In March, Ms. Kane gave a well-received presentation on detention and deportation to seventy parent liaisons in the Fairfax County Public School (FCPS) district. Her presentation helped a crucial group of service providers with direct access to immigrant families gain a greater understanding of the experience of detention and deportation, including who can be detained, where they are detained, and how they can be prepared in the face of the possibility of detention and deportation.

Participants came away with a toolset to assist immigrant clients, including how to locate a detainee in the ICE locator system, how families may plan in advance what they intend to do with their assets, and how families can plan to manage child custody and their children’s living arrangements if the parents are detained.  The parent liaisons also received information about organizations that are available to help parents in the event of detention.

Robin Hamby, Family Partnerships Specialist at FCPS, attended the presentation and stated: “I feel confident now that I can assist the parent liaisons that I work with to prepare parents and families for a worst case scenario. Knowledge truly is empowering.”

However, MCM, continuing to fear for his life, didn’t leave and remained in the United States.  In July of 2011, MCM was apprehended and detained at the Shenandoah Valley Juvenile Center where he was interviewed by Ashley Ham Pong, staff attorney for CAIR Coalition’s Detained Children’s project.  Ms. Ham Pong successfully argued that under a 2008 law that affords unaccompanied alien children additional protections when applying for asylum, MCM was entitled to have his case reviewed by the Arlington Asylum Office.

This gave Ms. Ham Pong the opportunity to prepare new legal arguments, citing recent case law, stating that MCM would suffer persecution on account of his family ties. Specifically, MCM’s brother had been best friends with a gang member, who turned against him and killed him so that he could move up in the MS-13 hierarchy. Since then, MS-13 has continued to target the family.

In addition, CAIR Coalition submitted new supplementary documents, such as newspaper articles showing that one of MCM’s family members had been recently killed, and showing that Honduras is even more dangerous than before. CAIR Coalition received the grant of asylum just days before MCM’s 18th birthday, at which time, he would have been transferred over to ICE custody and placed in an adult jail. Instead, thanks to the efforts of Ms. Ham Pong, MCM is now free and has been reunited with family members living in the U.S.

MV immigrated from the Philippines to the United States with his family as a Lawful Permanent Resident when he was eight years old.  Growing up in Virginia Beach, he soon began to exhibit the signs of a severe mental illness and an intellectual disability, which was not formally diagnosed until his early adulthood.  After years of inconsistent and inadequate treatment, MV was arrested and convicted at the age of 22 following an unfortunate incident at home between him and his brother.

Sentenced to probation, MV began attending a full-time mental health treatment program, where he thrived for the next two years.  However, after making steady and marked improvements in the self-management of his mental health issues, MV was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) last fall and placed in removal proceedings.

Stephen Dekovich, an Equal Justice Works Fellow sponsored by the law firm of McDermott Will & Emery, briefed a legal argument that MV’s conviction was not a removable offense, and simultaneously submitted a request, supported by MV’s close-knit family, that ICE exercise its prosecutorial discretion to terminate the proceedings on humanitarian grounds.  After initially opposing termination of the proceedings, ICE eventually agreed to dismiss the case in early February.  MV has since returned home to live with his mother and has re-entered the mental health program he was attending before his detention.

The Story of JM

JM is a 56-year old man who fled his native El Salvador more than 20 years ago after his village was brutally attacked during the civil war.  With a traumatic brain injury and a resulting psychotic disorder caused by a gunshot wound to the temple, and without any resources or family support in the United States, JM was unable to navigate the asylum system and so remained without status.  After an encounter with local police while walking down the street in his Virginia town last spring, JM was detained by ICE and placed in removal proceedings.

Detention staff failed to appreciate the seriousness of JM’s health needs, and his attempts to advocate for himself in court revealed the difficulties he had in understanding the reasons for his detention or his options for relief in proceedings.  Due to the severity of JM’s condition, Mr. Dekovich assisted him as “friend of the court” in pursuing his goal of leaving detention and remaining in the United States.

In the end, ICE agreed to stipulate to a grant of humanitarian asylum, and JM was released from detention in January.  Since then, CAIR Coalition’s social work intern, Hannah Kane, has been working with JM to assist him in applying for the public benefits his new status entitles him to and  connecting him to safe and stable housing.

IA escaped to the U.S. on a tourist visa in 1992. He overstayed his visa and has been living in the U.S. ever since. In 2010, he was detained by immigration authorities and held at Rappahannock Regional Jail, where CAIR Coalition first met him. After completing an initial intake, CAIR Coalition placed his case with Georgetown Law’s Center for Applied Legal Studies where he was assisted by law students Wendy Crompton and Christina Donnelly.

