 To win asylum, there's never direct evidence. There's no letter from the torturer to say, I tortured so and so in this manner for this reason on this date, but every adjudicator demands that level of evidence. And it's really, the whole system is stacked up against asylum applicants. So we do our best to sort of answer those questions without that evidence, but it's a real struggle. And especially when somebody who has been traumatized and that does affect memory, and now they feel like they're being attacked. So I really do feel in this area of law having an attorney is crucial. I don't know how anyone could do the cases otherwise. The human rights and the economic issues, the legal issues that confront people who are coming to this country and the rich cultural heritage that they add to the United States and of course to other places and the skills and cultural experience that they bring are, as we can see, have been important for a very long time. And right now, all you have to do is pick up the newspaper, turn on the radio, or look at the news in any way and you can see what the struggles are of people trying to immigrate. And then what we're going to be focusing on today is what happens and what are the support services, who are the people who are here and what are their stories and what are the stories of the people, the amazing people who are working in Boston and Massachusetts to support, integrate, and advance New Americans. Before starting to talk a little bit about Mira, I just wanted to give you a very brief history of who I am and why I am in this work. We went around and everybody talked about their ancestors and where they came from. I was born in Albania. It's a very tiny country in Eastern Europe. They had one of the most severe dictatorships in the world and I'm also of Greek descent and my parents were separated because of the Cold War from their parents. I'm actually the fourth generation of naturalized citizens. My great grandparents came in early 1900 from Greece and then my grandparents in 1907 and 1904 and then my parents couldn't get out because the borders closed and the country was under a very severe communist regime. So the issue of integration and family reunification, it's near and dear to my heart. My background, it's in law and policy. Before joining Mira, I worked on refugee resettlement and refugee policy and I saw firsthand as to how much needed to be done in terms of the advocacy work and changing the system and making it really accessible for foreign-born immigrants, refugees and people of other status. And so that's who I am in a nutshell and I joined Mira in 1999. Mira stands for Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy Coalition. We are the largest entity in New England promoting and enhancing immigrant rights and immigrant integration and I'll talk in a minute as to what I mean by integration and why I'm not using the word assimilation. And we're also a powerful player at the national level, a co-founder of the National Partnership for New Americans which is the umbrella organization of state coalitions and grassroots and policy groups across the nation that is present in 34 states. And as Jude mentioned, Mira was founded by a Jewish American, Nero Leiberger, who is my inspiration and I joined Mira because of her. So it was her vision in 1986 when she was doing resettlement at the International Institute of Boston and President Reagan signed into the Law of the Immigration Forum and Immigrant Responsibility Act. They gave a path to legalization to about 3 million unauthorized workers across the country. So in a way, we are a product of a Republican administration at Mira and a group of other supporters, Frank Sherry, that I'm sure a lot of you know who had left the National Immigration Forum and it's now with America's voice, got together and on a napkin at McDonald's started thinking about what do we need, a voice for this newly legalized group of people and how can we best help them pursue their citizenship. So Mira started as a very small policy shop of a two people organization and focusing very much on creating those, creating a dialogue and an opportunity for community-based groups and members and legal services and others to really have a conversation with the government and provide a forum for the groups who represented immigrants and refugees to have a dialogue and an opportunity for better policies, for better practices and create credibility to make recommendation for policy changes and implementation of issues on immigration. So from there, Mira grew into the largest in New England. The story goes that after the implementation of IRCA that some of you go way back and know how difficult that was that created the embryo for the 11 million undocumented workers that are in the US because it didn't really address the future flows and provided the opportunity for a fundamental and more comprehensive immigration policy. And there were band-aid solutions here and there to correct what IRCA was unable to do. And then in 1996, the immigration, IROIRA, the Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act passed under Clinton's administration that really make it very, very difficult for immigrants and refugees A to access citizenship, introduced the three and the 10 year bar making it difficult for families to reunite, change completely the notion and the definition of aggravated felonies that made it really difficult for immigrants to stay even if they committed minor crimes that under the federal statute were not aggravated felonies. So the work of the 10 years was very much to fix the 96. And also at the time, the welfare reform passed and restrictions were imposed for immigrants and refugees in terms of accessing benefits. And IRRA got very much involved in fixing 96, working on the benefits side and added other policies as part of the portfolio and played a major role. We started with national work and then in 1996 after the passage of the law had a very much focus at the state level thinking that integration is also a local issue so whatever it's not happening at the federal level we can work at the state level and try to make those policy changes to make it easy for MIRA members. Our membership is very diverse from legal services such as PAIR to community based organization to unions to our refugee resettlement agencies and we are their voice at the state level as well as at the federal level pushing A for better policies, better practices and at the state level we are responsible for securing 37 million in the state budget for programs that fund immigrant and refugee work in our state. We don't get any of that money but that's the state budget that goes to refugee resettlement to community based groups for adult basic education services for citizenship services for employment and training services for domestic violence survivors and access to health care for people regardless of their status. So one area of the work is the state legislative advocacy as well as the budget advocacy and the other area of work is legal training and leadership development about eight or nine years ago. We established a new area of work at MIRA that we call institutional organizing so we are not the grassroots per se but through our 140 organizational members we get to the grassroots and organize and provide a leadership institute or the democracy institute that we organize every year to really give people the tools so they can go into the community and become the leader to push forward an agenda that it's helpful to all of us not just an immigrant and refugee focus but it's good for the commonwealth. So that's the other area of work. We also do a lot of strategic communications. You have seen the press in the last six months we had about 130 media hits because immigration is a polarized issue as you know and even though immigrants are being attacked left and right it's an issue that everybody talks about so telling the good story it's part of our work and representing the voice of our members and the constituency about a million in the commonwealth and we also a few years ago with the vision of the Fish Family Foundation and I wanna recognize Trafford and Veronica Serato here in the room. MIRA developed one area of direct service which is the only direct service that we do and that it's a citizenship program. So we do free clinics through the support of the Fish Family Foundation to help people become citizens and with our members in the last few years we've been able to do between six and 800 applications every year helping individuals to pursue their citizenship which is one integral part of integration and we also have within our work a think tank called the