democrats have increased the budget for ICE. Biden used the Trump era deployment of Title 42 to illegally bar millions of asylum seekers. On the sidelines, Democrats deal out targeted immigration reforms and funding to certain immigrant rights groups and ignore others, dividing the movement. Democrats welcome 100,000 white immigrants from Ukraine, while forcibly expelling millions of immigrants of color.

This is corrupt political theater, not progressive politics.

If the Dems actually cared about the 11 million immigrants without rights in the US, they would:

  • Be strong advocates. Talk every day about how immigrants are exploited and abused by corporations and the government. About families being ripped apart. About immigrants contributing to the economy without being given rights in return. About essential workers. About US responsibility for migration flows. About how the 100-mile border enforcement zone and other police-state measures hurt everybody.
  • Help organize unified national protests against immigrant exclusion. Support a “union of immigrants” to add muscle to immigrant justice demands. Hold public national hearings and consultations with immigrant justice activists. Include grassroots immigrant leaders in all Democratic meetings about immigration and spending priorities.
  • Punish Democrats who take anti-immigrant stands (like Manchin) by taking away their committee positions, Party financing, and endorsements. Openly criticize them for their reactionary stands and run alternate candidates to replace them. 
  • Clean the white nationalists and sadists out of the Department of Homeland Security. Close down ICE and return immigration oversight to the Justice Department. Set new policies to end the criminalization of migrants. End all detention for migrants.
  • Declare mass pardons or amnesty for undocumented immigrants, and expand the use of TPS. Use Biden’s presidential power to attempt to provide asylum and decriminalize immigrants. 
  • Stop the relentless attacks on migrants at the southern border. Follow international laws on asylum and refugees.

 But it’s become obvious that we can’t count on the Democratic Party on its own to speak or act for immigrants. JHISN believes that excluded migrants and solidarity activists must rely on ourselves by building a unified, national, non-partisan movement led by immigrants of all nationalities, starting from the bottom up. Such a movement, which can only be led by grassroots immigrant justice organizations, must maintain its independence from the Democratic power structure and their corporate funders, even as it seeks to light a fire under the Party to do the right thing.

 Local immigrant justice groups are already generating the kind of heat that’s needed. On May Day, local immigrant workers and allies held a march and rally and staged a die-in to call out Congress for failing to deliver on a pathway to citizenship as promised. Among the sponsors were groups from our neighborhood: MTRNY (Make the Road NY), DRUM (Desis Rising Up and Moving), and NICE (New Immigrant Community Empowerment). The local actions converged with organized marches in at least a dozen other US cities.  

 The Democratic Party won’t support serious measures to help immigrants unless it is confronted with a powerful independent movement that holds it, and the rest of society, accountable. JHISN hopes, in solidarity with immigrant-led organizations, to help that movement become a reality.

WHAT CAN WE DO?
  • Support Movimiento Cosecha’s national campaign “Papers, Not Crumbs!” protecting the rights and dignity of undocumented immigrants.
  • Join marches and rallies by local immigrant justice groups demanding citizenship for all 11 million! 

In solidarity and with collective care,

Jackson Heights Immigrant Solidarity Network (JHISN)

Follow @JHSolidarity on Facebook and Twitter and share this newsletter with friends, families, neighbors, networks, and colleagues so they can subscribe and receive news from JHISN.

 

 

JHISN Newsletter 04/30/2022

Posted on April 30, 2022 by - News, Newsletter

Dear Friends,

Our neighborhood trees have begun to bloom as the weather warms, providing us with hopeful signs of Spring. This week’s newsletter highlights the press conference and demonstration by several immigrant justice groups in front of the IRS Taxpayer Assistance Center on Tax Day. Participants emphasized that they pay taxes for government programs but rarely receive any benefits from those programs. They continue to insist on a path to citizenship. We also offer you a specific way to help asylum seekers fill out applications and access resources by volunteering with SAFE (Seeking Asylum & Finding Empowerment).

