Alumnae Advocating for Immigrant Detainees
Immigrants Struggle for Their Rights in the Remote Southwest
Reprinted from Fall 1997 SYA Newsletter
by Andrea Black FR'83
During a summer in law school, I worked as a legal intern with the Florence Immigrant and Refugee Rights Project. This nonprofit organization provides free legal assistance to individuals detained by the Immigration and Naturalization Service at a facility in a remote area of southern Arizona.
The experience changed my life, and I resolved to return to the desert to work. Now I am on a fellowship from the National Association of Public Interest Law (NAPIL) to develop a legal representation project at a neighboring detention center which has no services, and I hope to find funding to continue my work after this year.
Among the people we assist are those who have fled persecution at home, undocumented workers with strong work records and long-term family and community ties, and legal permanent residents who are deportable for criminal offenses. Some of our clients are U.S. citizens detained because of the color of their skin. Many detainees are uneducated non-English speakers who do not know how to present their cases in immigration proceedings. While some are not eligible to remain in this country, many who are eligible risk unjust deportation because they lack the resources to obtain legal representation.
When I tell people what I do, I am lucky to get a polite blank stare, masking their distaste or aversion. I find it difficult to counter the current horror of immigrants that seems to inhabit the public mind. Depending on the open-mindedness of my inquirer, I try to relate stories of some of my clients. For instance, one man fled Guatemala after his entire village and its inhabitants, including his family, were burnt down by the army during the civil war. He escaped and spent the last 10 years in a refugee camp, coming to the United States only after learning that one surviving family member was living here. Another client, a legal permanent resident, faces deportation and separation from his U.S. citizen wife and four children because he was twice convicted for possession of marijuana which he used to alleviate chronic pain suffered from a work-related accident.
Immigrants can be deported for increasingly minor offenses, including receipt of stolen property and simple drug crimes; and Congress has taken away much of the court's power of judicial review.
In many cases I am unable to help because of the new draconian immigration laws; but I enjoy the personal interaction I have with my clients and their families, and I am challenged in applying a legal framework to their cases. While on the surface, this work seems light years away from the year I spent with SYA in Rennes, that's when I gained a personal understanding of the role of the outsider in society. For me, I felt welcome wherever I went.
After college, I worked for five years in Hong Kong, where I saw the necessity for people to work together within a diverse culture. Visiting other Asian countries and learning of their histories and cultures, I recognized the danger in not learning to value cultural interdependency.
Now that I am back in the U.S., I want to extend that same helping hand others have offered me to these "strangers in a foreign land," and help ensure that each successive generation of our community, regardless of economic or immigrant status, has access to our legal system.
About Andrea
Andrea attended SYA France as a junior from Spence School (New York) followed by receiving her bachelor's degree from Harvard University and her J.D. from New York University School of Law. A consultant to social justice advocates and organziers, she has served as executive director of both the Detention Watch Network and the Florence Immigrant and Refugee Rights Project.
America's "Welcome" to Asylum Seekers
Reprinted from Fall 1999 SYA Newsletter
by Esther Conrad FR'90
While walking home from work recently, I ran into an acquaintance — Bakam, a young woman from the former Zaire. We stood on a midtown Manhattan street corner for a few minutes, talking about her new apartment and school. She spoke English very well — no need to use my French as I had done when we met about a year ago.
How do I know Bakam? I know her because she spent her first five months in the United States in prison. After getting off the plane at JFK airport, she was taken, in chains, to a nearby “detention center,” which is really a medium security prison. Her crime? Seeking asylum in the United States of America.
There is a big banner at JFK airport that says, “Where America Greets the World.” What a greeting Bakam received! In my work at Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service, I have heard so many stories like Bakam's. Most SYAers, including myself, have vivid memories of their welcome to Spain, France or China — for me, that meant the open arms of a loving French family. For asylum seekers the quality of their “welcome” must have an equally lasting impact, especially because they are fleeing persecution at home, hoping to find freedom and safety here.
This treatment is in stark contrast to the grand welcome of the Kosovar Albanians earlier this year. How were they different? They were designated as refugees and granted permission to come before their arrival through the U.S. refugee resettlement program. The 75,000 refugees per year who come through this program receive assistance from the government upon their arrival to find housing, jobs and schooling for children. Due to the massive publicity about their suffering, the Kosovar Albanians received even greater attention during processing at Fort Dix, a former army barracks which officials strove to make welcoming — it looked nothing like a prison.
No one would deny that the Kosovar Albanians, fleeing such horror, deserve to be treated with kindness and generosity. But what about people who suffer equally horrendous treatment in their country, but who simply do not have access to the very limited refugee resettlement program? Such people, like Bakam, may have equally valid refugee claims and have the right under international law to request asylum in another country.
But when they arrive in the United States, and in many other industrialized countries, they are very literally greeted with chains.
Of the thousands of asylum seekers detained each year, Bakam is among the more fortunate. For many, the months behind bars turn into years as they wait for their asylum application to be processed. For others, there is literally no end in sight to their imprisonment, due to the difficulty of gaining travel documents to return to certain countries. For example, those who flee China but are not granted asylum cannot be returned to China and instead face indefinite imprisonment in the United States.
As I have discovered through my work, living in detention is really like living in another world. In fact, in legal terms detained asylum seekers have not even technically “entered” the United States. They are dispersed throughout literally hundreds of detention centers and local jails across the country. Transfers from one jail to another occur frequently and without notice. Asylum seekers are often held in the same cells and dormitories as people serving time for criminal convictions. Access to phone calls is extremely limited. Receiving phone calls is almost unheard of.
The suffering is immense, and change seems painfully slow. I often have a feeling of disorientation as I encounter such incredible injustice, for example when I receive a letter or phone call from someone who is imprisoned indefinitely because of their nationality. I cannot help but think, “Can this really be the United States?” (After all, isn't this a practice we condemn in other countries?) But wherever we are in the world, there will be the good and bad. We can be thankful that here we are able to speak out against the bad — the absence of this freedom is what made Bakam leave the former Zaire. The challenge is to share the understanding of the good that Bakam and other asylum seekers bring here.
About Esther
Esther attended SYA as a junior from Central High School (Philadelphia) followed by receiving her bachelor's degree from Stanford University, postdoctoral degrees in development studies from the University of Cambridge, international affairs at Columbia University and environmental science, policy and management at UC Berkeley.
A 2012 Switzer Fellow, Esther is the research manager at the Bill Lane Center for the American West at Stanford University. She is deeply invested in policy-relevant research and partnerships to address critical sustainability challenges, especially in the context of water and climate change, and environmental justice. She brings extensive experience and a deep commitment to collaboration from both a practical and academic perspective. Read more.