Tag: Governor Hochul

JHISN Newsletter 01/14/2023

Posted on January 14, 2023 by - News, Newsletter

Dear friends,

As winter brings colder weather and our search for warmth, the realities of economic inequality and financial insecurity become all the more stark. Our newsletter looks at two local struggles to generate security and empowerment for immigrant workers often left out in the cold: day laborers, and those who are systematically excluded from the unemployment system. Our first article reports on the growing importance of Worker Centers in organizing immigrant day laborers, and the leading role of NICE (New Immigrant Community Empowerment), based here in Jackson Heights. Our second article announces a new movement launched by the Fund Excluded Workers Coalition to permanently expand unemployment compensation to cover many of the most vulnerable workers in New York state.  

Newsletter highlights:
  1. Day laborers and worker centers: NICE organizing
  2. Statewide campaign to secure unemployment insurance for all 

 

1. Jornaleros: Pushing Out of the Shadow Economy

On a recent afternoon in Woodside, more than fifty men wearing work clothes and backpacks have spread out along 69th Street, from Roosevelt Avenue to Broadway. Hanging out in small groups or alone, they scan the passing traffic intently, hoping that a van or car pulls over with an offer of work.

These workers are among an estimated 10,000 day laborers, gathered at about 70 sites around the city, who play an indispensable role in the NYC economy. Day laborers are hired for a variety of jobs, including domestic work. But the greatest demand for day labor comes from the city’s sprawling, $86 billion dollar a year construction industry. 69th Street has long been known as a stop—parada—where employers can find construction day laborers.

Immigrants make up 63% of the city’s construction workforce. Most are from Latin America. Their pay and conditions differ greatly depending on immigration status and union membership, with undocumented day laborers at the bottom of the construction labor hierarchy. Struggling just to get a one-day job, they tend to work for small, non-union contractors and landlords, some of whom are notorious for low pay, wage theft, and unsafe conditions. Now a new wave of migrants, many from Venezuela, is trying to establish a foothold in the industry, hustling jobs on city streets. Early morning crowds at 69th Street and other paradas have grown.

Day laborers—jornaleros and jornaleras in Spanish—have always engaged in an uphill struggle for dignity and fairness in the US. In recent decades, a nationwide network of “worker centers” has been at the heart of this struggle. In our own community, one of these worker centers is organized by New Immigrant Community Empowerment (NICE), whose offices on Roosevelt and 71st Street are buzzing with day laborer activity. NICE is part of a citywide day laborer coalition of worker centers fighting to “improve workplace conditions in unregulated industries, defend their civil rights, and to end wage theft.”

Although worker centers were once seen as unwanted competitors by the construction unions, in recent years it’s become clear that worker centers are organizing workers who the unions themselves can’t reach, and that they are helping lift up standards in the whole construction industry. Relations between worker centers and unions vary around the country. But today there is often cooperation, which sometimes includes the funding of worker centers by unions, and has even involved a few joint unionization efforts. In New York, Local 79 of the Laborers Union and other unions work closely with local worker centers on the #FundExcludedWorkers campaign, including the recent mobilization to expand unemployment insurance.

NICE and the other worker centers often protest and lobby for legislation needed by day laborers, such as Carlos’ Law, a major NY State workplace safety bill signed by Governor Hochul in December. Workers victimized by wage theft or who face unsafe conditions can count on NICE to use its collective strength to intervene—sometimes side by side with unionized workers. NICE runs a continuous series of Occupational Safety and Health classes, which are legally required for work on most construction sites. The waiting list for these classes has grown long, as the recently arrived wave of asylum seekers searches for work. NICE also teaches construction skills such as framing, plumbing, and painting, as well as “soft skills” like English and technology. Women are encouraged to investigate careers in construction. All of the classes and workshops are free.

NICE’s effort to build solidarity among jornaleros is exemplified by their day laborer hiring hall. Employers looking for dependable day labor contact the Center. (“Hire NICE Workers,” the Center’s website says.) Workers who are registered with NICE get dispatched without favoritism, with an agreed wage, and with a formal work order. This system protects workers from unscrupulous bosses and job agencies. The Center’s workers make decisions democratically about minimum pay and other aspects of dispatch. The Worker Center doesn’t have the number of jobs or the physical capacity that would allow them to dispatch the whole local day laborer workforce today. Most jornaleros are still looking for work on 69th Street at least part of the time. But the hiring hall model is known in labor history to be a potential kernel of powerful worker organizations. For instance, in the 1930s, the demand for a hiring hall was central to eliminating the competitive “shape-up” of day laborers that ruled the longshore industry at that time. Winning the demand for a fair hiring hall helped create longshore unions in the US, mobilizing a mostly-immigrant day labor workforce that had been considered unorganizable.

