by Lauren Dunoff, Newcomer Support Program Coordinator My day begins with planning and preparing materials for this week's Newcomer Support Programs and sharing the lesson plans with the teachers and volunteers. I also correspond about some other fun upcoming things at Project Libertad, including our evening at a Philadelphia Union soccer game and inviting visitors to our summer camp program. I then load my car with materials and drive to this afternoon's classes at Phoenixville Area High School. There, I meet our volunteer Courtney. We will see just over 30 students today, from countries including Guatemala, Mexico, Honduras, El Salvador, and Thailand. Our activities today include making candy sushi, bird feeders, and a traditional Mexican craft called Ojo de Dios (Eye of God). We will also review some English language vocabulary about Spring. The candy sushi activity is a big hit, and the students participate well with the vocabulary. The art projects take a little more persuading, especially in our all-boys' Healthy Masculinity Program. In the end, each student has made an Ojo de Dios and seems happy about it. The highlights of my day include catching up with a student from last year's RISE girls' program who is now a junior, and I’m happy to hear she’s doing well. I also had a great conversation with one of our ninth-grade boys. He asked me why he has to take all of these classes, like English, Math, and Chemistry, when that isn't what he wants to do for a career. We discussed the ways education and learning English can benefit his future. With three more years of high school ahead for him with his caring teachers and mentors, I anticipate he will do well.
Opportunities to connect with the students in a positive way like this happen every day, and that is the best part of this job for me. I learn so much from the teachers I meet, as well as from the students. Being able to connect with and relate to people who grew up in cultures different from mine is a wonderful feeling. It motivates me to continue to learn Spanish, strive to listen to others, and have more meaningful conversations. I am truly grateful to know the students of Project Libertad and grow from these experiences.
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by Olivia Knight, MAS Olivia is a Case Manager in the Juntos para Jóvenes Project, where she connects immigrant youth in Montgomery County with social services. Over the past six months that I have worked at Project Libertad, I have witnessed no less than six instances of barriers to medical care experienced by my clients. In some cases, these barriers were among those common and familiar to the entire immigrant community: a few examples include financial limitations, lack of insurance, language struggles, and health literacy. But one barrier has stood out as uniquely troublesome for newcomer immigrant youth who are unaccompanied. The experience of being a minor without a legal caregiver trying to navigate a complex web of private health systems, nonprofit clinics, confusing confidentiality laws, and rules about who can bring a minor to the hospital makes it–at times–impossible for our clients to receive medical care. It is so important to the Pennsylvania government for children to receive healthcare that all citizen children who aren’t already on their parents’ insurance plans are eligible for Medical Assistance or the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP). But the reality is much harsher for unaccompanied children. Not only can they not qualify for health insurance until they have a pending legal case; they also cannot present at a doctor’s office or the emergency room without an adult caregiver. Because unaccompanied children have, by definition, arrived in the United States without their parents, they are often placed with a family member or adult family friend. These caregivers are designated by the Office of Refugee Resettlement, but they have no legal standing with medical establishments. This inability of the medical system to incorporate unaccompanied children is the reason I have received phone calls from doctors’ offices asking me if my clients’ caregivers were really relatives or friends. It is the reason my client could not be seen for a serious medical issue without an accompanying parent. And it is the reason I was told I could be reported by emergency room staff last fall for bringing my client there. The New York Times recently reported on the increasing number of unaccompanied children working in dangerous roles in violation of child labor laws. If we are incorporating newcomer immigrant youth into the workplace, we need to figure out how to incorporate them into healthcare settings. The burden should not fall on the children themselves.
Teamwork Makes The Dream Work: Why Collaboration is Crucial for SUpporting Immigrant Youth4/27/2023 by Rachel Rutter, Esq. and Olivia Knight, MAS Rachel met a client we’ll call Maria in the summer of 2021, when one of her teachers referred her to Project Libertad for immigration legal services.
