Statewide Rapid Response Webinar on Family Separation and Detention in PA

What Pennsylvania Funders Need to Know

August 7, 2018

3:30 – 4:30 PM

The webinar will begin shortly.

This webinar was developed in partnership with The Alfred and Mary Douty Foundation, The Merchants Fund, The Philadelphia Foundation, the Scattergood Foundation,

Pennsylvania Immigration and Citizenship Coalition, Grantmakers of Western PA, and Philanthropy Network Greater Philadelphia, and is sponsored by The Alfred and Mary Douty

Foundation, The Samuel S. Fels Fund, the Scattergood Foundation, The Merchants Fund and The Philadelphia Foundation.

Logistics

• This webinar is being recorded and will be shared with registrants after the webinar.

• All participants will be on mute.

• Please use the chat box to enter any questions you may have for the panelists. You can

submit questions throughout the course of the webinar.

Acknowledgements

This webinar was developed in partnership with:

The Alfred and Mary Douty Foundation

The Merchants Fund

The Philadelphia Foundation

The Scattergood Foundation

Pennsylvania Immigration and Citizenship Coalition

Grantmakers of Western PA

Philanthropy Network Greater Philadelphia

and is sponsored by:

The Alfred and Mary Douty Foundation

The Samuel S. Fels Fund

The Merchants Fund

The Philadelphia Foundation

The Scattergood Foundation

Speakers

Elizabeth Yaeger

Immigrant Youth Advocacy Project Supervising Attorney

HIAS PA

Jamie Englert

Director, Immigration Legal Services

Jewish Family and Community Services Pittsburgh (JFCS)

Maria Alejandra Hernandez

Harrisburg Coordinator

The Movement of Immigrant Leaders in Pennsylvania (MILPA)

Welcome & Overview

AGENDA

• Welcome and Overview

• Family Separation: From the Border to Pennsylvania – What’s Happening? What’s

changed and what hasn’t? Elizabeth Yaeger, HIAS PA

• Impact on Families: Family Separation - Refugees/Muslim ban and how this connects

to family separation Jamie Englert, Director, Jewish Family and Community Services

Pittsburgh (JFCS)

•

• Impact of Detention and Separation: Stories of the Impact Maria Alejandra Hernandez,

The Movement of Immigrant Leaders in Pennsylvania (MILPA)

• What Funders Can Do

• Q&A Discussion

• Conclude

Family Separation: From the

Border to Pennsylvania

Elizabeth Yaeger

Immigrant Youth Advocacy Project Supervising Attorney

HIAS PA

http://www.hiaspa.org/

STATEWIDE RAPID RESPONSE WEBINAR ON FAMILY SEPARATION AND DETENTION IN PA - WHAT PENNSYLVANIA FUNDERS NEED TO KNOW 8/7/18

FAMILY SEPARATION

• What happened, and why? • Government-created crisis

• Decision to prosecute every adult for “improper entry” under 8 U.S.C. § 1325

“The children will be taken care of — put into foster care or whatever.” –White House Chief of Staff John Kelly, in May 2018, when asked whether it is “cruel and heartless” to separate moms from children upon their arrival to the U.S.

BACKDROP

• Uptick in family separations as early as 2017

• Statements by Administration disparaging asylum-seekers and the lawyers who help them

• Calls by Administration to reduce illegal and legal immigration

• End of TPS; (attempted) end of DACA; travel ban; reduction in refugee resettlement

• End of prosecutorial discretion; increase in immigration enforcement generally

• Unprecedented, direct intervention by AG in immigration case decisions (Matter of AB, Matter of Castro-Tum)

WHO ARE THE FAMILIES?

• Mostly from El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras • Three of the world’s deadliest countries

outside active war zones

• Dominated by gang violence

• Primary reasons for flight: • Gang violence

• Abuse

• Extreme poverty

“My grandmother is the one who told me to leave. She said: “If you don’t join, the gang will shoot you. If you do, the rival gang or the cops will shoot you. But if you leave, no one will shoot you.” Kevin, age 17. See http://www.unhcr.org/en-us/children-on-the-run.html

WHY THE INCREASE IN CHILD/FAMILY MIGRATION?

Left: CBP apprehensions by country; Right: Femicides by country

HOW DO YOU APPLY FOR ASYLUM? • INA § 208(a): “Any alien who is physically present in the United States

or who arrives in the United States (whether or not at a designated port of arrival and including an alien who is brought to the United States after having been interdicted in international or United States waters), irrespective of such alien's status, may apply for asylum...”