New Americans Integration Institute which is a think tank with projects on the ground. We do work in the area of workforce development, citizen naturalization policy and high skilled credentials within the institute and as we do work on the ground with our members and other partners we also draw lessons and come up with policy papers that are pushing for better policies at the state and federal level. In a nutshell I'll mention a few areas that we have as an organization we have done, we have provided really for a remarkable impact across the state. One of the things that Mira takes a lot of credit for is the passage of the interpreter bill. So it was the work of the organization with the members of course the coalition is as strong as the members are but we push forward under Saluchi's administration the interpreter law bill that requires that translation services are at that level. We also are responsible for the passage of the court advisement legislation which is a very important piece in the state law that provides for protections for families who members of the families may not be citizens but they are warned about their immigration consequences before the court. And that was really a crucial piece of legislation where also were part of a very strong coalition for the passage of the trafficking bill in the last few years and also responsible for the budget items that were established for the first time in 1996. When the welfare law passed that I mentioned there were restrictions introduced for immigrants and refugees to access benefits five years if there were green card holders or even have a green card for five years. So Mira and its members fought very hard to make sure that in the state budget there were line items to help the immigrant and refugee populations so there was for the first time Massachusetts as a model in the country established the Citizenship Assistance Program and that was done under Governor Salucci about two million across the state that helped about 22,000 people every year pursue their citizenship and citizenship oriented application and classes and other healthcare benefits and basic education and employment services to help. And we are bipartisan and I say that with pride and even under restricted and conservative administration we were able to thrive and push policy agendas that are progressive and help the Commonwealth as a whole. The court advisement legislation was signed under Governor Romney and at the time I was doing the policy and the lobbying work for Mira and Alina Rani was the director. So I said I'm in the building and Governor Romney has the bill in front of him and I think he's gonna sign it was July 18th and he said no way he's not gonna sign the bill and we got the call that the bill was signed so that was a huge victory and also same administration when the Citizenship Program was defunded by acting governor Swift it was put back in the budget not at the same level but at 500,000 but it was symbolically important not just symbolically important it was half a million dollars that went to the community groups to help immigrants and refugees pursue their citizenship but the fact that under a very conservative administration we were able to get things done and progressive bills in place I think speaks to the strength and the influence of the coalition over the course of the year and one of our biggest things that we are proud of it's also the formulation of the New Americans agenda for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts that was done under Governor Patrick when Mira was part of an executive order with the Office of Immigrants and Refugees which is the state office within the HHS the Executive Office of Health and Human Services to work together and formulate a state plan as to how better to integrate immigrants and refugees into the fabric of our Commonwealth and the governor had the vision that if we talk about a state plan and we better integrate immigrants and refugees as it said not as a burden to the state will help us as a whole and it was one of the most remarkable process across the state there were hearings conducted that gave voice to immigrants, to refugees, to policy makers, to advocates, to the grassroots to talk about the barriers and talk about the plan and when we briefed the governor after the report was done had 131 recommendations that you don't think that I'm gonna be able to do this so there we had to work hard and prioritize but language access was something that Massachusetts has done tremendous work the healthcare professionals piece to look into the licensing specifically in the healthcare industry and Mayor Wolf and Alejandra are taking the lead at the city level so she'll talk I'm sure about that as well but that's an area that it's a win-win for everybody it's about credentials, it's about foreign credentials who are foreign born individuals with foreign credentials coming to invest and work in our economy in the area of our expertise which is a benefit to our Commonwealth and we're working now with Baker's administration and Secretary Soutler to see what the state can do in terms of policies to streamline the process and help these individuals who have these credentials to be able to perform in the areas of their industry and so that is in the works and there's some appetite that some things may be done via policy and if not legislation will be the solution and this model Massachusetts was the third state in the country who came up with such comprehensive report and defining what immigrant integration is seeing it as a two-way process one by which the newcomers are obligated to fulfill their duties as members of the society to learn English, to get the necessary training to raise healthy and successful families but in the meantime the government provides in our view should provide the means and the systems in place and the resources so that this integration can happen in a smooth and successful way and this model that we talked about in other parts of the country became a reality also in Maryland before Massachusetts, Illinois had done so and then later on after Massachusetts, Washington state and we talked about this as part of the national work that we had done in different states to start to encourage as Congress at the federal level failed to really deal with the broken system and come up with a reform that makes sense for the country that is practical, that is humane and it resolves all the broken areas of the immigration system. Different state came up with different ideas and as you know some were progressive than others we had Alabama and Arizona coming up with really harsh laws to make people life miserable but there were other states who were able to get some things in place to help support this population and we started lobbying within the 501c3 limits with the Obama administration and see that what can be done at the federal level to help the states and help the immigrant and refugee population. There are 41 million across the nation that are green card holders and naturalized citizens and children of first generation and 8 million who are eligible to naturalize and haven't done so. So part of our work was really convincing the administration to think broadly and come up with a national plan to better coordinate integration services for immigrants and refugees across the nation and Mira was very intimately involved in writing that executive order being part of very much of that advocacy and we're happy to say that last November the president for the first time in the country's history produced the first new Americans executive order that call for the creation of a national task force to look into the areas of civic, linguistic, economic and social integration. The task force, I mean our, we pushed for the creation of the office for new Americans at the highest level of government. We didn't get the office but we got the task force that is led by Cecilia Munoz who's the head of the Domestic Policy Council and Secretary Johnson, the Secretary of Homeland Security and they worked and produced with the Department of Labor, Department of Education, Department of Homeland Security and Department of State a comprehensive, the first new Americans task force report that calls, that comes up with 48 recommendation in the area of civic integration, linguistic integration and economic integration for welcoming communities. We had the first convening on the area of the naturalization and reducing barriers. There are some big changes coming up that will make it easier for immigrants and refugees to naturalize as many of you in the room may know the naturalization. It's not an easy process, it's a complex one and it took