At the time, the legal case seemed straightforward: Maria was eligible for something called Special Immigrant Juvenile Status (SIJS). SIJS is a path to legal immigration status for children who have been abused, abandoned, or neglected by a parent. To qualify for SIJS, a child must either be placed in someone’s legal custody or adjudicated dependent on the state (for example, placed in foster care). Generally speaking, the state court has to find and explicitly state the following in its order for the child to qualify for SIJS:
The next step in Maria’s case, then, was for Maria’s caregiver to obtain legal custody of her in family court. The path seemed simple and straightforward, but it turned out to be anything but. First, financial difficulties prevented Maria and her sister from moving forward with the custody process. In response, Rachel helped them to find a nonprofit organization to take the case. Next, that nonprofit organization unexpectedly dropped the case, because they were fearful of how the custody judge would respond to Maria’s poor grades and school attendance. The particular custody judge in this county refuses to sign custody orders for kids with poor grades or attendance. Educational system support is a big part of what Olivia strives to bring to her clients, not just because the youth Project Libertad works with often struggle in their English-only classes, but also because their academic performance in school can affect their legal cases in such a profound way. In custody court, the children’s grades and school attendance are closely examined, with the assumption that these records are a reflection of the caregivers’ dedication to education. This nuanced feature of the SIJS process in our area is one of the most poignant reasons why it is important for lawyers and case managers to work together. The clock was ticking, with just weeks left before the child’s 18th birthday, when she would age out of her opportunity to pursue SIJS. Rachel and Olivia worked tirelessly to find a lawyer who would take a chance on this deserving client. Most lawyers we approached were not interested in taking a case that seemed so dire. It was also a struggle to connect with the client and her caregiver and gain their buy-in, because they felt understandably discouraged and hopeless about their possibilities for winning a custody hearing. Finally, after several more rejections by attorneys and clinics, Rachel and Olivia found a local custody attorney who agreed this child was worth fighting for. Next, Rachel and Olivia worked with our partner organization Immigrant Psychology Network to give our client the best possible chance of success. Dr. Susanna Francies leapt into action on short notice to provide a psychological evaluation for the client. Dr. Francies was able to connect the client's prior trauma to her academic issues and connect her to mental health supports moving forward. Thanks to Dr. Francies and IPN, the judge was sympathetic to the plight of our client. All of these forces combined to result in the greatest possible outcome for our client: the judge signed the custody order, complete with all of the SIJS findings! Thanks to this teamwork -- a labor of love by lawyers, social workers, and mental health professionals working collaboratively -- our client will be able to apply for SIJS and remain lawfully in the United States. She will also have the mental health and social support needed to ensure her future health and happiness. Hi everyone! I want to share an experience I had taking a client to the emergency room several weeks ago. The client had been having medical issues for about a month that were not resolving. We had taken them to Urgent Care two times, each time with the same answer: “the patient needs to see a specialist.” Without insurance, the client had no ability to pay for a specialist, and as an unaccompanied minor, there was no steadfast adult in their life who could bring them to medical appointments. The unfortunate fact for many of our clients is that when they have health issues, they are too young to present themselves to medical facilities alone. This can lead to ongoing, unresolved problems like the one this client was experiencing. After calling around to several organizations involved in the case, the responsibility fell to us at Project Libertad to bring the client to the hospital. When we arrived, we approached a window where we were asked to register. There was immediate confusion over who would pay the client’s medical bills, and since I was unrelated to the client, there were also questions about who I was and why I was bringing a minor unrelated to me to the hospital. Once we finally reached a non-present family member who was willing to provide their information over the phone, and once I presented work identification, they allowed us to enter the waiting room. In the examination room, there were no medical professionals who spoke Spanish, so I became the de facto translator. A medical student came in to ask questions, followed by a nurse who took the client’s vitals. After plenty of waiting, a doctor spent less than five minutes examining the client and diagnosing their medical condition. After our trip to the emergency room, we picked up some medication at the pharmacy, where we spent another hour waiting and where we paid nearly $50 even with the pharmacy discount. In contrast, later that week, I took my own son to the emergency room. We had insurance for him, and as his parents, we were the ones who brought him there. We presented our identification at the hospital and there was no question over who we were and who would pay his bills. The doctor spent a total of 15 minutes