1. Immigration Reform Fight Continues

Several months have passed since Congress closed the conversation about immigration reform that was part of the Build Back Better package. But immigrant justice organizations continue to push legislators to provide a pathway to citizenship for 11 million immigrants. Last Monday, April 18th–Tax Day, about 75 immigrants and supporters gathered for a press conference and demonstration at 290 Broadway, in front of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) Taxpayer Assistance Center. Among the groups represented were Make the Road NY, New Immigrant Community Empowerment (NICE), UnLocal 79, and Churches United for Fair Housing (CUFFH). They were there with a message for the government: after paying taxes for years, and doing essential work that benefits everybody, they are tired of being marginalized and disrespected. 

Demonstration slogans included,  “We pay taxes and we are excluded!” and “Included when taxes are due, but excluded from immigration reform!” Speakers highlighted the risks that undocumented immigrants face—from both Covid and from deportation.

“We are tired of being forgotten…of being part of a political game while our lives, and the lives of our family continue being at risk. We are tired of feeling afraid to be deported and being separated from our families. For these reasons we ask for immigration reform. We need to be included in the budget of the [Congressional] Reconciliation Package and we need it now.” —Dolores Juarez

At election time politicians offer all kinds of promises to undocumented immigrants, but most of them are never fulfilled. As Joanne Ibanez said at the press conference:

“I have 4 children and fight to belong to this country that has changed my life, where my children belong. And I accepted to pay taxes for more than 20 years. We want promises [to] be fulfilled. We follow the rules and the government doesn’t. We want freedom! We live in jail; prisoners are getting free after finishing their time in jail. And for us when?! We want immigration reform now.”

This is a crucial time to apply pressure on Congress since politicians are starting to talk again about immigration on Capitol Hill. According to press reports, Democratic Senator Dick Durbin is finding support from GOP legislators to pass a narrowly crafted bipartisan immigration reform bill this year. A Republican in Washington and a Democrat from California are urging the Senate to take action. The Hill wrote on April 27th that Senators Durbin and Tillis have said at the beginning of April that “they intended to convene an immigration gang after the two-week April break.”

The immigration reform being discussed follows a well-worn path: amnesty for Dreamers, “balanced” by increased funding for border enforcement. The bill may also include a “guest worker” program that would help relieve worker shortages in restaurants and other industries. It isn’t clear if such a proposal would have enough votes to pass both houses of Congress. But even if it did, it would fall far short of what the Democrats promised and would leave most undocumented immigrants without a pathway to citizenship.

2. Volunteer Opportunity at a Weekly Clinic

Seeking Asylum & Finding Empowerment (SAFE) helps run a pro se legal clinic (for people representing themselves) with Congregation Beit Simchat Torah and RUSA LGBT.  The model they follow is similar to the one used by the no longer operating New Sanctuary Coalition. The volunteers help immigrant “friends” fill out asylum applications and connect to resources; JHISN newsletter readers are invited to join the team of volunteers at the weekly clinic called the Ark. 

What is it? A weekly clinic where volunteers help primarily LGBTQ asylum seekers complete their asylum applications and find out what other legal and social services are available to them. 

What kind of volunteers are needed? Anyone who can make a regular weekly commitment. They need lawyers, law students, computer-savvy people, notetakers, and interpreters (Spanish and Russian speakers especially). 

Are volunteers mostly lawyers? Some volunteers are lawyers, but most are not. There are lawyers present every week who can offer support and guidance, but they do not provide representation. 

When? Every Wednesday and/or Thursday from 6-8:30 pm 

Location: ZOOM 

I’d love to volunteer for the first time. What should I do? Email sanctuary@cbst.org – They will send you training materials to review before joining to begin volunteering. 

Will volunteering at the Clinic count toward my NYS pro bono hours for law students? Yes! The volunteer supervising attorneys and clinic coordinator are happy to sign off on your hours.

