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Vote NO on H.R. 2

Dear Cabrini Collaborator,

Title 42 is coming to an end this Thursday, May 11, and the House of Representatives is considering legislation (H.R. 2 – the Secure the Border Act) which proposes a crack down on the number of migrants crossing the border. The bill also proposes resuming construction of the border wall, ending the policy of “catch and release”, increasing the number of Border Patrol Agents and requiring the detention of migrant families making it more likely that they will be deported to very dangerous situations.

It’s clear that meaningful, collaborative border solutions are needed, now, more than ever. Both Democrats and Republicans in Congress must come together to pass needed immigration reforms, including border solutions that are secure, efficient and humane.

We are asking you to join us and be in solidarity with Jesuit Relief Services efforts in urging our representatives to vote NO on H.R. 2! Please click the TAKE ACTION NOW link below, scroll down and enter your info – it only takes a minute or two to complete and is of utmost importance!

Together in advocacy and prayer,

Guadalupe Province Immigration Commission
Sr. Yolanda Flores, MSC, Sr. Pietrina Raccuglia, MSC, Sr. Roselle Santivasi, MSC, Sr. Lucille Souza, MSC, Lorraine Campanelli, Ariana Salas, and Karol Brewer

TAKE ACTION NOW

 

 

 

Immigrant Advocacy at the Forefront

In recent weeks, Cabrini Immigrant Services of NYC (CIS-NYC) staff and Justice for Immigrants members have been busy taking action in New York City and Albany to advocate for the needs of our immigrant community in New York State.

On February 14th, Justice for Immigrants members gathered for an action outside of Governor Hochul’s NYC office to support #Coverage4All, which would create a state-funded health insurance program for ALL low-income New Yorkers regardless of immigration status. One of our members, Barbara, shared her experience of being unable to access care for her son due to being undocumented and uninsured. On the same day, CIS-NYC’s Staff Attorneys, Dalilah and Ariana, went to Albany to support the CARE for Immigrant Families campaign, which is fighting for vital state funding for immigration legal services and the passage of the Access to Representation Act, which would to ensure a right to counsel for all immigrants facing deportation in New York.

Last week, a group of our Justice for Immigrants members also traveled to Albany where they had the opportunity to speak to elected officials about the need to pass #Coverage4All. Members took part in a press conference and a creative action where they delivered messages in pill bottles to the Governor’s office.

Lastly, this week another group of Justice for Immigrants members traveled to Albany as part of the Worker Solidarity Day of Action where they took part in an action and meetings with elected officials to advocate for the passage of the Unemployment Bridge Program. This program would create an unemployment benefit program for all excluded workers in New York (including undocumented immigrant workers).

We are so proud of our incredible members and staff who have shown up, braved the early mornings and cold, used their voices, shared their stories, and given their time to ensure that these vital proposals become a reality this year! ~ submitted by Ella Nimmo, CIS-NYC

You can join us in supporting these campaigns by clicking the links below for more information:

• CARE for Immigrant Families

• #Coverage4All

• Unemployment Bridge Program

Wanted: Prayer and Action for Immigrant Children Now!

A Central American woman, who was recently released from U.S. custody, holds her child July 1 as they watch other immigrant children play at a Catholic Charities-run respite center in McAllen, Texas. A delegation of U.S. bishops has traveled to the Diocese of Brownsville, Texas, to learn more about the detention of Central American immigrants at the U.S.-Mexican border. (CNS photo/Chaz Muth) See BISHOPS-BORDER-RESPITE-VISIT July 2, 2018.

~ an opinion by Ana Gonzalez for Global Sisters Report

VATICAN – Growing up on the southern border of the United States – surrounded by friends and family and fed by love and tamales – we celebrated February 2nd – el Dia de la Candelaria (the feast of the Presentation, or Candlemas) to conclude a season meditating on the infancy of Jesus.

From the first day of the season of Advent, I thought of how vulnerable the baby Jesus is – having to flee because of threats to his family’s safety.

My heart breaks when I meet hardworking, studious, and focused [young people], who – even as they make every effort to build a better future, to earn an education and an opportunity to work with dignity – face defeat.

There are approximately 1 million undocumented children under the age of 18 living in the United States – children who, through no fault of their own, are automatically marginalized, discriminated against, and who daily fear deportation. Their uncertain immigration status is a black cloud over what could have been a bright future. For many high school students, access to college is limited and they have few avenues for financial assistance.

The lack of response to the plight of undocumented minors is a failing that has plagued this country for many years. In 2012, the issue of a presidential executive action provided temporary protection from deportation and the opportunity to work legally. Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) was intended to provide a temporary and humanitarian solution, granting children the opportunity to work for the American dream.

Ten years later, Congress has yet to address this temporary program, now at risk for
termination .

Since 2012, more than 800,000 people have benefitted from the program.
If DACA is ended, thousands will be without protection. Congress has the power to provide our vulnerable immigrant children and young people with permanent protections from deportation, the opportunity to pursue an education and to work in a dignified manner.