with us explaining his medical situation, and several different tests were ordered to rule out more serious complications. And I know that when the bill comes, our family will be able to afford it because he has medical insurance that adequately covers his care. This story is not just about one client. It’s about the experience of being a young, newcomer immigrant in the United States without parents or supportive caregivers. Project Libertad exists to fill gaps for these young people fleeing violence or abuse in their home countries, who still have the same problems as every kid when they arrive in the United States, even if they don’t have caregivers equipped to fully support them. My official role may be Case Manager, but advocating for my client in the hospital that day felt a lot like donning several different hats simultaneously, which is what I do every day as a parent. by Justin Mixon, Esq. I don’t have time to write this. Immigration lawyers like me around the country don’t have time. For those of us representing immigrant families who have arrived in the US in the last 8 to 10 years seeking asylum from violence and persecution, with those families still fighting their cases in immigration court, what we have is an obligation to keep families here at all costs and prevent deportation. On April 3, 2022, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) published guidance to the attorneys representing DHS. The guidance instructs DHS attorneys to use Prosecutorial Discretion to dismiss thousands of cases, mostly asylum cases, in immigration court, prioritizing for dismissal immigrants who crossed the border before November 1, 2020, and who are not a threat to national security or public safety. The Biden Administration wants to decrease the “backlog” of cases to make room in the system for people who may enter in the next few months. The American Immigration Lawyers Association recently estimated that there are about 700,000 low or non-priority cases in the current immigration court “backlog.” Sounds good on the face of it, but the devil is in the details. Here’s the problem – the Biden administration has decided that it is better to dismiss or terminate the low priority cases and leave immigrants in the US WITHOUT work permits or social security numbers. In other words, they will stay here, but become part of the underground economy. People who have had work permits for 6-8 years while they wait for a decision in their asylum or other immigration court case will lose work permits. When an immigrant loses their work permit, they also lose access to a driver’s license, their ability to pay taxes, register their children for college and complete the FAFSA for student loan eligibility. They will be vulnerable to unscrupulous employers, consumer fraud, and criminals who see them as defenseless without “papers.” What makes this decision to take away work permits even more unconscionable is that there is a ready-made solution that worked just fine during the Obama Administration. It is called Administrative Closure. An immigrant whose case is administratively closed continues to have their case in the immigration court, but with no future hearing date. The case is removed from the court’s active workload. The TRAC research center of Syracuse University calculated 69,355 immigration court cases closed using Administrative Closure as a form of Prosecutorial Discretion between 2012 and 2017. To no one’s surprise, the program ended with the Trump Administration. In December 2021, DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas stated that he did not favor Administrative Closure. He wanted cases dismissed outright so that they would be permanently off the court’s docket. Mayorkas has no authority over the immigration courts; they are part of the Department of Justice. DHS does have to maintain and store the files for Administratively Closed cases, but it is hard to imagine this creates any significant hardship. So, when DHS’s Principal Legal Advisor (OPLA) Chief Kerry Doyle published guidance strongly favoring dismissal instead of Administrative Closure, she was following her boss’s lead. In an engagement webinar with immigration attorneys on April 5, 2022, she commented that the problem of work permits is “not in our lane.” Apparently, the top priority for President Biden’s DHS team is to close cases at all costs. The Biden administration seems more concerned about counting beans, decreasing the official “backlog” of 700,000 cases, than the real cost in human terms. It would have been easy for the Biden administration to explain to press outlets and the public that administratively closed cases do not count as part of the immigration court “backlog” since they are not active cases. It would have been easy to avoid telling immigrants they must hide in the shadows again and can’t renew a work permit or have a social security number. Now, the Biden administration wants me to be a part of their “solution.” They want me to encourage my clients not to object when the government asks to dismiss the case (DHS retains the right to dismiss cases even against the request of the immigrant, and it may come to that). Now, I must explain the pros and cons of dismissal to my clients, or at least try to explain. Dismissal will save them from the immediate threat of deportation, but it does not grant them any status. They will lose their work permits and go into the shadows with the other approximately 11 million undocumented immigrants in the US. It will be hard for them to see this as anything other than a significant step backwards. Welcome to America. Justin Mixon is an immigration and family law attorney in Jenkintown, PA.