 

In solidarity and with collective care,

Jackson Heights Immigrant Solidarity Network (JHISN)

Follow @JHSolidarity on Facebook and Twitter and share this newsletter with friends, families, neighbors, networks, and colleagues so they can subscribe and receive news from JHISN. 

 

JHISN Newsletter 04/17/2022

Posted on April 17, 2022 by - News, Newsletter

Dear friends,

Our newsletter arrives this week after a mass shooting in the large, working-class Asian and Latinx community of Sunset Park; a community that created an ICE Watch during the Trump administration and rallied to support its elder population during the pandemic—when city resources were lacking and xenophobic scapegoating about the causes of the virus were severe. This strong community successfully fought for tenants’ rights and recently united to defeat a developer-led plan to rezone and replace the working-class waterfront. We know it will rally in recovery once again. 

We also write as a ferocious war still rages in Ukraine. Our first article reports on the red tape that Ukraine’s refugees face if they do make it to the US. The newsletter ends with a lively review of the many podcasts you can listen to that will broaden your understanding, and social and political awareness, about immigration issues. We conclude with an invitation to share with us what you are listening to if we have missed a favorite podcast of your own!

Newsletter highlights:
  1. Ukrainian migration to the US: slow and fraught
  2. A wealth of immigration-related podcasts

1. Refugees, red tape, and race

As large numbers of refugees first started to flee the brutal Russian invasion of Ukraine (the total so far is over 4.6 million), the Biden administration promised that up to 100,000 would be given shelter in the US. Many Ukrainian refugees will eventually arrive in NYC, which has the largest concentration of Ukrainian-Americans in the country. But the process of actually allowing them into the US has barely begun. Key decisions about the status of Ukrainian migrants remain unresolved while the administration weighs practical and political factors. The current gridlock illustrates the complicated, bureaucratic, and politicized nature of US immigration law, even in the case of refugees officially welcomed by the president. 

The Biden government quickly granted Temporary Protected Status (TPS) to Ukrainians already inside the US, which protects them from being deported for at least 18 months. But this doesn’t help Ukrainians who are not yet admitted. In addition, most Ukrainians are legally ineligible for ordinary asylum: fear of persecution by one’s own government is usually a requirement.

The two main pathways that Ukrainians will probably use to gain entry to the US are visitor’s visas and “humanitarian parole.” Neither type of entry provides access to long-term residency or social welfare benefits. A visitor’s visa is normally used for tourism or business, for up to six months. It might be a viable option for some refugees, depending on specific family circumstances and the discretion of immigration officers, but many Ukrainian families have already been turned down for visas.

Humanitarian parole is supposed to be available for “urgent humanitarian reasons.” However, “it is not that easy to qualify,” according to a recent article in Forbes. “Success often depends on family ties to U.S. citizens prepared to support the migrants on arrival or other such willing sponsors with financial means.”

So far, there has been minimal direction from the federal government to guide the immigration bureaucracy or local authorities. The processing of applications has been painfully slow. The stakes are high: Ukrainian migrants whose visa applications are rejected or who aren’t approved for humanitarian parole could face deportation or detention. 

In recent weeks, thousands of Ukrainians have tried to get faster access to humanitarian parole by flying to Mexico—which doesn’t require a visa—and then traveling to the US border at Tijuana. This has led to a steady trickle of admissions, greatly facilitated by Ukrainian American civic and church groups that provide material support and run interference with both Mexican officials and the Border Patrol. But the journey from Ukraine is arduous, processing is slow, and success isn’t guaranteed.

The circumstances of Ukrainian migrants gathering at the southern border are disturbing on a number of levels. They are camping out at the same sports complex formerly occupied by a caravan of migrants from Central America, who were forcefully turned back by the Border Patrol. We sympathize with anyone fleeing violent conflict. But while Ukrainians are slowly gaining admittance to the US, Black and Brown refugees from violent conflicts in Africa, Haiti, Latin America, and elsewhere are being excluded at the border, after their own arduous journeys. They are currently denied entry largely through the use of “Title 42”–-a false pretext of Covid public health control carried over from the Trump administration and strongly protested by human rights activists. 