In an effort to present the best possible case for IA, Ms. Crompton and Ms. Donnelly  secured the services of a pro bono psychologist with Advocates for Survivors of Torture and Trauma (ASTT), who conducted a pro bono mental health evaluation of IA over CAIR Coalition’s video teleconference (VTC) link to the jail.  ASTT continued to provide him free psychological services over VTC for the duration of IA’s detention. Because of a prior criminal conviction, IA’s was ineligible for asylum, but Ms. Crompton and Ms. Donnelly succeeded in winning IA deferral of removal under the Convention Against Torture (CAT).

Ms. Crompton and Ms. Donnelly collaborated with Hannah Kane, CAIR Coalition social work intern from George Mason University, to help IA make a smooth transition out of detention. IA has continued to receive psychological services from ASTT, and is now able to see his psychologist at her office. IA was referred for substance abuse services to Fairfax County Alcohol and Drug Services, which has referred him to a 30-day in-patient substance abuse recovery program. IA has remained clean and sober since his release, but he is excited at the opportunity to complete the rehab program and continue on his path towards recovery. He is now awaiting his employment authorization.

According to Ms. Crompton and Ms. Donelly, “Watching as [IA] has transitioned back to life outside of prison has been nothing short of inspirational. We’ve never seen a person so happy to be free and so ready to change his life for the better. It is not unusual to get a phone call from him, just to remind us how grateful he is for the work we did and to proudly reassure us that he is clean, happy, and in full compliance with his probation and ICE requirements.”

While working on IA’s case brought the pair their fair share of challenges, they nonetheless agree that the professional experience of representing IA in immigration court and through the post-order transition process has been invaluable.  Both concur that “the opportunity to make a difference in the life of a very good, very deserving person”   outweighed any of the difficulties they faced in presenting IA’s case.

If deportations continued at that rate for the rest of 2011, that would mean that nearly 100,000 children who are US citizens had parents who were deported in the last year.

As ICE reaches deeper into immigrant communities through the expansion of local/federal cooperation agreements such as Secure Communities and the 287(g) program, more and more immigrant parents – and their children – are being caught up in the detention and removal system.

At the same time, as ICE moves away from high profile work place raids such as the one that took place in Postville, Iowa, several years ago, and focuses more on picking up people from their homes or after an encounter with local law enforcement (even if the charges are ultimately dropped), the families whose lives are being shattered by our detention and removal system are increasingly hidden from public view.

Some of the children whose parents are deported will leave the United States with them, but many other children remain behind, sometimes in the care of a single parent, other times in the care of friends or relatives. However, an increasing number of these children are being placed in the foster care system, where their parents face formidable barriers in trying to reclaim them.

According to a recent report by the Applied Research Center, there are at least 5,100 children currently living in foster care whose parents have either been detained or deported.  “Shattered Families: The Perilous Intersection of Immigration Enforcement and the Child Welfare System,” is the first national investigation to look at the situation of children who have been placed in the foster care system, not as a result of abuse or neglect, but as a result of a parent’s detention by immigration authorities.

While child welfare policy dictates that families are to be reunited whenever possible, the report chronicles the numerous obstacles that ICE places in the path of parents seeking to reclaim children lost to the government’s immigration enforcement efforts.

The report lists the following as key barriers to family unity:

• Aggressive local immigration enforcement where any interaction with the police can lead to detention and deportation.  An incident with the police that would not lead to a U.S. citizen being separated from his or her child, can result in a non-U.S. citizen losing custody altogether.

• The refusal of ICE officers and local law enforcement to permit parents to make arrangements for their children.

• ICE’s policy of detaining parents who could be released on their own recognizance or with some type of monitoring causing them to miss family court proceedings where the fate of their children is being decided.

• The lack of policies on the part of child welfare agencies designed to proactively work to reunify children with their deported parents.

• The belief of many in the child welfare system that children are better off remaining in the United States, even if they stay in foster care.

• Child welfare policies that dictate that any family member wanting to care for the child must be a legal resident of the United States, leaving children in the care of strangers when they could be with their own families.

While the report makes a number of important policy recommendations aimed at reducing the number of separated families, the real solution to the growing problems of “shattered families” is to provide a pathway to citizenship for the millions of immigrant parents who long for nothing more than to provide a stable, loving home for their children.  As the federal government continues to pursue an aggressive, enforcement only strategy the costs in human suffering will only grow.

Within the past three years A-M has been arrested several times by Ugandan police and interrogated about his sexuality, the most recent arrest occurred in January of 2012. A-M’s troubles with the Uganda police began in October of 2010 when he was arrested and detained for close to two weeks without cause. The Ugandan police beat him and cut his arms with razors. The police eventually released A-M on bond but continued to arbitrarily arrest or question him about his sexual orientation. A-M still carries physical scars on his arms from his torture.

