Lawful Assembly Podcast Episode 22: Suffer the Little Children

This is an interview with Rev. Craig B. Mousin, an Adjunct Faculty member of the DePaul University’s College of Law, Refugee and Forced Migrations Studies Program and the Grace School of Applied Diplomacy. The podcast requests that you send comments to the federal government before midnight eastern standard time on Tuesday, January 25 providing ideas to end the policies that have led to family separation and lengthy detention of asylum seekers.  The Biden administration has recognized the human tragedy caused by these policies and has requested your ideas to ensure the United States never engages in such policies and practices again.

ACTION STEP

You can use either of these links to send your ideas to the Task Force.

The National Immigrant Justice Center has provided the direct link to the request for comments:

https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2021/12/10/2021-26691/identifying-recommendations-to-support-the-work-of-the-interagency-task-force-on-the-reunification

A coalition of groups has put together this link for Immigrant Justice at:

https://immigrationjustice.us/advocacy/take-action/ensure-family-separation-never-reimplemented/?utm_source=fbt&utm_medium=ptnr&utm_campaign=famsep#/112/

You can use any resources or background material you find persuasive, but please make sure your comments uniquely represent your views.  Do not simply copy and paste someone else’s comments unless you add why you find them persuasive.  You can add your personal experience or why you believe the United States should end family separation and detention of asylum seekers.

The quotes from the Biden administration regarding the human tragedy of family separation and the goals of the Task Force can be found in the Background information produced by the Department of Homeland Security at:  https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2021/12/10/2021-26691/identifying-recommendations-to-support-the-work-of-the-interagency-task-force-on-the-reunification

Paragraphs 181 and 182 of the U.N Handbook on Procedures and Criteria for Determining Refugee Status under the 1951 Convention and the 1967 Protocol relating to the Status of Refugees (Geneva, January 1992) can be found at: https://www.unhcr.org/4d93528a9.pdf

The Supreme Court found that the Handbook provides “significant guidance” in INS v. Cardozo-Fonseca, 480 U.S. 420, 439, fn. 22 (1987).

The United Nations Declaration of Human Rights can be found at: https://www.un.org/en/universal-declaration-human-rights/.  (Adopted December 10, 1948)

The Convention on the Rights of the Child can be found at:  https://www.ohchr.org/en/professionalinterest/pages/crc.aspx (Adopted November 20, 1989).

For a discussion of how United States asylum policies have fallen short of the protections of the CRC, see Craig B. Mousin, “Rights Disappear When US Policy Engages Children as Weapons of Deterrence,” (January 1, 2019), AMA Journal of Ethics, Vol. 21, Number 1: E58-66, Available on SSRN at: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3317913

The National Immigrant Justice Center has several resources providing ideas that would end or minimize family separation.  You can find the letter it submitted to DHS at:  https://immigrantjustice.org/sites/default/files/uploaded-files/no-content-type/2022-01/Family-separation-policies-NIJC-comment-2022-01-19.pdf

This NIJC blog provides short summaries of issues of concern:  https://immigrantjustice.org/staff/blog/biden-administration-routinely-separates-immigrant-families.

NIJC also prepared this short video on family separation:  https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:ugcPost:6889620108780584960/

The Detention Watch Network provides several resources to more fully understand the extent of immigration detention as the United States has established over 200 locations throughout the nation.  See, for example, “Immigration Detention 101,” at: https://www.detentionwatchnetwork.org/issues/detention-101

or “Communities Not Cages,  A Just Transition from Immigration Detention Economies, (2021) at: https://www.detentionwatchnetwork.org/sites/default/files/reports/Communities%20Not%20Cages-A%20Just%20Transition%20from%20Immigration%20Detention%20Economies_DWN%202021.pdf

Need more information?  Church World Service’s Immigration and Refugee Advocacy Program invites you to a Families Belong Together program on Monday, January 24 at 7 p.m. (EST).  You may register for more information at:  RSVP here.  Speakers will share their expertise about the latest updates in immigration policy and the ongoing horrors of family separation.

Thank you for joining this effort to meet the Task Force’s goal “to ensure that the Federal Government will not repeat the policies and practices leading to the separation of families at the border.”   Please share this podcast’s request with others to lend their voice to ending these tragic policies and practices.