June 19, 2018—The past weeks’ images hurt our hearts: children crying in cages, assembly lines of shackled mothers and fathers pleading with judges who cannot tell them where their children are, anguished mothers deported without their children. The United Nations calls the Administration’s zero-tolerance policy “unconscionable” and Amnesty International called it “nothing short of torture.” What has happened to our country?

“Senior Trump strategists” told the Washington Post that family separation is a strategy to gain funding for a border wall and the rest of Trump’s anti-immigrant platform. The Attorney General says families are torn apart as a deterrent to others, to frighten people into staying away. Whatever the reason for the policy, the administration cares so little about the sacred bonds between parents and children that they fail to keep good enough records to ensure eventual reunification.

“The number of people crossing our border is lower than it has been since Richard Nixon was president, and we are intentionally putting children in cages,” says John Keller, executive director of the Immigrant Law Center of Minnesota. “Holding children hostage to extort funding for a border wall is unconscionable. We do not have an immigration crisis, we have a crisis of cruelty, a crisis of leadership, a crisis that threatens the soul of our nation, not its border.”

With denunciations of the Trump family separation policy mounting, House Speaker Paul Ryan claims that Republican “compromise” immigration legislation will end family separation. It will not. Instead, it will remove the current, limited legal protections for children held by immigration authorities.

Senator Dianne Feinstein has introduced the Keep Families Together Act (S. 3036), which would stop the separation of children from their mothers and fathers at the border. Some 39 other senators, including Minnesota’s Senator Amy Klobuchar and Senator Tina Smith, have signed on as co-sponsors. Senator Klobuchar says that “each and every one of the 49 Senate Democrats“ supports the bill.

“Congress must not only talk about this crisis – it must exercise its independent oversight as a co-equal branch of government. It must pass this single-topic bill to end family separation as quickly as possible. Period,” says Keller. “These children and their parents should not be used as a bargaining chip for a border wall or anything else. They deserve our care and protection now.”

You can help to stop family separation at the border. You can help by political action and by supporting organizations that directly help immigrants and refugees, here and at the border. [UPDATED 7/5/18, 7/9/18]

The problem

President Trump ordered that children be taken away from immigrant families who cross the U.S. border without permission. Between mid-April and the end of May of this year, more than 2,000 children were separated from their parents. For more information, see our Family Separation Fact Sheet.

The law does NOT require family separation. The law does NOT require detention for parents or for children. Workable alternatives exist.

On June 26, a federal judge ordered the administration to reunite all separated families within 30 days, and all children under the age of 5 within 14 days. The Trump administration’s response was to say it will hold parents and children in detention together—indefinitely.

This DOES NOT NEED TO HAPPEN. Presidents Bush and Obama both considered the possibility of family separation and rejected it as cruel and un-American. There is no law requiring the separation of children from their families simply because their parents were seeking a better life in the U.S. Other solutions work: parents can be released with orders to return for specific court dates, or with ankle monitors.

Call Congress—and more

The president has failed to stop family separation. On June 24, he said he wants an end to due process for all unauthorized immigrants: no judges, no hearings, no consideration of their claims to stay.

1. Call your Congressional Representative and tell them to vote NO on all Republican immigration bills. Republicans are talking about a “skinny” bill to address family separation by authorizing indefinite detention of children in adult facilities.
2. Call your Senators and Representative every day, and tell them to stop the separation of families and to allow humane alternatives to detention for all families. Ask them to support the Keep Families Together Act (S. 3036). Congress tallies who calls about which issues so your repeated calls about this issue will elevate it on their radar. Tell your friends and family to do the same, especially if they reside in states with strong Republican congressional leadership
3. Write a letter to the editor and/or editorial for publication in any newspaper that prints an article about the family separation policy
4. Contact the White House with the message that you oppose putting children in detention and that you support due process for immigrants, and releasing immigrants until their cases can be heard.
5. This is an election year. Talk to candidates—tell them this is a crucial issue for you and that you need to know where they stand.
6. Talk to your friends. Tell them what is happening right now. Post stories on your social media pages. Remind your friends and family that this is a human issue, not just a partisan political issue. Tell them that Laura Bush has denounced the separation of children from their parents, as have other Republicans and many religious groups, including conservative religious groups.
7. Follow ILCM on Facebook and Twitter. Like or comment on our posts, so that Facebook will keep showing them to you instead of burying them. We will keep you posted on what is actually happening, on the border, across the country, and in Minnesota.
8. Vote!

Direct assistance

Many people have contacted us saying that they want to do more. There are no public defenders in immigration cases, not for parents and not for children. Legal assistance is crucial, both in helping parents to find their children and in helping parents and children to present their cases in court.

