Tag: Asylum Seekers

JHISN Newsletter 07/15/2023

Posted on July 15, 2023 by - News, Newsletter

Dear friends,

We write today’s newsletter at the intersection of local, national, and global politics—a dense intersection where all immigrants dwell. We update you on the current struggle of the local group Adhikaar to secure extended Temporary Protective Status (TPS) for members of the Nepali-speaking community, many of them neighbors here in central Queens. And we draw a connecting line between the imperial histories that drive current migration, and the national failure of the US to abide by international asylum laws. A source of immense human pain at the US-Mexico border, and in local immigrant communities like ours.

Please note that the JHISN newsletter also appears on our website in Spanish. Share the link!

Newsletter highlights:
  1. Asylum politics today
  2. Adhikaar fights for TPS

1. Asylum Is a Human Right

Step by step, the US and other wealthy nations are undermining the right to asylum—a vital right established by the international community in the wake of the horrors of World War II. Today, mainstream political discourse in the Global North treats seeking asylum as a crime and treats offering asylum as a burden.

>>Seeking Asylum Is not a Crime

US and international law clearly specify that any person can request asylum, and will be treated with respect and dignity, no matter how they arrive—including if they simply walk across a border. This solemn obligation has been reaffirmed by the federal courts, the UN, and the Geneva Convention.

It is the US government, not asylum seekers, that commits crimes when it:

>>Offering Asylum Is not a Burden

Imperialism creates refugees. Around the world, the US government and US corporations invade, provoke civil wars, export gang violence, generate economic devastation through “free trade” laws, destroy the environment, and sponsor dictators and death squads. These predatory policies, which profit rich North Americans and corporations, are responsible for chaos, violence, and persecution and cause millions to flee their homes. Ironically, the US admits far fewer asylum seekers for its size than many other nations. Our government also callously discriminates against those whose lives are impacted the most by imperialism, prioritizing expedited or privatized arrangements for refugees who have money, connections, or white skin.

Nevertheless, what politicians from both major parties prefer to talk about is how costly it is to host asylum seekers. These are the same “leaders” who promote subsidies for real estate interests and monopoly corporations—corrupt handouts which are bad for working-class people and staggeringly expensive. Politicians’ complaints about refugees inadvertently shine a harsh spotlight on their own lack of compassion and their comfort with radical inequality.

We are constantly lectured that we “can’t afford” asylum or any other social needs of oppressed people. We are told that “The Budget” is a zero-sum game with a fixed limit. But the wealthiest country in the world (and NYC, its wealthiest city) can certainly afford to welcome many more asylum seekers than it does today. To meet this need—this human obligation—there is really only one political decision required: making the rich pay their fair share.

2. Adhikaar Defends TPS before the Ninth Circuit Court

“The TPS extension has again given us temporary relief but we cannot continue our life on one to two-year increments. We have made the U.S. our home, and we are here to stay. We will fight tooth and nail to secure redesignations for all four countries and permanent protections for all.”  —Keshav Bhattarai, Plaintiff, and Adhikaar Member Leader

As part of its anti-immigrant crusade, the Trump administration declared an end to Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for migrants who fled dangerous conditions in Nepal, El Salvador, Nicaragua, and Honduras. On Tuesday, June 20, President Biden reversed that decision, announcing instead an 18-month extension of the programs. As a result, existing TPS holders from those four countries will be protected until 2025 as long as they re-register.

Biden’s decision came just two days before a previously-scheduled hearing before the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in Seattle to review a major TPS case known as Ramos v Mayorkas. The plaintiffs are three Nepalis (Keshav Bhattarai, Saijan Panday, and Sumima Tapa) and two Salvadorans (Krista Ramos and Cristina Ramos)ee. Adhikaar—the Jackson Heights based group supporting the local Nepali-speaking community—plays a leading role in the case.

The history of Ramos v Mayorkas begins in 1990 when Congress established the TPS program, permitting migrants from unsafe countries to live and work in the US for a temporary, but extendable, period of time. Countries have been deemed unsafe due to natural disasters, political unrest, or armed conflict. Currently, there are approximately 400,000 holders of TPS in the US. Many of them have lived and worked here for decades.

When the Trump administration terminated TPS for Haiti, Nicaragua, Sudan, El Salvador, Nepal, and Honduras in 2017-2018, they were challenged by multiple lawsuits. A district court judge issued an injunction to prevent any of the terminations from going into effect, arguing that they were motivated by racism and failed to consider the current unsafe conditions in the affected countries. The Trump administration appealed, and in 2020 a three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals agreed with him that the injunction was improper. Lawyers from the ACLU, Adhikaar, the National Day Laborers Organization, and Unemployed Workers United asked for the entire Ninth Circuit to review the case, which they agreed to do, scheduling the hearing on June 22. 

Once the Biden administration’s June 20 extension was announced, the June 22 hearing turned into a debate about whether the court should still issue a decision and if so what it should be. Adhikaar argues that the court should return the case to the district court, allowing it to reaffirm its original decision that the Trump terminations were motivated by racism and therefore unconstitutional. 

On June 24, during an Adhikaar online town hall, Emi MacLean, an attorney on the case, reminded the audience about the intense anti-immigrant hostility coming from the Trump administration at the time of the TPS terminations.

“It’s important to remember how brave it was for people to come forward: those who were in the streets marching, those who went to Congress, and those who are willing to put their names on this lawsuit and share their stories publicly so the judges and the media and public would be aware of what was at stake and to force judges to make a decision about the legality.”

