Transcripts For CSPAN Discussion On Immigration Policy 20240713

For those of you who were not here yesterday, my name is jayesh rathod, im the associate dean for expeer enshal its my pleasure to welcome all of you here to the law school and i offer that welcome on not only behalf of our law school, cosponsoring by ericions, led hershberg and dennis stinchcomb, as well as the American Immigration Lawyers Association and our committee representatives. Again, thank you for everyone [applause] thank you for all of the hard work that the Planning Committee has put into making this event such a success. Thanks to all of you. I know you all have very busy schedules. I appreciate your willingness to be here. For those of you who were here yesterday, we have a series of enriching panels to face the facing migrant youth, some of the factors across the world, as well as some of the ways the asylum system is being challenged here in the United States as well as how we can understand more deeply the standards which is at the heart of the gathering. Were pleased yesterday and today to have such a broad range of experts in the room, not only legal scholars and practitioners but also folks from the social sciences, Mental Health professionals, other health professionals, folks with a broad range of expertise. We had some very fruitful conversations yesterday, and im sure they will continue today. Through the conversations, we hope to identify paths forward. I want to acknowledge the staff from the law school, from the center who have made this event possible, including many student assistance from the center for latin america and latino studies as well as several Staff Members here at the Washington College of law including our Public Relations team, the special events team, and others. And for many of you, i know in the room work at nonprofit organizations and you know how difficult it is to get the work done without the generous support of donors who can provide the Financial Resources we need to make these events possible. I want to acknowledge with tremendous gratitude the sponsors for this event, including jones day, kirkland and ellis, baker mckenzie, the law offices. Thanks for your support. [applause] and so were going to be beginning our second day of the conference with a presentation a Keynote Presentation from one of the leading experts in the field. Were really delighted to have with us today professor karen musalo. I will briefly introduce karen. For many of us, she needs no introduction. She is the founding director at the u. C. Hastings college of law. Its fair to say that she is the leading expert on the topic of genderbased asylum and the fact that she is a lead coauthor of refugee law and policy, a leading treatise on the subject. She has authored numerous book chapters and articles and relative our project, she has in gendermajor cases asylum serving as lead attorney in several cases. She has continued to publish in the field and has received numerous awards for her pioneering work in this area. Today she is going to be speaking to us about how we can restore protections in the area of genderbased violence. Please join me in warmly welcoming professor karen musula. [applause] prof. Musalo i am short, so can people see me over the screen since i dont have a box to stand on . Ok, and everybody can hear me. So first of all, thank you for that very generous introduction. Second, i want to thank the center of Latin America Latino studies and American College of law, the Planning Committee, if i have left anybody out, i apologize. Really an honor to be here and , speak to you. From the panels yesterday, we touched on some of the root causes for migration and we talked about genderbased violence, violence against women girls. Gangs. And so what i hope to do is talk about the law thats been eviscerated by this administration to, the law to provide protection and the title i was asked to title it restoring protection, and i will talk about that, but i think its important to give a little bit of the context of how this law developed and show the incredible sort of resistance to protecting women from genderbased violence so that you understand how we got to where we are now and now we might get to a better place. So forgive me for giving some of the history before i go into really the hopeful part of how i think we can restore protection. First of all, the conceptual barriers in this area going back to the beginning of the refugee intervention and protocol and state parties just didnt see survivors of genderbased violence as fitting. We know the refugee definition someone will find that your persecution on account of five grounds race, racial, nationalality, opinion or membership in a particular social group. So harms inflicted on women werent seen as being persecution, which is required for refugee protection. Gender, you have to show that the persecution is on account of one of the five grounds. Gender isnt one of the five grounds. That was another barrier. The concept of governments being the persecutors and often its private actors who are the prep perpetrators of violence. These were seen as conceptual barriers. When that Commission Free refugees began extending protection, it put out a series of directives in 1985 and im oversimplifying grossly, but basically, what you and chr canceled state parties to do was to see that a harm would be persecution it was a violation of human rights. Tracked in the concept these were cultural norms or religious dictates, they were violation of human rights and persecution. And the particular social group ground of the definition could include groups defined by gender and the persecution did not need to be by the state, it can be by a nonstate actor when the state would not protect. So there were advances and retreats over the years in the u. S. , and im going to focus more on the u. S. So in 1996, the board of immigration appeals issued the first precedent gender decision in the u. S. In a case involving grantingnital cutting, asylum, reversing an immigration judge and granting asylum from persecution of the fear of female genital cutting. This photo is a woman in detention. When she was out of detention and have been granted asylum. I love to show that photo because i think it really illustrates the dehumanization of people behind bars and just, and i just leave you with that thought. So even though there was this groundbreaking decision in 1996, there was a much more contentious route to recognition for Domestic Violence survivors. We had female genital cutting. Many of us thought that would open the door to all range of gender persecution, but it wasnt such an easy route. In 1999, the board of immigration appeals in matter of r. A. Reversed to a woman fleeing brutal Domestic Violence. This was during the clinton administration, and jeanette reno and the Justice Department did two good things before the end of that administration. Janet reno certified r. A. To and herand vacated it, Justice Department issued proposed regulations that would have really contemplated protecting survivors of Domestic Violence and other gender persecution. Those regulations were proposed in 2000. To this day they have never been finalized. Throughout the whole obama administration, we were like get those regulations and finalize them. It never happened. You see the depth of contention around this issue. Miss r. A. Herself was granted asylum by an immigration judge. It was as a level that wasnt binding precedent. It wasnt until the matter of arcg in 2014 that we actually got a binding decision saying that Domestic Violence could be the basis for an asylum claim. So think about that. All the way from 1999 to 2014 to get a decision saying that Domestic Violence could be a basis. But as well see, that was not to be long lived because of the Trump Administration. What did arcg do . The first decision recognizing Domestic Violence, it had a narrow Legal Holding. It just recognized remember i talked about the particular social Group Definition and how that could be used in cases involving gender persecution. So it had this nature roe holding say this social Group Defined by married women in guatemala unable to leave was a valid social group. Subsequent, even though it was a narrow holding, advocates really toe in and used arcg successfully advocate for other cases. Not just married women, but unmarried women, girls most interest forced into sexual relationships with gang members, child abuse survivors. Arcg, not revolutionary, but advocates really expanded to use it. So what happened . Sessions during his time as attorney general certified a case called a. B. To himself and used a. B. To reverse arcg and in reversing arcg, he reversed the grant of asylum to a. B. What did a. B. Do . This little i hate to show you a photo like this so early reason irning, but the had this is because when the attorney