the advocacy community, including Mira, 10 years to work with former INS and DHS to re-engineer the whole process and make it where it is and we're pushing hard for reduction of the barriers, you know, the feeds, it's one big one. So that's, we're waiting for DHS to announce in the federal register new regulations that might make it very, well they will easy the way for immigrants and refugees to naturalize. In terms of the second part of economic integration there's another convening that the White House is doing at the end of June, wrapping up as to what this administration can do between now and then and also provide the blueprint for the next administration to continue in the area of integration. We're also are in the process of working with all the campaigns, all the candidates for president. We reached out to both parties and so far Secretary Clinton is the only one who has embraced the integration agenda and she committed, she came to our conference in December and then a week ago she committed that if she will be the president she will create the Office of New Americans and take integration. We also were in conversation with Senator Sanders' policy people and they have it and we also reached out to the Republican party but we haven't heard any. I won't say any more there but we are hoping that both parties agree that the immigration system has been broken and it's beyond repair at this point and Congress needs to act to do something to fix it. In the meantime integration is moving forward and it's a win-win for everyone so we hope that in that vision that will stay that way. In terms of the Congress failure to pass immigration reform we saw some attempts last year to have something done a compromise bill was as a result of the work of the gang of eight for Republicans and for Democrats there was a decent compromise in the Senate that passed that would have created a path for people who are working for unauthorized workers to wait for 13 years and then pursue their legalization and citizenship more visas for high skilled workers looking into the asylum and refugee law and all the outdated areas. The effort was successful in the Senate but because of the politics failed to come up for a debate on the House side we were convinced that the votes were there so they were represented from both parties to enough votes to pass. Speaker Boehner at the time decided not to bring it up for apolitical reasons. He was afraid that he might lose his position but also at the same time if you recall we had the crisis in the Central American crisis 150,000 women and children crossing the border so that really created a turmoil in politics in addition to other and then the effort failed. Because of the effort failed and President Obama had made a promise to the voters that he will fix the immigration system he acted with him his executive powers and he announced the largest executive order in 2014 that provided for almost 3.5 or 3.6 million people to have temporary status. That was brought to court so it's under litigation as we speak. Last Monday the justices took the case for consideration there was quite an interesting oral argument there was a huge rally also Mira was part of with other national groups about 5,000 people in front of the Supreme Court where the justices were giving the oral argument and I only have two minutes, okay. And we'll see last Friday the justices had their conference when they were lobbying each other there are some very key and important questions that need to be answered and we might if they're in agreement we might hear a decision beginning of May on a Monday and if they're split four and four that will be the end of it but we're hoping for a decision by the end of June. So one of the scenarios is that if the court finds that the president acted within constitutional powers and this executive order will move forward that it means that the implementation will start under the current administration and DHS is saying that they're ready to implement if that's the outcome. Another possible scenario is that the justices are split so that's the end of it therefore and for them that's the end of it. The other scenario is that the case might be on the side of the president but you know a Republican win the elections and that's the end of it because they have pledged that they won't do anything so it's gonna be really, really hard and then the other option will be that if a Democrat will win then they will honor the executive order granted that the court will decide. So it's people are in a limbo situation that affects about 65,000 people in our Commonwealth and more than 3.5 nationally so we have to wait and see what that holds but in the meantime the work on integration continues. The work at the federal, at the state level continues. I just wanted to give you a quick update as to I have only one minute left that even though in Massachusetts has been a welcoming Commonwealth and we've seen programs that help immigrant integration in the last six years we also have seen anti-immigrant hysteria within the legislature and the budget season and the budget debate being used as a vehicle to pass anti-immigrant legislation and there are 12 amendments being debated. We were able to defeat three last night. There was a long discussion and this morning there is a bill that the governor has filed regarding VLID that it's in its course it's before the transportation committee was going through the process and they managed to make that as an outside section of the budget and are trying to pass it under the radar which is gonna create a huge issue. So even though it's a progressive state and it's the general port, it's the majority of our Democrats who've still seen that five or two Republican anti-immigrant bills are being now part of a discussion and we're fighting hard for the best outcome. So I'll stop there and thank all of you who are supporting Mira, thank all of you for the opportunity to share these thoughts with you and also I wanted to make a pledge that we do have an event on June 7th that we, it's a fundraising, our largest fundraiser of the year, give liberty a hand. So I'm asking you to support us and give liberty a hand. Josh has some invitation, he's been involved with our committee and seeing the event for the longest time, so please get an invitation and really an invitation to really work and support the immigrant and refugee cause. It's an investment for the future of our country. Massachusetts has about a million foreign born. Half of those are naturalized citizen, 300,000, eligible to naturalize and other in limbo in different statuses but also unauthorized who are waiting an opportunity to have a path to legalize their status. And also remind you that the refugee crisis is also something that it's ongoing. This year it's really crucial with this administration transitioning out with the crisis in Syria and the refugees from Syria that are coming to us and the inevitable Central American crisis that we'll see this summer and what's happening with that. So please stay tuned, stay involved and if you want more information about NERA or get involved in the movement for immigrant and refugee rights, please go to our website and become a member or an individual or an organization and I'll stop there and thank you so much for your attention. Thank you. We'll have a question for you, thank you. We're gonna open up for questions after each person has had a chance to tell you about what they're up to. But it sounds like Massachusetts, I mean it is, right, from what you just said, Massachusetts is providing progressive leadership that is admirable not only here but as an example to others. What are the very specific top three challenges that you think remain in this state? And I know you talked a little bit about the ID issue. Maybe you can tell people a little bit more about what that is. So in terms of the legislative agenda and the challenges right now is that mix up the legislation that is part of the outside section. There are 12 amendments. One is the real ID. There are two bills in terms of the driver's license issue. The general issue is that in Massachusetts you have to have a social security number in order to get a driver's license. And if you don't have one then you're not eligible for a driver's license and we have people who are driving without a license and driving aren't insured and that is a huge issue. So what we see it at Mira, we see it as a safety issue and we are advocating for everyone who drives to be tested, to be licensed, to be insured and being a database and the bill that we are supporting that had a powerful hearing but not enough appetite to pass it is that everybody can