To amplify its day labor activism, NICE developed a cell phone app in 2016 that helps workers track their hours and pay, rates employers, and shares warnings and alerts. Omar Trinidad, a construction worker, was the lead organizer for the app, which was named, appropriately, Jornalero/a. The app has spread to day laborer stops and among delivery workers in the city and beyond.

WHAT CAN WE DO?
  • Sign the petition, by NYC’s Day Laborer Coalition, calling on the city council to fund the Day Laborer Workforce Initiative. 
  • Hire a NICE worker if you need construction, day labor, domestic work, or a dog walker.

 

2. #ExcludedNoMore Launches Campaign for Unemployment Compensation

Immigrant justice groups and the Fund for Excluded Workers (FEW) Coalition won a historic struggle here in New York in 2021: $2.1 billion in state funding for immigrant workers systematically excluded from federal pandemic relief programs such as unemployment insurance and stimulus payments. The NY Department of Labor (DOL) distributed the money to 130,000 eligible applicants, with most recipients receiving the maximum funding amount of $15,600. Last month, the NYDOL made final payments of another $30 million to an additional 1,900 New Yorkers.

But immigration activists and community organizers didn’t stop after this unprecedented victory. The pandemic revealed brutal inequities in government support for workers in precarious times:

“[T[here are hundreds of thousands of workers across New York who have no way to access financial support when a crisis hits, be it a pandemic or an economic recession. That’s because our unemployment insurance system shuts out many of our state’s most vulnerable workers, especially Black, Brown, and immigrant workers in precarious low-wage industries …. We need a permanent solution that will remedy the need for an Excluded Workers Fund in the future.” –Nisha Tabassum, FEW Coalition Manager

This week, #ExcludedNoMore launches a statewide Unemployment Bridge Program campaign to secure economic justice for all workers excluded from unemployment compensation due to their immigration status, or the kind of job they hold—including coverage for up to 750,000 domestic workers, day laborers, freelancers, and street vendors. “We need to do the structural work of matching our state’s unemployment system to the realities of the labor force,” said Queens-based State Senator Jessica Ramos, “The Unemployment Bridge Project is an update that aims to create a 21st-century safety net to match our 21st-century workforce.”

On January 11, the new campaign officially launched in NYC with a march and press conference near the Brooklyn Bridge. Rolling launch actions will take place this week in Westchester, Long Island, Upstate, and Albany. The struggle is just beginning!

 WHAT CAN WE DO?
  • Follow the Unemployment Bridge campaign on Fund Excluded Workers Coalition’s  Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, where future actions and rallies will be announced.

 

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 12/31/2022

Posted on December 31, 2022 by - News, Newsletter

Dear friends,

As the year 2022 comes to a close, we invite our readers to look back on some of the recent activism of local immigrant groups, and look ahead to the ongoing struggle to dismantle the US detention and deportation system. We feature the recent activities of three vibrant organizations—NICE, DRUM, and Make the Road NY—that each have a base here in central Queens. And we report on what a ‘true’ alternative to detention might be while remembering that, as the new year approaches, over 23,000 immigrants are currently in detention, and over 377,000 people are being monitored under ICE’s ‘Alternative to Detention’ (ATD) programs.

As we usher in 2023, we wish you joy, and community, and collective imaginings of a more just world for all.

Newsletter highlights:
  1. Year-end activities of local immigrant-led groups
  2. Implementing real alternatives to detention

1. Local Immigrant Justice Groups@End of Year 2022

As the calendar year turns, we take a look at three immigrant-led groups based here in Central Queens, and report back on some of their recent activism and advocacy. 

NICE (New Immigrant Community Empowerment) held a demonstration with City Council member Shekar Krishnan in front of City Hall on November 22, advocating for more resources to fight against wage theft. Undocumented workers are especially vulnerable to not being fully paid for their work, or not being paid at all. 