general did this i was actually contacted by reporter for the washington post, and im very proud of the fact is back to the dark ages is a quote from the reporter. I said, this refusal to recognize gender violence or Domestic Violence is a violation of womens rights and a basis for selling is yanking us back to the dark ages of how we conceptualize womens rights. But it is true. The point i was making and i think those of you in this room who know the tortured history winning recognition that womens rights is human rights, this was pulling us back. Ok. This is just a photo of miss a. B. Who has chosen to maintain her anonymity. Just to give you a sense of the person herself. And she did, if we had time, i would have shown you, but she a short videoas about her and her case talking about the persecution. So her case had very strong facts. This is not a case where the attorney general was looking for a week case, so she was married to her abuser, had three children with him. The abusers brother was a member of the salvadoran police. Extreme physical violence over the entire length of the relationship. The police were largely unresponsive. When i say largely unresponsive to the point of one time they issued her a order, her husband beating her, threatening her with guns and knives, no please give her a protective order and say, why dont you serve this on your husband . I think anyone who thinks of an enraged husband and say both she went to the police as her protective order is just absurd. She moved away and the abuser tracked her down and even after the divorce, he continued he actually raped her after the divorce. He told her nothing but death would set her free from him. Facts, what did sessions do in the decision of matter of a. B. . I wanted to distinguish here between what sessions attempted to do and what he actually could do legally because hes not operating in a vacuum. Theres a body of precedent. So what he tried to do was to foreclose all claims based on Domestic Violence, other gender violence, and fear of gang claims. He has this broad language, generally, you know, claims by persons pertaining to Domestic Violence or Gang Violence will not qualify for asylum. Hes trying to send this message, dont grant these claims. But the actual Legal Holding is much narrower and theres a lot of what lawyers call dicta. Statements about what the attorney general thinks. So he rejects the social group formulation that unmarried women, you know, unable to leave that actually had been a formulation developed by the department of Homeland Security itself and as i said approved in arcg. But he said that wasnt didnt meet the standard for Legal Standard for a particular social group. Then remember i told you that persecution has to be on account of . And, no, with Domestic Violence we say the violence is on account of this person being a woman in this relationship. Thats why the man abuses her. And thats what Domestic Violence experts will say. But what what sessions said is, this is just personal. It is not about gender. To try to separate out and say Domestic Violence is not about gender, this is what i mean about the ludicrousness of this. So what are the Actual Holdings of a. B. In addition to what i just told you questioning the social group and nexus. I said when it is a nonstate actor, the individual has to show the government is unable or unwilling to protect. So persecution is either by the government or by private actors that the government is unable or unwilling. He tried russians tried to raise the standard for what it takes to show unable or unwilling. He also suggested without any evidence that when the persecutor is an individual and not the government, it should be easier for the person to internally relocate and escape the persecutor. Which again is a requirement for asylum. If you could relocate and not be persecuted, you dont qualify for asylum. So he said these things in the decision without any basis really, more of an opinion. So what happened in terms of challenges to a. B. . This is where the restoring protection and whats happening, what are the strategies part begins. So im going to go over these four areas. Challenges of the a. B. Decision in the context of expedited removal. We talked about expedited removal yesterday. Litigation of ms. A. B. s individual case. Nationwide trends and digsecision making and strategies. Expedited removal. After matter of a. B. , or matter of a. B. And guidance that usic issued after a. B. Strongly implied that individuals with fear of gang cases couldnt pass that screening standard that someone must pass if theyre in expedited removal. If youre in expedited removal and you dont meet the screening standard for credible fear, you are removed and youre not permitted to apply for asylum. So what the government was trying to do was just anybody who appeared with a d. V. Claim or gender violence claim or fear of gangs to say well, after a. B. , these claims dont qualify. So there was a challenge to that, grace v whitaker, where the district a District Court judge in the district of colombia issued a conjunction. They argued that the attorney general committed many legal errors in his a. B. Decision and the judge agreed. And he issued an injunction against the application of a. B. In this way, incredible fear. That was a huge step because it prevented the government from just screening these people out and not even permitting them to apply for asylum. Of course, the government has appealed and we are awaiting a decision from the d. C. Circuit court of appeals. And we dont know which way it will go. But for now, these a. B. And cannot be used as a justification to screen people out in the credible fear process. Litigation in her own case. So as you know, when an individual is denied asylum, in that individual case, you appeal it. And then through that appeal hope to have the underlying decision reversed. So after the attorney general issued his decision in matter of a. B. , it was sent back to the Immigration Court where we were permitted to put in more evidence. We put in about 1000 more pages of evidence about gender violence in el salvador, inability of government to protect, and etc. , etc. But the immigration judge denied it again. I should tell you, judge couch is one of the judges who has about a 95 asylum denial rate. Which is not normal for those of you who dont practice immigration law, not normal. And he was also just recently appointed to be a judge. He was elevated, promoted to the board of immigration appeals. But point im making is it was remanded back to the same judge who denied it initially and he denied it again. So we appealed to the board of immigration of appeals. We submitted our briefing just last month. And were waiting for the board of immigration appeals to decide. The board of immigration appeals theoretically could find for her. Not likely. But if the board of immigration appeals denies, then we get up to the 4th Circuit Court of appeals. So we are in a federal court where if we prevail prevail, we would hope to get reversed a lot of the legal reasoning in matter of a. B. And i should say i spoke about grace v. Whitaker, but that only applies to credible fear. So that doesnt restrain judges who want to deny because of the merits a. B. Case. In the face of this decision in matter of a. B. That tries to fore close the claims, what is happening in reality to Decision Making . The center for gender and refugee studies we assist attorneys and attorneys tell us about the outcomes in their cases. Its not a representative sample. Its not comprehensive. Its that sample of attorneys who ask for help from us, and so also we wouldnt have any prose pro se cases. People cant or dont know about us or dont seek our system. This is what we have seen. Weve seen 50 unpublished cases for fear ofd. V. Gangs where there were 37 denials and 13 remands back to the immigration judge, and generally the bai cites the matter of a. B. And says after superficial analysis, you know, whatever. Not positive. Doesnt grant. In Immigration Court weve seen something different. Weve seen 170 asylum or withholding grants. In d. V. Or partner abuse, child abuse cases. Although theres many denials also. I dont want to paint an overly rosy picture. Weve seen at least 145 denials. But one Interesting Development and this will be more for the people sort of in the weeds on legal issues and legal theories here. After the attorney general struck down the social group and said unmarried guatemalan women unable to leave, theres a very simple social group that advocates had been trying to get recognized for a long time which is just gender and women. So to just a salvadoran women and guatemalan women. And a number of Immigration Judges have been granting on that simple straightforward articulation of social group. Again, which is a positive thing. There are a number of Circuit Court decisions. Some