Time is of the essence.

Perhaps, during the season of Lent, we can make our almsgiving – our gift – the personal task of writing to our legislative leaders to demand legislation that protects our Dreamers, and invite our friends, families, and communities to stand with the children and young people.

Let us put our prayer into action to protect those children. We can all do something to make a difference: reaching out to our elected leaders, volunteering at shelters, offering prayers, raising awareness and – most important – demanding action for our Dreamers, our vulnerable immigrant children and young people.
To read the entire account, please click here

UPDATE: Advocates: Ruling Against DACA Must Push Congress to Act

WASHINGTON (CNS) – Catholic immigration advocates are urging Congress and President Joe Biden to speed up legislation to protect immigrants after a federal judge ruled July 16 to end a program that prevents the deportation of thousands of immigrants brought into the U.S. illegally as children. These groups immediately took to social media to respond to the decision by U.S. District Judge Andrew Hanen, who said the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, was illegal.

His ruling, which plaintiffs plan to appeal, bars the government from approving any new applications to the program but leaves it open for current participants. The decision means that “tens of thousands of people who applied but had their initial cases stuck in limbo due to crisis-level processing delays…will not receive life-altering protection from deportation or stability, security, opportunity,” tweeted Lisa Parisio, Director of Advocacy for Catholic Legal Immigration Network or CLINIC.

Hanen ruled in favor of Texas and eight other states that filed suit in 2018 against DACA on the ground that former President Obama, who created the program by executive order in 2012, did not have the authority to do so because he bypassed Congress. The states that joined Texas in the lawsuit – Alabama, Arkansas, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Nebraska, South Carolina and West Virginia – also said the program has been a financial strain.

DACA has enabled about 700,000 qualifying young people, described as Dreamers to work, go to college, get health insurance, a driver’s license and not face deportation.

Just last year, the Supreme Court ruled against efforts by the Trump administration to end the program, saying the actions taken to rescind it had been “arbitrary and capricious.” A federal judge at the end of last year ordered the Trump administration to fully restore DACA.

In response to the Supreme Court’s ruling, the USCCB urged President Trump to “strongly reconsider terminating DACA” and they also urged U.S. senators to “ immediately pass legislation that provides a path to citizenship” for Dreamers, stressing that this kid of “permanent legislative protection” is long overdue.

Advocates had similar pleas right after Hanen’s ruling.

“Texas does not have the right to dictate federal immigration policy or to upend the lives of hundreds of thousands of DACA recipients. Congress and the President must act decisively and swiftly to enact lasting protections for Dreamers, including a pathway to citizenship, tweeted Hope Border Institute.

Similarly, the Cabrini Immigrant Services of New York tweeted, “We demand that Congress and @POTUS take immediate action to provide a pathway to citizenship. We cannot wait any longer. There are NO excuses.”

Biden pledged to protect DACA in his presidential campaign, and he has since proposed legislation that would provide immigrants with a pathway to citizenship. DACA supporters have long insisted that it’s up to Congress to pass legislation that would provide Dreamers with permanent relief.

Hanen similarly indicated that Congress needs to step in. When he rejected Texas’ request in 2018 to end DACA through a preliminary injunction, he wrote at the time: “If the nation truly wants to have a DACA program, it is up to Congress to say so.” To access the full article click here

Yearning Eyes: The Plight of Migrants in India

~ by Sr. Lavina D’Souza, Global Sisters Report; photo credit: Arturo Madrid-unsplas

The blank look on his face… a look of hopelessness…helplessness…perplexed…it wasn’t a silent face at all. The look on his wrinkled, aged face spoke aloud, as he stood passively before the vehicle that was about to leave the slum. He had remained absolutely silent all through our interactions with the people and now his look was disturbing. It yearned for something!

We had organized a food distribution for stranded migrants in one of the slums of Mumbai due to the lockdown. This slum area of migrants is not unlike other migrant living areas elsewhere in India. They live in subhuman, pathetic conditions, lacking decent housing facilities, potable water, sanitation facilities and other amenities, and are exposed to inclement weather and a hazardous atmosphere. They work for long hours, sometimes risking their health and lives, and yet, are paid less than they are entitled to. As they lack financial and health security and have little or no social support from a caste-and class-ridden society, they are unsure of what they can or cannot control in their lives. This leads to a certain passivity; resigned to their “fate”.

As I looked at the yearning eyes of the aged man, it seemed to me that he gazed not at the vehicle, but at the complacency of those who were more privileged than he. Are we so mired in our complacency that we have become blind to their reality?

The recent low point of this societal complacency has been the passivity of a few privileged people in India as they watch the unending trail of desperate migrants trying to reach home to be with their loved ones. The migrants take any means – even treacherous journeys on foot, sometimes walking hundreds of miles. In such foot journeys, a few of them lost their lives before reaching home, all due to exhaustion, because they wanted to escape dying of hunger as they tried to save themselves from the coronavirus. These are India’s nameless, faceless migrants who were denied time and transport to return home due to the sudden lockdown which was, ironically to save lives.