As things stand now, people from the four countries who had TPS protection at the time of the Trump terminations must re-register during a specific 60-day period to extend their TPS and work authorizations (EAD). 

DHS will extend TPS as follows:

  •  Nepal from Dec. 25, 2023 to June 24, 2025 (60-day re-registration period: Oct. 24, 2023 – Dec. 23, 2023)
  • El Salvador from Sept. 10, 2023 to March 9, 2025 (60-day re-registration period: July 12, 2023 – Sept. 10, 2023);
  • Honduras from Jan. 6, 2024 to July 5, 2025 (60-day re-registration period: Nov. 6, 2023 – Jan. 5, 2024);
  • Nicaragua from Jan. 6, 2024 to July 5, 2025 (60-day re-registration period: Nov. 6, 2023 – Jan. 5, 2024).

The National TPS Alliance and immigrant advocates are pleased that Biden reversed Trump’s plan to end TPS. But they are pushing the administration to do more than just extend the deadline for those who were already covered. They want him to “redesignate” the four countries, resetting the clock to include new immigrants in the program. They are also lobbying Congress to grant a legal pathway to citizenship for TPS holders. In the meantime, a ruling from the Ninth Circuit is awaited.

WHAT WE CAN 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 07/01/2023

Posted on July 1, 2023 by - News, Newsletter

Dear friends, 

As summer enters full bloom, we send warm thanks to you, our readers, for keeping us inspired. Immigration news is a political struggle over what gets reported and what gets ignored. Just over two weeks ago, an overcrowded ship packed with migrants from Pakistan, Syria, and Egypt, sank off the coast of Greece. Up to 750 people reportedly were onboard; only 104 survived. Hundreds of migrant women, children, and men drowned in one of the worst maritime disasters in modern history. News coverage of the devastating migrant shipwreck was brief and sparse.

Readers like you, and the attention you give to immigration news, keep us going. This week we offer you a story about the underreported political situation in Peru, written by a Peruvian-American New Yorker. And we update you about the justice work of Make the Road New York and their groundbreaking survey of recent asylum seekers in NYC.

Newsletter Highlights:
  1. Report on Peru’s current political situation
  2. 2023 survey of asylum seekers by MTRNY

1. Solidarity with our Peruvian Brothers and Sisters

 

“How many deaths do you want for your resignation? Assassin Dina, the people repudiate you!”  –Puno, Aymara song

Starting on December 7, 2022, Peru has experienced several months of savage violence unleashed by the repressive forces of the state. On that date, near noon, President Pedro Castillo carried out a failed coup attempt. He took this step after 15 months of frustration, as the majority in Congress (made up of Right and ultra-Right parties) prevented him from governing by voting down all of his bills and trying to impeach him. 

One hour after Castillo’s futile move to dissolve Congress, the police, the National Prosecutor, and a judge ordered his provisional detention while he was still a sitting president. Two hours after reading his speech, without following due process, Congress impeached him. At 3:53 pm, Castillo’s former ally and ex-minister Dina Boluarte was sworn in as president. She immediately received the support of the opposition bench, and she invited them to the government palace. Boluarte had once promised that she would resign if Castillo was impeached. Instead, she seized power by allying herself with the party that had lost the election. 

Castillo voters reacted with anger as they realized that this parliamentary coup from the Right had been planned in advance. Branding Boluarte a traitor, protesters demanded her resignation and the dissolution of Congress. Demonstrations in the central and southern provinces of the country were met with heavy repression, resulting in nearly 70 deaths, 49 of which were identified as extrajudicial executions by the New York Times. On December 10, in Andahuaylas, province of Apurimac-Chanca Nation, two people were killed and some 100 were injured. The regime declared a state of emergency for some regional governments (“departments”); on the 14th the declaration was extended nationwide. 

The state of emergency failed to prevent militant protests in the largely Indigenous departments of the South: Ayacucho, Cusco, Juliaca-Puno (Wari, Quechua, Aymara Nations, respectively), Arequipa, Moquegua, Tacna (also home to many Aymaras). Some Indigenous Nations of the tropical jungle regions also joined the demonstrations. The wave of Indigenous protesters was slandered by the regime as Shining Path followers, delinquents, and agents of drug traffickers or illegal miners. Criminalization was the pretext used by the regime to allow the police, backed by the military, to use deadly force. International human rights agencies have widely condemned this violation of international law.

During the month of January, residents of southern Peru converged on the capital, in what is known as the Taking of Lima. This time demonstrators demanded a Constituent Assembly to reform the laws so that Indigenous Nations could fully participate in decisions about their land and natural resources. Upon arrival in Lima, many protesters were arrested on suspicion of being delinquent terrorists. After the majority were freed, massive demonstrations converged from the shantytown outskirts of Lima known as the Northern, Southern, and Eastern Cones. During these long marches, lasting more than four hours in intense heat, the southerners and shantytown residents made their protests heard by the whole nation. With the help of food and shelter donations, and supported by growing national and international solidarity, the demonstrators’ ongoing protest in the capital has been powerful for months. There was a Second Takeover of Lima; a Third Takeover is scheduled for July 19, planned to include new demonstrators from the Northern region of Peru.

In the Andes mountain range, there are abundant natural resources such as copper, silver, gold, uranium, and lithium. Dozens of mining projects are in various stages of exploration, expansion, and execution by national and international mining companies. Many of these mines are located in the headwaters of river basins, where they pose serious environmental threats. Others are located on land belonging to Indigenous communities, whose claims and objections are routinely ignored. In many cases, Indigenous communities haven’t been consulted or informed at all. At the same time, mining companies have been receiving significant tax exemptions from the government, and often have outstanding tax debts forgiven by the congress.