positive, but again, i dont want again to paint an overly rosy picture. But you could just see i did little pithy quotes from them. This was a case where the first one where the woman had proposed a social Group Similar to the one that sessions rejected in a. B. , and the court said well, you know, her case is weakened, but it doesnt automatically defeat her claim. Recognizing that each case has to be judged on the facts and the record. And here a judge had done exactly what i just said and granted on just gender and nationality. And then the board had reversed saying it was too broad. And the ninth circuit said no, no, thats not too broad. Go back to the drawing board and look at this again. So these are some positive developments. Also people are raising because of social group basis hasnt worked that much in cases involving women who are asserting their rights not to be beaten, attorneys are putting forward a political opinion basis. Remember, that is one of the five grounds. And feminism is a political opinion or the belief that the woman has the right not to be subordinated and beaten by her male partner. So this is being recognized by the courts also. And this court remanding to consideration that this political opinion basis of the claim might have been a legitimate basis. Then theres more negative decisions. I know im running quick out of time. This gonzalez case was a little bit more mixed where the court said, you know, matter of a. B. Doesnt ban the cases, but the bia was reasonable in finding that this wasnt a viable claim. And similar thing in this 11th circuit case. So Circuit Court decisions all over the place. What are some of the broader strategies . Were tracking, assisting attorneys, helping them build a record, litigating miss a. B. s case, and were tracking cases nationwide at the Circuit Court in bia levels. Because thats where we can win precedent. For instance, by tracking, and my last slide will give you information about how you could report an outcome in a case so we can no whats happening. Because were interveneingeing either as amicus or in these cases to bring our expertise to bear. Theres five d. V. Cases coming up for argument in the ninth circuit next month. And we have asked for them to be consolidated and putting an am amicus brief and all the attorneys are giving us some argument time. So this is the ninth circuit is a generally favorable circuit. Were looking to see if we can develop good law at the Circuit Court. And at the executive level, we are hopeful and planning around a change in administration, and a lot of you in this room have worked on a lot of new strategies im talking about, but theres a big book coordinated by Immigration Hub where looking at what are all the changes we would want in a new administration. And were working on this broader issue of humanitarian protection, which includes a call for the reversal of a. B. And other bad attorney general decisions. Weve been working with a lot of the president ial candidates. The staff of a lot of candidates, and most of the major candidates have said that pledge to reverse a. B. If they were elected. So legislative and im almost through. I know im running over time. I have two or three more slides. Weve also theres a marker bill, refugee protection act thats been introduced many times. Never had the chance of being enacted. But if there is if the 2020 elections are positive and the senate and the house might be more amenable, and so weve actually worked with congressional staffers to fix key terms in the refugee definition that really get in the way not just of gender claims, but fear of gangs claims, childrens claims, you name it. It would be by to remove a lot of the requirements that have been put in that really have been significant barriers. And then theres a number of Congress Members that are interested in stand alone bills to address a. B. Finally, were trying to do a lot around Public Education and messaging to build a broader movement, and so we have a website called immigrant women 2 where we have women sur visors of violence granted asylum telling their stories, and we have been working with local activists across the country to get at the city council or county council level, local resolutions about reversing a. B. Those are all the things that are going on. I remain hopeful on this issue. My last line here. Ill just quickly mention a couple of things. Those of you who are attorneys who dont know about us, we provide expert consultations, technical assistance, different kinds of resources in these cases. Please reach out to us. As i said, were trying to track outcome and cases. Theres how you can reach us to tell us the outcome in a case. Theres our immigrant women website. As some of you know, we started a database of expert witnesses and a number of you in the room are experts and are either in our database. We are trying to connect. Experts are important in these cases now. And then one resource that you might be interested in is this article matter of a. B. A. B. One year later that two of my colleagues wrote. He gives more detail. Those trends that i had just one or two slides about whats happening at the i. J. And the bia and the Circuit Court level, theyre detailed in a much more standed nature in this law review. So thank you very much for your time. I was going to try to leave time for questions, but i think i ate up all my time. I leave it to the organizers to decide what to do with me. Thank you, everyone. [applause] i think what we will do is its not your fight you dont have questions, karen. We did not put in enough time to give you for questions. This remind me i wanted to remind the audience that we have question cards on the tables. Please feel free and fill those out. There will be staff circulating that you can hand the question cards off to and theyll bring them to the moderator. So if you had questions for karen, we can incorporate those period for Lindsey Harris panel. Ill invite lindsey and the panelists for the family separation panel. Give us 30 seconds to set up their nameplates and they will get started. Its always intimidating to be the person to speak after karen. As one of my early mentors, i think for the last 15 years when i was a law student i found her presence and ongoing leadership in this fight to be inspiring but also comforting to know that she is still doing this and in this with all of us and leading the way. Thank you very much, karen, for your remarks. My name is Lindsey Harris. Im a professor at the university of the district of Columbia School of law. Its one mile away from here. I teach an immigration and human rights clinic. Today i have the honor of moderating this incredible panel of advocates, and we are going to take you perhaps even deeper into the dark place that Steven Manning referenced yesterday. It feels like this whole symposium has been in some ways building to this panel and it indeed a very dark moment as we think about family separation. When i say a dark moment, i dont mean to be misleading. Because the family separation crisis, manufactured by this administration in 2018, by no means began in april of 2018 when attorney general sessions announced a zero tolerance policy. Its by no means over today. So as we will discuss, family separation existed under previous separations and continues to operate today. I think what happened in 2018 was certainly which led to mass family separations was a dark moment in our history and one from which were continuing work through and recover. It was also a moment that catapulted the treatment of immigrant children into the spotlight and our national conscience. We saw Mainstream Media for the first time engage in issues in a we hadnt before. This was headline news. And also there was such a ground swell of public support opposing the separation of immigrant families. So if theres any Silver Lining to this administrations relentlessly cruel and racist policies in immigration, it is that we have new segments of society and i know many of you in the room have been in this fight for a long time. Far before the Trump Administration. But also perhaps some of you have joined this fight in response to what youve seen. So one Silver Lining for me is this new generation of immigration advocates who are more aware and more engaged in the issues than ever before. Were going to skip bios. You can find them in your program. If you take a look at the bios, youll confirm for yourself that the advocates on this panel were privileged to have with us today are indeed some of the many courageous individuals who have fought on the front lines alongside immigrant families and children in the last few years and well before. So i think we should really start with a round of applause in welcoming michelle, ashley, christy, and michael to the stage today. [applause] were going to try to do this as a little bit more of a