get a license. The bill that the governor is supporting and introduced, it's a two-tier system which is a positive thing because it allows for a bill to be in compliance with the real ID which is the federal law, so a license that it's recognized for federal purposes as a federal ID but also providing for another license to give people a choice that they can use the license for real ID purposes or use another document. However, that language is problematic because it excludes everybody who doesn't have a social security number. And even though we are trying to see that the bill can be amended, it doesn't seem like that's the problem. Not this time around. Not this time. So the in-state tuition legislation that would have prevented DACA students to access in-state tuition that was defeated, there was another bill that was for, on part of the debate last night that would have gotten rid of the resolution such as the one that our mayor passed on the trust act and that was defeated as well. But we have about eight or nine to go that we are fighting hard. Thank you. My name is Alejandra Senki-Yeng and I came in with the new administration with, well not so new anymore but with the Walsh administration a couple years ago. The office was formally called the Office of New Bostonians. Many of you might have known it. So it's still the same office. It's still the same mission. But we have really expanded upon what we've been doing and will continue to do. And we really felt, so we went through this, we've been going through this rebranding process and we really felt like one, having a name like the mayor's office for immigrant advancement, one made it very clear what we do. Whereas New Bostonians sometimes it was unclear but also puts a stake in the ground and says and gives accountability. So if we're talking about immigrants and immigrant advancement and not immigrant services or immigrant affairs. So just a little background on Boston. And all of this comes from the Boston Redevelopment Authority. If any of you are not familiar with the research that the BRA has done, the research director Alvaro Lima. It's a Brazilian immigrant himself, very dedicated and committed to this work. You can go on there and get information specifically for different ethnicities. So there's a whole wealth. And you can get information on Massachusetts. The immigrant learning center is a great resource. So just to get a quick snapshot of how much we've grown in 2000 to 2014, it's gone from 151,000 to 177,000. We are 27% of Boston is foreign born. Which is a number that I think surprises people sometimes that it's so large. And then if you look at youth, so people ages zero to 19, 50% have at least one foreign born parent. So if you're talking about the foreign born and their children, you're talking about a very significant population. We're number seven, I think the seventh highest share of the 25 top cities. Eva talked a lot about citizenship. One of our closest partners, Project Citizenship Veronica is here. We do the citizenship day every year. And it is a huge, it's a huge commitment by the mayor to promote citizenship in Boston as you see that naturalized citizens make up 49%. Now that's not to say 51% are eligible to be citizens, but a good percentage of them are. And I think I said the rest of this. And then 36% of Boston are speak a language other than English at home. So when Eva was talking about the push, the state push on language access is something that we're working on at the city level. And 12% of households are linguistically isolated. So a little bit about the work that we do, what role can a municipal government play in immigration? It's a federal level, there are state levels, but anything that happens at the federal level, at the state level, it gets rolled out at the city level, at the municipal level. And so the work that we do is very much in line with making sure integrating the immigrant integration and also making sure that they're a very key part of the work of the city. So I sort of broke it out into four. This is part of the rebranding, trying to figure out the most succinct way to say everything. And this is my first PowerPoint since we've rebranded. So any feedback is welcome after the thing. So I just wanted to be outreach and engagement. It's a large-scale immigration clinic. So DACA DAPA, which Eva spoke about in detail, we have an outreach and engagement initiative, which is made possible through partnerships with philanthropic institutes and also with our, actually, both META and PAIR are recipients of funding for the DACA DAPA outreach and engagement. Citizenship Day, which I just mentioned, which in collaboration with Project Citizenship and our newly launched immigrant information corner. So every single Boston Public Library has some, it's a corner, some it's a bookshelf, some it's a little bit larger, but has an area where people can go and get information on naturalization. They can get, you know, they can do the, what do you call it, the flashcards. They can take work, they can take stuff out. They can study there. And all of the librarians have been trained to be able to refer people to the best resource. We have partnered with different non-profit organizations who are adopting a library. So hopefully that will turn into more robust programming at the libraries. Policy and communication. So as Eva mentioned, the municipal task force and foreign trained professionals. So because the conditional issue is very much a state issue and very much a federal issue, municipalities haven't really dug deep into what role that they can take. So we have done that and partnered with the Office of Economic Development. And the first thing that we're thinking of doing is a research study. We had our first meeting yesterday as a research study to see what are the specific needs within Boston. So what are the gaps and also where the people who, where are people coming from and where do they have the largest skill gaps that we can really fill in. Boston Language Access Policy. There is a hearing May 10th at 2 p.m. This was introduced by Councilor Wu and this is in Councilor McCarthy's committee. This will be the city's first language access policy. And actually the mayor has included for the first time in the budget, money for translation services and interpretation services through 311, which is the main constituent services line for the city. Some offices already have that line or they already have those services because they're federally mandated to do so because they receive federal funds. But this is something that we felt the whole city should really be adopting. Just checking my three minutes. Okay, yes. I'm gonna interrupt you, but it won't take up your time. No, okay. Could you just quickly for all of us say exactly what DACA and DACA are? Sure, sure. Sorry, sorry. We always use all these acronyms all the time and in the city it's all acronyms. So DACA and DACA are the executive actions that Eva spoke about that are now being heard at the Supreme Court. The executive action by the president in 2014 that are now being held at the Supreme Court and gives deportation relief work authorization. Nationwide to like five million people, five million of the 11 million documented and in Massachusetts we estimate about 65,000. So basically if you are, they're different rules but if you've been here for a number, long length of time you have US born or legal permanent resident children and you don't have a criminal record then you could apply for, it's not status, it's deportation relief basically. And so you get a social security number and you can get a license and all of the things that Eva was talking about. Thank you, so it's key. Yeah, so it's key. And we do these large scale clinics with our partners to help prepare people for that. Where was I? Oh the foreign train, so ethnic media round table. So making sure that the message is getting out there within all of the ethnic communities. Resource development, our office, like most city offices, our city budget is purely 100% administrative so to be able to do a lot of the extra work that we've been doing and to be able to support our amazing allies who also do this work, we do a significant amount of fundraising, partnerships with philanthropic, those are some of the ones that we have so far. So I have three full time staff right now that are privately funded of the eight staff that I have and then we re-grant some of, we re-grant a lot of that funding out. Our convening that initiative, immigrant integration and empower initiative, this is what's funded through the Bar Foundation so I have a fellow for three years and she's looking at the city as a whole and how