CPD IN THE NEWS

National Catholic Reporter - December 17, 2013, by Megan Fincher - Impoverished immigrants facing deportation in New York City can now have court-appointed counsel on their side for the first time in this nation's history.

Noncitizens of the United States facing deportation -- such as green card holders, refugees, victims of trafficking, and those living in the country illegally -- have no constitutional right to representation. The New York Immigrant Family Unity Project, a pilot program funded by a $500,000 investment from the city, is trying to change that.

"New York City has a tradition of welcoming immigrants. Its economics are driven by immigrants. Investing in immigrant families in New York City is our starting point," Brittny Saunders told NCR. Saunders is a senior staff attorney for immigrant rights and racial justice at the Center for Popular Democracy, an advocacy group working with the Family Unity project.

For the next year, the project will provide pro bono legal services to an estimated 20 percent of indigent noncitizens facing deportation at the Varick Street Immigration Court in New York City, according to Vera Institute of Justice, a nonpartisan, nonprofit center for justice policy and practice.

"The current state of affairs is creating real harm, really devastating immigrant families in New York City," Saunders explained.

Paula Shulman, second-year law student at Cardozo School of Law, agrees: "The New York Immigrant Family Unity Project is very aptly named. Detentions and deportations tear families apart every day."

The idea to create the New York Immigrant Family Unity Project came out of the 2010 New York Immigrant Representation Study, initiated by Judge Robert Katzmann of the Second Circuit Court of Appeals. The study examined trends in New York City immigration courts from 2000 to 2010. During that decade, 60 percent of detained immigrants in New York City were without counsel, and subsequently, only 3 percent of that group won their case. In comparison, immigrants who were represented and released from detention or never detained experienced a 74 percent success rate.

With the support of legal nonprofits, research groups, and ultimately the city itself, the study went "from an academic model to a living, breathing program" via the New York Immigrant Family Unity Project Nov. 6, Saunders said.

"For the first time ever, anywhere in this country and our legal system, mothers, fathers, sisters and brothers who would otherwise be unable to afford an attorney have access to attorneys who can present the legal issues and handle them expeditiously," Shulman, who works at Cardozo's Immigration Justice Clinic, wrote to NCR in an email.

Saunders explained that immigrant families are often "mixed status," meaning citizens, permanent legal residents and undocumented persons can make up a single family.

"One study from 2005-2010 showed that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested parents of 13,500 children in New York City alone," Saunders said. "More than half of those children lost at least one parent to a final order of deportation."

But what happens when primary caregivers are sentenced to deportation whose children are U.S. citizens? "If there's no other caregiver in place, children are thrust into the foster care system," Saunders said.

Shulman explained that the project is also fighting unnecessary detentions "because it can be the family breadwinner or the single mom who is held in a facility, unable to see his or her loved ones, let alone support or provide for his or her family."

Immigration detention is unlike criminal detention, because it is not "based on risk of danger to the community," and determining who gets sent to immigration detention and what bond is set is "haphazard and divorced from clear risk assessment," Shulman said.

"One of the many goals of the New York Immigrant Family Unity Project is to reduce detention time for individuals eligible for release so they can return to their families, their jobs, and their communities."

Saunders noted that in its first weeks, the project is "not just creating benefits for individuals who receive counsel, but it's also creating real benefits for the courts and the systems themselves. It's been really impressively seamless."

"We see what is happening in New York as the beginning of a change that could happen all across the country," Shulman said. "We support and anticipate replication of the model and the pilot. In fact, we have already received inquiries from five other states."

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Latin Post 05-12-2015 - A coalition of national organizations, ranging from Latino-based, faith-based and law-based groups, wrote a letter to President Barack Obama to end immigrant-family detention.

 "In light of recent developments and ongoing negotiations in litigation on the detention of immigrant families, we, the undersigned 188 immigrants' rights, faith-based, civil rights, human rights, survivors' rights, and criminal justice reform organizations, international educators, and legal service providers, urge your administration to end the practice of family detention," starts the letter, signed by organizations including the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC), American Immigration Lawyers Association, Center for Popular Democracy, Detention Watch Network, DREAM Action Coalition, National Council of La Raza and We Belong Together.