conversation and some of the panels. Ill start with christy. As we said, family separation, zero tolerance, have become hot button issues amid headlines since april 2018. But, christy, can you share with us a little bit of the history behind the policies, where did they come from . Did they exist before they exploded into Mainstream Media . Sure. Thank you, lindsey. So i have been reflecting a lot kind of on the panels yesterday and thinking about the principle of the best interest of the child. And i think that thats a really important framework, because a lot of what happened during family separation during the crisis and before is really due to the fact that there is no guiding principle around the best interest of the child in the border context. And especially for families that are arriving at the border. Theres no real consideration of the best interest of the child when Border Patrol processes family units. A lot of that, the absence of having that, laid the ground work for this to be able to happen. Right . And a lot of those problems are still with us today, and ill go into that in more detail. But we still dont have like a guiding set of principles or standards relating to the best interest of the child in terms of processing a family at the border. So it is important to recognize that family separation didnt just start during zero tolerance. It was going on long before. It was going on in the prior administration. Although, to a much lesser extent. And i did want to mention that back in early kind lirs and womens refugee 2017, commission did a report calling betraying family values. That report came out of advocates starting to recognize that this was a problem, and i think fearing it could be a much bigger problem in the current administration. And the report documented several instances of separation at the border. You know, instances of separation of siblings, of family units, extended family units and the lack of tracking and all the problems related to that. But also forcible separations in some cases of buy logical biological parents and children. And then as we know now, later in 2017 advocates started to see a very disturbing number of forcible parent child separations. We know now that was from the Pilot Project happening in the el paso Border Patrol sector where the administration was basically testing out this theory what would happen if parents and child were forcibly separated. There wasnt, of course, there wasnt a lot of thought that went into that. There were huge problems with it. There were huge tracking problems. But i think also just going back to the report from 2017, all of the recommendations from that report are actually very relevant still to today. The report identified massive failures by the government to provide tracking systems to connect families to know which parent went with which child. And those systems were never put into place and we saw the absolutely horrific consequences of that during the zero tolerance period when the government struggled to connect parents and kids. Ashley, youll touch on the re reunification process. One of the key recommendations from the report was that dhs should improve the tracking systems, Start Talking to oro, o rr, develop better standards. But also and i think this is really important, that dhs should also consider the best interest of the child in all processing custody removal and repatriation decisions. Another key recommendation was dhs should require the hiring of Child Welfare professionals to oversee at the border and weigh in on all instances of family separation. So those recommendations, those two recommendations are from early 2017. Of course they did not obviously did not get implemented and of course laid the groundwork for all of the chaos and the horrific consequences of zero tolerance. I think its also important to point out and i think i will go back to this later in the panel, but even now after weve been through the horrors of family separation, we still do not have those standards in place. Cbp still is not evaluating the best interest of the child. They dont have to evaluate the best interest of the child. Weve been through so much litigation, but in many ways, very tragically, we are kind of back in the same place that we were even back in and ill get 2017. Into more detail later. There was a recent decision from a case that gave permission to dhs basically to continue to separate parents and children in many, many circumstances where there are questions about parentage or where the parent has a prior criminal history. So i think its again, just going back to the processing, we know now that kind of in that split second basically where Border Patrol makes the determination to separate a parent from a child, that very small kind of step in a process it doesnt take long for them to make that determination but the last and rippleing effects are so profound. We know immediately after that decision is made, the child could be sent 3000 miles away to an orr facility. The parent goes to an adult facility or the parent is quickly deported from the United States and the child is left in theorr facility. Still, there are huge and pervasive problems with information sharing between the two agencies with information sharing between orr and advocates or attorneys for children. And it is still very hard to reunify parents and children, even when an improper separation has occurred. So we know now, too, there have been at least 1200 children separated since the end of zero tolerance policy. I think thats an important starting framework. Again, where were still in this position where were fighting for better standards. Where were fighting for better framework in place. But not to take us to too darker pessimistic of a place, but i think were still where we started in 2017 to sum it up u. So the policy [inaudible] sorry, april 2018 was when this came to public awareness. And as representative jayapal spoke to yesterday, there were organizing efforts and getting americans, our communities out in the streets to protest this, resulting in action from the white house to end family separation. Can you speak to some of the legal challenges to family separation . You mentioned the miss l. Case but are others. Im hoping you can speak to how the challenges have played out in the courts. Are they resolved . The cases i know are still ongoing. The main family separation case i think as everyone knows the mizel versus ice case. This was filed on behalf of a woman separated from her child before the zero tolerance was officially announced. It was more during the Pilot Project phase. The judge in the Southern District of california who has presided over the case issued an injunction on enjoining the june 2018 government from separating parents and children and finding the separations violated due process and the Constitutional Rights of family integrity. And i know as were going to hear from ashley in a moment, around that after the injunction, there was this massive effort to reunify parents and children, and that we saw really when the all the issues related to tracking and data information. In the late the late spring kind of around that same time period couple of additional , a challenges were filed. There was the dora v sessions case filed and the mmm case. Pretty focusedas on the fact that parents when they had had their credible fear interviews and reasonable fear interviews after they had been separated from their child did not have a meaningful opportunity to present their claims for relief because they were so understandably upset by the fact that they were separated from their child. The trauma was enormous. How can you ask someone to really be in a mental state that you need to be in to focus on their asylum claim at that moment . So that was the crux of the dora case. The mmm case was more focussed on the childs procedures. All three cases were grouped together before the judge for the negotiation of Settlement Agreement that ended up covering certain aspects of the cases were some of the key issues in the cases. And also a Steering Committee was created to assist with the reunifications, particularly with locating parents deported from the United States without their children. I should just note that at kind we are a member of that Steering Committee, along with the Womens Refugee Commission and justice in motion. So we actually meet weekly even now to discuss various ongoing issues related to the Steering Committees work. The Settlement Agreement that came out of the three cases when they were grouped together was the result of a lot of negotiation by the different attorneys that were involved in the cases. But it was kind of from my perspective perspective, it was hard for all those issues to be grouped together. There were a number of people involved. I think we came out with a really imperfect result. I should say kind was not