Families for Freedom is a multiethnic membership group for people facing and fighting deportation and immigration detention. It was formed two years ago in response to the fact that none of the grassroots or Beltway advocacy happening at the time recognized how this crisis was affecting very diverse communities across the board – a phenomenon that is especially visible in New York. The four founding members and primary organizers – Aarti, her mother Nina Shahani, Subhash Kateel, and Maria Muentes – all came to their work with Families for Freedom through being personally affected by deportation. One of the reasons why they think it’s so important to take on the task of grassroots organizing around the issue is because it’s an invisible crisis, which is masked even in the affected communities by the shame attached to being in proceedings. Families for Freedom has several goals and programs, among which are functioning as a support group for individuals and families affected by detention and deportation and finding diverse ways for them to be involved in fighting back, organizing targeted communities to respond publicly to the problem, and advocating with elected officials and the media for the reform of immigration policies. 17 minute QuickTime audio interview
“More and more, you have two sets of laws for citizens and non-citizens – the divide between them is being written into the letter of the law, just like it was for black and white...Immigration controls are just one justification to treat people differently. You can actually regulate your borders without militarizing them.”
Partha Banerjee, Executive Director, New Jersey Immigration Policy Network
The New Jersey Immigration Policy Network is a broad-based statewide non- profit, umbrella coalition established in 1984 and dedicated to a fair and humane immigration policy that ensures respect, dignity and justice for all newcomers to the United States - a policy that betters the life of the community as a whole. The Network focuses on advocacy, legislation and public policy and also serves as a clearinghouse for information, provides publications, technical assistance and professional training. NJIPN has a Committee on Detention, which connects people affected by detention and deportation with people and organizations who can help their cases and families, and also maintains close ties with a number of organizations (including COPO, AFSC, ICNA and the ACLU-NJ) that work on detention and deportation, in order to keep track of what needs occur and how activism responds on the ground. 14 minute QuickTime audio interview
“I think the situation for immigrants is very difficult, and troubling for all of us, not just immigrant rights activists but for sane, humane, decent-minded Americans. The post-9/11 problems are still going on – raids, detentions, deportations, bias crimes are happening every day, as we speak. And on top of that, there is a serious lack of employment, health care, education. All these things are really destroying the lives and livelihoods of immigrants and their children…they are becoming the forgotten class.”
Raquel Batista, Director, Northern Manhattan Coalition for Immigrant Rights
The Northern Manhattan Coalition for Immigrant Rights was founded in 1982 to defend, protect, and expand the rights of immigrants in the United States. Their work ranges from direct services to organizing to legal representation, including family-based petitions, applying for legal permanent residency and citizenship, and voter education and registration. They have a joint project with Legal Aid, Columbia University and Alianza Dominicana to provide legal representation for deportation cases, and two collaborative organizing campaigns with Families for Freedom – one focused on putting pressure on consulates of countries to which community members are being deported to enter the policy debate, and one focused on raising awareness of the immigration consequences of criminal convictions and the immigration enforcement presence at the Rikers Island prison. The consular project in particular emerged from a feeling in both groups that since reform of the 1996 laws was unlikely under the current administration and Congress, a new strategy could be to work from the outside in, by bringing international players to the table. 20 minute QuickTime audio interview
“People come here daily with issues. Whether it’s someone who traveled, and upon coming back was placed in proceedings – and we’re seeing more and more of them in end up in detention – or someone who has a criminal conviction and knows they might be at risk, so wants to know what they can do. And that’s another hard part, because there’s no way for anyone to go to immigration and ask for a waiver, and say please forgive me, will you let me stay. There is no such way to go to them. It’s either you get caught, or you try not to get caught, you know, there is no in-between.”
Jagajit Singh, Director of Programs, Council of Peoples Organization
The Council of Peoples Organization is a nonprofit organization founded in response to the discrimination being felt by the South Asian community in Brooklyn after 9/11 in the form of bias crimes, verbal slurs, and the targeted immigration enforcement that led to the sudden disappearance of hundreds of men from the community. It opened its doors on Coney Island Avenue in Midwood on February 1st, 2002 with the mission to help all those who come to the United States with a dream to realize that dream despite all obstacles. The programs and services offered to further this mission began with English classes, conceived to help the community begin to communicate better with the public whose misperceptions seemed to be at the root of the discrimination. Later, after this discrimination was institutionalized in the Special Registration program announced by the government at the end of 2002, their work expanded to include legal clinics, know your rights trainings, and advocacy for legal reform. They now also offer a range of social services like health education. 24 minute QuickTime audio interview
“Suddenly 500 people were missing from our community, and no one would give us any answers about where they had gone... How do you define an immigrant in the United States? Everyone in this country is an immigrant, and if we all really understood that, then perhaps our vision, and everything, would change.”
Jean-Pierre Kamwa, Founder & President, Espoir
Espoir is a non-profit organization created by political refugees who, after going through the experience of seeking asylum and then being held in immigration detention in the U.S., wanted to help others going down the same difficult path by providing them material, psychological, and spiritual support both during detention itself and also during the transition into normal life. The impulse behind Espoir is embodied in its name: to give hope to the asylum seekers who are isolated in immigration jails by creating a support network that can stand in place of the families that most do not have here, and which can then provide essential resources if and when they are released, ensuring that they do not go from detention to the only less restricted environment of a homeless shelter, as many of the founders themselves did. Among their activities are visiting detention centers, connecting asylum seekers with pro bono lawyers, helping to research asylum cases, contact witnesses and collect evidence, and finding transitional housing, language courses, medical assistance, counseling, job training, and support groups for people once asylum has been granted. All of the work of Espoir is done by former political asylum seekers, who understand most clearly and urgently the particular needs of current asylum seekers and are thus able to build relationships of trust. 33 minute QuickTime audio interview - en Français
“You know that phone calls from detention centers are very expensive. When I was working as a prisoner in the Queens detention center, they paid me one dollar a day. That meant I had to work five days to make five dollars to buy one phone card to call my country for six minutes to try to get all of the papers that my lawyer needed to prove my case. Now, some of the people we work with, the families that they’re calling, or the whole villages and communities, have been destroyed by the very thing that sent them here to claim asylum. So it’s very difficult for them on their own to put together the proof, and if they don’t, they’ll just be sent back…the stress of being in this situation, this isolation, becomes enormous.”