Yet Ukrainians have immediately been given special exemption from Title 42. As legal advocate Blaine Bookey puts it, “President Biden’s decision to welcome Ukrainian refugees seeking safety in the United States is the right thing to do. [But] there is no way to look at what’s happening at the southern border other than along racial lines.”

Title 42 will eventually be lifted for everybody. Biden plans to repeal it in May, despite active attempts by Republicans and some Democrats to keep it in place indefinitely. If that happens, Ukrainians in Mexico may actually find their admission process drastically slowed, as migrants of other nationalities are finally allowed to press their own claims for refuge. 

2. A podcast for every listener

Podcasting seems like a perfect way for grassroots activists to raise awareness about immigration. As an open and distributed platform, it allows stories and information to be broadcast widely without needing the resources of a radio station. The local activist groups that JHISN regularly reports about have not yet established their own shows. Instead, they appear as guests on the episodes of podcasts created by other groups or radio shows which makes it possible to reach an already existing and relevant listener base instead of creating a new one.

  • Damayan appeared on This Filipino Life to bring attention to human trafficking.
  • DRUM joined the Committee Against Anti-Asian Violence on Let’s Be Real after their successful campaign against Amazon’s HQ move to New York.
  • In Out of the Margins, Make The Road NY discussed the 35,000 children who immigrate to the United States every year as unaccompanied minors.
  • Brian Lehrer, on WNYC, had a conversation with CHHAYA CDC revealing how small homes were being bought by investment companies rather than families. 

Some individuals and organizations have created podcasts dedicated specifically to immigration issues. Hendel Leiva, based on Long Island, began interviewing immigrant activists in 2015. He gave each person an opportunity on Immigration Mic to tell their personal story as well as talk about their activist work. After 5 years and just over 100 episodes, his series came to an end, but the benefit of the podcast media is that the archive remains. Archives are also great for binge-listening: 

  • Immigration nation examines misconceptions about immigrants and tells listeners about the reality of immigration policy in the United States in just 20 episodes.
  • Indefensible is a quick 5-episode podcast by the Immigrant Defense Project about people who resisted deportation. 
  • Memories of Migration was the first series created by the Queens Memory Podcast and shared ten oral histories of immigrants found in the archives of the Queens Public Library.
  • “Real People. Real Lives. Women Immigrants of New York 2020/2021” is a 12-episode collection of stories of frontline workers, journalists, stay-at-home moms, artists, and entrepreneurs produced by New Women New Yorkers.

Ali Noorani hosted the long-running podcast, Only In America; he created over 200 episodes of interviews from all over the US covering policy, social, and geopolitical situations surrounding immigration. Although Noorani’s podcast ended recently when he gives up his role at the National Immigration Forum, there are several other organizations and think tanks in the capital with a focus on immigration issues:

Then there are the storytelling podcasts that advance inclusiveness or promote empathy by simply sharing the stories of human beings. The Immigrant Story invites immigrants to share their experiences, while The Immigrant Experience in America, Why America? and The Immigrant Voice have curated gatherings of stories about people choosing to come to this country. Nestor Gomez is a prolific storyteller, originally from Guatemala and now living in Chicago, who created 16 binge-able Immigration Stories, half of which feature New York City immigrants. Radio Cachimbona adds storytelling from Arizona about migrant resistance in the borderlands. Immigrantly is entirely produced by women and began as a podcast called The Alien Chronicles. It aims “to deconstruct stereotypical narratives of immigrants, their second-generation kids, people of color, and change-makers with cross-cultural, nuanced conversations.” Taking a slightly different storytelling tack, How to Be American, produced by the Tenement Museum in NY, tells the history of US immigration and reveals the key role that women have played.