involved in negotiating this Settlement Agreement. The Settlement Agreement entitled parents who had not passed their credible fear interviews or their reasonable fear interviews to have the opportunity to have a review of their cfi or rfi, they were not entitled to a completely new review. But they could have a review before the asylum office. And it also granted the right to anyone whose notice to appear had not been filed at the time of the Settlement Agreement to actually file an application for asylum as though they are affirmative. Which is interesting in that did end up being a nice benefit for a lot of people, but the big problem remains that not all of these things have been fully implemented. So the asylum offices havent really even a year and a half later they havent gotten training or guidance about how to do this. Weve had a couple of cases go forward through the processes, but not a lot. Theres a lot of people waiting, and kind of wondering whats going to happen. And the one year filing deadlines were hitting at the same time. For a lot of our in our case, the we have a few hundred cases in total at kind. We just had to go ahead and kind of preserve that oneyear filing deadline without knowing what was happening with this process. The other element of the Settlement Agreement, ill cover quickly, was the opportunity for in cases where parents had been deported from the United States without their children for rare and unusual cases to be brought to the attention of the court for consideration of the possible return to the United States of those parents. There was a lot of confusion about what that term really meant, rare and unusual. Every situation in which a parent was separated from their child in the deported without the child should be rare and unusual. It is absolutely egregious. But certain cases were identified through the work of the Steering Committee, which made thousands of calls to those parents and partners on the ground and justice in motion went out to visit with those parents and meet with those parents, found that a number of parents, one, had very serious protection concerns. And also had very serious violations of their due process rights, and in the context of the separation and many of them were coerced so they were told that they would not see their children again unless they agreed to be deported. Or there were other serious defects in the process like they rfis, etc. Ill wrap up quickly here, but just to say that after a lot of back and forth, and negotiating with the department of justice, ultimately the judge ordered the return of 11 parents to the United States. He really went through the records and the files of every parent to find those cases where there was like that coercion or serious defects in the process, and then there was also another huge effort to bring back 29 of the deported parents to the port of entry. Which many people may have heard about. Just one more thing to mention as morein 2019, extensive reports emerged that family separation had really started back in 2017 in the el paso Pilot Project, the judge upon a motion also agreed to expand the class. And i think that was a pretty remarkable aspect of the history of the litigation. He decided to expand the class going back to july 1, 2017. So then the government had to account for all those additional hundreds of kids that were separated going back into 2017. And then turn over all of the names to the Steering Committee. So thats why the work of the Steering Committee is really continuing along now, and were all working together to try to contact those parents to confirm if theyve been in touch with their children, to see if there are any serious concerns like some parents that have been contacted have said, i want my child back in the case of parents that were deported. And i dont know how to do that. So then weve been able to kind of connect them up with different partners and with justice in motion for next steps. So thats kind of the current state of things. Were still trying to contact families that are in the United States. Its turned out that a lot of its a lot harder to find families in the u. S. Than it is in central america. So the Steering Committee sent out letters recently to a lot of the members of the expanded class. Ill throw it out that you may potentially if youre working with kids in the expanded class or with parents, some people may be getting those letters that are coming from the Steering Committee at some point. Thank you. Thats so helpful. As you said, some and not all of these families have actually been reunited at this point. So were going to shift a little bit to talking more about the reunification process. Ashley, i know you and your organization have been deeply involved in this. Im hoping you can share your experiences in working with the families through the reunification stage. Sure. First, thank you so much to American University center for latin america and latino studies for having this important conference. I do want to talk a little bit about the work that the u. S. Conference of catholic bishops in the Lutheran Immigration Services did to redefine at the Trump Administration request. But i want to point out that were only talking about 1100 fits units that we reunifyied in june, july, and early august of and there were 2018 many families who did not have that chance and remain separated. I think its important to talk about what happened, and why in many cases were still seeing many of the same issues. Thanks in part to many of the efforts of the lit gators, particularly from the miss l case, we were approached by the Trump Administration because they needed to comply with the order to reunify certain families. And they needed assistance to do this. We think we were approached because both aggression refugee c serviceand lisr ua providers in partnership with hhs office of resettlement, we also have extensive experience and presence at the border with our Respite Centers and different points. I think its really important to understand that in the moment that this happened, there was no clear cut plan for reunification. That can be applied to us as National Agencies with National Presence and experience decades of experience in this area. And it can also be applied to hhs and the department of Homeland Security. I think the individuals working for the government on the ground worked every bit as hard as we did day and night to do this. But you literally could say we were building the airplane as we were flying it. I have a report that we and the lutherans did on kind of the story of the reunification thats available outside. It talks a little bit in more detail. But i want to highlight a couple things. First, per the miss l litigation, the children were kind of grouped into two different groups. One was five and under and onewest five through 17. The way the reunification age five andthe under is that we were instructed to bring children who have been identified to certain sites and then reunify them with the parents who would be transported to the individual sites. There were concerns about the trauma that these tender age children have experienced. We as part of trying to be i think as responsive as possible to the family and the reunification, offered services afterwards. We offered our contact information, where the families were going. Of that small number of under five children, id say we had about a 15 response rate. Parents wanted nothing to do with followup services from anyone. They were terrified. Once we finished the phase one, we moved into the larger category of children that were to be reunified, and that was children aged over five to 17. For this, the department of Homeland Security and hhs decided that children would be brought to the detention facilities where the parents had been identified. They would be reunified pending an interview, and then they would be sent to either a catholic or a lutheran Respite Center mostly along the border dashboard that reunification to occur. Stabilization in the immediate construe occur. And then the families moved on. For that effort, we with the lutherans, were able to reunify approximately 1025 family units. The lutherans in our partnership were able to assist approximately 200 family units. And the Catholic Network assisted about 900 family units. I will say to you that there were so many moments i think of real concern with kind of how the process was going, how children were going to reunify with their parents. What that would look like in terms of their stability going forward, how the family unit would continue. One thing i think is important is that we find ourselves dealing with today is this issue of data in this issue of making sure that people are accounted for. My colleague from kind mentioned we are still grappling with the numbers. And this was particularly true in this small class of the 1100 