we can be much stronger within immigrant integration, what role internally the city plays and also externally and so, and I don't know if many of you have heard there's also the chief resiliency officer and the city is really taking a deep look at race equity and racial equity and so Selina who's the fellow who's working on immigrant integration and empowerment has joined in on that work to make sure that immigrants are a key part of that dialogue and that discussion. DAPA DAPA outreach which I just talked about and then Eva talked about the White House regional convening on New American so the task force that Eva spoke about, they have gone to different parts of the state, I mean I'm sorry, different parts of the country and have done some regional convening so we were able to bring different non-parfit partners, different government partners and also people from other cities to come and meet with their federal representatives to really have that one-on-one relationship so. That's it if you want to come. I didn't even practice it so and I, you wanna reach me, talk anymore about that thing and I just quickly went through, sorry. You did, you covered a lot. Alhambra, could you take just two more minutes and talk a little bit about immigrants and children in the Boston Public School? Sure, sure, no, absolutely so that's it. So as many of you know, Tommy Chang came, he's been, this is his first full school year and he's brought an excellent team with him in the Office of English Language Learners. They are expanding tremendously, they have put 1.5 million in the budget for interpretation and translation and so the majority of children who are children of immigrants are not necessarily English language learners and so the Boston Public Schools is very interesting because you have 50% of the children have at least one foreign born parent, only 8% are immigrants themselves but then there's a great disconnect between the schools and the families and then the whole issues obviously that people know with busing so people just not being close enough to their schools to be able to have a really strong relationship and so the Boston Public Schools has taken a really strong leadership role to identify what those gaps are and to be able to really bring parents and make those connections but also to recognize all students. They yesterday, their Twitter campaign on Dreamers and so their doctor students are undocumented students so these were people in the Boston Public Schools who were tweeting about all of their students and the importance to be able to address the needs of all their students. A lot of that, Sim has been a student, immigrant movement has been a huge part of making that happen. So it's a very interesting, it's an interesting challenge for the city to have but it's definitely ground zero as we think about our immigrant families and the work that they do. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you, thanks. As most of you can imagine, immigration legal services, legal services in general, it's a really intense area of practice. It's overwhelming. There are so many uphill battles for immigration work. They're uphill battles dealing with Department of Homeland Security or Department of Justice, dealing with a cynicism within the immigration system but also there are battles dealing with the law itself. It's so complex that it's really not set up for an individual, especially somebody who is a trauma survivor to come in, fill out a form and argue their cases and pair fills in that gap. We work really hard to screen cases, to go into detention, to meet with immigration detainees who are being held, not for any criminal reasons but because they don't have status. We also work with asylum seekers who are not detained to help them talk about their cases, to help them lay out the legal theory, to package their cases and not so much for the lawyer to tell the story but to empower the clients to tell their stories. And I've been at PAIR for 14 years. I love every aspect of my job which includes doing the intake, picking up the phone and talking to a client, doing full representation cases, working with a client when I meet with them for the first time and they do not wanna share their stories. They won't look at me in the eye and then just working with them months, over many, many months and helping them tell their stories and convincing an asylum officer or judge to grant them asylum. These days I'm doing operational work and actually I feel really passionate although I'm often intimidated by budgeting and fundraising and doing presentations but it also drives me because at the end of the day I know all of this is helping us to serve more and more clients. So who are we? PAIR was formed in 1989. We've had one mission for 27 years and that mission has been to serve asylum seekers to help them gain safety and freedom in the US and also to promote the legal rights of immigrants in detention because unlike criminal detainees who have the right to counsel, immigration detainees do not have the right to legal counsel and many of them sit in detention and aren't even sure why they're there. So we could actually go into the unit and do legal orientation programs. At PAIR right now there are four of us and there are only two staff attorneys. So we can only survive because of our collaborations and that means working with the private bar, the immigration bar with law firms like Daily Piper with foundations who help really support our work. Jude had asked me to talk a little bit about the history of PAIR and why we were formed and basically PAIR was formed in 1989 after a massive workplace raid at the Suffolk Downs racetrack where hundreds of Central Americans were arrested and these are folks who had legitimate asylum cases but the political atmosphere was so awful that they were all sort of being systematically denied asylum protection. The immigration legal services community could not absorb this number of cases so they decided to form an organization that was really set up that if there was ever another massive workplace raid or if there was a sudden surge in asylum seekers like we're seeing today from the Middle East from Central America that there would be an organization in Boston that could really have a store of volunteer attorneys who could just jump in and work on cases. We started very small with I think the equivalent of one full-time staff member. We've grown to four. We're gonna have a fifth attorney joining us in June. We started with 134 asylum cases. Today we have 630 active cases. One of our first clients who was granted asylum is Jamal Hussain. He went on to run for president of Somililand but he like many of our clients was somebody who had fled his country. His father was a part of the Somali army. The father defected when he didn't like what the army was doing on the ground and it became very, very dangerous for Jamal's family to be in Somalia. So most of his family fled to Ethiopia where they were living in a refugee camp. Jamal happened to be in the US and he often talks about his story so he's the only clients I really would name a client he has offered and talks about his story. Was in the US and really didn't know what to do and his father was saying he absolutely cannot come back home. He connected with Pear. We matched him with this amazing pro bono attorney Susan Cohen who is not the president of the Pear Board and Jamal won asylum. He went on to get his bachelor's, went to Harvard, graduated in the MBA program, became a top executive city bank and then returned, did finally return home to find a very different Somali land and actually a few years ago he spoke at the Pear Gala a fundraiser that we have every year. So Pear first started with us just at the asylum program and then a year later in 1990 we added the detention program. Although we had been doing detention work because our initial set of clients were being detained by immigration. And Pear today, we have grown, we've since 1989 have helped over 10,000 asylum seekers with all aspects of their cases. So we kind of, we have a very holistic approach. We do the initial case screening, we work with applicants to fill out their cases. Once they're granted we don't drop them, we actually continue to help them to get things like licenses, social security, make sure they're matched, they have medical backup. We don't offer social services but I think you become so connected with your clients and you really see how much that they've struggled. So we tend to just stay on the cases. We help with family unity and usually then send them over to Mira for citizenship. And we do all of this again with two basic programs. Very few staff members