The New School, here in New York City, has contributed two podcasts to the immigration discussion. Now in its fourth season, Tempest Tossed focuses on refugee and asylum issues, and shares interviews with immigration policy experts, journalists, artists, and migrants. Hosted by Alex Aleinikoff, who served as United Nations Deputy High Commissioner for Refugees, the podcast has also featured Catalina Cruz, the first DREAMER in the New York State Assembly. The second podcast, Feet in 2 Worlds (FI2W), examines political issues related to immigration but has also found a unique approach to the subject by focusing on the significant role food plays in the immigrant story. FI2W last year joined with the Institute for Nonprofit News and also has a magazine and creates pieces for public radio. 

Immigration lawyers are also quite prolific in podcast creation. The Redirect Podcast is a weekly dive into the world of immigration law, refugees, border walls, rhetoric and politics, and the human impact of immigration restrictions. The Immigration Nerds looks at the social impact of immigration law, mixing social history and politics with discussions on race, identity, nationalism, war, and refugee policy. The Immigration Review Podcast comes out every Monday to explain opinions from the Supreme Court, the Board of Immigration Appeals, and The US Circuit Courts of Appeals. 

While the podcast format may not yet be leveraged as a tool by individual activist groups, there is certainly a wealth and variety of immigration-related podcasts that are available for us all to listen to on our commute, during a stroll down 34th Avenue, or in the evening after dinner. If there is a favorite immigration-related podcast you are listening to that we haven’t covered in today’s newsletter, please let us know at info@jhimmigrantsolidarity.org.

In solidarity and with collective care,

Jackson Heights Immigrant Solidarity Network (JHISN)

Follow @JHSolidarity on Facebook and Twitter and share this newsletter with friends, families, neighbors, networks, and colleagues so they can subscribe and receive news from JHISN. 

 

JHISN Newsletter 04/02/2022

Posted on April 2, 2022 by - News, Newsletter

Dear friends, 

With you, we are watching for spring to poke around the corner and bring us renewed warmth and urban bloom. This week we offer a review of the internationally-acclaimed documentary Flee (2021), which narrates one Afghan family’s story of escape, loss, and refuge. We then follow-up on a report in our last issue about the ‘March to Albany,’ as hundreds of immigrant activists arrived this past week in the capitol calling for budget justice, and a permanent fix to gaps in the safety net for tens of thousands of immigrant New Yorkers.   

Newsletter highlights:
  1. Review of 2021 film documentary on Afghan refugee family
  2. Immigrant activists march on Albany (Part 2)

1. Freedom Is Telling Your Story

“When you flee as a child, it takes time to learn to trust people. You’re constantly on your guard, all the time, all the time. Even when you’re in a safe place, you’re on your guard.”—Amin Nawabi in Flee (dir: Rasmussen, 2021)

The animated documentary Flee (directed by Jonas Poher Rasmussen and written by Rasmussen and Amin Nawabi) is the first film to be nominated in three different Academy Award categories: Best Animated Film, Best Documentary Feature, and Best International Feature Film. This captivating film, produced in Denmark, did not win any Oscars last Sunday. Award or not, the film is well worth viewing for its technical originality, and for how it starkly illuminates the decades of stress a refugee endures.

Flee recounts how Amin Nawabi (a pseudonym) fled as a gay teenager from Afghanistan to Denmark, and the consequences of his long and involved journey. Through an unusual combination of animated characters, television clips, historical film footage, photographs, and grey and white drawings, we learn how Nawabi’s family endured the trauma of life under the mujahideen, flight to a repressive and secretive life in Moscow, desperate failed attempts to get smuggled by boat to Sweden, and, finally, Nawabi’s successful illegal border crossing and asylum in Denmark.

What will stay with you from this film is the dramatic sacrifice of family members to save one another–a feature in so many refugee stories. The film also narrates the vile cruelty and greed of the traffickers, the corruption and brutality of law enforcement officers, and the fear and loneliness of being a refugee who yearns for “home” as a place of safety that is not temporary.