that were subject to the miss l litigation unification. We are not certain the department of Homeland Security and hhs had an exact member of the children they were subject to redefine and had an accounting on their own. We did our own accounting of this information. It is written in a report. But again, not certain there was any clearcut way to ensure that their data was correlating with our data as we sought to reunify the children with their parents. You know, again, the stage two group, we did try to offer social services and we did try to ensure a lot of the families could at least have access to legal information or know your rights. We saw a higher degree of participation in terms of what i would describe as quasi post release services. But not as much as wed like, in part because of the trauma the families had to reintegrate as a family unit to be able to find stable housing, whether with family or friends. And then i think as michelle will talk about, the great obstacles for encountering meaningful Legal Services and access to the assistance. That being said, there were a couple moments i think where the existing framework of Legal Services shines through. Many of you may be familiar with the information help desk. It is relatively new that has been implemented. California was one of the largest destinations to the families that we saw. Kind of ensuring that we could get some sort of legal screening. And know your rights. Luckily the information helped out in los angeles was able to actually make contact with four or five families that had gone there and help them and helped to identify them. Im sure they were on the path of actually getting some assist stance. I cant say enough as we think about the importance of these programs that they are everything. We have to continue to maintain legal orientation, legal orientation for custodians. Welcome values to work to respond to the increased detention that were seeing. While that was a positive thing, i do i think were going to talk about this later. But the Data Collection issue still remains and its particularly it seems as if lessons have not been learned. You know, our report similar to the lutheran, kind womens refugee report gives recommendations suggest best that practices. I think it is important to understand that while we as a community were able to come together and initiate a turn back, these issues are still occurring. And we do have to work harder, i think, to press for basic access to the services and transparency of data as well as eliminating , these sort of separations that seem to be so casually occurring every day. Thank you so much, ashley. I do not know about anyone else in the room, but listening to all of that it is hard not to get emotional. But i want to build on what was said and ask michelle if you can walk us through some of the needs that the family have. I know that the clinic, your organization through the program and even more specifically now the projects you have with the Assistance Project, they have been working hand in hand with these families and various partners. Thank you so much, lindsay. And thanks so much for everyone for being here today. More specifically to the Planning Committee, 3 jaish, andve a couple of them army he has created over the years. Were grateful to him on many fronts. As she was saying, its very hard to find populations in the United States. You wouldnt think they would be harder to find in the u. S. As opposed to guatemala. But it is. The clinic learned this firsthand with our work on the which isbono project , the family detention project that we had alongside with lindsay on that a few years ago. The family detention project childrene mothers and detained, and still are, in texas. When they were getting released they were going all over the country. We were noticing the orders of deportation issued by judges, when people do not show up to court, that those rates were skyrocketing. So we quickly figured out how to get in touch with the mother, so we could figure out how to get them the information to be able to navigate the immigration process, but to also give them information on specifically other things, how to avoid that order of removal. Created an online secret group from the mothers. And that is now over 3,000 mothers. We started it at the clinic. But now, the organization, the Asylum Seeker advocacy project my which is a great organization, they have created ways of just making sure that the families know the information and how to reach them. Given that experience, we also created a Facebook Group for the formerly separated families. And we have i think, every day it changes, but i think it is now over 220 parents in that group that allows us to understand what they are facing, what they need and how we can respond. Another way we know what is happening is through the National United families Assistance Project. That in particular is something asap. E lead with and other organizations have really tried im glad you heard from Stephen Manning yesterday. They have trying to tie everything together. The piece that is so important its a National Data base done , in a confidential manner. We have partners across the found, who when they are when they have family out there, they put in the information. We know where they are. Do they have council. Do they not have council. And that allows us to focus on those families who do not have council, try to find them council. From that data base, we know for example, that there are 100 just in this area, in maryland and virginia, who have hearings coming up that do not have Legal Counsel. So if youre interested in helping, let me know after the panel. So what are these buckets of needs the families are facing . There are legal needs, transportation, Mental Health needs, of course, and interpreters. The last one is protection from scams. Or protection from i guess, yeah, generally scams. I will talk about that last. Given the hasty manner in which this whole thing was done right . ,even our luggage is better connected to us after a flight than these children were to their parents. Thats insane. Given the manner in which of these were all done, the families reunited, we have parents without complete immigration files. So as we were trying to place their cases, we had no idea where in the process these parents are. Do you need another credible fear interview . What do we do next . We had no idea. So that was the first hurdle. Thended up filing a lot of use, they are in litigation now, trying to find where they were in the process was important. So then we also seated saw that they needed motions to change venue. What happened with the families, has happened with family cases were those venued along the border, where they were unified in the catholic shelters that actually talked about. Not where they were going in the interior. Right . So they are at a disadvantage because they will have to do a motion to change venue in english. They may need an attorney for that, they probably should have an attorney for that as well. Hearing, to go to the travel all the way back to where lots of trauma was going to be triggered again in addition to , having to travel and expend resources. So that was the first hurdle, not to mention the judges who at those courts, for example in el paso, were issuing extra requirements in order to get the change of venue approved. So they definitely needed attorneys at that point and we realized that. We looked at motions to reopen. For those families who had not gone to their hearings because they did not know where to go, they do not have a checkin, they thought that the ice check in was court. That happened a lot. Parallelss a lot of and lessons learned. We have been filing motions to reopen for those families. We might do them inhouse, even though the clinic does not do direct services, with exceptions. We have a nationwide network of nonprofits across the country. So we will do a motion to reopen ourselves, we have engaged law firms to do this work as well because it can be done remotely, that is something that we have from the lessons learned. We have a lot of those for the Mothers Committee report on that, 100 reopened success rate for those families. We did those motions. So far, so good, with families that have been separated, with their emotions, but we are willing to take that all the way to the court of appeals if needed. The other thing, the second bucket i talked about it is transportation. We have been lucky in certain areas to find Legal Counsel one way we have found Legal Counsel for the families is thanks to ashley, the report that they issued in addition to the national reunited family Assistance Project database, we learned that florida was the number recipient state of these one families. And mostly in central and northern florida. We were able to place to attorneys specifically devoted to representing these