During his term as president, Castillo visited almost all the southern provinces in conflict with mining companies. He appeared unwilling to authorize open-pit mining in the headwaters of basins without consulting the population. This alarmed the mining industry and its backers, especially since a large number of exploratory mining contracts expire in 2023-25. It seems clear that mining and other economic interest groups, represented by the political Right, wanted Castillo removed from office through a “soft coup” in order to protect their projects and profits. Using control over mass media to influence public opinion, they also mobilized their congressional majority to modify the Constitution, upsetting the balance of powers and creating a new Constitutional Court that they control. They were determined to get rid of Castillo, with or without his proclamation.

 Observing the events in our home country, Peruvians around the world immediately rose up in solidarity with the claims of our compatriots. We’ve been protesting in the streets, and presenting letters to the Peruvian embassies and consulates, as well as to the United Nations and the Organization of American States (OAS). We have also sent donations to relatives of the deceased and injured. Since Peru’s mainstream press has shown itself to be dishonest, we’ve come to rely on an alternative press based on YouTubers, local radio stations, and social networks, so our connection with the interior of the country is now in real-time. 

It was through this alternative press we found out the Peruvian regime had signed a contract with the public relations firm Patriot Strategies to improve its image internationally. We in New York were also alerted that a delegation of businessmen and a group of artists from Cusco were arriving to attend Inti Raymi (the Festival of the Sun) at the United Palace Theater in upper Manhattan. A demonstration was organized outside the theater, and another action took place inside the theater at the moment when a government official spoke. Although the number of protesters inside the theater was small, most of the Peruvian public rejected the lies that the mayor of Cusco told on behalf of the government, this disruptive challenge broadcast on a Peruvian national channel was seen all over the world. Now compatriots in other countries are on alert to actively respond to any other attempts to sanitize an illegitimate and murderous government.

Nevertheless, in May, Boluarte and the Peruvian Congress authorized the entry of 1,000 US military troops to Peru starting June 1. There are already 10 military bases in Peru. Some leftist Peruvian legislators see the US military as endangering their country’s sovereignty. Former Foreign Affairs Minister Hector Bejar questioned the true intentions of the US military presence, saying that it is “part of a dissuasive policy to intimidate the Peruvian people who have announced new protests for July.” It’s obvious for most Peruvians that the entry of more troops is part of the hybrid war for lithium, uranium, and copper. 

Although there has been little coverage of these events in NY media, 20 members of Congress, including many progressive Latino members, signed a letter to President Biden in January asking him to end security assistance to the Peruvian government and to condemn the human rights violations committed by state security forces. Four of New York’s representatives were among the signers: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Adriano Espaillat, Nydia Velázquez, and Delia Ramirez. As an act of international solidarity, the US should follow the recommendations of The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) to end the brutal repression and investigate and prosecute all who are responsible for the state violence.

WHAT CAN WE DO?

2. Keeping Up with Make the Road NY

At the end of May, Make the Road New York (MTRNY) announced the publication of a 60-page Spanish language “manual” for asylum seekers arriving in New York. The manual, called Casita, is written in a warm and informal style and aims to welcome by providing information and essential resources, including:

  • The basic rights of a person living in New York;
  • How to access available services and benefits; 
  • Legal issues including interacting with ICE;
  • Information on COVID-19, enrollment in public school, and more.

MTRNY is asking for $30 donations to help support the publication and distribution of Casita. 

Then at a June 6 press conference in Queens, MTRNY publicly presented the results of an unprecedented survey of recently arrived migrants. Entitled “Displaced and Dismissed: The Experiences of Migrants and Asylum Seekers in NYC 2023,” the report was based on interviews with 766 migrants between February and May 2023. Interviews were conducted by volunteers from MTRNY and Hester Street who met the ‘migrant buses’ sent by Gov. Abbott of Texas to NY’s Port Authority. 

This survey is the first of its kind and activists hope that it will help government officials to better assist recent migrants. 65% of respondents were from Venezuela, but other Latin American countries and African countries were also represented. 81% were under 40 years old; 43% were under 30; and 84% of those under 30 were traveling with their children. All wanted to stay in NYC and were eager to participate in the city’s life.

Other survey findings were that although almost all want to apply for asylum, 93% had not found a lawyer. 97% didn’t have work authorization and therefore couldn’t find jobs to become self-supporting. 72% had trouble paying for basic living expenses. 63% had no access to English classes for either adults or children. 59% had no access to transportation to help them seek employment. 97% were living in NYC shelters. 42% suffered from anxiety or depression.

All three city officials at the press conference—Comptroller Brad Lander, Public Advocate Jumaane D. Williams, and City Councilman Shekar Krishnan—pointed out failures of the city government. Lander said that despite the city’s expenditure of a lot of money and effort to secure shelter for migrants, it has been short-sighted to allocate only 1% of city money toward securing legal help for people to apply for asylum before their one-year deadline. This is crucial because the 6-month countdown for work authorization begins only after the asylum application is made. Both Public Advocate Williams and Councilman Krishnan said any public anger should be directed at the government and not at the migrants because the lack of services for city residents existed before the migrants arrived, and there is a crisis of systemic injustice and not a crisis of asylum seekers.

