Focus on Immigration

October 17, 2023

Dear Partners in Ministry,Thanks for reading this month’s “Focus on Immigration” newsletter, a reflection of our congregation’s particular passion for immigrant justice and advocacy for refugees in our midst, which is published the 3rd week of the month.This newsletter offers opportunities and news related to accompaniment, legislative advocacy, and the deep spiritual work we’re doing to turn the country’s heart toward justice and hospitality. If you see something here that piques your interest, or your imagination, please follow up. Your faith and your action make the world a brighter place for all.Yours in Spirit and Hope,Debbie Leavitt Editor Immigrant Housing and Accompaniment TeamDennis Drogseth Chair Justice & Witness MinistryDave Grishaw-Jones Pastor DavidGJ@CCDurham.org

The following article was submitted by Peggy Kieschnick with this note: This article urging support for a bi-partisan federal bill that would provide permanent status to Afghanis who worked as allies with the US was written by a friend of mine who came to the US in 2012. She is a woman of extraordinary courage. Senator Shaheen is one of the co-sponsors. Senator Hassan has not yet agreed to support it. Please urge folks to contact Sen Hassan.

Opinion: Thousands of Afghan refugees are stuck in limbo. Congress has a chance to protect them.

Afghans and supporters march down Pacific Coast Highway during a Stop Killing Afghans rally and march on Saturday, August 28, 2021 in Downtown San Diego. (Sandy Huffaker / For The San Diego Union-Tribune)Congress can pass a truly bipartisan bill called the Afghan Adjustment Act and make the welcome permanent.BY SHAMAIL AMIRI SEPT. 18, 2023 5:51 PM PTAmiri is the California delegate for the national organization Refugee Congress and lives in San Diego.In the last two years, the United States has welcomed tens of thousands of Afghans — loyal allies of the United States — so that we might restart our lives here in safety after the U.S. military withdrawal and the fall of our country to the Taliban in 2021.But the welcome is only temporary. Afghans seeking safety were brought here by the U.S. government through a humanitarian parole program designed to provide refuge quickly to people under threat. The program offers only temporary protection and no path to permanent residency. It leaves tens of thousands of us in limbo.Now Congress can pass a truly bipartisan bill called the Afghan Adjustment Act and make the welcome permanent. I first came to the United States seeking asylum in 2012. I am fortunate to have since found a path to permanent residency and I love living in San Diego.In the years after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the U.S., many Afghans like me chose to help American forces to prevent a repeat of that atrocity. We deserve a warm welcome for our loyalty and for risking our lives to help overthrow the Taliban. We risked our lives to uphold American values, including gender equality and a free press. We came here believing that America would take care of us.Sens. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., and Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., along with colleagues from both houses of Congress, have fashioned the Afghan Adjustment Act to provide permanent status here for eligible Afghans who pass rigorous screening measures.Klobuchar has said “it is about a covenant” on the Senate floor — “a covenant that we have made, and we must keep to those who stand with us on the battlefield. This bill does right by Afghans who worked alongside our troops and shows the world that the United States of America, when we make a promise, we keep it.”Afghans served America in Afghanistan as loyal allies working as interpreters, soldiers, drivers, nurses and more. I’ve worked with nonprofit organizations in remote areas of Afghanistan, providing programs for women and children such as literacy courses and training in weaving and sewing. I worked as a community health worker and traveled to many dangerous areas in Afghanistan to train women, men and young people to become community health workers to engage in discussions about adolescent sexual reproductive health issues and promote health-enhancing knowledge and skills.Here in America, I volunteer with the nonprofit Survivors of Torture, to assist recent refugees and asylum-seekers when they arrive in the U.S. I help them access services and teach them to acclimate to a different life in the U.S. I have also provided help to children who arrive in the U.S. without parents.Many of my fellow Afghans living in the U.S. now face uncertain futures. They are worried about being deported back to Afghanistan. Many are experiencing a triple trauma: the trauma when Afghanistan fell, the trauma of journeying to the U.S. in an unusual way, and the trauma of the U.S. immigration system blocking their progress. This kind of limbo has lasting effects and disrupts people’s mental health. Afghans are separated from their families, home country and friends.Afghans who are here in limbo tried to rid our home country of a brutally repressive regime which threatened international security. We bring skills and determination to this country, and we’re already making significant contributions to the United States’ economy and culture. We are integral members of communities across the country.For many of us, the United States is now home. It’s time for Congress to act and make the difference. Congress must urgently pass this bill so that Afghans who only have temporary protection gain the security and stability we need to rebuild our lives and thrive. This legislation is also an important step to demonstrate support for Afghans who aided the U.S. mission in Afghanistan.It has now been just over two years since the Taliban marched into Kabul and the Afghan government collapsed, forcing the United States to evacuate in a hurry. It is long enough for my fellow Afghans to have waited for the United States to honor the covenant it made to my people and it is time to pass the Afghan Adjustment Act.Please contact Senator Hassan (website contact form, (202) 224-3324) and ask her to support the Afghan Adjustment Act. It would also be great to thank Senator Shaheen for being a co-sponsor (senator@shaheen.senate.gov, website contact form, (202) 224-2841). Thanks.

