Maria Luevano ‘21
Staff Editor
On Thursday, November 14,the National Lawyers Guild at UVA Law, Women of Color, IRAP at UVA Law, and LALO sponsored an event to help students learn more about immigrant rights and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) practices. Activists from FUEGO Coalition of Harrisonburg, Charlottesville Immigrant Freedom Fund, ICE Out of Cville, and Charlottesville Immigrant Resource and Advocacy Coalition spoke about their work and the greater movement to counter ICE enforcement in immigrant communities. The event was a moving opportunity to explore the experiences of immigrants here in our very own Charlottesville, and to see how their lives have been impacted by our country’s immigration policy. All of the speakers shared sobering stories about their work with the immigrant population in Virginia, but the event was also focused around activism and how we, as law students, could join their efforts.
First up was Gail Hyder Wiley from Charlottesville Immigrant Resource and Advocacy Coalition (CIRAC). Wiley coordinates volunteers for the organization, mainly providing transportation to ICE appointments and hearings in Northern Virginia and Richmond as well as to vital local appointments. CIRAC also works to assist with legal screenings at the Farmville and Caroline County detention centers; participates in the regional rapid response network; and advocates for protective policies, including an end to ICE notifications by the Albemarle-Charlottesville Regional Jail. Wiley described heartwarming moments between volunteers and the people they serve, groups that may never interact were it not for the opportunities that CIRAC provided.
The group next heard from Priscilla Mendenhall, who spoke about the Cville Immigrant Bond Fund. Established in 2018, the Cville Immigrant Freedom Fund is a 501(c)(3) organization that works to raise and distribute funds to provide grants for legal representation and no-interest loans for ICE bonds. The Fund was started after a local attorney reached out to CIRAC on behalf of her client, who had lived and worked in Charlottesville for a decade. He had been stopped on Route 20 South and arrested for driving without a license. Upon completing his sentence, he was picked up by ICE when staff at the Albemarle Charlottesville Regional Jail notified them of his release. He was taken to the Farmville Detention Center and then moved to Texas. His bond was set at $10,000. CIRAC was able to pay his bond, allowing him to return to his family in Virginia and to his immigration lawyer, who has been able to help him prepare for his next immigration hearing, which was set for this year. Following this incident, CIRAC realized the need for a bond fund for others in this situation. Mendenhall invited law students to consider volunteering with the Fund, specifically assisting with posting bond on behalf of clients. She explains that the process, like many aspects of the immigration system, involved complex paperwork and often took a full day to complete at the ICE office in Richmond. In fact, each ICE Center has the autonomy to determine their own procedures, which increases complexity if the individual receiving the bond is being held outside Virginia. Law students could provide valuable assistance in navigating this process on behalf of the Fund.
Boris Ozuna, from Fuego Coalition, and Angeline Conn, from ICE out of Cville, then spoke about their experiences as activists and some of the methods that they have employed in fighting for immigrant rights. Friends United for Equity and Grassroots Organizing (FUEGO) is a growing local coalition to end immigration detention, criminalization, mass incarceration and family separation by ending local collaboration with ICE. Ozuna explained how they are working to educate the community in Harrisonburg, VA about the presence of ICE and to disrupt this presence through protest and advocacy to the city council. He urged the group that as lawyers, we must work to defend a person’s dignity as much as their rights, because not everyone (like the immigrant populations he serves) has legal rights in the U.S., but they still have and deserve dignity in the way they are treated. Conn works similarly to protest the treatment of immigrants in detention centers and helps provide the means to pursue safety and comfort by sponsoring refugees living in Virginia. She also provided some advice to those looking to volunteer with these communities, that they should not see this as “helping” but rather as working withthe people that they serve. Changing one’s mindset like this can help to extinguish the “white-savior” aspect of working with different populations and allow for a more dignified approach, for both parties.
The speakers added that if you are looking to volunteer or would like to learn more about local organizations working with immigrant populations, some other organizations include: Afro-Latinx Student Organization (ALSO), Central Americans for Empowerment at UVA, Charlottesville Immigrant Transit Assistance (CHITA), Creciendo Juntos, DREAMers on Grounds, Hands off Maria, LAJC Immigrant Advocacy Program, Latino Health Initiative, Latinx Student Alliance, Political Latinxs United for Movement & Action in Society (PLUMAS) at UVA, and Welcoming Greater C’ville.
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ml9gt@virginia.edu