The letter acknowledges the family detention centers built in the last year in Berks County, Penn., and Dilley and Karnes counties in Texas. The organizations also recognized that the detained families are largely seeking protection in the U.S., but such centers have had "traumatic impact" on families, notably children. The traumatic impacts may include an individual or families' experience while in Central America.

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"These mental health effects are compounded where families have suffered detention that is prolonged and indefinite in nature," the letter continued. "A growing number of members of Congress have voiced their opposition to the detention of families, and a steady stream of news articles and human rights reports illustrate that families cannot be detained humanely."

The letter reference the lawsuit and human rights reports at the T. Don Hutto Detention Center in Texas, which the U.S. Department of Homeland Security closed in 2009 following inquiries of the facility's procedures. Lawsuits regarding other immigrant detention facilities' policies have also been filed and could result in the centers shutdown.

"DHS has broad authority to release from detention vulnerable populations who do not pose a flight or public safety risk either on recognizance or, where necessary, with additional measures such as alternatives to detention," wrote the 188 organizations. "These should include case management services to ensure that families are informed of their legal rights and obligations and receive appropriate referrals to social and legal services."

The organizations agreed that all immigrant families must receive full due process. The letter to Obama called for all families to have their right to full hearings before an immigration court judge -- as outlined in section 240 of the Immigration and Nationality Act.

Calls for an "alternative to detention," or ATD, instead of detention was recommended. The national, state and local organizations in the letter noted families apprehended at the border "generally" have relations or community relations in the U.S. and could be released while awaiting deportation hearings.

"In fact, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) recently issued a Request for Proposals specifically for case management ATD programs appropriate for families. As detailed in your FY 2016 budget request, current ATD programs save taxpayer dollars, costing approximately $5 per day compared to $343 per day for a family detention bed. Current ATDs have high compliance rates, with 99 percent appearance at immigration court hearings and 84 percent compliance with removal orders."

Local-and-state-based organizations signing on the letter include the Central American Resource Center, Coalition of Latino Leaders, Families for Freedom, New York Immigration Coalition and Workers Defense Project.

To read the letter to President Obama and the list of organizations signed, click here

Source: Latin Post

PatMa has already forged strategic partnerships with several organizations with shared common values, including the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media, Center for Popular Democracy and Planned Parenthood. The studio, whose formation was orchestrated by CAA, Evolution Media and top attorney Cliff Gilbert-Lurie, is designed to create content across platforms, including film and TV, theater, and publishing.

Read the full article here.

CEPR - March 3, 2015 - The NYT examined the impact the Fed has on unemployment among African Americans and came up with the bizarre conclusion that the Fed can't do much:

"The Fed has a hammer, and, as the saying goes, not all problems are nails."

This conclusion is bizarre, because the data are very clear; efforts to reduce the overall unemployment rate disproportionately help African Americans and Hispanics. As a rule of thumb, the African American unemployment rate is roughly twice the unemployment rate and the unemployment rate for African American teens is roughly six times the white unemployment rates. (The unemployment rate for Hispanics is generally 1.5 times the white unemployment rate.)

In keeping with this rule of thumb, the unemployment rate for whites in January was 4.9 percent. It was 10.3 percent for African Americans and 29.7 percent for African American teens. Here's what the longer term picture looks like.

If we could get back to 2000 levels of unemployment, when the unemployment rate for whites bottomed out at 3.4 percent, we might see something like the 7.0 percent unemployment rate for blacks overall and 20.0 percent we saw for black teens back in April of 2000.

Alternatively, to flip it over and talk about employment rates, the percentage of black teens that was employed peaked at 31.7 percent in 2000, more than 50 percent higher than the 19.6 percent figure for last month. Does anyone really want to say that increasing the probability that black teens will have a job by 50 percent doesn't make a difference?

There is a separate issue as to whether it would be possible to get down to 4.0 percent unemployment without triggering spiraling inflation. This is an arguable point. But it is worth noting that those who say it is not possible to have 4.0 percent unemployment today also said that it was not possible back in 2000.

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