The path to a fairer, more humane immigration system

DEBBIE LEAVITTOCTOBER 3, 2023 4:55 AM – THE NEW HAMPSHIRE BULLETINThe New Hampshire Bulletin is a non-partisan e-newsletter on the political issues facing NH today. You, too, can submit an opinion piece:

Children play in the makeshift shelter camps for Central American migrants waiting for the U.S. authorities to allow them to enter to begin their process of humanitarian asylum on March 26, 2021, in Tijuana, Mexico. (Francisco Vega | Getty Images)We have a humanitarian crisis that is impacting people across our nation due to our outdated immigration system.Nationally, many cities and towns are responding compassionately and creatively to the influx of migrants due to climate disruption, civil war, and persecution but the situation is being exploited politically.In my volunteer work, I’ve heard hundreds of heartbreaking stories of family separation, dislocation, and economic hardship. Here in New Hampshire, we aren’t recognizing the benefits that a diverse workforce could bring to solving our labor shortage. Highly motivated, hard-working, and law-abiding immigrants have an established record of expanding workforces, starting new small businesses, growing our tax base, and enhancing cultural diversity by contributing to community life.Cities and towns as different as Lewiston, Maine, Framingham, Massachusetts, and Huron, South Dakota, attest to the reality of these effects. The positive economic and community impacts of immigrants are clear.To provide a fairer and more humane immigration system, I suggest the following:1.Provide a clear pathway to citizenship for more immigrants, including Dreamers. People I talk with say they recognize the need for immigrants, but they want to make sure they come legally. Most people are unaware just how limited those legal pathways are.2.Reduce the waiting period to obtain a work permit. The current 180-day waiting period combined with system backlogs for approval means most asylum-seekers must wait more than six months to a year for a work permit. It makes no sense to delay employment for people eager to work to support their families. Waiting for close to a year for work permits leaves these workers in limbo and dependent on others.3.Reduce the incarceration and surveillance of immigrants. Our overuse of detention is justified as a prevention of flight or harm to the community, but migration is an international right with established norms. Detention should not be used as a standard part of the process. We need more shelters, not detention centers.4.Encourage the training and hiring of more immigration lawyers and judges, especially bilingual ones, and expand legal services. Due to our backlogged immigration system, people are waiting years for resolution of their asylum cases. Asylum-seekers who have legal representation are much more likely to win approval but there are not enough lawyers and costs are prohibitive.I have witnessed directly the harm to individuals and families by discriminatory, inhumane policies. We all experience the disruption of inadequate staffing in local businesses.I encourage everyone to make this issue a priority to ensure intact families, a strong workforce, and welcoming, healthy communities throughout our state and nation.Debbie Leavitt is a resident of Dover and a member of the Community Church of Durham’s Immigrant and Housing Accompaniment Team. Debbie volunteers with the NH Immigrant Visitation Program at the Strafford County jail and participates in several statewide immigrant justice networks.

Families Separated at Border by Trump Reach SettlementThousands of migrants subjected to the policy will be allowed to live and work in the U.S., at least temporarily. If they win asylum, they could become citizens.

In a June 2018 protest in El Paso, demonstrators rallied against family separations being carried out by the Trump administration. Credit…Victor J. Blue for The New York Times