We appreciate and need your continuing support, but we also know our supporters are generous and will help organizations helping families on the border. Some good organizations to support are:

• RAICES: This Texas-based organization offers free and low-cost legal services to immigrant children and families. Donate hereand sign up as a volunteer here.
• Annunciation House in El Paso provides shelter and assistance to parents who have been released from detention and are looking for their children. Donate here.
• The El Paso-based Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center provides legal representation to immigrants who might not be able to afford it otherwise. It’s accepting volunteers and donations.
• Asylum Seeker Advocacy Project. works to prevent the deportation of asylum-seeking families fleeing violence. The group accepts donations and asks people to sign up for volunteer opportunities here.
• Pueblo Sin Fronteras: This organization provides humanitarian aid and shelter to migrants on their way to the U.S. Donate here.
• Together Rising: This Virginia-based organization is helping provide legal assistance for 60 migrant children who were separated from their parents and are currently detained in Arizona. Donate here.
• Al Otro Lado: This bi-national organization works providing legal services to deportees and migrants in Tijuana, Mexico, including deportee parents whose children remain in the U.S. Donate here.
• The Florence Project: This Arizona-based organization offers free legal services to men, women, and unaccompanied children in immigration custody. Donate here.
• Texas Civil Rights Project: This organization has been using legal advocacy and litigation to help families separated at the border. Donate here.
• Border Angels: This California-based organization supports San Diego County’s immigrant population and focuses on issues related to the U.S.-Mexico border. Donate here.
• Neta: This Texas-based grassroots organization helps asylum seekers on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border. Donate here.
• South Texas Pro Bono Asylum Representation Project (ProBAR): This project of the American Bar Association is currently supporting over 1,000 unaccom­panied children in detention centers across South Texas. Donate here.
• Kids In Need of Defense (KIND) represents and advocates for immigrant children in legal proceedings. Donate here.
• Catholic Charities of the Rio Grande Valley shelters immigrants who’ve recently been released from U.S. Border Patrol custody. 
  American Gateways provides legal services and representation to detained parents. It’s currently seeking volunteers to represent detained parents and is accepting donations.
• Diocesan Migrant & Refugee Services is the largest provider of free and low cost immigration services in West Texas and says it’s the only organization in El Paso serving unaccompanied children.
• Justice for Our Neighbors provides free and low-cost legal services to immigrant individuals and families in Texas.
• The Young Center for Immigrant Children’s Rights is looking for more child advocates to visit the immigrant kids inside the detention centers weekly and accompany them to immigration proceedings. It is also raising money for advocates who will deal specifically with family separation cases.
• Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service is raising money to provide immigrant children “immediate shelter and beds, medical services, counseling and therapy to help them deal with the trauma of family separation.”
• Tahirih Justice Center is providing free legal and social services to immigrant women and girls fleeing gender-based violence.
• Circle of Health International has staffed a clinic caring for refugees and asylum seekers immediately upon their their release. Their McAllen clinic is currently seeing upwards of 100 patients a day.
• The Salvation Army of El Paso is supporting 17 shelter rooms for separated families while they await reunification with their children and their court hearings.
• La Posada Providencia in San Benito runs a shelter for people who have applied for asylum and been released from detention centers while their cases are pending.
• The Detained Migrant Solidarity Committee in El Paso started the Fronterizo Fianza Fund, which will go toward things like posting bond for asylum seekers.
• The Migrant Center for Human Rights is providing free and low-cost legal services for detained asylum seekers in Texas.

If you want to go to the border to volunteer, ACLU-MN has a list of places and ways to volunteer.

For more information on places helping families at the border, see the Texas Tribune list.

Thank you for your continuing support of the rights of immigrants and refugees.

 

IMPORTANT NOTICE: This fact sheet is now outdated. As of August 13, see Facts About Family Separation for Asylum Seekers for more current information.

In April, President Trump  directed that children be taken away from immigrant families who cross the U.S. border without permission. Their parents are charged with illegal entry, a misdemeanor offense in federal courts, and processed in mass trials. Usually, they plead guilty and are sentenced to time served and then turned over to immigration authorities. Parents are often discouraged from pursuing their asylum claims, and sometimes told the only way to be reunited with their children is to agree to deportation. Some parents are deported immediately, sometimes without their children.

Continue reading →

The House’s “compromise” immigration bill doesn’t ban family separation — it just allows kids to be detained like adults.

He took jurisdiction of an immigration case that had already been decided and reversed it.

Our 2018 ILCM Gala was a great success! About 450 people came to the Minneapolis Marriott City Center to join us in person. We shared good food and fellowship, enjoyed the music of Balung Getih, danced to Salsa del Soul, and honored leaders who have worked for immigrants and refugees.

We had our strongest showing of event sponsorship ever, raising over $60,000, to support ILCM! THANK YOU! At the event itself, between the Silent Auction, Raffle, our Fund-A-Need, and a generous match from Bill Mahlum and Donna Allan, an additional $25,000 was raised to help defend the rights of immigrants and refugees across Minnesota.