but stellar fellows, interns and volunteers and on a very small budget. Last year we helped over 13 with 1,300 active cases, 660 in the asylum program and 630 in the detention program. We train about 500 attorneys a year although people always think a pair trained 500, that means we can send over 500 cases of those less than one fifth actually take cases. But that's still more than say two staff attorneys or three staff attorneys would be able to handle. We do lots of legal education training so I'll often come to say a firm like Daily Piper and do a three hour training on asylum law. I do a lot of convincing to law firm partners because they always say why should we take in asylum case we're corporate lawyers or litigators and can we do this? And I sort of do a lot of hand holding and encouraging that yes. This is an area of law, it is very complex but it's manageable and when you forge a relationship with a client it's amazing. I just think it's amazing what our volunteers are willing to do and how much they're willing to help. I probably spend half of my day on the phone talking legal theory and trial strategy and just how do you work with a trauma survivor? How do you help somebody tell their story and we know it again when human nature is to bury that thing that is so terrible and you know our attorneys do it because we see the results, we have many many wins, we have a 95% grant rate on the asylum cases. So one needs a 10% approval nationwide. Yeah, and there's a Georgetown study that says an asylum seeker is five times more likely to win with an attorney than without and again there's no legal right to counsel in. You know our whole approach really is to and then sometimes it's hard because you want to be on every case but our approach is really to train as many lawyers as we can to take the cases and then just be there as backup. I just wanted to talk a little bit about our program. So the asylum program again is really devoted to helping clients with humanitarian forms of relief. These are refugees who are fleeing just unimaginable harm who are, a lot of them are homeless who have no family, they fled, they left everything behind and then they come to pair and they're really in need, not only of legal help with social services so we work in a unit also asked us to talk about who are we collaborating with at pair, we're collaborating with everybody just because we have so few resources. You know, we're collaborating with our volunteer attorneys. We're collaborating with places like Boston Medical Center or Cambridge Health Alliance because our clients just need so many services that we aren't able to provide. We collaborate with RIM, I wish Ruth had been here. RIM offers all sorts of social services, counseling, classes, housing. These are things asylum seekers need. Asylum law itself, so I do these three hour, they could be six or nine hour trainings on asylum and then I always wonder, here I am training attorneys on this area of law, I just can't imagine how an asylum seeker could do this on their own. It's such an overwhelming system. I'm always asked well how much time do you put in on an asylum case and 60 to 100? To win asylum, there's never direct evidence. There's no letter from the torturer to say I tortured so and so in this manner for this reason on this date but every adjudicator demands that level of evidence and it's really, the whole system is stacked up against asylum applicants. So we do our best to sort of answer those questions without that evidence but it's a real struggle and especially when somebody who has been traumatized and that does affect memory and now they feel like they're being attacked. So I really do feel in this area of law having an attorney is crucial. I don't know how anyone could do the cases otherwise. And these are the types of things that we ask our volunteer attorneys to be involved in. To take full cases, to take appellate cases, to help after the cases are granted with family reunification or with green cards. On the detention side, because that's the other program, PAIR is one of, is actually the only organization in Massachusetts that has negotiated access. It took us probably 20 years to get negotiated access with the immigration service to go into the facilities. So these are county jails, go into the units and do legal orientation programs. So we go in and sort of how I'm explaining to you right now, we explain to the detainees what their rights are, why they're being held. We help them read their charging sheets. We help them understand and do screening on whether they might be able to access some sort of form of immigration relief. There's a study that only 8% of detainees who go before immigration judges per se, only 8% of those detainees are granted. That means over 90% of pro se detained immigrants are being denied relief and deported. So we really, in this area of law, also feel like our role is extremely important. And then we always ask volunteers to help with various things. For example, maybe take a bond case, help somebody be released from detention so that they can work on their case outside of custody or to take full representation cases. And then just finally, we also ask volunteers, legal and non-legal to be involved. So I don't know if any of you would be interested, but if you have a language skill, we work with student interns, legal fellows, we work with medical professionals, IT specialists, because our servers and computers are always crashing. We have some wonderful people from the philanthropy connection who are one of our funders who always also help, and we're always looking for non-profit consultants to help us with other various operational things. And of course, financial support. And that sort of pair in a nutshell. That's great. Thank you. Thank you. And it's an astounding work. And as you and Ava pointed out, the difference the pair makes in Massachusetts is stunning. Something you and I talked about on the phone that I think people would find interesting is what's it like in a detention center? I mean, we know people don't know why they're there, but what are they facing once they're incarcerated? Yeah, it's actually pretty grim. Because most of the clients that we see are, they really are confused. Why am I being held that I commit a crime because they're being held in jails with correction officers from the jails, in Massachusetts we don't have a federal facility. Many of them don't understand that the charging documents are in legal language, and half the time I can't understand what they're being charged with. They would have no idea. Unlike criminal detainees, they don't have access to lawyers or I think they have like a small library. So it's extremely difficult on sort of the legal, that level. But actually what I hear over and over again from our detained clients is how it breaks your spirit. To be held, especially for people who survive trauma, they just, they lose trust, they don't sleep, they're anxious, working with a client who has been detained even after a month in release, but many of our clients are actually detained for longer when they get out, they have like even more trauma because they're so unsure. When we work with detainees in detention, sometimes I've worked on asylum cases, but the facility hasn't given me a private room. So I'm working on really sensitive, especially let's say it's an LGBT case. I recently had a transgender case and we're working in an area where people can walk by and look in and they can open the door and they can hear. And I had one client who actually refused to talk to me, he wouldn't talk to me about his story and I couldn't get the facility to give me a private room. It's just really terrible and it's shocking to me that there's gotta be a better way to screen and just to do releases, do some kind of humanitarian parole or just release, especially if you can establish that somebody has a credible fear or suffers some kind of persecution. But it's really tough and just logistically, the detention centers are not, there's one detention center in Boston, but there are two that are an hour and 20 minutes away. So it's really hard to get even our volunteer lawyers to go. Thank you. All of these issues are very close to the heart of everyone here and especially to the Lenny Sakham Funding. One of our first grantees in the year when we made four grants was to the East Boston Adult Education Center and I know many of you know the late Dominic Avilani who did extraordinary work with people coming to this country. And so I know you're all here because you have an interest in the issue. These women have shared phenomenal, phenomenal information. And let's take some questions. Hi, I