By Miriam Jordan New York Times Oct. 16, 2023 Updated 12:43 p.m. ETLawyers representing thousands of families separated at the southern border during a Trump administration crackdown have reached a settlement with the federal government that enables the migrants to remain in the United States and apply for asylum, putting them on the path to permanent legal residency.The agreement, filed on Monday in federal court in San Diego, concludes years of negotiations that were part of a class-action lawsuit to address the harm inflicted by family separations carried out in 2017 and 2018.The policy was a key component of the Trump administration’s efforts to curb unauthorized immigration. Children were systematically taken from their parents and sent to shelters and foster homes across the country, and parents were criminally charged for entering the country unlawfully.The objective was to deliver a powerful deterrent to families planning to come to the United States, even those seeking asylum. All told, several thousand foreign-born children were taken from their parents. Later, it emerged that hundreds of U.S.-born children crossing the border with migrant parents were also subjected to the policy.Wrenching images and audio of children being taken from their parents stirred outrage and criticism, and eventually prompted a wave of lawsuits — including the class-action suit, which was filed in the United States District Court for the Southern District of California.About three-quarters of the families that were separated have either been reunified or had been provided with the information they need to begin to reunification process, a senior administration official told reporters on Monday.If approved by the judge overseeing case, the settlement in the class action would grant the families permission to live and work legally in the United States while they await a decision on their asylum claims. Parents and children who have been separated and are already in the United States will be able to petition to bring immediate family members from their home countries.“This agreement will facilitate the reunification of separated families and provide them with critical services to aid in their recovery,” the attorney general, Merrick B. Garland, said in a statement.Families that have previously been denied asylum will be eligible to reapply, and asylum officers will be instructed by the government to take into account the trauma caused by the forced separations. Families that prevail in their asylum cases — which typically take years to be adjudicated — will be eligible for green cards and, eventually, U.S. citizenship.“While we can never completely make these families whole again, or erase the moral stain of this abhorrent policy, we are thrilled for the families that will receive the settlement’s benefits, most of all the children who have not seen their parents in years and suffering families who will have a meaningful opportunity to remain in the U.S.,” said Lee Gelernt of the American Civil Liberties Union, the lead counsel in the class-action lawsuit.The agreement, which was negotiated by the Justice Department, now goes before Judge Dana M. Sabraw of U.S. District Court in San Diego, who has been overseeing the case. A hearing is scheduled for December.“When we brought this lawsuit, no one thought it would involve thousands of children, take us to so many countries searching for families, or last for years,” Mr. Gelernt said.Parents were incarcerated for illegally entering the country and their children, as young as 6 months old, were sent to shelters or foster homes. Most of the separations occurred in the spring of 2018 and lasted several weeks. But, in some cases, they extended to years because parents were deported without their children.The American Academy of Pediatrics said the initiative amounted to “sweeping cruelty.”Some young children did not recognize their parents when they were reunified by U.S. authorities, after an order issued in June 2018 by Judge Sabraw. Other parents and children could not be found, delaying reunification, because of poor record-keeping by federal agencies.The settlement largely restricts separations in the future to cases in which a parent has been abusive or committed serious crimes, and the settlement stipulates that all separations must be documented in databases shared among federal agencies.While many of the separated families have been reunited, and many parents who were deported have returned to the United States, hundreds more families are yet to be found.Shortly after taking office, President Biden established a task force to create a process for locating parents who had not been reunited with their children because they had been deported to countries such as El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras.Lawyers for the families and the government lawyers also had been negotiating financial compensation for the harm caused by the separations. But talks stalled, and ultimately collapsed in October 2021, after a leak suggested that the Justice Department was willing to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to each family.Following that disclosure, only the class-action negotiations proceeded, and the government task force continued to work with the A.C.L.U. and advocacy groups to reunite families.Still, some lawsuits seeking money damages are proceeding in federal courts, accusing the government of negligence, abuse and intentionally inflicting emotional distress.Seamus Hughes and Eileen Sullivan contributed research.Miriam Jordan reports from the grassroots perspective on immigrants and their impact on the demographics, society and economy of the United States. Before joining The Times, she covered immigration at the Wall Street Journal and was a correspondent in Brazil, India, Hong Kong and Israel. More about Miriam Jordan