Right: asylum-seekers attempt to present themselves at the El Paso, TX port of entry in early 2018. Source: https://www.newyorker.com/news/dispatch/we-are-at-capacity-an-asylum-standoff-on-the-bridge-between-ciudad-juarez-and-el-paso

WHERE ARE (WERE) THE CHILDREN?

Map of ORR facilities housing unaccompanied children. Source: David Montgomery/CityLab, June 22, 2018 https://www.citylab.com/equity/2018/06/where-will-the-migrant-kids-go/563318/

THE NUMBERS

• ~3,000 children separated in 2018 due to “zero tolerance” policy

• 500+ children not yet reunified (parents deported; or locations unknown; or have criminal convictions)

• 6 separated families (that we know of) reunified and settled in southeastern PA

• 13 separated children were/are in eastern PA shelter (served by HIAS PA)

• 25+ unaccompanied children turned away by HIAS PA each month due to lack of capacity

• Many more asylum-seeking adults and families in PA in need of legal services

WHAT DOES THE FUTURE HOLD?

• Increased family detention (e.g. Berks family detention center)

• Increasingly hostile legal landscape for immigrants and asylum-seekers

• Continued threat of family separations due to ICE enforcement

• Steady, continued influx of asylum-seekers, even after current family separation crisis resolves

ACCESS TO COUNSEL IS CRUCIAL

There is no right to government-appointed counsel in immigration proceedings, even though deportation is a harsh penalty that “may deprive a man and his family of all that makes life worthwhile.” Harisiades v. Shaughnessy, 342 U.S. 580, 600 (1952).

• Among detained immigrants, those with representation were twice as likely as unrepresented immigrants to obtain immigration relief if they sought it (49 percent with counsel versus 23 percent without).

• Represented immigrants who were never detained were nearly five times more likely than their unrepresented counterparts to obtain relief if they sought it (63 percent with counsel versus 13 percent without).

Source: https://www.americanimmigrationcouncil.org/research/access-counsel-immigration-court

Impact on Families: Family

Separation

Jamie Englert

Director of Immigration Legal Services

Jewish Family and Community Services Pittsburgh (JFCS)

https://www.jfcspgh.org/

General Overview IMMIGRATION LAW, POLICY & RECENT DEVELOPMENTS

IMMIGRATION LAWS AND AGENCIES

• LAWS

• Immigration and Nationalities Act (INA) 1952

• Title 8 Code of Federal Regulations

• AGENCIES

• Department of Homeland Security

• U.S. Immigration Customs & Enforcement (ICE)

• U.S. Customs & Border Protection (CBP)

• U.S. Citizenship & Immigration Services (USCIS)

• Department of Justice

• Executive Office for Immigration Review (Immigration Court)

• Board of Immigration Appeals (appellate), Federal Circuit Courts, Supreme Court

• Department of State

Recent developments

• Changes in policy implementation via Executive orders, memos and policy

proclamations

• Jan 2017 changes to enforcement priorities

• Muslim Ban 1.0, followed by 2.0 in March (both stopped by injunction, 9th Circuit) 3.0 in

September 2017 was upheld by Supreme Court

• December 2017 memo from Jeff Sessions to Immigration Court Judges

• May 2018 Zero Tolerance Policy-resulted in separating children from parents at border

to allow parents to be prosecuted federally for illegal entry.

• July 2018 USCIS guidance on issuance of NTAs

Pathways to permanent residence

Actions taken by the Administration to reduce the number of applicants, eliminate

status categories and remove non-citizens from the United States

Humanitarian Categories

• Refugee and Asylees

• The President significantly reduced the number of refugees the U.S. will accept from 85,000 in 2016 to 45,000 in

2018

• The Attorney General has determined domestic violence and gang related violence as non-viable social groups

for asylum purposes.

• The Muslim travel ban separated families and has caused backlogs to refugee security processing.

• TPS

• Over the next year, TPS will be terminated for 248,000 individuals from El Salvador , Haiti, Nicaragua and Sudan

making them deportable.

• DACA Rescission

• Caused 689,000 people to lose lawful status and now are deportable

Employment Visas

• With the backlog in USCIS processing, many people with visas are losing status

while waiting for their applications or petitions to be processed.

• Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has vastly ramped up its efforts to

investigate and audit U.S. employers.

