From Tirien Steinbach, Executive Director of the East Bay Community Law Center: Like many people throughout the country, folks at the East Bay Community Law Center (EBCLC) watched President Obama’s announcement about executive action on immigration with equal parts excitement and anxiety. For EBCLC’s staff and law students – some from immigrant families themselves – the President’s message was met with both hope and frustration. EBCLC began providing immigration legal services and supervising law students on immigration law in 2003. EBCLC’s immigration lawyers have focused on providing free holistic legal services to particularly vulnerable populations: LGBTQ individuals, people with disabilities, and youth. Many of EBCLC’s clients and potential clients will benefit from the President’s executive order, and for that we are gratefully rolling up our sleeves to get to work training and supervising law students, lawyers and volunteers to file petitions in the months to come. But many more of EBCLC’s immigrant clients are still left out. For them, we need to keep pushing for Congress to pass thoughtful comprehensive immigration legislation that offers clarity, opportunities and true security. As important, we need to change the conversation about immigration. We do not need more rhetoric and laws that demonize and criminalize people living in poverty, including communities of color and immigrant communities. We do need more stories or strategies that narrowly define the “worthy” from the “unworthy” recipients of justice, a dichotomy that is both false and dangerous. Let’s instead acknowledge - in our thinking and our laws - each person’s capacity for great good and great harm, and resolve to provide resources and opportunities for people to make good choices. Let’s work to change the story – the American story – from one that values exceptionalism and individualism above all else, to one that values compassion and community. Let’s continue to directly confront what Martin Luther King Jr. called “the triple evil of racism, poverty and militarism…the barriers to us living in our Beloved Community.” For EBCLC’s Immigration Practice, and our sister immigration legal services providers, the President’s executive order means a lot of good hard work ahead to help some of our clients and families get a reprieve from the fear of deportation. Please support our efforts – with your donation, pro bono help or volunteer time! Please also help make comprehensive immigration reform a reality by urging congress to act! And, with thought and care, I hope we all can use our platforms large and small to help to change the story about immigration – and America – to one of broader inclusion and hope rather than division and fear. https://youtube/watch?v=wejt939QXko Donate Here: https://donatenow.networkforgood.org/ebclc
Posted on: Sat, 22 Nov 2014 00:22:59 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015