MTRNY had policy recommendations for the city: allocate $140 million for legal services, improve the transition from the shelter system to permanent housing, do not cut funds for adult literacy programs, and renew and expand the Low-Wage Worker Support (LWWS) as well as access to health care. Policy recommendations for the Biden administration: expedite work authorization for migrants, and send more federal resources to New York.

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 06/10/2023

Posted on June 10, 2023 by - News, Newsletter

Dear friends,

As the denizens of our city begin to breathe freely once more after the wind changed and the wildfire smoke dissipated, the climate problems highlight for us once more the challenge for immigrants in the service industry. Although everyone was advised to shelter at home for a few days, immigrant delivery workers kept working outside when the city’s air quality was the worst in the world on Wednesday. Despite the health advisories, delivery workers across all five boroughs could not afford to miss a day of work in the record-breaking harmful open air. Just as the Adams administration is struggling to create rulings that bring a fair wage to delivery workers, it is likewise struggling to aid the thousands of new immigrants being brought to the city by bus and plane, seeking asylum–our newsletter today highlights the problems facing the city in meeting our right-to-shelter requirements.

Our City Struggles to Aid Arriving Migrants

“Asylum seekers and the rest of the unhoused population of NYC need permanent housing – they do not belong in jails.”—Murad Awawdeh, Executive Director of New York Immigration Coalition (NYIC)

Ever since busses of immigrants arrived in NYC, coming from Southern States–as a political stunt designed to challenge Sanctuary Cities’ humanitarian approach to immigration–the city has been struggling to find the best way to house and support the new asylum seekers. No one doubted there would be costs and difficulties. No one denies that supporting those fleeing their countries is challenging work. Both city government and Immigrant aid organizations have been stretched thin supporting the people who have traveled for months to claim asylum in the USA. 

Showing the scope of the challenge, Queens-based New Immigrant Community Empowerment (NICE) has been assisting about 1,000 newcomers each month. Executive Director Nilbia Coyote noted NICE has run out of space and there are not enough staff to provide help. Artists Athletes Activists, led by Power Malu, supports migrants who arrive at New York airports. Malu noted the organization spends about $30,000 every month, from private donations, to transport these asylum seekers to shelters and intake centers. But the city will not provide vans, buses, or reimbursement to help. In the same way the Republican governors bussing migrants North have blamed the Democrats for encouraging people to flock to the border, Mayor Adams’ staff have blamed activist groups for luring migrants to fly in with false promises of support.

A major positive force for new immigrants is New York’s right-to-shelter law. Established in 1981 in the case of Callahan vs. Carey, it requires the city to provide housing to all. Last month Mayor Adams asked a judge to reconsider the law because the scope of support required is not what was ever imagined at the time of the lawsuit. One of the lawyers who worked on the case over 40 years ago, Robert Hayes, said the effort to change the policy was cowardly and shameful.

The NYIC posted a number of articles in May showing an escalation of issues related to the right-to-shelter law. They discuss the plans to use upstate hotels as well as the restraining orders intended to prevent Adams from bussing asylum seekers to Orange County. There are also proposals to house people at Medgar Evers and York Colleges, the YMCA at Park Slope’s Armory, and a rec center in Staten Island. Additionally, there are thoughts to use an airfield in Jamaica Bay, a Post Office overflow warehouse at JFK, The Lincoln Correctional Facility just north of Central Park, and to leverage Rikers Island jail as possible places to house the newcomers.

Mayor Adams announced the importance of being “upfront that New York City cannot single-handedly provide care to everyone crossing our border.” In addition to the various housing plans that he and Governor Kathy Hochul have been considering, is a demand for the federal government to expedite work permits so the 70,000 newly arrived immigrants can fill about 10,000 open positions in farm work and food services.

While Adams says he is willing to consider all options, including the use of prisons, others like Manhattan Council Member Carlina Rivera believe it is “alarming to talk about using jail facilities for people who have not committed a crime,” pointing out there would not be flexibility for people to leave the island for work or appointments. Power Malu says these temporary locations are not worth the effort when finding empty apartments would be more effective. The short-term locations that have been used, like a police academy gym in Manhattan, keep the lights on all night and offer showers that give no privacy. The Lincoln Correctional Facility, which had been closed since 2019, was in use for a few days and then the plumbing broke and a number of people were relocated to Buffalo.

Over the last months, the city has been in conversation with the New York Disaster Interfaith Services (NYDIS) about a 2-year housing support contract. In conjunction with Project Hospitality and Interfaith Center of New York, NYDIS circulated a form to the city’s religious organizations to determine if their facilities are eligible to serve as a shelter. Catholic activist Félix Cepeda believes churches are better placed to provide refuge and there could be potential to use their properties…for a price. The cost is cheaper than standard shelter costs, but the spaces will only operate for 12 hours a day, so the NYDIS is also being contracted to provide day services. $35,000 will be paid per month to house 1,000 single men at 50 houses of worship throughout the city. Some financial help will come from FEMA as Congress has indicated they will assign $105 million to the NYC efforts to support migrants.

The entire process reveals the full range of approaches people have about dealing with the situation. From those who issue executive orders to block local hotels from housing asylum seekers to those who believe their communities are richer thanks to immigrants. Yvonne Griffin of Citizen Action New York believes for example that “Syracuse might not be a wealthy city, but we know how to look out for each other, and I know we can do the same for people seeking asylum”.

