I didn't set an alarm this morning. I was so mentally and physically exhausted from Saturday and Sunday, that I decided to allow myself to sleep-in a little. I got out of bed at around 7:30AM and began to respond to texts and emails. Approximately 300-350 people have been released from detention by ICE, and we are working on reaching out to the families of every single person who is still in detention as a result of the August 7th, ICE raids in Missisppi.
While our organizers conducted the outreach and intake work at our staging locations, I sat in my hotel room for most of the day today and called the family members of the detainees we have identified. We have identified 60-70 detainees, not all of whom are bond eligible. The conversations I had with the family members involved me doing a quick screening of potential criminal and immigration issues, and then a request for the family member to help me gather documents to file with the bond motions. I explained the bond process to the family members and explained that it was not guaranteed that their family member would be bonded out because that decision is ultimately up to the immigration judge. I walked the family members of the detained through the document checklist, texted them the document checklist, and challenged them to get as many documents as possible, as soon as possible. The sooner we get the documents from the family members, the sooner we can file the bond motions and the sooner we can get folks out of immigration detention.
The gathering of the documents will take a couple days at least. Once we have gathered the required documents, we can begin filing these babies and arguing our hearts out in immigration court. Stay tuned on that.
During my phone-banking, I received a text asking me to go to the Canton staging location because they were in need of a Spanish-speaking immigration attorney. There are only 2-3 of us on the ground, so if ya'll know of any Spanish-speaking immigration attorneys available to come to Mississippi for a few days, please send them my way! I arrived to Canton and was able to speak to a few families before things slowed down. My phone didn't have signal at the Canton staging location, so I returned to the hotel to finish my calls and attend our daily organizer debrief.
A PIVOTAL CONNECTION was made at tonight's organizer meeting. We went through the logistics and comms and newly identified needs, while I impatiently waited my turn to talk about bonds (please please please, let me talk about bonds, because this is like the most important part of this whole operation!!) I didn't act that impatient in the meeting, I promise. Finally, it was my turn. I asked for there to be a designated volunteer at each staging location to help make copies of families' documents, to help organize the documents, and to inform the families of anything else they can gather to make the bond request stronger. After the meeting, I went straight to one of the organizers to talk about a couple emergency cases. While I was speaking with the organizer, I noticed a gentleman had walked straight over to me and was waiting patiently to speak. Once I had secured the information that I needed, I turned around and for the first time shook hands with a man by the name of Mitch McGaffey. McGaffey looked me in the eye and said something along the lines of, "Hi, I'm an attorney in Mississippi who knows a lot of local attorneys interested in helping ensure there is a permanent legal infrastructure that will help address these types of needs (immigration removal defense) today and in the future. For free." What? Really?!? This was music to my ears. He went on to tell me about a pro bono asylum case that he has an individual hearing for on Monday. Needless to say, McGaffey is a hero. He and his contacts will soon be equipped (tomorrow) to argue bond motions in immigration court, and we can all rest assured that once the outsiders, like myself, leave, the victims of the ICE raids will be in the hands of talented, willing attorneys who are here to stay. Great day today for organizing. I'm elated, excited to be here and grateful as ever.
More good news, GLAHR organizers joined the movement today. GLAHR stands for the Georgia Latino Alliance for Human Rights (http://www.glahr.org/). GLAHR is headed by the one and only Adelina Nicholls. It was awesome to meet some of the GLAHR organizers at our debrief meeting. I sat right in the middle of two, Kevin and Geovani. They are great and we talked about our home state and it made me miss Georgia a little bit. Just a little bit.
I also heard a rumor that Emilio Vicente will be joining the ranks soon. Emilio just emanates peace, and I look forward to him being here.
Wrapping up this edition of my blog by saying thank you and challenging you to never be complacent. We get to sleep soundly in our beds tonight, but many, many people will be sleeping far away from their family members under the watchful eye of ICE.
#insolidarity
Link to donate: https://bit.ly/31KncXx
No comments:
Post a Comment