• According to federal government data, thus far in Fiscal Year 2018, ICE has initiated

investigations into 6,093 workplaces, compared to 1,716 in all of Fiscal Year 2017.

• USCIS has announced that beginning October 1, 2017, it will require far more

people to appear at its offices for in-person interviews-a change that could

potentially impact hundreds of thousands of people applying for permanent

residence status and USCIS will be phasing in interviews for all employment-

based green card applicants.

Family based petitions

• Implementation of USCIS NTA guidance to refer individuals who are denied a

benefit to the immigration court leaving them without status.

• Backlog of family based petitions:

Family- Sponsored

All

Chargeability

Areas Except Those Listed

CHINA-

mainland born

INDIA MEXICO PHILIPPINES

F1 (Unmarried children of citizens) 23,400 08MAY11

08MAY11 08MAY11 01AUG97 01AUG06

F2A (Spouses & Children under 21 of Residents) 87,934 22JUL16 22JUL16 22JUL16 01JUL16 22JUL16

F2B (Unmarried children over 21 of Residents) 26,266 22OCT11 22OCT11 22OCT11 01APR97 15FEB07

F3 (Married children of Citizens) 23,400 15JUN06 15JUN06 15JUN06 01DEC95 01MAY95

F4 (Siblings of Citizens) 65,000 22DEC04 22DEC04 22MAR04 15JAN98 22APR95

Recap

• Escalated enforcement activity without clear priorities

• Elimination of some lawful status categories

• Federal prosecution for immigration crimes creating family separations

• Guidance given to Immigration Judges to adjudicate cases more swiftly and built in

performance measures for Immigration Judges to ensure cases move faster

• Immigration attorneys for the government are no longer permitted to use

prosecutorial discretion.

• The one benefit granting agency (USCIS) is now being required to refer individuals

to immigration court for removal when their applications for benefits are denied.

Additional Resources

• AILA Report: Cogs in the deportation machine (April 24, 2018)

• Office of Attorney General, Memorandum for the Executive Office for Immigration

Review December 5, 2017 https://www.justice.gov/eoir/file/1041196/download

• USCIS NTA Memo

https://www.uscis.gov/sites/default/files/USCIS/Laws/Memoranda/2018/2018-06-

28-PM-602-0050.1-Guidance-for-Referral-of-Cases-and-Issuance-of-NTA.pdf

Impact of Detention and

Separation

Maria Alejandra Hernandez

Harrisburg Coordinator

The Movement of Immigrant Leaders in Pennsylvania (MILPA)

http://milpa.nationbuilder.com/

What Funders Can Do Support and Engagement

• Check-in with your Grantees

• General Operating Support

• Legal Aid/Legal Representation

• Rapid Response Funding

• Connect with GCIR, FCCP, and AFJ

• Policy & Advocacy

• Engage in Census 2020 Activities

• PA is Ready! Coalition

• Community Fund for Immigrant Wellness

• Open Letter from PA Funders

Please use the chat box to enter any questions you may have for the panelists.

Q&A Discussion

Resources LOCAL

• HIAS Pennsylvania

http://www.hiaspa.org/

• Jewish Family and Community Services Pittsburgh

https://www.jfcspgh.org/about-us/

• Movement of Immigrant Leaders in Pennsylvania (MILPA)

http://milpaen-milpa.nationbuilder.com/

• PA is Ready! Coalition

https://paimmigrant.org/pa-is-ready/

• Community Fund for Immigrant Wellness

http://www.scattergoodfoundation.org/community-fund-immigrant-wellness

• All for All (initiative guided by A Community Blueprint: Helping Immigrants Thrive in Allegheny County)

https://www.changeagency.world/all-for-all/

Resources LOCAL (cont’d.)

• Family Separation Crisis on US Border: How Donors Can Help

https://www.impact.upenn.edu/family-separation-crisis-us-border-donors-can-help/

• Grantmakers of Western PA

https://gwpa.org/

• Philanthropy Network Greater Philadelphia

https://philanthropynetwork.org/

NATIONAL

• Grantmakers Concerned with Immigrants and Refugees (GCIR)

https://www.gcir.org/ and https://www.gcir.org/family-separation-detention

• Funders’ Committee for Civic Participation – Funders Census Initiative

https://funderscommittee.org/working-group/#funders-census-initiative-fci-2020

• Alliance for Justice’s Bolder Advocacy Focus on Foundations

https://www.afj.org/ and https://www.bolderadvocacy.org/

Thank you!