like to see all of you accept donations, correct? Are you all like 501, whatever you call it? 501, see the whole task deductible. Oh, well, that's it. But do you ever need volunteers, like someone like me who used to be a teacher, loves children, I volunteer, I've been volunteering for eight years at my local primary, helping third graders with reading. Like you just need a nice person who loves children to do something. Yeah, well, our members, especially those who work with refugees and asylumes, would love that help. I mean, there are a lot of issues within the families so I'm sure that you can contact us and we'll connect you with those groups as well. Well, I also wanna say for the last six years I've had a refugee seeking asylum living with me. And she's from Uganda and she had her story, well, her faith and let's just say God is her therapist because she doesn't have the depression gene. And I have MS but it's okay because I have medicine and blah, blah, blah. But I realized six years ago I couldn't do it alone, everything, you know, shopping, da, da, da. And anyway, in the last month, two of her four children whom she hasn't seen in nine years actually came, arrived here. And they're going to Jewish vocational work, you know. And classic has been very helpful. Cheryl. How do people find you from the detention centers? Like how do people hear about there and get into the system? So, but it's like. Exactly. We're actually, we're on the, the court is the executive office for immigration review. It's under the Department of Justice. They have an immigration legal services list and we're on the list and a lot because the prisons know us and because we work, we have a very good working relationship with immigration and customs enforcement. They'll often tell detainees, we actually go into when somebody's detained, they have an orientation process within the prison and they invite Pair during the orientation process to talk, you know, to talk about Pair's work and then we'll be coming back to do a full legal orientation program. We also have a program with the court and the immigration bar and so a lot of the judges will also say, oh, you know, looks like you have an asylum case contact Pair. But then it's also word of mouth an asylum seeker wins. He tells, you know, maybe a friend and other legal service agencies. It doesn't seem like you're caring for business. No, I know. Exactly. I wish we could even do even more. One quick thing I wanted to say, one of, you know, the great Massachusetts models, again, that Mira and Pair has been able to do is the working relationship with the immigration and customs enforcement. We do have regular meetings with the leadership, a very small round table off the record meetings when we bring, you know, cases to their attention and make sure that Pair A has the access to the detention center. But also they, in their updated list, there is information about the client. So that's something that I think we're fortunate in New England, in other places, they won't even pick up the phone to talk to anyone. And we have that access to Mira liaison. So that is another path that we identified people who are in detention, don't have the resources and refer them to Pair and Classic, the Cambridge legal services and counseling center, which is another fantastic legal service in Cambridge as well. Great. I recently, sorry, I'm Megan Riley with the Clues Fund. And recently I received a phone call from a group, I think it was based in Worcester, who was providing support services to LGBT assailants. Okay, I was curious to know about the kind of that population, is it something, is that a group that's growing in Massachusetts, something we should be aware of? I would say in the last five or six years, we've seen a surge in LGBT cases. I think the case law has developed in a very positive way. And I also think that countries where people are fleeing have become so oppressive that, basically cannot be out in your home country. So yeah, I think that is, and they're probably one of the most vulnerable populations that we see. Ruth Berson, who couldn't be here today from refugee immigration ministry, said that they're seeing more and more LGBT people and that part of their issue, and maybe you guys see it too, is that people have been so traumatized in their home country that even though the person working with them is pretty sure they're working with an LGBT person, people won't come out to them. So it's difficult to get them these specific services that they need. And Worcester has become a center for refugees and a side of these. But that group, if I'm not mistaken, runs and operates under, at the basement of a church. And Valerie Fisk, who is a talented attorney with classic, is the president of the board. So she will be the source to talk about, but I know of the great work that they do and the need in that region for that community as well. Madeline, just say your name. Sure, yeah, my name is Madeline. I'm the founder of an organization called Zoomix in East Boston. I was really interested to learn that Lenny Zakem Fund's first funding was in East Boston and that, here, you said you started also because of the Suffolk Downs rate, which is unbelievable, so East Boston is, it's really an interesting or has an incredibly long history of being an entry point for immigrants. And so these issues are all very real. We've been doing a really interesting project right now in one of our investors-funded school partnerships at East Boston High School. We're working with the ELL students there, helping them basically tell their stories through our radio programming. And you mentioned about how part of the coaching of your clients is really to help them tell their story. And I think that it's incredibly powerful. And a lot of the work that we do while we're a music-based organization, the point of the work is to empower young people to tell their story through music or through radio or through these creative tools. But as we're doing that, we're really seeing the need for more support for our staff because the stories that are being told are both stories of immigration that are brought with all these kinds of intense experiences, but also the resulting sort of reality of landing on the ground in a country where you're, you know, in a country where you're really starting at the bottom. And then in a school system that is designed for English-language speakers, really. And so there's these incredibly dedicated teachers, but the struggle is just so apparent. And so I really feel like our staff could use some support, but also these stories could be useful in some way. So I'd love to chat with you after. Yeah, and the whole environment right now is especially tough for kids. We have a lot of unaccompanied minor clients at East Boston. I do think that there's an incredible opportunity though because of the number of Latin American immigrants who have been in East Boston for so long, so it's 20 years, right? That means that there's this kind of growing population of young adults who are American-born citizens and are able to vote, and they're becoming of age. And so I feel like there's an education for that population that is extremely vitally important because they will, that's just in our little corner of the woods, but across the country, there's an enormous number of people who have some power to bring to this conversation. That's great. Let's take one more question. Anybody have a question? Sorry, somebody has a question. Yes, my timer has a question. Yeah, Jude, I actually have a question. For an ATV, if you're training 500 lawyers, attorneys during the year, I mean, how do you, with such a small staff, how do you manage, well, first of all, how do you get them all trained? But then, as volunteers, they're volunteers, so how is that all, I mean, it just seems like that's a whole entity that would need the kind of major management. Yeah, I mean, we're all up until one of the morning even in the mentoring and always in the phone. It's a lot of work. It's really the only way our programs are run, so we all make sure that on the asylum and the detention program that we are, once a month, trying to do a legal training at a firm. We do trainings with the court, with the Boston Immigration Court, when with the American Immigration Lawyers Association, so a lot of their attorneys will come. We, I mean, our thing is always to serve the clients, so we actually do very careful case management. We are very thoughtful to you about if we have a client, what's that client's needs, how vulnerable are they? Is it a good match for that firm? Like, we know that I've been there for 14 years. I know the firms, I get to know the