NICE’s commitment to protecting workers includes their support for Carlos’ Law. Named for Carlos Moncayo, a 22-year-old undocumented Ecuadorian construction worker killed on the job in 2015, the bill was proposed in 2018 and passed the NY State Legislature in August. It would raise the maximum fine for criminal liability for worker injury or death from $10,000 to no less than $500,000, or, in the case of a misdemeanor, no less than $300,000. The bill has been sitting unsigned on the desk of Governor Kathy Hochul, even though three more workers were killed this November, for a total of at least 24 construction worker deaths this year. Over 80% of construction workers who die in New York are employed at non-union work sites, and immigrant construction workers are disproportionately vulnerable to dying on the job. 

On December 13, members of NICE together with CUFFH (Churches United for Fair Housing), CASA, Make the Road NY and Center for Popular Democracy rallied in Washington, DC, to demand climate, health, economic and immigration justice. NICE met with six different congressional offices: Senator Bernie Sanders and Representatives Rashida Tlaib, Ilhan Omar, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Grace Meng, and Nadya Velazquez.

The Omnibus federal budget bill recently approved by Congress allots $500,000 to NICE.

DRUM (Desis Rising Up and Moving) joined more than 100 organizations on November 15 calling on Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas to designate Temporary Protective Status (TPS) and Special Student Status (SSR) for Pakistani nationals working and studying in the US. The devastating floods of 2022 have created ongoing health and economic crises in Pakistan, with at least 33 million people (1 in 7 Pakistanis) directly affected by the disaster. No safe return of Pakistani immigrants to their country of origin is currently possible. Support TPS and SSR for Pakistani by signing this petition. 

DRUM’s director of organizing, Kazi Fouzia Kabir, joined Grassroots Global Justice Alliance’s delegation in November at the United Nation’s COP27 meetings in Egypt. Kabir works to connect with civil and government representatives from countries that DRUM’s members come from, in order to coordinate their demands for climate justice.

On November 22 and again on December 7, DRUM participated in a Care Not Cuts rally at City Hall demanding that Mayor Adams protect city services for working-class New Yorkers—threatened by Adams’ proposed budget cuts in fiscal 2023—and roll back the Mayor’s dangerous plan to forcibly detain New Yorkers deemed by the NYPD to have a mental illness. The proposed budget cuts and hiring freeze will affect vital city services, including a proposed cut to the extension of the universal 3-K Child Care Program. DRUM is fighting for housing, childcare, education, and care, instead of cuts and criminalization.  

DRUM is also working with ICE Out! NYC, Make the Road NY, African Communities Together (ACT), and other immigrant justice organizations to advocate for three crucial bills being considered by the City Council. The proposed legislation would further restrict the city from funneling people into ICE custody and detention by: ensuring accountability and compliance with existing detainer laws; limiting the Department of Corrections from communicating with ICE about a person’s release; and limiting the NYPD’s ability to hold a person for ICE.

Make the Road NY’s (MTRNY) Trans Immigrant Project (TrIP) held a vigil on November 19 in Corona Plaza to honor the lives of trans and gender-diverse siblings lost in 2022 and previous years. They renewed their commitment to protecting those who are still with us, and the generations that come after us.

MTRNY also held a series of Town Halls for members to meet with Queens legislators ahead of the 2023 legislative session. The November 16 Town Hall included State Senator Jessica Ramos, and Assembly members Catalina Cruz, Jessica Gonzalez-Rojas, Juan Ardila, and Steven Raga. Two more events were held on November 17 in Brooklyn and November 29 in Westchester.

On November 16, MTRNY launched its 2023-24 Respect and Dignity for All state policy platform to address the persistent inequities across NY State and improve the lives of immigrant, Black, and brown families. Proposals include:

  • Permanent inclusion in the unemployment system for all. Excluded No More.
  • Ensure immigrant healthcare access. Coverage for All.
  • Pass Good Cause Eviction legislation to bring renter’s rights to tenants in smaller buildings.
  • Pass the Solutions Not Suspensions Act for youth.
  • Pass the Stop Violence in the Sex Trades Act

The just-passed federal budget allots $400,000 to MTRNY which will help them implement their policies.

WHAT CAN WE DO?
  • Sign the petition supporting TPS for Pakistani immigrants.
  • If you are able, make a donation to any of the local immigrant activist and advocacy groups mentioned here–check their website for donation information!