“[W]e should be saying, what can we, as a community, do to help? How can we pool together our resources to ensure those seeking refuge don’t have to keep running for their lives? How can we leverage what we have here to bring more resources into the community to help these individuals? And in the end, what do we need to do to treat these individuals with the dignity they deserve?”–Sal Curran, Volunteer Lawyers Project of CNY, Inc. 

What Can We Do?

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 03/11/2023

Posted on March 11, 2023 by - News, Newsletter

Dear friends,

 While it did not make many headlines this week, hundreds of excluded workers marched across the Manhattan Bridge on Monday, demanding the state budget fund unemployment assistance for all workers, including undocumented immigrants. Our first article also covers an under-reported story: the recent legal challenge to new city district maps that split the vibrant South Asian community in South Queens into three separate districts. Our second article takes a deeper look behind a news story on immigration that actually is—for the moment—getting lots of attention: the systematic labor exploitation of unaccompanied child migrants. 

 Newsletter highlights:
  1. New City Council maps disenfranchise Asians in Queens
  2. Child migrants funneled into exploitative jobs

1. Lawsuit Challenges City Council Redistricting

“Despite the protections of the NYC Charter and our warnings throughout the redistricting process, the council map carved up the community and muffled their voices, continuing our city’s painful history of dividing, marginalizing, and disenfranchising communities of color.”—Jerry Vattamala, Democracy Program Director of the AALDEF

Last weekend, just before the petitioning process began for the NY City Council primaries in June, many Queens elected officials marched up Skillman Avenue in the St. Pats for All parade. Celebrating the inclusivity of Queens, they walked in the Sunnyside parade that was created 23 years ago in response to the St. Patrick’s Day parade in Manhattan refusing entry to LGBTQ+ marchers. Congresswoman Grace Meng reminded the Queens crowd in attendance that the Irish who came as refugees were not always welcomed with open arms, nor with equitable laws and policies. And Councilwoman Marjorie Velazquez raised cheers from the crowd as she said “Immigrants make America, America.”

The City Council electeds who were marching may have an additional hurdle to overcome this year: petitioning for the primaries may be delayed by a lawsuit brought by the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund (AALDEF) on behalf of South Asian community members including DRUM (Desis, Rising Up and Moving), our local immigrant workers’ organization. The lawsuit charges that 2022 redistricting decisions “unlawfully separat[ed] the Asian community” by carving up south Queens and “dilut[ing] the community’s voting strength.” The lawsuit calls for altered council maps that would create a new “opportunity district” for Asian American voters in the Queens areas of Richmond Hill and Ozone Park, and for a halt to petitioning until the district lines are settled. Judge Leslie Stroth ruled for a hearing last week and then recused herself from the case because she is also up for election as a candidate for the Supreme Court.

This lawsuit follows substantial debates, which began in November 2021, about redistricting maps that produced electoral districts that egregiously diminished the strength of Black, Asian, and Latino communities and voters. The New York City Charter says redistricting plans must ensure “the fair and effective representation of the racial and language minority groups in New York City,” protected by the 1965 United States Voting Rights Act. However, as Fulvia Vargas-De León, a lawyer with Latino Justice, noted, “Redistricting is often the silent voter suppressor.” 

This is not a new issue. Thirty years ago a coalition was formed to create districts that accurately reflect demographic shifts in New York populations: the outcome was a set of “Unity Maps”. Many immigrant advocacy organizations, including the AALDEF, put their support behind the Unity Maps and presented them to the Independent Redistricting Commission (IRC) as examples of how redistricting could be non-partisan and be an accurate reflection of the minority populations in those areas. DRUM created a town hall series with the APA Voice (Asian Pacific American Voting and Organizing to Increase Civic Engagement), South Queens Women’s March, and the Caribbean Equality Project to oppose the redistricting that split the communities in Richmond Hill and Ozone Park. According to Patrick Stegemoeller, group attorney for the AALDEF, the Unity Maps were “ignored, in favor of a final plan that prioritized surrounding white-majority communities.” 

This is not the first lawsuit for this election cycle: the Our City Our Vote law, allowing 800,000 eligible immigrants to vote in municipal elections, was passed by NYC voters in 2022. However, plaintiffs in Staten Island alleged the law was “adopted with impermissible racial intent.” They claimed Black citizen voters would be negatively impacted when more “Hispanic foreign citizens” vote: Justice Ralph Prozio of Staten Island agreed, and struck down the new law. The city is currently appealing that ruling and it is unlikely we will see that case resolved for the 2023 election cycle.

WHAT CAN WE DO?

 

2. Unaccompanied Migrant Children: Alone and Exploited

When the New York Times story about exploited migrant children dropped on February 2, it was a bombshell. The Times reported that in the past two years, 250,000 unaccompanied minors have entered the US; many of them are “ending up in dangerous jobs that violate labor laws—including in factories that make products for well-known brands.” Some work 12- or 14-hour shifts, while still trying to go to school. Dozens have been killed or seriously injured on the job. The heartbreaking Times article—based on interviews and stunning photography of more than 100 migrant child workers in 20 states—offered readers an emotional testament, and created a political sensation.

By the very next day, lawmakers in Congress were “clamoring for action.” The Department of Labor solemnly declared that it “takes these egregious violations very seriously and investigates every child labor complaint they receive and acts to hold employers accountable.” They promised a new “Interagency Taskforce to Combat Child Labor Exploitation” and a host of bureaucratic measures to beef up child protection and labor law enforcement policies.

