The Latin American Concerns Committee calls your attention to two upcoming opportunities for you to become involved with Friends projects relating to Latin America and Latin Americans. The first is a program and dinner on March 23, 2019, in support of the Undocumented Student Scholarship Project of Sacramento Friends Meeting. The second is a one-week Teaching English Experience taking place in Antigua, Guatemala, January 3-11, 2020. Continue reading “News from Latin American Programs”
Category: Latin American Concerns Committee
Child Refugees and Migration
RESOURCES LIST
Child Refugees and Migration Subcommittee PYM Latin American Concerns Committee
Suggested Donations
If you are looking for organizations to which to donate, the four organizations listed below are doing important work on different areas of this crisis:
Grassroots Leadership
Grassroots Leadership visits women and children who being held in immigrant detention
facilities and is very active in the movement against family detention.
Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Services
LIRS helps with unaccompanied minors find sponsors, organizes campaigns to write letters to
detained immigrant families, and also helps set up shelters that provide alternatives to
detention.
Kids in Need of Defense
KIND provides pro-bono legal support to unaccompanied minors to be sure that they don’t
have to go through their immigration hearings alone
Quaker Meetings and Organizations
Several Monthly Meetings have issued minutes on this situation, which can be found on the Pacific Yearly Meeting website:
- Inland Valley Friends Meeting Minute on Central American Humanitarian Crisis
- Humboldt Friends Meeting Child Refugees Advocacy Letter
- Santa Barbara Meeting Minute on Child Refugees and Migration
- Redwood Forest Meeting Minute for Refugee Children
- Orange Grove Monthly Meeting Minute
- La Jolla Monthly Meeting Minute
- Letter from Friends Peace Teams
Organizations in California
These are groups in California that have been active with different aspects of this issue:
- East Bay Sanctuary Covenant
- Refugee Foster Care Program – Catholic Charities Santa Clara County
- California CLUE
- CANAL Alliance (San Rafael)
- Central American Resource Center – CARECEN –San Francisco, Los Angeles
- Centro Legal de la Raza (Oakland)
- Community Legal Services in East Palo Alto
- Dolores Street Community Services in SF
- Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights (SF)
- Legal Services for Children (SF)
- Pangea Legal Services (SF)
- Social Justice Collaborative (Oakland)
Background information and News updates
- Blog of Interfaith Coalition for Immigrant Rights
- Forced from Home Press Kit
- NPR: Child Migrants Settle Uneasily In The Big Easy
- The Child Migrant Crisis Seems to be Over. What Happened?
- NY Times: U.S. Religious Leaders Embrace Cause of Immigrant Children
- Women’s Refugee Commission. An expert resource and advocacy organization.
- “Forced From Home: The Lost Boys and Girls of Central America” Oct. 2012.
Border Assistance
- Southside Presbyterian Church, Tuscon.
- Borderlinks
- San Diego Immigrant Rights Consortium
- Ángeles del Desierto/The Desert Angels
Family detention
- “LOCKING UP FAMILY VALUES: The Detention of Immigrant Families”
- “America’s Family Prison” short video about family detention, with testimony from mothers and children
- “Immigrants for Sale” short video about for-profit detention facilities
- CIVIC, a national group that visits immigrants
- Grassroots Leadership, a community group in Texas that visits immigrants and lobbies to end detention
- LIRS. “Discussing Family Detention”
Social Services
- UNHCR Report: Children on the Run. UN Committee on the Rights of the Child’s report
- Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Services
- US Conference of Catholic Bishops
Lobbying and Political
- FCNL issues: immigration
- List of Legislation on Child Migrants and Immigration Bill Checklist.
AFSC - AFSC Detention and deportation pipeline
- Deutch-Foster amendment against bed quotas
- “HMM’s work in support of immigrant children and recently arriving families from Central America”
- Charles Chamberlain, Democracy for America
- Gabe Ortiz, America’s Voice
- Interfaith Immigration Coalition
- National Network for Immigration and Refugee Rights
Legal Services/Information
- “Step-by-Step Guide on Apprehension and Detention of Juveniles in the United States”
- The Flow of Unaccompanied Children Through the Immigration System, A Resource for
Practitioners, Policy Makers, and Researchers MARCH 2012 VERA Institute of Justice - Catholic Legal Immigration Network, Inc.
- PBS Newshour: Immigration lawyer helps detainees in New Mexico know their rights
- SIREN, Services Immigrant Rights and Education Network
Law Suits
For those interested in information about immigration lawsuits, this is the best to regularly check ACLU Social.
Recent posts on this website:
- “ACLU achieves class action lawsuit settlement that ends deceitful immigration practices”
Posted on August 27, 2014 - “ACLU SoCal commends Gov. Brown for efforts to help secure legal assistance for children at immigration court” Posted on August 22, 2014
- “Victory! Immigration authorities must stop coercing immigrants into signing away their rights” Posted on August 25, 2014
Notes of other articles/blogs/announcements:
The American Civil Liberties Union, American Immigration Council, Northwest Immigrant Rights Project, Public Counsel, and K&L Gates LLP have filed a nationwide class-action lawsuit on behalf of thousands of children who are challenging the federal government’s failure to provide them with legal representation in deportation hearings. See ACLU website for updates.
- Groups Ask Federal Court to Block Deportation Hearings for Children without Legal
Representation - Groups Sue Federal Government over Failure to Provide Legal Representation for Children
Placed into Deportation Proceedings - Children Shouldn’t Be Left Alone in Immigration Court
Video Resources
- Presentation on the book Border Patrol Nation by Todd Miller
- Which Way Home — Documentary, on Netflix
- De Nadie — Documentary, on Netflix
- “No Sanctuary: Big Business and Family Detention”
- Sanctuary 2014
- Southside Presbyterian Church, Tuscon, AZ.
- East Bay Sanctuary Covenant
Articles about individuals, situations. Personal stories good for conversations.
- Baltimore Sun piece on Hilda Lopez, teenager
- Lynnette’s blog posts about her friend Alta Gracias and her children
- How you Can Help, Children in Bay area article
- Refugee Crisis Hits Home
- SundayReview | Opinion “The Children of the Drug Wars: A Refugee Crisis, Not an Immigration Crisis” By Sonia Nazario JULY 11, 2014.
- NY Times: Honduran Youth Finds Welcome Mat at Oakland School Designed for Immigrants