But who cares for the lives of the poor? To read the complete article click here

Criminal Justice Reform and Beyond

Vivian C. Smith, PhD, Chair and Associate Professor Criminology and

Bethany Van Brown, PhD, Assistant Professor of Criminology

moderate a panel discussion on Criminal Justice Reform and Beyond.  The panel will explore the varying dimensions of the criminal justice system in America.

Parents of 545 Children Separated at U.S.- Mexico Border Still Can’t Be Found

~ Mark Katkov, NPR News
Despite a federal judge’s order that the government reunite families who had been separated at the U.S.-Mexico border under the Trump administration’s “no tolerance” migration policy, the parents of 545 children still can’t be found, according to a court document filed Tuesday by the U.S. Justice Department and the American Civil Liberties Union.

Thousands of families were separated under the policy before the Trump administration ended the practice in 2018. The ACLU successfully sued the government, winning a court order to reunite families. Thousands of parents and children were reunited within weeks.

But about 1,000 families who had been separated in a pilot program in 2017 were not covered by the initial court order — reunification of this group was ordered only last year. The passage of time has made finding both parents and children more difficult.

“What has happened is horrific,” says Lee Gelernt, deputy director of the ACLU Immigrants’ Rights Project, who has been leading the litigation. “Some of these children were just babies when they were separated. Some of these children may now have been separated for more than half their lives. Almost their whole life, they have not been with their parents.”

The update on reunification efforts was filed ahead of a status conference scheduled for Thursday before U.S. District Judge Dana Sabraw in San Diego.

David Xol, of Guatemala hugs his son Byron at Los Angeles International Airport as they reunite after being separated about one and half year ago during the Trump administration’s wide-scale separation of immigrant families, Wednesday, Jan. 22, 2020, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Ringo H.W. Chiu)

The filing estimates that two-thirds of the separated parents are believed to have returned to their home countries. Nongovernmental groups appointed by the court have “engaged in time consuming and arduous on-the-ground searches for parents in their respective countries of origin,” according to the filing, but those efforts were halted by the coronavirus pandemic and are only now resuming in limited fashion.

NPR’s Joel Rose reports that the children initially went into a shelter system before being placed with sponsors across the country and that many will likely try to remain in the United States. The ACLU’s Gelernt says about 360 of the children still have not been located.

Student Advocates Bring About Change in Congress

Dr. Jerry Zurek, Cabrini University Professor, Communications Department sent this email to the 50 Cabrini students who advocated and lobbied on behalf of poor communities around the world. The current Administration wanted to cut the aid budget that would help refugees, migrants, and people suffering from extreme poverty by more than 30 percent. Cabrini students joined theirvoices with those of many others and Congress rejected these harsh cuts.
——————-
To all 50 students who lobbied this year:

Congratulations! Your voice mattered! Congress passed the foreign aid budget, and what you advocated for, passed! Your effort to prepare to go to DC paid off!

You should be so proud of your hard work. Think of all the people who will be helped because YOU CARED.

Congress–both Republicans and Democrats–voted to reject the Trump administration’s cuts to Poverty-Focused Development Assistance and even raised funding by a little bit, 1 percent raise.
• Increased development assistance to alleviate poverty in vulnerable communities by $400 million;
• Provided more than $500 million for assistance to Central America – money that the administration had reduced to 0. This will benefit the people of Guatemala and elsewhere and work to alleviate the root causes of migration.
• Signed into law: The Global Fragility Act will step up a comprehensive U.S. strategy to prevent extremism and promote stability in some of the toughest global hotspots.
• Refugees: the administration wanted to cut funding to just 10 percent of last year. Congress kept it the same as last year.
• Global Health remains strong: PEPFAR, the Global Fund, Maternal and Child Health, Nutrition — all remain strong.
• Food aid: Food for Peace and McGovern-Dole got a slight increase.
• Climate: While Congress does not provide funding the Green Climate Fund, it did include $140 million in flexible funding for the Global Environment and other climate programs.
Read more:
https://www.usglc.org/the-budget/congress-finalizes-fy20-spending-international-affairs-budget-sees-small-increase-as-global-challenges-grow/

Thanks to each and every one of you for answering the call to care for the most vulnerable!

Cabrini University’s Global Justice on Tap

Cabrini University’s Alumni Office partnered with the University’s Wolfington Center to host a Catholic Relief Services (CRS) alumni event called Global Justice On Tap: A discussion on women building peace in Rwanda. The event was held in The Cottage where guests enjoyed one another’s company over dinner, followed by a moving discussion with Pascasie Musabyemungu, Project Manager, CRS Rwanda, who led an informal discussion around her work with Women Building Peace Project Across Borders. This event is part of a series that welcomes back alumni who were and are interested in global justice issues as a way to keep alumni engaged in the mission of Cabrini for many years after they graduate.

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