It was as if the politicians didn’t know that exploitation of migrant children was happening. But as recently as last year, Reuters ran a series of articles about underage refugees working in the Hyundai-Kia supply chain and in poultry factories. And immigrant justice advocates have been urgently raising the predicament of young refugees for years. What the Times story accomplished was to give some of these oppressed children a face, and a voice. It forced the shameful treatment of unaccompanied minors into the mainstream of political discussion—at least temporarily. 

From the point of view of immigrant justice, two issues stand out. The first is that the federal government, under Biden, is still separating children from their families at the southern border, although in new ways. By turning away almost all adult refugees under various cruel pretexts, in violation of international law, the US is forcing desperate refugee families to split up and send their children North alone—hoping that they can survive, and maybe help the family survive economically. This isn’t the openly racist carnival of the Trump years, which often targeted young children. It’s more of a cold-blooded unpublicized assembly line, trapping adult and infant refugees in war zones or fetid, dangerous encampments in Mexico, while rapidly processing tweens and teens to be sent all over the US. 

The second issue is that the immigration system is effectively organized to funnel young asylum seekers into labor exploitation. The US government doesn’t just fail to provide these children with a basic income, legal representation, or services after they leave preliminary detention-–it doesn’t even know where many of them are. States and cities also do little to help. It is the volunteer sponsor-–often a distant relative or friend of a friend-–who is supposed to “provide for the physical and mental well-being of the child, including but not limited to, food, shelter, clothing, education, medical care and other services as needed.” But this isn’t realistic. As the Times story makes clear, almost everyone in and around the system that “processes” unaccompanied minors expects the children to work and figures that into their decisions. 

Young people crossing the border are usually desperate to make money. They may owe thousands of dollars to smugglers who brought them here. They are risking everything with the goal of sending financial help to their endangered families. Their sponsors, who are often low-income people themselves, may expect the children they sponsor to contribute to their own upkeep. Some sponsors traffick the labor of migrant children, treating it like a business. On the other hand, school-age asylum seekers aren’t allowed to work legally because of “child protection” laws. This contradiction forces minors into the shadow economy and leaves them at the mercy of capitalism’s most unscrupulous profiteers.

And so there are thirteen-year-olds with fake IDs washing sheets in the back rooms of hotels, and exhausted fifteen-year-olds picking tomatoes all day in the sun or cleaning slaughterhouses with toxic chemicals all night. Young teenagers wait on the curb at day labor sites, competing for hard day labor in construction. As the Times story continues to reverberate nationally, we should be aware that thousands of unaccompanied child immigrants are living and working all around us in New York State. And we should always remember the local tragedy of Edwin Ajacalon, who migrated alone from Guatemala to Brooklyn at the age of 14. Edwin was riding his delivery bike in Brooklyn when he was mowed down by a speeding hit and run driver in a BMW. A whole family’s hopes suffered a huge blow with his death. The driver was never charged.

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 02/11/2023

Posted on February 11, 2023 by - News, Newsletter

Dear friends,

The immigration news headlines this past week have been grim. A 26-year-old immigrant attempted suicide on Wednesday at the city’s new ‘migrant shelter’ in Red Hook where hundreds of men are being warehoused in inhumane conditions. At ICE’s Northwest Detention Center in Tacoma, WA, private guards sprayed chemical agents on detainees who had launched a hunger strike to protest bad food, unpaid labor, and harassment. 

Beneath the headlines, at a slower tempo and often out of sight, struggles for immigrant justice continue. We report on the ongoing mobilization demanding the establishment of an official NYC school holiday to mark Diwali—a major holiday celebrated by many communities here in Jackson Heights. And as we highlight the unprecedented number of immigration cases backed up in our dysfunctional US immigration system, we ally with all those calling for truly independent immigration courts. 

Newsletter highlights: 
  1. Celebrating Diwali as an official school holiday
  2. Unprecedented backlog of US immigration cases 

1. When Will Diwali Be Recognized?

“If I trusted the mayor by his words, then Diwali would have been made a school holiday on Jan. 1, because that is the promise that he made during his campaign.” –Assemblymember Zohran Mamdani

For more than 20 years, NYC’s South Asian and Indo-Caribbean communities have been trying to get Diwali—the pan-religious Festival of Light—recognized as a school holiday. Hundreds of thousands of local Hindu, Jain, Sikh, and Buddhist residents celebrate the five-day Fall holiday, which is embraced by more than a billion people around the world. But so far, neither the city nor the state has mustered the will to include Diwali on the school calendar. A new initiative in Albany is raising hopes but also provoking criticism and doubts.

In 2013, Jackson Heights City Councilperson Daniel Dromm and 16 co-sponsors were unable to get a local Diwali school holiday bill passed. Dromm tried again, without success, in 2018. At the state level, Assemblyperson Jenifer Rajkumar’s 2021 Diwali bill never made it out of committee. But many advocates were convinced that 2022 would be the breakthrough year. Before his election, Mayor Adams publicly promised that once elected, he “would take his oath of office and walk into City Hall and ‘sign it into a holiday.’”

That did not happen. Adams has adopted a new position: there is no room on the school calendar, because of the state’s requirement for 180 days of instruction. Making Diwali a holiday, he now claims, requires substituting it for another holiday, which in turn requires state approval. Mamdani strongly disputes this, noting that Adams himself had previously dismissed scheduling concerns: “There are ways to move around the calendar to get the required number of days,” Adams once told Politico. South Queens district leader Richard David points out that “whenever the city punts to Albany, it’s always a little unpredictable, and you don’t really know what’s going to happen there.” 

