At Washington Conference, Attorneys Address an Unsettling New Era on Immigration
~ by Rhina Guidos for National Catholic Reporter/Global Sisters Report
Reprinted with permission from Global Sisters Report
“We gather today in unprecedented times,” Anna Gallagher, executive director of the Catholic Legal Immigration Network, Inc., told the crowd. Her organization, known as CLINIC, along with the Migration Policy Institute and Georgetown Law organized the 22nd Annual Immigration Law and Policy Conference. That’s where immigration attorneys, paralegals, community advocates, as well as some priests and 
least one Franciscan sister, gathered on October 9 to hear a range of legal experts, historians and journalists speak. Panelists painted a picture of migrants consumed by fear and a legal community seeking to defend them, but lacking the resources to do so.
Conferences of the past provided a legal bird’s-eye view of policy in the country’s immigration realm, but scholars and experts like Doris Meissner agreed that this year, it’s different.
“We have entered a new era,” said Meissner, senior fellow and director of the U.S. Immigration Policy Program at Migration Policy Institute, as she moderated one of the panels.
No one exactly knows how this era will evolve.From the president’s public call to end birthright citizenship for children whose parents aren’t in the country legally, using information from the Internal Revenue Service to seek out migrants for deportation, and employing military and other law enforcement resources in that effort — those actions raise “profound questions about our society,” Meissner added.
A lawyer at the conference addressed the obstacles the government is putting in place to make it difficult for attorneys to contact their clients. An economist voiced worries about the impact of ICE raids at work and said the actions are at odds with economic strategy. A reporter said he had seen the negative impact of immigration enforcement on communities of faith.Immigration, after all, said CLINIC’s Gallagher, touches “every aspect of our country.”
What would you do if you were undocumented now? What would you do if you were a mother of two children, one of them one month old, and your husband is detained and sent to a detention center? You had been seeking asylum because of threats of violence in your home country and when you go to your immigration check-in and are told that your asylum petition has been denied and you have exactly one month to come back with tickets to return to the danger in your home country. Your husband is definitely being deported. Should you pay $10,000 to appeal? What should you do with your children who are US citizens?
National Shrine of St. Frances X. Cabrini and the Cabrini Retreat Center will host a webinar series on immigration featuring Cabrini Immigrant Services, Dobbs Ferry, NY and Cabrini Immigrant Services-NYC and their outreach to our immigrant sisters and brothers.
“Dreaming of a
Join us for a day of immigration advocacy in Washington, DC!
In his 2019 World Day of Migrants and Refugees message, the Holy Father reiterates the Gospel command to avoid