by Ian Garvin Many LGBT+ people leave their home countries in Latin America to seek refuge in the United States. LGBT+ people are commonly discriminated against in Latin American countries, and hundreds of people die every year in Latin America due to anti-LGBT+ violence. El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras, also known as the Northern Triangle, are extremely dangerous areas for LGBT+ people, causing many to flee those countries. While same-sex marriage is legal in the Northern Triangle, gang violence is very prominent, and gangs in those countries target LGBT+ people specifically. A transgender Project Libertad client, whose name is being withheld to protect his privacy, attested to gangs in El Salvador specifically targeting LGBT+ people. According to our client, if members of a gang knew you were LGBT+, they would bully you, and the gangs made their members kill any gay relatives they may have. There are also issues with police discriminating against LGBT+ people and preventing them from being able to report crimes. In El Salvador, according to our client, if you are gay and something happens to you, the police will not investigate. If you attempt to press charges, they will refuse to investigate. Safety for LGBT+ people is a serious issue in Central America, which means that we need to protect LGBT+ people seeking asylum in the United States. Persecution for LGBT+ people starts at a young age in Central America. For example, our client shared that as a child, he was told that spending too much time with another child or eating certain foods made you gay. Professors and schools would persecute any students they believed to be gay, including asking children if they identify as a man or a woman in front of the whole class, which is very traumatizing for a young child. Governments in Latin America are largely ignoring issues of discrimination and protections for LGBT+ people, leading to many being forced into situations where leaving home is necessary. Our client left his home in El Salvador at a young age to come to the United States, as many LGBT+ people do. Leaving for him was not easy, as he had to leave his family behind. Unlike many LGBT+ people seeking asylum, our client was able to enter the United States and receive help from Project Libertad. LGBT+ people are not recognized as needing international protections and as such often suffer violent crimes on their migration journey, as well as suffering pushback when they arrive. The Trump Administration increased restrictions for asylum seekers since 2016 including LBGT+ asylum seekers, forcing many LGBT+ and other marginalized groups to return to conditions identical to the ones they attempted to escape. Since the transition of leadership in the United States, little has been done to remove the restrictions established by the Trump Administration, especially for Central American asylum seekers. There are also no additional protections specifically for LGBT+ immigrants or immigrants from other marginalized groups that are known to experience higher levels of discriminatory violence. There needs to be more recognition for LGBT+ immigrants, as there are almost no protections for them in most Latin American countries, which forces them to leave for their safety. However, there is also no guarantee of safety in coming to the United States. Our client believes that life is better for him in the United States, as people do not treat you differently for being LGBT+, and he wants other LGBT+ immigrants to know that you should not feel guilty to flee to the United States, as in the United States you can be who you are.
I would like to thank our client for his insight on life as an LGBT+ immigrant, and encourage readers to support Project Libertad, as with your support we are able to help clients like him to be their true selves. Three concrete ways you can support Ukraine right now:
L’Oréal Paris has awarded Rachel Rutter, the Executive Director of Project Libertad, the prestigious honor of being named one of ten L'Oréal Paris Women of Worth in 2022, an award that recognizes the achievements of non-profit leaders making a profound difference in the lives of others by tackling some of our society’s most pressing issues. Each year, the beauty brand selects these women from across the nation to support through charitable grants, mentorship with its network, and a national platform to spread the word on their important charitable missions. Rachel is being honored for her work to support and empower newcomer immigrant youth! As a recipient, our organization has been awarded $20,000! We are thrilled about this amazing recognition and the grant, which is so critical to our work. In November, our organization will have the opportunity to win an additional $25,000, but we need your help! There will be a public online vote for the L'Oréal Paris Women of Worth National Honoree, November 1 through November 30. Stay tuned – as we will need your support for Project Libertad. In the meantime, to learn more about Rachel, her fellow honorees, and the L’Oréal Paris Women of Worth program, please visit Women of Worth.
Thank you for your continued support! We could not do this important work without incredible supporters like you. We're shouting a huge congratulations to our client Carlos, who became a Legal Permanent Resident this week!
Congratulations to our client Carlos on becoming a Legal Permanent Resident or LPR! This is the legal term for someone with a green card. We are so proud of Carlos and the patience, resilience, and hard work that have gotten him to this point. Carlos's case was truly a labor of love that encompassed multiple nonprofit organizations, lawyers, social workers, and the ongoing support of friends and family in order to get to this point.