attorneys, I know those supervising partners. There's actually a lot of vetting. Anytime we do a case placement, there's also a lot of follow-up. If I've placed a case, and I haven't heard from the attorneys in a month or two, I'll call them just to make sure that they're filing things on time or they're working with the client or they've at least called the client, but you're right, it's a lot of work. It's a lot of management. I have a question for all of you. Well, I have lots of questions, but I'm wondering how the international crises that we're seeing in Central America, in Syria, and in the rest of the Middle East, how does that play out in Massachusetts, in Boston? Are we seeing anything differently, different people, and is there a new response? I can talk a little bit about Boston. Boston, our refugee population is smaller given the cost of housing in Boston. And so you see a lot of refugees that are coming in are being placed in other parts, which has influence on our office. One, because we'll serve anybody. You don't have to be a city of Boston resident. We don't ask you for residency. So our large-scale immigration clinics, the DACA DAPA Clinic we did, May of last year, we had almost 400 people go through the application assistance and meet with an attorney. I'd say 40% were probably outside of Boston. So one of the things that in our office, and we've been trying to do, is how do we empower other cities to either, because some might have certain positions, but they don't have an office, or they don't have the structure of the immigrant integration plan, structure to really implement. And I think there is a very special place for municipal governments to take that role. So it would be great to be able to expand that, because as we see the influx, it's huge. And so it'll impact our office, but does it have the same impact on the actual city as our neighboring cities have? Yeah, yeah, exactly. And in terms of the statewide picture, Massachusetts receives about 2,400 refugees from all over the world. Every year, those are being resettled by the five major resettlement agencies, Catholic Charities Center in Central Massachusetts and New England Institute, International Institute of New England, and Boston, you know, the majority of refugees are settled in Central and the Western part of the state, given the housing situation. In terms of the Syrians, if you look at the last five years, when the crisis started, about 150 Syrians had been resettled in Massachusetts, so we do not expect a large number of Syrians coming in terms of the Central Americans. There are about 300 cases, or just about that, Mirites involves somehow with Justice America or with the legal services program that we're managing through the DOJ project. So there are a lot of cases in court pending for children who, you know, crossed the border and were detained. So that's pretty much the picture. So we don't expect a large number or that number to change although the president has said that he will receive 10,000 more Syrian refugees, but we don't expect a large number in Massachusetts. Yeah, and we had a little bit of a challenge here when the crisis started with different statements from Massachusetts. So a lot of advocacy was involved into that and we're proud to say that the governor now has a welcoming letter and or I has a welcoming kit for every new Congress. So that's a good story for Massachusetts. Yeah, and I mean, we've been seeing some, I've got a lot of calls from people saying, oh, did you suddenly see a surge? But I think the media, you know, suddenly started paying attention but we've actually been seeing Central American and Middle East cases, Syrian, Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan. We've been doing those cases, I would say, for the last five or so years. I have a quick question. Do you find that the courts, that when they're deciding on letting people stay, are more receptive to certain nationalities over others? For example, are they worried about people who are Muslim? Are they worried about people who are from Syria because of the climate now? I don't think, so the first part of the question, I think that there are definitely prejudices that work either for or against certain populations. In terms of security there, I think I feel like the court and the asylum officers are very strict with any kind of security concerns. We have asked many times, do you do extra security checks or extra type of screening of certain populations? And they say they don't. I do know they have a vast security database and they do ask a lot of types of questions maybe from a client from Syria than they would say a client from Uganda, including, you know, what family members have traveled, where have they traveled. So I think the government will say no, I do feel like they do have a concern because they know a judicator wants to grant the person who goes on to do something terrible. I don't think though that that's necessarily made it harder for our clients to be granted in general. I think there are other types of cynicism and indebtedness within the system. How do you see the tension between integration and enforcement? Well, this administration has been really very serious about the issue of enforcement. We've seen 400,000 people being deported every day, which is the largest numbers we've seen in the history. So the enforcement piece has been really present and the fears are real. And also there is an effort on the integration piece that we've heard at the local level, at the state level and now at the national level, but immigration status remains one of the barriers for immigrant and refugee integration. So that's an issue that we need to deal with in a comprehensive way and that's the hope. But you know, those issues, we have mixed household families, people with no status and citizens in the family and those provisions and laws that passed over the year that make it difficult for the family to, but the impact, it's huge because, you know, different statuses are eligible for different benefits and the integration status does remain huge. Kind of complicated, often tragic. And, you know, this year being an election year and we'll be outcome, you know, it depends very much who is gonna occupy that White House next year to see how the enforcement picture. Under the current administration, we have seen a large number of people deported but the way the enforcement has been handled, it's a little different than under the previous administration, there was less deportation but more raids, more, you know, coordinated efforts and I'm sure many of you remember what happened in Bedford, you know, the home of Kennedy at the time of the immigration reform debate, 360 people were detained in a raid in a very, you know, public and dramatic way. So we haven't seen those kinds of raids but we have seen very large number of people being deported and a very large number of U.S. citizens and children being impacted. I have one question for Neva. Yeah, go ahead. You had encouraged people earlier to make calls to the representatives and I heard you speak a lot about the governor. What have our representatives in the state championed that you would, you know, call them and say, go get them. Well, the most important thing is A, you know, pass the budget without the outside section of amendments so a bill should follow its own way to become law and not, you know, use the state budget and an outside vehicle to pass anti-immigrant legislation and also call Speaker DeLio and Chairman Dempsey to say that, you know, do not pass, you know, Jones' amendment. Let it run its own course as a bill and don't use the budget as a vehicle because people sometimes just vote without knowing the content of it and let them, you know, learn about the bill and let it be its own course. I just can't thank everyone enough for being here today. There's certainly very few, I mean, there are all kinds of issues, but very few that are as vital to so many of us as the situation, the services of people coming into this country as immigrants and the incredible work that's being done by Pair, Mira, and the mayor's office and RIM, unfortunately not here today. And if you look at the list of partners on Mira's website, we'll see that there are many, many others. So thank you guys for being here. Thank you for your interest and your concern and your time. They saw their work is rooted in a labor market transaction, not an emotional connection. For household workers, the language of care and kin masked their central concerns of rights and responsibilities. As Carolyn Reed, who became a national leader in the movement, put it, I don't need a family. I only want a job.