Homosexuality is illegal in Uganda. In early 2011, long time Ugandan gay activist, David Kato, was murdered after his picture was published in the Ugandan newspaper “Rolling Stone” that called for his hanging because he was a homosexual.  The State Department 2010 human rights report on Uganda further has confirmed this type of persecution stating that conditions for homosexuals are worsening in terms of discrimination and criminal prosecution.

This pro bono opportunity will require assisting A-M apply for asylum, withholding of removal, and protection under the Convention Against Torture (CAT). Furthermore, although AM is currently detained he may be eligible for release on parole because he is an arriving alien.

A-M speaks English. A-M is being detained at the Farmville Detention Center, which is roughly three hours away from Washington, D.C. CAIR Coalition has a Video-Teleconferencing System which allows attorneys to communicate with detained clients via televideo from our office in DC.  CAIR Coalition is also available to assist in visiting the client at the jail.

Please contact our staff attorney, Claudia Cubas at (202) 331-3320, ext. 22 if you are interested in taking this case.

On May 25, 2005 VDH was convicted of possession of cocaine in Baltimore City, Maryland. He was given a suspended sentence of one year and served no time.  In September 2006 he was convicted again of possession of cocaine in Baltimore City and served a full sentence of 45 days. VDH faces removal from the United States because he has two convictions for possession of cocaine.

This pro bono opportunity will require representing VDH in applying for Cancellation of Removal for Certain Permanent Residents before the Baltimore Immigration Court.  VDH is eligible for this form of relief because (1) he has been continuously present after a lawful admission, for seven years; (2) he has been a permanent resident for at least five of those years; (3) he has not been convicted of an aggravated felony; and (4) he merits a favorable exercise of discretion.  VDH still has a valid green card and has family here in the United States. While he has been charged with a number of small offenses he has no other serious criminal convictions,  only traffic convictions.  None of these render him ineligible for cancellation of removal.

Alternatively this pro bono opportunity will involve assisting VDH in applying for asylum.  VDH’s mother is Vietnamese and his father was an African-American U.S. soldier during the Vietnam War.  Often children of American soldiers face persecution in Vietnam, particularly when the person is of mixed ethnicity.

VDH speaks English. He is detained at Howard County Detention Center in Jessup Maryland, only 45 minutes away from Washington., D.C.  CAIR Coalition is also available to assist in visiting the client at the jail.

Please contact our Legal Director, Liz McGrail at (202) 331-3320, ext. 20 if you are interested in taking this case.

On January 25, 2011, JGP was convicted of possession of cocaine in Fairfax County, VA. Before JGP was able to appear for his deferred sentencing hearing, ICE detained him pending removal proceedings. JGP faces removal from the United States because he has one conviction for possession of cocaine which is an offense under the Controlled Substance Act.

This pro bono opportunity will require representing JGP before the Arlington Immigration Court.  JGP is eligible for cancellation of removal because (1) he has been continuously present after a lawful admission, for seven years; (2) he has been a permanent resident for at least five of those years; (3) he has not been convicted of an aggravated felony; and (4) he merits a favorable exercise of discretion.

His next hearing date is scheduled for April 25th, 2012, 1:30 pm before Judge Schmidt.

JGP speaks Spanish and English. He is detained at the Rappahannock Regional Jail in Stafford, VA only an hour away from Washington., D.C.  CAIR Coalition has a Video-Teleconferencing System which allows attorneys to communicate with detained clients via televideo from our office in DC.  CAIR Coalition is also available to assist in visiting the client at the jail.

Please contact our staff attorney, Claudia Cubas at (202) 331-3320, ext. 22 if you are interested in taking this case.

The Worcester County Jail, located on the Eastern Shore, holds the largest concentration of immigrant detainees in Maryland.  However, due to its remote location, it was not being served by any immigrant service provider.  Now, the immigrant detainees there will have access to much needed legal assistance.  In addition to serving the facility in Snow Hill, CAIR Coalition will continue to provide legal services to immigrants detained at the Howard County Detention Center and the Frederick County Detention Center which hold roughly 70 and 50 detainees respectively.  With the addition of the facility in Snow Hill, CAIR Coalition will now be serving nearly 300 immigrant detainees in Maryland.

Along with our increased presence in Maryland detention centers we have also expanded our law school partnerships.  Currently, American University’s Washington College of Law provides CAIR Coalition with a core group of volunteers that accompany staff on every Frederick and Howard visit and assist in following up with detainee cases.  Starting in February, students from The University of Maryland Law School will also begin assisting us with Maryland cases.  They will review files in the Baltimore Immigration Court on behalf of detainees whose cases we are attempting to place and they will assist us with Reasonable and Credible Fear Interviews held in Baltimore.  They will also join us on visits to the detention center in Snow Hill to help with intake.

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