Carlos arrived in the US in 2016 as an unaccompanied child, fleeing danger in his home country of Honduras. Carlos was processed through the immigration system as an unaccompanied minor and sent to a youth shelter run by the Office of Refugee Resettlement, before being released to live with a relative in Philadelphia, where he would pursue his immigration case. Our Executive Director Rachel Rutter began representing Carlos in late 2016 through the Immigrant Youth Advocacy Project at HIAS Pennsylvania.
Carlos qualified for a special type of humanitarian immigration status called Special Immigrant Juvenile Status or SIJS -- but there was a catch. Carlos was just weeks away from turning 18 and permanently aging out of this special immigration option for youth. In order to qualify for SIJS, Carlos would need a family court order (like a custody or dependency order) making certain special findings before he turned 18. Thankfully, Jean Strout, a wonderful and accomplished attorney and youth advocate from the Support Center for Child Advocates, stepped up to help Carlos get the court order he needed just in the nick of time. Through SCCA, Carlos also had the support of a social worker, who helped him enroll in school, obtain medical care, and more.
Thanks to Jean's hard work obtaining that court order, Carlos was able to apply for SIJS in March 2017. The SIJS process takes years to complete. After applying, the government often requests more evidence. In Carlos's case, the government requested more evidence and even issued a Notice of Intent to Deny (NOID) the case, even though Carlos had a strong SIJS case. Ultimately, however, Carlos was able to fight the NOID, and his SIJS case was finally approved in December 2018 -- nearly two years after he applied!
However, Carlos's wait did not end there. After a child has approved SIJS, they still do not have any lawful immigration status, as confusing as that may sound. Rather, all that an approved SIJS gives the child is the opportunity to apply for a green card down the road, when it is finally their turn to apply. Whose turn it is to apply is determined through a confusing system called the USCIS visa bulletin.
There is a long backlog of SIJS cases for Central American children, meaning that many kids wait as long as three or four years just to apply for their green card after obtaining SIJS. In the meantime, SIJS kids are stuck in limbo, undocumented, and do not have the ability to work legally or obtain a social security number. Project Libertad has had clients in this situation turn 18 before obtaining their green card and end up being detained by ICE in spite of their approved SIJS. In some areas of the US, it is common for immigration judges to order deportation for these children with approved SIJS, simply because a green card is not yet available for them. It is unconscionable that our inefficient and inhumane immigration system allows this to happen.
When Rachel left HIAS PA to launch the Immigrant Children's Defense Project at Project Libertad in February 2020, she brought Carlos's case with her. Carlos remained in SIJS purgatory. While Carlos awaited his turn to apply for his green card, he dealt patiently and graciously with the various struggles he faced as a result of the SIJS limbo. In October 2020 -- four years after his arrival in the United States -- his turn came, and Carlos applied for his green card. Finally, in August 2021, Carlos's green card was approved!
Thank you, Carlos, for the honor of representing you and watching you handle all of the challenges with grace as you grew from a teenager to a hard-working, caring, and compassionate adult. We can't wait to see what the future holds for you! The brutal police killing of 13-year-old Adam Toledo in Chicago has us reflecting on how much more likely our students are to experience violence than their US Citizen peers, simply because of where they were born and the color of their skin. Immigrant children are much more likely to experience school violence than their non-immigrant peers (Peguero 2008). Newcomers in particular face a heightened risk: first-generation immigrant students are the most likely of all students to feel unsafe at school (Peguero 2008). One study found that immigrant students are “significantly more likely to experience one or more forms of bullying than their U.S.-born counterparts, even after controlling for a number of demographic variables” (Maynard 2016). That same study found that immigrant students are more likely to report being bullied based on “racial/ethnic differences” than their non-immigrant peers (Maynard 2016). Specifically, immigrant children are more likely to report instances of being “kicked, hit, or pushed,” “bullied due to race,” “bullied due to religion,” “bullied by computer/email,” and “bullied by cell phone,” when compared to US-born children (Terzis 2018). The experiences of students who participate Project Libertad’s newcomer after-school programs demonstrate how this anti-immigrant dynamic plays out as school violence locally. Project Libertad’s students, some as young as fifth grade, report physical violence, threats, and intimidation perpetrated against them by other youth because of their race and immigration status. Project Libertad students also report discrimination based on language. Spanish-speaking students report other students bullying them with comments like, “This is America, so speak English!” or “Build the wall!” Both teachers and students report “fight clubs,” in which large groups of students bully and physically attack other vulnerable students. The violence doesn’t end with bullying — Immigrant youth are more likely to face violence and discrimination from police, School Resource Officers (“SROs”), and school security guards than their US-born peers. School security staff may unfairly discriminate against newcomer students due to cultural differences and implicit racial biases. Meant to protect the campus from potential threats, SROs are not supposed to be involved in disciplining students unless an incident rises to the level of a criminal matter (ILRC 2018). However, schools with SROs are likely to have a greater level of law enforcement involvement and arrests of students than schools without SROs (ILRC 2018). Students in policed schools are criminalized for behaviors that may annoy adults but are a typical part of adolescent development; this dynamic can mean that a perceived school rule violation ends up being treated as a crime (ACLU 2017). SROs and security guards lack proper training regarding the unique challenges and cultural backgrounds of newcomer students (ACLU 2017). There is no uniform training for SROs on how to work with youth and de-escalate school disruptions. Nor is there specialized training for working with immigrant youth, who face unique challenges (ACLU 2017). For example, newcomer students often have extensive trauma histories and frequently come from countries where the police are corrupt and untrustworthy, leading them to distrust SROs and school security guards. Prior trauma may lead students to act out disruptively, and a punitive response may escalate the situation further. It is common for trauma victims to experience more difficulty in punitive settings. SROs and security guards who do not understand the cultural and trauma histories of newcomer students may unfairly criminalize or stereotype them. Additionally, newcomer students may fear interacting with security staff, even when they themselves are victims of school violence. These conditions further marginalize vulnerable children, leading to even more violence against them. Racial bias also frames these interactions between police, security staff, and immigrant students. Students of color are more likely to be viewed by SROs and guards as acting criminally and more likely to be charged and arrested than their white peers (ACLU 2017). Consistently, there is no evidence that racial disparities in discipline are the consequence of “differences in rates or types of misbehavior” by students of color and white students (ACLU 2017). Ultimately, SROs and security guards may be more likely to see criminal conduct in what others might consider normal teenage or adolescent behavior, and they are more likely to unjustly criminalize the actions of immigrant youth based on implicit racial biases. Furthermore, as the Trump administration placed an increased emphasis on deporting alleged gang members or associates, new concerns about SROs and their relationship with local law enforcement arose with respect to surveillance of students and information sharing around gang investigations. For example, newcomer students may be wrongfully accused of gang affiliation because of their race, who they talk to at school, or even because of the clothing they wear (ILRC 2018). This unfair stereotyping and criminalization further marginalizes immigrant children and leads to even more violence against them, because they are unable to trust school security staff with their concerns about school violence. The result of all this is an intensifying criminalization of immigrant students, which can have far-reaching consequences for immigrant youth. When SROs get involved in school discipline, youth may end up being arrested or charged for behavior that otherwise would have been handled by school staff. Even a simple arrest can negatively impact an immigrant child: the arrest will become part of the youth’s record whether or not they are ultimately charged. If the youth is charged in delinquency or criminal proceedings and is adjudicated or convicted of an offense, this will negatively impact their ability to apply for immigration status, and may even completely bar them from obtaining immigration status or cause them to lose their current legal status and be deported. Thus, what may have started out as self-defense or as a minor incident in school (or no incident at all), may lead to dire consequences for immigrant youth, even though it could have been handled without the involvement of law enforcement (ILRC 2018). This risk of deportation makes immigrant students even less likely to report instances of school violence and will lead to even more school violence as a result.
In its worst iterations, this phenomenon of police criminalizing youth of color leads to physical violence against students, as documented by the ACLU (ACLU 2017). Additionally, SROs often wrongfully charge students with crimes for defending themselves against their aggressors, treating both victim and aggressor as criminals, as in Ana’s case (ACLU 2017). In the wake of Adam Toledo's tragic murder, Project Libertad remains committed to pursuing racial justice and equality for the students and families we work with, and we stand in solidarity with the family and loved ones of Adam Toledo in demanding justice for his murder. |