An essential part of Nawabi’s survival is the false story he had to tell to be assured of asylum in Denmark–that all of his family was dead. With the possible exception of his father, none of his family is actually dead. At the time Nawabi escaped, his eldest brother and two sisters were in Sweden and his mother and older brother were in Moscow. Now they are all in various places in Europe. Late in the film we learn how much of a toll his necessary lie has taken on him: he cannot share stories of his family without revealing that they are alive, and so he constantly fears exposure. “I couldn’t tell the truth. There were lots of consequences. I couldn’t be myself. It was really painful.”

In an interview on NPR between Nawabi, film director Rasmussen, and Ari Shapiro, Rasmussen tells how he and Nawabi became close friends in high school in Denmark. Nawabi recounts how Rasmussen is one of the few people he trusts, yet it took decades before he was comfortable enough to tell him his true story. He says the film has given him a sense of freedom.

Rasmussen and Nawabi want us to understand that “refugee” is a circumstance and not an identity. “Don’t define him as a refugee because he is so much more. He’s an academic, a homeowner, a husband, and a cat owner,”  Rasmussen explains.

Nawabi says it is amazing to see how Ukrainians today are being welcomed and helped, but how starkly differently other refugees were treated in 2015. The situation in Ukraine shows that displacement from your home and your country can happen to anyone. What is important is to help, and to be kind. 

To view Flee online: https://www.fleemovie.com/

2. March to Albany (Part 2)

“We came to Albany to tell the governor that we are awake, we are united, and we won’t stop fighting until our needs are met … This movement is an example to other states. Immigrants across the country are rising up. We are demanding that our rights be respected … ” —Miguel Angel Flores (Democracy Now, 3-24-2022)

One thousand excluded workers—together with elected officials, faith leaders, and political allies—marched to the steps of the Capitol on March 23, demanding the state budget include billions in additional support to fund excluded workers and establish a permanent unemployment insurance program for undocumented workers.

Crossing the Rensselaer-Albany Bridge and briefly shutting down traffic on a four-lane highway, activists called for an economic safety net that won’t leave behind New York state’s essential, and still excluded, immigrant workers.

As we reported in our last newsletter, tens of thousands of eligible New Yorkers were shut out of the historic $2.1 billion Excluded Workers Fund, established in April 2021 after a year-long mobilization by immigrant workers. Alongside the demand for re-opening the Fund with additional monies, immigrant justice groups are calling for ‘Coverage for All’: a health insurance plan for undocumented New Yorkers and documented workers who are paid ‘off the books’ by employers. To address structural inequalities in the social safety net dramatically revealed by the pandemic, immigrant groups are also fighting for a permanent unemployment insurance program to support undocumented workers.

New York’s immigrant-led Fund Excluded Workers coalition (FEW) has helped launch campaigns for similar programs in at least five states across the US. State-level victories to fund excluded workers, and create permanent programs for health coverage and unemployment benefits, can help generate national momentum for changes at the federal level.

For now, the struggle is targeting Albany, Governor Hochul, and next year’s state budget. “We all want the pandemic to be over,” said Emma Kreyche of the Worker Justice Center of NY. “But it’s callous and irresponsible of lawmakers to act as if we can move on while tens of thousands of excluded workers in our state are still in the midst of a profound crisis. No New Yorker should be without a safety net—not now and not in the future.”

WHAT CAN WE DO?
  • Call Gov. Hochul (518-474-8390), press 3 then 1, and tell her to #FundExcludedWorkers!
  • Consider donating to the ongoing work of #FundExcludedWorkers.

In solidarity and with collective care,

Jackson Heights Immigrant Solidarity Network (JHISN)

Follow @JHSolidarity on Facebook and Twitter and share this newsletter with friends, families, neighbors, networks, and colleagues so they can subscribe and receive news from JHISN.