2. The Real Alternative to Detention is No Detention

“The point is not to provide an alternative to electronic monitoring, an alternative to probation …  and so on—but to look instead at the actual problems we face, and to take lessons from projects around the country that are addressing these problems in effective ways.” –Prison by Any Other Name, by Maya Schenwar and Victoria Law (p.241)

Immigrant advocates including Mijente, Detention Watch Network (DWN), the National Immigrant Justice Center, and the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops with the Center for Migration Studies have each issued reports opposing ISAP (Intensive Supervision Appearance Program), an Alternative to Detention (ATD) program run by ICE agents. They highlight the many problems of ISAP, and the value of community-based support programs as true alternatives to detention. ISAP, launched in 2004, is run by prison corporations and has been renewed four times despite sustained criticism by immigrants and activists. 

The government has piloted a few community-based ATD programs. In 2000, the Vera Institute for Justice worked with the INS (Immigration and Naturalization Services) to run one such ATD called the Appearance Assistance Program (AAP). The AAP was a break from the carceral approach to immigration policy which ramped up after Cuban and Haitian refugees arrived on Florida’s shores in the late 1980s, prompting Congress to amend the Immigration and Naturalization Act to require mandatory detention for immigrants with specific criminal convictions. The association of immigration with criminality was expanded by the 1996 Illegal Immigrant Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act (IIRIRA) which increased the scope of mandatory detention and captured legal permanent residents as well. 

Despite the AAP’s non-carceral success, with 90% of participants attending their court hearings, the aftermath of September 11, 2001, reconfigured immigration policy as a national security issue. The creation of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) in 2002 prioritized immigrant surveillance, deportation, and the escalation of detention. ISAP became the primary ATD program supported by DHS, which leverages smartphone and facial recognition software, ankle monitors, and telephone check-ins with ICE agents with a focus on discipline and supervision, not community support.

The chart below shows the increase over time of funding allocations to ATD programs, including ISAP, as daily enrollment in those programs grew, spiking at almost 225% under President Biden in one year. The chart clearly shows government spending is not reduced with ATDs because they continue to spend on detention. The data reveal that ATDs like ISAP are not a real alternative, but an addition to detention. The chart also illustrates how bed quotas in private detention facilities keep detention costs consistently high even though the actual detention population recently dropped due to the unjustified use of Title 42 as an immigration enforcement tool during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Some claim that the ISAP program is better than detention as a more humane way to approach the problem of immigration management. Participants in the program have agreed that given a choice between detention or not, then ISAP is preferred. But the report Tracked and Trapped: Experiences from ICE’s Digital Prisons shows the direct human impact that ISAP has on people (not by comparison with detention): 

  • When there are problems with the technology, ICE case officers will not blame the technology, instead punishment will fall on the participant. Because the ISAP program is run by a prison subsidiary company, the threat of detention is immediate for non-compliance.
  • Smartphone monitoring data constantly tracks people with no restrictions on how that data will be used. In fact, ISAP data was used in 2019 to assist in a Mississippi ICE raid to arrest 680 immigrant workers in meat processing plants, 300 of whom were later released. 
  • Ankle monitors have notably caused irritation, bleeding, or even electro-shocked the wearer—possibly because they are being worn for over 10 times longer than the intended length of time. 
  • 97% of people surveyed reported feeling social stigma or isolation, and two-thirds reported job-related issues. 
  • Black immigrants are given the ankle shackle twice as often as others. 

Detention Watch Network criticizes these ATD approaches as Alternatives to Freedom, but there are programs that can be community-based true alternatives, and ISAP is not the sole approach that ICE takes with ATDs. Parole allows people to live freely while they navigate their immigration cases—95% of Ukrainians were granted this option to escape the war with Russia, but only 11% of non-Ukranians were given this option during the same timeframe. In January 2016, ICE set up the Family Case Management Program (FCMP), an ATD without punitive and restrictive measures which did not use ankle monitors. The program successfully maximized court hearing attendance and ICE appointments. It was also significantly cheaper than the detention costs at just $38 each day per family unit instead of $320 per detainee per day. President Trump chose to eliminate this successful program after just one year. He also adjusted the Risk Classification Assessment (RCA) algorithm used to advise if someone can be released from detention and placed into an ATD—as a result, the continued detention of low-risk individuals rose from around 50% to 97%. When later seen by a human case officer, about 40% of people were released on bond. In 2020 the Bronx Defenders and the ACLU brought a lawsuit against ICE for adjusting RCA as a violation of due process and federal immigration law that calls for “individualized determinations” about a person’s release. 