families, primarily in orlando, with one of our affiliates. It is great, we had two fellows there and we have found wonderful attorneys fully , accredited. But the next hurdle was the families did not have transportation, they could not even get to court. If they cannot get the court, they have that abstention order. So we have a partnership with lyft, so they could help us get the family there is. So we could dispatch lyft to go and we tried to respond to the two ways of facebook. Mental health needs, that is an familieseed for those trying to get pro bono, mental. Health assessment. It really an ongoing to need. It is not just about assessment in court, this is an ongoing need and if they do not get it it is you know, i worry about that especially for the , children. But we see the trauma come through in so many ways and its really hard. The interpretation needs these families have a lot of rare indigenous language needs that we have not had before. That weis an extra cost had not prepared for in our kind of funding, for example with our two fellows in florida. But we do. We need additional funding, Additional Services for indigenous language interpreters. If you are such a person out there, if you know anyone, come see me afterwards. The last bucket, if you will, protection from scams. It is kind of a blanket term because i see scams like wage an hour. So a lot of the families are having wage an hour issues so and states in the south. Like in mississippi alabama. , take note that we just had a in raid at the poultry plant mississippi, and at this weekend we heard of families getting phone call saying you need to call in the next three hours and give us this information and if not, you will be in trouble with immigration. It is a scam. I called and i figured out that it was a scam. But they are susceptible to so many scams. This happens to immigrant populations. They are not the first to go through this. But being able to get that on the groups income if you get a call from immigration that says give us data, that is not immigration, do not call them, let us know right away. That is another way that again the Facebook Group has been really helpful as well. So i think that that is these were not enough. But i think that i will end there with the rundown. Again, i forgot to press the thing. We have so much experience here and is so much to share with you. We were hoping to talk about the issues of damages and litigation. For what they have been through. I would urge you if you have questions about that, come out talk to the panel afterwards. I think that michelle will have insight on that in particular. We were hoping to get to talking about the issue of family separation and how that intersects with other issues we have been discussing, the migrant protection protocol. I said prosecution protocols, because that is really what they are, but sorry, advocates call them migrant persecution protocols. They are migrant protection. We may get to that, we may not. I want to make sure that we get to where medical expert, because we have been talking about the families, a lot about data in a sense that can be dehumanizing. So i really want to bring this contextualizel to this with a case study and help us understand their obvious, although it merits further explanation some of the physical , and Mental Health separation for these families, for these children. Sure, i would be happy to. Thank you all for having me here. Its not a pleasant topic. But im glad to have the opportunity to present. When i met the child i will be talking about today, it was disturbing to hear what she had been through. And i was ashamed that i am a citizen of a country that would do that to a person. So whenever i have the chance to talk about it, i take it, even though it is not a pleasant thing to talk about. So im a psychologist. Opportunity in this case to provide a psychological evaluation for a child who had been brought to this country by her mother. And and separated from her mother upon crossing the border into the United States. And the goal of the evaluation was to show how the experiences in her home country where impacting her emotionally, but also show the risks if she were forced to return to her home country. And i think what was most shocking to me in this situation was well, first of all, this was one of the first children who i had met who had been separated from a parent. This was in 200 i met her i think six or eighth months ago. I think the separation took place in 2018. And and upon having the experience i had the sense i would see more of this, and i have had the chance to see more of this. As anyone can imagine there is a psychological impact when children are separated from their parents, especially when it is a forced separation. That is true for any child theyre at higher risk of , depression and anxiety. When we talk about ptsd, posttraumatic stress disorder, we are usually talking about perceived threats to somebodys physical wellbeing, the threat of death. Excuse me. Threats of death, threats of Sexual Violence and physical violence. However, when we think about the Emotional Experience of being separated from ones primary caregiver, particularly in the setting of coming to a new country, the different languages the fear that comes from , immigrating. I think that, make no mistake that is an existential threat. It is perceived as a risk of being in the same way when were perceiving risk of being afraid of physical harm. Another risk i want to hit on excuse me that many of these children are already more vulnerable than the average child at the time they brought they are brought into this country. A good way to think about this is to consider the aces study. It has been a really big deal. What Adverse Childhood Experience is the study shows that children who are exposed to one or more of these Adverse Childhood Experiences are at risk of significant longterm challenges. And so the Adverse Childhood Experiences detailed in this study are those associated with abuse, victims of physical, verbal and Emotional Abuse sexual abuse. ,neglect or living in extreme poverty. There are household factors like a caregiver abuses alcohol, or where a caregiver goes to prison. May a caregiver dies. Witnessing violence in the home. So as you can imagine, these children being brought here, they are not being brought here because everything was fine at home. They have already been exposed to these risk factors. The child i will talk about today, gabby, was exposed to several of these and many of her specific experiences has laid the groundwork for what became the severe emotional stress that the child separation called her caused her after crossing the border. Gabby was born in central america. She lived with her parents for her first few years of life. Her biological parents, both parents during that time she witnessed Domestic Violence. Her father abused alcohol. There was a lot of conflict between her parents throughout her early childhood. And i believe her father was in the home until she was about four or five, and immediately prior to her parents separating gabby was a victim of attempted Sexual Assault perpetrated by her father, and she actually recalled some memories associated with two experiences as a child of risk of Sexual Assault. After those experiences, her mother decided to separate from her father. And for the following three years or so, they lived in relative peace. Her mother, gabby, and her mothers mother, so gabbys maternal grandmother. When gabby was eight or nine years old, her biological father contacted her mother and made attempts to reconcile, which her mother rebuffed. And at that gabbys father began point, making threats threats to gabbys mother, but also threats specifically about gabby. Threats to kidnap her, to take her away. Threats that gabby would not ever see her mother again, and although gabbys mother does not recall specifically telling her about these threats, gabby had a rough sense of them. She heard whispers about it or maybe she heard her mother and grandmother talking about it. Gabby actually told me that she was under the impression that her biological father had said that he was going to come steal her. So she was aware to some degree of the threats that her father was making. You can kind of anticipate where this is headed. Gabby, while living in her home country before the family decided to come to the United States, was already experiencing some fear that she could be separated from her mother. Fear that her biological father who had attempted to assault her , sexually, assaulted her mother, that her father would take her away from her mother and that she would not see her mother again. There was one or two instances right before the family decided to immigrate to the United States where gabby and her mother were leaving school and her father was there, so her father started stalking