Many private schools in NYC already treat Diwali as a holiday. Some parents question “why Adams can’t follow his predecessor’s example when former Mayor Bill de Blasio added the Asian Lunar New Year and the Muslim holidays Eid Al-Fitr and Eid Al-Adha as fixtures on the city schools calendar.” Fed-up families have resorted to simply taking their children out of school for Diwali on their own.

While the press put a harsh spotlight on Adams’ broken promise, advocates continued to apply pressure. In September, a public school student coalition circulated a petition for the Diwali holiday which gathered almost 5,000 signatures. Finally, in October, Adams joined forces with Rajkumar and Schools Chancellor David Banks in announcing a new initiative. The plan is to get the state legislature to substitute Diwali for “Brooklyn-Queens Day” or “Anniversary Day,” a holiday commemorating the founding of the first Sunday school in Brooklyn in the 1800s. The public announcement of the new Diwali initiative had a triumphal quality, as if it was already a done deal. NBC News said that Diwali “will be a school holiday in 2023.” So did NPR and TimeOut New York. Others were more cautious: “Even with over two dozen state lawmakers signed onto the legislation, community leaders in Queens remain skeptical of the efforts being made to complete a promise that they say has been made to them before,” the Queens Daily Eagle reported.

On November 2, the new City Council held a Diwali celebration in its chambers. On January 25, dozens of lawmakers and activists gathered in Albany to lobby for a bill to carry out the Rajkumar/Adams/Banks substitution plan. In the Assembly, Queens co-sponsors include Steven Raga (D-Woodside), Ed Braunstein (D-Bayside), Catalina Cruz (D-Corona), Khaleel Anderson (D-Far Rockaway) and Zohran Mamdani (D-Astoria). The sole sponsor of the matching bill in the Senate is Flushing Democrat John Liu. Rajkumar observes that “we have never seen such enthusiasm for this cause.” 

Will 2023 be the year Diwali makes it onto the public school calendar in NYC? Advocates say it is possible, if the state legislature gives approval by July. 

WHAT CAN WE DO?
  • Follow the fight for a Diwali holiday at the Diwali Coalition Twitter feed.
  • See footage of Diwali being celebrated in India in this short video.

 

2. Dramatic Backlog in US Immigration System

“When I started [as a lawyer] about 15 years ago, I could take on an asylum case, and within a three-month time frame you’d get a hearing before a judge. Now that time frame has stretched up to a five-year waiting period just to get a court date.” –Karla McKanders, Director, Vanderbilt Law School Immigration Practice Clinic

The numbers are stunning. Over 2 million pending cases in immigration courts at the end of 2022—a number that has more than doubled in the past 5 years. 9.5 million pending applications at US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) as of February 2022, with a surging backlog. At least 1,565,966 asylum seekers currently waiting for immigration hearings in the US, according to TRAC’s Immigration Project.

Behind these numbers are real people living in limbo for months and years, and spiraling stories of partners, families, beloveds, children, workplaces, and communities trying to manage profound uncertainty while sustaining hope and connection.

There are multiple reasons for the growing case backlogs. One major culprit is a history of underfunding of the immigration court system under both Democrat and Republican administrations, which has led to shortages of staff, technology, and resources. COVID shutdowns certainly played a role. Increased migration over the past decade due to economic dispossession, state violence, and environmental devastation is a factor. Also, the Trump administration intentionally jammed the immigration machinery, weakening due process protections in US immigration courts, while simultaneously increasing bureaucratic obstacles to legal immigration.

And there is no easy fix. There are no less than five different federal agencies involved with immigration processing, and four different congressional appropriations committees that fund—and underfund—their work. Right-wing electeds are actively working to slow the wheels of legal immigration while maximizing detention and deportation. Bringing down the number of backlogged immigration cases isn’t an easy target for grassroots activism. And the complexity of the US immigration bureaucracy makes popular education about the backlog difficult. All this contributes to a problem that feels increasingly intractable even as it grows more consequential.  

One step in the right direction for reforming the dysfunctional and backlogged immigration system would be for Congress to create and fully fund truly independent US immigration courts. For historically perverse reasons, US immigration courts are currently housed in the executive branch, under the jurisdiction of the Department of Justice-–a law enforcement agency. Together with the American Bar Association and the National Association of Immigration Judges, we support a separate immigration court system that, like other parts of the US judiciary, has meaningful autonomy from the whims of executive branch authority and is less subject to political pressure. An independent, accountable immigration court system might help to bring justice to the hundreds of thousands of lives currently stalled by the unprecedented backlog of pending immigration cases.

 

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. 

Feature Image – Khokarahman, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

 

 

JHISN Newsletter 12/03/2022

Posted on December 3, 2022 by - News, Newsletter

Dear friends,

An unprecedented drama is unfolding here in NYC, as thousands of recent migrants land in the city after being bused north by Republican governors in Texas and Arizona. Media coverage of the everyday lives of the newcomers—many of them families with school-age children—has focused on the cascade of challenges they face and the scramble of efforts to support them. Some of you, our readers, along with other Queens neighbors and organizations, have mobilized to address the unfolding political and humanitarian situation.

This week’s newsletter offers a report on how the city is handling the unexpected influx of an estimated 5–7000 newly-enrolled students in NYC public schools, the majority of them recent immigrant arrivals. 

Newsletter highlights:
  1. NYC public schools & new migrant students 


Welcoming New Immigrant Students in NYC Schools

This is a humanitarian crisis …. we just want the children to feel safe. 