Much immigrant justice work has tried to ensure that legal representation is provided to protect due process. However, as with the criminal justice system, the guarantee of due process does not always lead to a better outcome, which would be no detention and no deportation. But there are community programs working independently of the government that offer prime examples of successful ATDs: the New York Immigrant Family Unity Project, NYIFUP, is a coalition of groups with a process that strives for a different outcome from all the rest. It resulted in a 48% non-deportation outcome–a different measure than ensuring participation in court appearances and ICE meetings. That is a real alternative with a valuable outcome for immigrants.

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 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. 

 

JHISN Newsletter 02/19/2022

Posted on February 19, 2022 by - News, Newsletter

Dear friends,

Our newsletter this week illustrates the incoherence and political confusion of current US immigration policy. On the one hand, Democrats have just proposed a bill to remedy the 80-year old travesty of locating immigration courts in a federal law enforcement agency, subject to political interference from the executive branch. On the other hand, the Biden administration continues to embrace one of the most vicious anti-immigrant policies of the Trump years: the systematic expulsion of migrants at the US-Mexico border under the trumped-up authority of Title 42.

Both of these issues have intimate effects on the everyday lives of immigrant communities, including here in Queens. How to move beyond confusion to understanding and action? We hope our stories this week can help.

Newsletter highlights:
  1. New legislation targets the immigration court system
  2. Politicizing border-crossings in a pandemic 

1. Creating an independent immigration court 

“As long as the immigration courts remain under the authority of the Attorney General, the administration of immigration justice will remain a game of political football–with people’s lives on the line” –Alison Peck, Co-director, Immigration Law Clinic

On February 3, 2022, the Real Courts, Rule of Law Act of 2022 was submitted by three House Democrats to alter the US immigration court system. The national union for US immigration judges has long advocated for an independent court. If passed, judges would form an independent judiciary that no longer bends the whims of the executive branch;  immigration courts would be removed from the Department of Justice (DOJ) oversight. This would be the first significant change to the immigration court system since 1940 when Roosevelt moved it out of the Department of Labor. 

The way we house immigration courts within the DOJ is inconsistent with practices of justice, fairness, and due process. Today we talk of immigration judges, but the Immigrant Inspectors of the Treasury Department (also known as Inquiry Officers in the DOL and DOJ) were not authorized to use the title “judge” nor to wear judicial robes until 1973. These courts can order the indefinite detention of immigrants without meeting any burden of proof that detention is necessary—a foundational legal demand required of the government in all other court proceedings. This has contributed to a massive detention network in the US and advanced ICE’s extraordinary powers to confine. In the face of bipartisan acceptance of prolonged detention of immigrants without an opportunity for review by an immigration judge, activist campaigns like the Dignity Not Detention actions become critically important. 

The recently proposed bill was immediately criticized by Republican opponents as an expensive change that won’t significantly reduce the unprecedented backlog of 1.6 million immigration cases. The author of the bill, California Democratic Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren, along with 148 organizations that support it, doesn’t claim it will directly reduce that backlog. They see it as a way to eliminate the presidential and political influences that add to the backlog regardless of which party holds the presidency. Under Obama, the backlog grew out of political pressure to process family hearings—with Trump a quota system was created to handle border hearings, which contributed to a record number of immigration judges leaving in 2019. 

In Alison Peck’s The Accidental History of the U.S. Immigration Courts, we learn, “The immigration courts are not really ‘courts’ at all but an office of the Department of Justice, the nation’s law enforcement agency.” Peck’s research reveals that the reason the courts report to the Attorney General in the DOJ is not based on rationality or best practice, but a history of paranoia and fear. 