her. This was the first time she had seen her father in three or four years. She probably had very little memory of him, but when she saw him she knew who he was. She looked toward her mother. Her mother was fearful. They fled the scene and were able to get away and that is when gabbys mom decided to bring her to the United States. Fast forward to crossing the border, they are separated from one another. Gabbys description of it is that she was thrown in a cage with many other children. All the children were crying. All the children were separated from their parents. She was given a small blanket, which i think she even described as, like, a bag, and she remembers being cold. She remembers being afraid that she would not see her mother again, in part because a guard told her that her mother was probably going to get deported. So she developed a very reasonable fear that she would never see her mother again or that her mother would not be in the same country, let alone the same facility. Over the course of the week that she was separated from her mother, gabby made a friend, and it was helpful for her to have a friend because they could keep each other warm, which is really very disturbing. She described the week in horrific terms, as you can imagine. After the week apart, she was reunited with her mother. They came to the washington, d. C. Area. They began living with extended family members. Gabby was obviously glad to be reunited with her mother. She experienced a pretty severe emotional decompensation following the reunion. Her mother described it as gabby kind of going crazy. She was tantruming like a baby by the time she was 9, 9 and a half, 10 years old. Sort of tantruming like a toddler. She had difficulty regulating her emotions. Her mom described that gabby was having many symptoms of ptsd including intrusive memory symptoms. Frequent nightmares, having difficulty not thinking about what had happened. She had symptoms of depression. She seemed sad much of the time. She was extremely irritable. Mom described severe behavioral challenges. Gabby also was not able to sleep on her own whereas she had been sleeping on her own for many years. She was nine years old, 10 years old. She and her mom started cosleeping again, and these symptoms persisted for about a month as gabby readjusted to being with her mother and trying to mend the damage to the relationship that the separation had caused. I saw gabby approximately one year later. By that time, both gabby and her mother explicitly described how she was doing pretty well. The tantrums had long faded. She was sleeping well. She had started school and was doing fairly well in school. My experience of gabby was not that she was doing well. I had a lot of trouble i think kids this age have a sense of what it means to see a psychologist, even if they do not quite cognitively know what that means. They know they will have to talk about their feelings. They know they will have to talk about traumatic experiences, and gabby presented as a child who had been through severe trauma. She was extremely withdrawn with me. It was really hard to develop much of a rapport or much comfort in our relationship. Avoided eye contact, spoke in a very quiet voice. I never once was able to get anything resembling a smile out of her. Im not saying that is what she is like in her daytoday life, but that is what she was like with me, and even though both she and mom said that she was doing well more generally speaking, there were other kind of signs that underneath the surface, there was still a lot going on in terms of response to trauma, so i did some projective testing, which is basically testing designed to elicit more in terms of potentially unconscious or underlying Emotional Distress. These examples here, i showed them a picture of a child with a parent, and they are doing something, and gabbys job is to describe what is happening. I actually want to read the details about some of her responses because they were really striking. I showed her 10 cards, and my job is to get a sense of what i of what she is describing. She described a child as feeling sad or fearful in response to each card. Some of these cards are designed to elicit that, some are not, but on each card, she would use the word sad or scared, afraid. She describes people feeling angry on at least five occasions. She used words reflecting positive emotion on just one occasion. She also described children as fearful and seeking safety and protection. She described a girl who wanted to be protected because of what was happening. She described a story in which two children are hugging each other because something bad is happening that they dont want to see and they are protecting each other. She also describes a child who is afraid because of a nightmare. Also this is a quote afraid because of a nightmare and scared because of reality, afraid of what she will see, in shock. In that story she described a sees it woke up and is not real, but is still very scared. She also described an instance in which a woman is being forced to kiss a male, a male is forcing himself on another woman, and in general, described many girls specifically who are at risk of physical danger. As you can tell, her presentation during the interview, her responses on projective testing, despite the fact that she is doing well and recovering, and quite frankly, given her experience, i think she is doing really well despite that, there is still a lot going on underneath. The trauma is still there. My goal in addition to sort of detailing all this in report and presenting it to the lawyers so they can use it to hopefully help this family get what they need from a legal perspective. My goal is to make sure mom understands that it is completely normal what gabby is going through, what she went through and described in terms of the period immediately after the separation is normal. The fact that these things are that her behavior is improving, and yet, there are still these challenges. All that is completely normal. And preparing mom for the fact that even though she is doing well now, she is still at risk of longterm challenges. Anything that comes up that might trigger the underlying Emotional Distress that i want mom to be on the lookout for, including meeting with me, including meeting with lawyers, including what potential court dates might be coming up. And obviously encouraging the family to seek therapy for her, which is a hard sell, given that gabby does not want to talk about these things. The last thing she wants to do is talk about these things. Gabby, like i said, was the first child i saw who endured the parent child separation. Sad to say i think i have seen a few more since then, and i fear a few more will be coming my way. Thank you so much, michael. Michael is just painting the picture of the devastating short and longterm consequences that a week in family separation had. And we know this is still happening. We have a couple questions from the audience. Another question here for the panel is can we give any examples of how families are still being separated . We know it is not technically through the zerotolerance policy, but how does the remaining mexico mpp work and how do these policies still exist today to force these separations . That could be for any of you. Going back to what i was alluding to at the beginning about the ongoing issues in the litigation, just kind of general standards. Of so the parent child separations are continuing to happen, and unfortunately from the ruling from a few weeks ago, dhs can continue to separate when basically when theres a parent criminal history issue. That is very deeply troubling to us, because as we know there are many types of criminal offenses that do not mean that someone is and that somebody would be unfit to be a parent or someone is a danger to their child. Weve been keeping a close eye on that issue for about a year now, and we really saw last spring, we started to see like a very disturbing uptick again in separations. And we know now there have been over 1000 kids separated since of the injunction in june of 2018. Most of those are due to criminal history. Some were due to communicable disease. We even have a case where a dad was separated from his daughters because he was hiv positive. The judge did ultimately find that separation to be unlawful. Thank goodness. But i think this demonstrates the ongoing impunity of cbp and the wide discretion that they they have to make those separations at the border, and unfortunately because of the ruling from a few weeks ago from judge sabra, they are permitted to continue to do this when the parent has a criminal offense. And again it does not have to be a criminal offense that necessarily involves any consideration of danger to the child. I think were still were still kind of digesting that order, to be honest. I think were still trying to