Finally, here is an article that speaks to both top issues of immigrant justice and creation care.Biden waives 26 federal laws in south Texas to allow border wall constructionAdministration’s first use of executive power alarms advocates concerned about wall destroying wildlife refuge landAssociated Press Thu 5 Oct 2023 07.59 EDTThe Joe Biden White House announced it waived 26 federal laws in south Texas to allow border wall construction on Wednesday, marking the administration’s first use of a sweeping executive power employed often during Donald Trump’s presidency.Homeland security department officials posted the announcement on the US federal registry with few details outlining the construction in Starr county, Texas, which is part of a busy border patrol sector seeing “high illegal entry”. According to government data, about 245,000 illegal entries have been recorded so far this fiscal year in the Rio Grande Valley sector, which contains 21 counties.“There is presently an acute and immediate need to construct physical barriers and roads in the vicinity of the border of the United States in order to prevent unlawful entries into the United States in the project areas,” the homeland security secretary, Alejandro Mayorkas, stated in the notice.The Clean Air Act, Safe Drinking Water Act and Endangered Species Act were some of the federal laws waived by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to make way for construction that will use funds from a congressional appropriation in 2019 for border wall construction. The waivers avoid time-consuming reviews and lawsuits challenging violation of environmental laws.Starr county’s hilly ranchlands, sitting between Zapata and McAllen, Texas, is home to about 65,000 residents sparsely populating roughly 1,200 square miles (3,108 sq km) that form part of the Lower Rio Grande Valley National Wildlife Refuge.Although no maps were provided in the announcement, federal customs and border protection officials announced the project in June and began gathering public comments in August when they shared a map of the additional construction that can add up to 20 miles (32km) to the existing border barrier system in the area. The Starr county judge Eloy Vera said it will start south of the Falcon Dam and go past Salineño, Texas.“The other concern that we have is that area is highly erosive. There’s a lot of arroyos,” the county judge said, pointing out the creeks cutting through the ranchland and leading into the river.Concern is shared with environmental advocates who say structures will run through public lands, habitats of endangered plants and species like the ocelot, a spotted wild cat.“A plan to build a wall through will bulldoze an impermeable barrier straight through the heart of that habitat,” Laiken Jordahl, a south-west conservation advocate for the Center for Biological Diversity, said on Wednesday afternoon. “It will stop wildlife migrations dead in their tracks. It will destroy a huge amount of wildlife refuge land. And it’s a horrific step backwards for the borderlands.”During the Trump administration, about 450 miles (724km) of barriers were built along the south-west border between 2017 and January 2021. The governor of Texas, Greg Abbott, renewed those efforts after the Biden administration halted them at the start of his presidency.Wednesday’s decision contrasts the Biden administration’s posturing when a proclamation to end the construction on 20 January 2021 stated: “Building a massive wall that spans the entire southern border is not a serious policy solution.”In a statement on Wednesday, border officials said the project is consistent with that 2021 proclamation. “Congress appropriated fiscal year 2019 funds for the construction of border barrier in the Rio Grande Valley, and [homeland security] is required to use those funds for their appropriated purpose,” the statement said.The statement said officials were “committed to protecting the nation’s cultural and natural resources and will implement sound environmental practices as part of the project covered by this waiver”.The announcement prompted political debate by the Democratic administration facing an increase of migrants entering through the southern border in recent months, including thousands who entered the US through Eagle Pass at the end of September.“A border wall is a 14th-century solution to a 21st-century problem,” the Texas congressman Henry Cuellar said in a statement. The Democrat added: “It will not bolster border security in Starr County.“I continue to stand against the wasteful spending of taxpayer dollars on an ineffective border wall.”

NOTES FROM PARTNERS AND FRIENDS

IN COVENANT AND PARTNERSHIP, we collaborate with friends and activists around the region, country and world. Watch for news from these partners as we grow in understanding and practice responsiveness and discipleship across many commitments and concerns.

Explainer: The impacts of recent changes to DACA: Last month, a federal court ruled against the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. This decision leaves nearly 600,000 people with DACA in limbo, writes AFSC’s Imani Cruz. Here’s what you need to know.Update: AFSC aids migrants held at Border Patrol’s open-air detention sites:In San Diego, Border Patrol is again holding migrants for hours, sometimes days, between border walls without access to basic services. As we did in May, AFSC and partners are providing emergency aid to migrants through the barriers. We’re distributing food, water, and clothing while addressing medical needs. With the help of a state senator’s office, we negotiated with Border Patrol to bring in portable restrooms. And we continue to advocate for Border Patrol to end this inhumane practice.Please let Congressman Pappas know that you are dismayed by his signature on a September 19th letter to former Speaker Kevin McCarthy and Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries requesting more money for security at our northern border with Canada. Our state legislature has already approved Governor Sununu’s request for 1.4 million dollars without any data to prove need. The North Country needs money for education, housing, and economic development, not added border patrols.

Warm greetings from the Seacoast Interfaith Sanctuary Coalition (SISC)! Since our inception six years ago, we have evolved to become a vibrant coalition of nine congregations, standing with members of our community who are living the damaging impact of immigration policies. SISC has witnessed and supported undocumented and asylum-seeking immigrants in multiple ways, and we are humbled by the challenges, achievements, and disappointments they face.We are inspired by the resilience and hope that can prevail as we work alongside our neighbors in need. At our Celebration of Hope we will share stories, celebrate relationships, and look ahead to see “where we go next.” We would be honored to have you attend this special event on Sunday, October 22 from 2pm to 4pm at First Parish Church, 218 Central Ave, Dover as we reconnect with what draws us to this ministry, celebrate our interfaith connections, and nurture the spirit and faith that guides our work.

New Hampshire Theatre Project presents

Directed by CJ LewisAdapted by Genevieve AicheleFrom interviews with over 40 immigrants and refugees to the state of New HampshireLive at NH Theatre ProjectSaturday, October 28 ｜ 4:00pmSaturday, October 28 ｜ 7:00pmPurchase Tickets NOW