The Secretary of Labor during The New Deal era was responsible for immigration adjudication—a responsibility at odds with her role to deal fairly and impartially with union leaders, many of whom were immigrants potentially subject to deportation. The Department of Justice was rejected in 1939 as an alternative federal agency to take on this authority: lawyers expressed concern about immigration management in the DOJ becoming politically charged, and advisors warned immigration would become associated with crime and law enforcement. But, by May of 1940, President Roosevelt grew fearful of a supposed Fifth Column Nazi plot to take over the US government from within. This paranoia resulted in a plan to “afford more effective control over aliens” by moving immigration responsibility to the DOJ. There was no Fifth Column, just fear-mongering propaganda that generated almost a century of immigration court proceedings without the constitutional principles of due process and separation of powers. 

After 9/11, fear further entrenched immigration courts within the DOJ and, in 2002, created the Department of Homeland Security. The DOJ’s Immigration and Naturalization Service agents, attorneys, intelligence analysts, and detention and removal officers merged with the United States Customs Service (USCS) into a new agency, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). The focus of ICE is enforcement and security, not administrative immigration; DHS attorneys from ICE present evidence during removal proceedings in immigration court with a focus on ensuring removal. At the same time, immigration judges work for a prosecutorial agency (the DOJ) and leverage rulings such as In Absentia removal orders that seek to deny entry to immigrants. 

The Real Courts bill is the first opportunity in 80 years to separate immigration courts from law enforcement by creating a system similar to the tax courts. The American Immigration Lawyers Association reported that the bill was drafted to appeal to members of both political parties, with a promise that the scales will not be tipped toward either end of the political spectrum. But the bill may not de-politicize immigration courts entirely because it proposes a Presidential nomination and Senate confirmation process for judges, similar to the Supreme Court, and such nomination and confirmation processes can be heavily politicized. 

WHAT CAN WE DO?

2. Covid Borders 

On the US’s northern border this week, Canadian trucker blockades—having disrupted international trade and laid siege to several neighborhoods—were slowly and politely cleared by authorities. The blockades were sparked by the Canadian government’s mandate requiring Covid-19 vaccination for cross-border truckers (90% were already vaccinated). Well-funded protesters, virtually all white Canadian citizens, leveraged border choke points to advance a peculiarly right-wing version of “freedom”: freedom to undermine public health during a pandemic; freedom to infect others.

By contrast, on the other US border, some 1,500 miles to the south, hundreds of thousands of impoverished working-class migrants of color, seeking asylum from violence, economic crisis, and climate change, are being brutally abused and ejected from the US, in violation of international law, by an administration that had promised them dignity and respect. The administration’s excuse? Covid-19.

In March 2020, when Donald Trump weaponized Title 42 of the 1944 Public Health Services Law to expel asylum seekers because of “Covid risk,” he was denounced in many quarters. Title 42 does allow the government to prevent individuals from entering the US during certain health emergencies. But it doesn’t give the government free rein:

“U.S. law says that any person in the United States or at the border with the United States has a right to seek asylum…. There’s nothing in the law that allows the government to expel [migrants] without any due process.” Olga Byrne, International Rescue Committee

Several federal judges ruled that blanket Title 42 expulsions were illegal. Nevertheless, Trump forged ahead, carrying out hundreds of thousands of expulsions without hearings. The Biden administration is following in his footsteps. It announced last summer that it would continue to utilize Title 42, subject to review every 60 days. It was last renewed on February 2.

Covid-19 is a fake pretext for Biden’s mass expulsion of working-class people of color, just as it was for Trump. “Covid risk” hasn’t caused the US to prohibit millions of visitors and employees from routinely crossing the Mexican border every month. Neither has the administration bothered to test, treat, or vaccinate asylum-seekers—it simply rejects them all out of hand. DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkis strongly defends this practice, insisting that the agency will use Title 42 to its fullest extent to expel asylum seekers who arrive at the border. 

In September, shocking images of Border Patrol agents on horseback threatening to whip and trample Haitian migrants raised public awareness about the cold-blooded reality of Title 42 expulsion. Unlike asylum-seekers from some other countries, Haitians arriving at the border are generally not returned to Mexico to wait for an asylum hearing—a practice that is itself a radical violation of migrants’ human rights. Instead, most have been incarcerated without any hearing in Covid-infested detention centers in the US and then forced onto planes heading back to Haiti—and the same intolerable conditions that caused them to flee in the first place. As a result, many Haitian asylum-seekers have decided not to approach the US border, and remain trapped in Mexico.