At the Gala, Dr. Ayaz Virji shared his inspiring message of courage and love in the face of anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim prejudice. Dr. Virji and his family live in Dawson, a small town in western Minnesota. They moved to Dawson in 2014 because of his desire to practice what he calls “dignified medicine” in an underserved area. Then came the Trump election in 2016, and a rising tide of anti-Muslim, anti-immigrant sentiment.

 

“I didn’t come to rural America to teach about my religion or to teach about Islam. That’s very personal to me. I don’t like talking about it,” he says in a video explaining his move into the public eye. “But the bottom line is, if not me, then who?”

His talks focus on the theme of “Love Thy Neighbor,” but he does not shy away from calling out injustice.

“You can sense I’m angry about that,” he said in one of his early public talks. “Wasn’t Jesus angry when he went into the temple and knocked over the tables of the money changers? He was angry. Injustice should make us angry! Okay? I am angry about the election. Because there is injustice there, and I have felt that within my family. And with the burning of mosques? And something like 150 bomb threats to Jewish synagogues? We should think.”

You can see and hear more of his story here.

To everyone who attended, to everyone who volunteered, who donated silent auction items, who sold raffle tickets, who contributed, who sponsored, who supported us in this wonderful event, we say:

Thank you … Mahadsanid … Muchisimas gracias … Ua tsaug … Ta bluh doh mah … Vielen dank … Merci beaucoup … Takk skal du ha … Tusen tack … and so much more!

In the midst of difficult and unending challenges, we pause to celebrate, as the first half of 2018 has been filled with a parade of recognition, awards, and honors for ILCM staff.

John Keller and ILCM were honored to receive the American Immigration Lawyers Association 2018 Arthur C. Helton Human Rights Award, presented on June 14 at the AILA convention in San Francisco. John and ILCM were nominated for the award by Sam Myers, Sarah K. Peterson, Misti Allen Binsfeld, Karen Ellingson, and Benjamin Casper Sanchez. Letters of support came from Senator Amy Klobuchar, Governor Mark Dayton, and Congressmembers Keith Ellison and Betty McCollum.

The beginning and ending paragraphs of the nomination summarize:

“Arthur C. Helton, a New York lawyer and human rights activist, devoted most of his professional life to helping and protecting refugees. He died on August 19, 2003 during a bomb attack on the United Nations headquarters in Baghdad. He was only 54 years old.

“Precisely because of John’s unassuming yet unrelenting commitment to dignity and human rights, he is respected on both sides of the aisle, from the most powerful to the most powerless. Within our community, and the immigrant community nationally, he is well known, and highly respected. He has committed his life to immigrant justice and could not be more deserving of this award. In fact, Arthur would be incredibly proud of John Keller and the ILCM, for their effective efforts to resist the attacks on the legal and human rights of immigrants, just as we are honored to nominate him for this award.”

Other recent ILCM award recipients, in more or less chronological order:

• Martha Castañon was named by Governor Mark Dayton as a member of the Minnesota Council on Latino Affairs. Her term began on April 3 and runs until January 2022.

• 

  Anne Applebaum, ILCM’s Pro Bono Director, was honored by the Minnesota State Bar Association with the 2018 Bernard P. Becker Legal Services Emerging Leader award. This award is presented each year to honor dedicated service, outstanding achievements and a demonstrated commitment to provision of zealous and skilled legal representation by an attorney employed by a private, nonprofit agency that provides legal services to low-income and disadvantaged Minnesotans.
  ILCM was named 2017 “Partner of the Year” by the Minnesota Corporate Pro Bono Council for work with corporate pro bono programs.

• Jess Riemer received the Faces of Hope award from the Southwest Crisis Center as someone who has “made a significant impact to help support survivors/victims of domestic and/or sexual violence.” In her statement at the award celebration, Jess said:

“Like most women have to some degree, I have experienced sexual harassment and assault and have also supported close friends through intimate partner violence. I am familiar with the myriad and complicated set of emotions and decisions that those circumstances create. I have seen that immigrant survivors face many additional obstacles and barriers to accessing justice and even in addressing basic safety concerns. I hope to see these issues dramatically improve in my lifetime and work towards that change.”

• 

  Mirella Ceja-Orozco won the AILA Minnesota/Dakotas 2018 Pro Bono Champion Award! The award recognizes an individual attorney “who has demonstrated an exemplary commitment to pro bono work and has made a significant impact on the immigrant communities they serve.” ILCM Legal Program Director Margaret Martin said, “This aptly describes Mirella, who dedicated countless hours to pro bono work throughout her years of private practice.”

• Sara Karki was honored for completing the Leadership Austin program. The program is a one-year course sponsored by the Austin Area Chamber of Commerce and Riverland Community College to develop and connect community leaders; the participants learn about the Austin area so that they can become more successful in their work and as stewards of the community. The Chamber of Commerce held a graduation ceremony and luncheon to honor the graduates.

 

Rep. Erik Paulsen is the only Minnesota Republican who has signed on to the discharge petition calling for a vote on the Dream Act.

Even ICE and ORR do not track the whereabouts of separated children in any systemic manner.