— Natalia Russo, Principal at PS 145, interview on ‘60 Minutes’ (11/6/22)

 

In 1982, the Supreme Court ruled in Plyler v. Doe that migrant children can attend K-12 public schools in the US regardless of their legal status. In May 2022, Texas Governor Abbot suggested he might challenge that ruling, citing the high cost for educating migrant children. He then started busing recent migrants and asylum seekers to NYC, including thousands of school-age children. During the summer the NYC Department of Education (DOE) budgeted for just over a thousand new students, but that number has now grown to an estimated 7,200 children who were placed with their parents in shelters or repurposed hotels throughout the city. One-third of those were enrolled in Queens schools. Immigration status is not tracked by the city’s DOE but student enrollment from homeless shelters is; officials believe the majority of them are newcomer immigrants, many of them bused to NYC by Texas officials. 

The city created Project Open Arms to support new migrant families with children entering the school system by bringing together services from various city agencies. One highlighted concern about late-enrolling students is that although they may have higher needs, they are often sent to lower-performing schools. The Project tried to place the newcomer students in a limited number of districts and schools, preferably in close proximity to shelters where families were living. Vanessa Luna, a co-founder of ImmSchools, a national, immigrant-led non-profit that helps schools support immigrant families, also stressed the need for school staff to be trained on the legal rights of immigrants, especially those who are undocumented.

By August, the city was still making adjustments to support the schooling of migrant children unexpectedly bused to New York by Republican governors. Rita Rodriguez-Engberg, the director of the Immigrant Students Rights project with Advocates for Children New York (AFC), highlighted two issues: first, there are not enough bilingual programs in the city for all the eligible students; and second, many schools fail to inform families of their right to elect bilingual education for their children. 

To help support the existing few hundred Spanish-language bilingual teachers in NYC public schools, the Department of Education launched a new partnership with the Consul General of the Dominican Republic. It will bring 25 bilingual teachers from the DR on cultural exchange visas this year to support staff and students, and 25 more next year. These new staff would boost the Dream Squads and Immigrant Ambassador Program already in place to support English Language Learners (ELLs). 

In addition to instruction, it was apparent that school staff were working to provide basic needs like clothing and food for the new students. The city responded by forming “borough response teams,” asking parents to join them and help organize clothing and food drives, as well as supporting resource fairs. The response from volunteer organizations and individuals has been inspiring and well-documented. These grassroots actions highlight the capacity for compassion and social solidarity, in contrast to the dehumanizing US immigration proceedings created by our stagnant national policy-making. Principal Russo of PS 145 noted on 60 Minutes that she was doing laundry for some of the new students as well as getting them school uniforms and—as a pro bono lawyer—looking to provide some with legal representation. 

Queens is the borough enrolling the most newcomer students, and many are in District 30, which includes Jackson Heights, Woodside, and Corona. Whitney Toussaint, president of District 30’s community education council, estimates about 500 children are newly enrolled there. That is almost a quarter of all newcomer students estimated to be enrolled throughout 107 Queens schools. An interactive map using DOE data shows the student distribution around the city.

Students from Families Seeking Asylum: Update on the City’s Response

At the end of August the city began distributing $12 million to schools that had welcomed new students who are homeless. But it came with restrictions like it “cannot be used to hire full-time staff” such as sorely needed bilingual educators. According to NY State Senator Jessica Ramos, one school received a grant to open a food pantry and turned an old cafeteria space into a store with free clothing and supplies. The school that got the most money from the program was PS 143 Louis Armstrong in Queens which already had a dual-language program. The $194,000 it received suggests the school had enrolled nearly 100 students from temporary housing since the summer. About 50 other schools that enrolled six new arrivals were to receive just $12,000 while those with five students or less didn’t receive any extra funding. 

In September, NYC Comptroller Brad Lander began to acknowledge that DOE cuts over the summer from the Fair Student Funding (FSF) school budget allocations were looking problematic. Of the $7 billion to spend through 2024-25, only $79 million would go to social workers, guidance counselors, and school psychologists. Schools that had enrolled many new students had lost a half-billion dollars in FSF cuts. Given the new enrollments, Lander recommended these schools should receive, at minimum, an additional $34 million in funding to “staff up to serve their new students”. In November, the DOE announced it would not carry out the original budget plan cuts and also would use $200 million in federal stimulus money to maintain school budgets.

Staten Island is the NYC borough that received the smallest distribution of newcomer students this year. The borough’s Republican President Vito J. Fossella asked the Independent Budget Office to do an analysis of all spending costs associated with assisting asylum-seeking families, including and beyond education. The IBO estimated around $580 million would be required annually for just under 6,000 Asylum Seekers/Households. 

Fossella then held a media event on November 15, with Ellis Island in the background, to complain that taxpayer money would be better spent on projects that would benefit all those who live in the city. He concluded with a tired trope about Ellis Island being a reminder of a time of “good immigration”, where people came to this country legally, “the right way”. Does he know the island’s true history? Only two percent of immigrants at Ellis Island were denied entry to the United States. During its peak processing time in 1907, over a million immigrants passed through the port in just a few hours; no passports or visas were required. If Fossella recognizes that as legal and good immigration, then by all means let him advocate for this same approach with current asylum seekers, and grant the parents of these new school children the ability to work immediately.

WHAT CAN WE DO?

  • Support the work of Advocates for Children of New York.
  • Elevate the news that ImmSchools shares.
  • Track down any program that you trust to which you can donate supplies to children and their families who are in need.

 

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.