Immigrant justice advocates and progressive Democrats condemned Biden’s Title 42 policy. “We speak out against the cruel, the inhumane, and the flat out racist treatment of our Haitian brothers and sisters at the southern border,” Rep. Ayanna Pressley said. Two top Biden appointees resigned in disgust. The United Nations repeatedly denounced Biden’s violations of international law. Just this past Monday, over 30 congresspeople demanded that the CDC explain how it could justify supporting such a policy. And yet, over 17,000 Haitians have now been expelled by this administration based on Title 42—and over a million migrants total. 

“I never would have predicted this White House, within Year One, would be expelling Haitians to a failed state. In December of 2020 we’re talking about a transformative vision. And in 2022, expelling Haitians without a meaningful asylum process. Wow.”  —Frank Sharry, America’s Voice

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 1/22/2022

Posted on January 22, 2022 by - News, Newsletter

Dear friends,

The rich diversity of communities who call Jackson Heights home is well-known. Most of us living here value and celebrate that ‘another world is possible’ right here in JH. But the complexity of histories and languages, and of political issues that people face at every level, also makes it hard to always know what’s happening, even when our own communities are directly affected. Today’s newsletter looks at two issues that are urgent and immediate for immigrant households in central Queens: the lifting of a state eviction moratorium put in place to protect renters who are unable to make ends meet during the pandemic; and the resurgent threat of federal ‘public charge’ policies that would deny working-class immigrants access to assistance with food, housing, and health care needs.   

Newsletter highlights:

  1. What’s next as eviction moratorium ends in New York State
  2. New struggle over discriminatory public charge regulations

1. Eviction Moratorium Ends – What Now?

“I think that this is a concerted effort by the rich and powerful … not just to force people back to work for profit’s sake, health be damned, but also to chip away at some of the victories that working class tenants have made in building a little bit of a sense of democracy during this pandemic.” – Joel Feingold, Crown Heights Tenant Union

Hundreds of thousands of renters in New York who owe back rent as a result of the pandemic now face the threat of eviction, as the state’s moratorium on evictions expired on January 15 – in the cold of winter and during an unprecedented peak of Covid infections. The majority of tenants facing eviction live in neighborhoods hardest hit by the pandemic, including working-class communities of color in Eastern Queens, Central Brooklyn, and Upper Manhattan. In our own community, most low-income, vulnerable renters are part of immigrant households. So rent relief and protection from eviction, like almost every political concern that cuts through Jackson Heights, is also an issue of immigrant justice.

In the days before the NYS eviction moratorium expired, housing activists mobilized. On January 8, tenants rights groups marched across the Brooklyn Bridge to the Manhattan Housing Court calling for an extension of the moratorium until June 2022. On January 11, activists blocked the steps of the Capitol in Albany, demanding that Hochul declare an extension. On January 14, more than 100 people marched through Midtown with signs calling Hochul the “Governor of Evictions”; 13 people were arrested outside her Manhattan office. But Hochul turned her back on renters, preferring to prioritize her ties to major real estate billionaires and lobbyists.

Even before the pandemic hit, an eviction epidemic was raging in New York, with nearly 100 families evicted statewide every day. In NYC, where one-third of renters spend over half their income on rent plus utilities, more eviction cases were filed in 2019 than in any other major US city. As the moratorium ends, there are more than 215,000 active housing court cases in NYC—over 190,000 of them involving non-payment of rent—which can begin moving forward this week. 

The national eviction moratorium ended in August 2021, when the Supreme Court blocked the Biden administration’s move to extend it. However, federal funding continued to support a nationwide Emergency Rental Assistance Program (ERAP), aimed at tenants struggling to make ends meet during the pandemic. Here in New York state, federal ERAP funding totaled $2.4 billion. But in November 2021, Governor Hochul shut down the application portal for ERAP—which housing activists had credited with preventing a surge of evictions after the end of the federal moratorium—claiming the fund was almost exhausted. News reports suggest that the state has actually spent only half of the $2.4 billion, while putting aside the rest of the funds for ‘paperwork.’ 

When Hochul closed down ERAP applications, she also eliminated the safe harbor that ERAP was designed to provide: once a household applies for emergency relief they are temporarily protected from eviction as their application is pending. The Legal Aid Society sued in mid-December 2021 for ERAP applications to be reopened; on January 6, a judge ruled in their favor and issued a court order that forced NYS to reopen the application portal.

Activists are divided on the next steps forward. Some support the so-called “Good Cause” eviction bill, introduced in the NYS legislature, that would legally require landlords to have ‘good cause’ for evicting tenants, while also protecting them from rent gouging. Supporters argue that the Good Cause bill offers a permanent solution for vulnerable renters, in contrast to the emergency-based eviction moratorium. Several cities in NYS have already passed versions of the Good Cause bill, including Albany and Hudson, with bills pending in Kingston, Poughkeepsie, and New Paltz.

Other activists argue that the Good Cause legislation doesn’t go far enough. Given that one of the bill’s stated ‘good cause’ for eviction is non-payment of rent, the bill would not protect many of the 200,000 people in NYS at risk of eviction now that the moratorium has ended.

At the local level here in central Queens, we must remain informed, vigilant, and ready to act. The homes and livelihoods of thousands of immigrant households—and other mostly working-class renters—in our neighborhood are at stake.

WHAT CAN WE DO?

  • If you are facing eviction, apply to the Emergency Rental Assistance Program (ERAP) here. You will immediately be protected from eviction once you show your landlord that you have applied. The ERAP website will say there are no more funds available–but you are still allowed to apply. New York state has requested additional funds from the federal government for the assistance program.   
  • If you need assistance with an eviction situation, contact Councilmember Shekar Krishnan at 929-293-0206 or Krishnan@council.nyc.gov. 
  • Know your rights! Under NYC’s Right-to-Counsel law, legal services are free for any tenant facing eviction in housing court, regardless of immigration status. Call 718-557-1379 or 212-962-4795 from Monday-Friday to get connected to a Right-to-Counsel lawyer. 
  • Share the above information with your neighbors, co-workers, religious communities, and political action groups. 

2. Ongoing Battle Over Public Charge

Public charge rules—federal regulations that disqualify immigrants from entry to the US or from becoming citizens if they use social benefits—have been a hotly-contested part of immigration law since 1882. Recent developments are bringing public charge issues back to the forefront of immigrant justice activism.

Newsletter readers will recall that we did a deep dive on public charge rules in a three-part series in 2020, shortly after Donald Trump engineered a radical expansion and toughening of their provisions. We investigated the racist and xenophobic functions of public charge laws, from their origins until today. We took a close look at which immigrants were at direct risk from Trump’s new restrictions, observing that many others were frightened or discouraged from using social programs because of his aggressive changes. And we showed that the biggest danger of Trump’s new regulations was that they gave immigration officials wide discretion to target immigrants who they claimed might use public benefits in the future.

Fulfilling a campaign promise, the Biden administration canceled Trump’s 2019 changes. But widespread confusion remains within immigrant communities about who is legally entitled to which public benefits. Many immigrants in New York and elsewhere don’t realize that they are fully eligible for many health and social services—including Covid-19 testing, vaccinations and care; food assistance; tenant protection; and free legal help.

To eliminate confusion, the Department of State (DOS) needs to clarify and finalize new public charge rules. So in November 2021, DOS solicited comments from the public. The comment period ends this month. The main issue at stake right now is whether to revert to pre-2019 rules or write new ones.

Protecting Immigrant Families (PIF) and its coalition partners have written to DOS asking that the rules return to the pre-October 2019 policies. They argue that Trump’s 2019 changes have had a persistent chilling effect as immigrant households remain uncertain to this day about their legal access to social benefits (including for US citizen children who are always eligible). They note that pre-2019 policies were clear, fair, and had worked well for more than a decade. Finally, PIF highlights how pre-Trump public charge rules would provide essential workers during the ongoing pandemic with “core health, nutrition, and housing assistance programs” that nearly half of all US citizens draw on to make ends meet. 

In stark contrast, the attorneys general of at least 12 Republican states, led by Arizona, have filed suit to reinstate Trump’s regulations, supporting the hardline public charge policy that primarily threatens poorer immigrants to the US. Ominously, the Supreme Court has agreed to hear this case on February 23. 

How this case is decided will have a profound impact on immigrant communities, including here in Central Queens, and on working-class immigrants’ access to a just and equitable pathway to citizenship.   

WHAT CAN WE DO?

  • Check out Protecting Immigrant Family (PIF) website, with comprehensive answers in multiple languages about who public charge applies to and which benefits are available. 
  • Know Your Rights! Here are the Top Five Facts on public charge.

 

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.