>> education. in the current cost of education. an proposed and graduate work. and also the concerns on legislation as trump has alluded to regarding k-12. as a teacher, and education is number one and that is why i am voting. >> those whose voices the road, on c-span. i look down into the trump administration's immigration policies. and let's talk legal issues involving families separation. it is hosted by the american university washington college of law.

[background sounds]. >> good morning everyone. welcome back to those of you who are here yesterday. we are going to get started. it is my pleasure to welcome all of you to our second day of the best focused on events and protections for migrant children. for those of you who were not here yesterday, experience education and directed at the emerging university washington college of law for immigration. my pleasure to welcome all of you here to the law school. also i welcome not only on behalf of our constitution, the university center for lesson american and latina studies.

as well as the american writers association and planning committee representatives. thank you. [applause]. thank you for all the hard work to make this event such a success. i know you all have very busy schedule so i appreciate your willingness to be here for it. those you who were here yesterday, it series of panels beginning to unpack some of the challenges we are facing migrants be. some of the factors across the world as well as some of the ways in which the system is being challenged here in the united states as well as how we can understand more deeply the best interest standards presets at the heart of this gathering. we are really pleased hope yesterday and today to have such a broad range of experts in the

room cuddling legal experts, and scholars and practitioners but also from the social sciences, mental health professionals and other health professionals, broad range of expertise. we had some very fruitful conversations yesterday and i'm sure that will continue today. we're hoping not only to understand with the challenges are, but also to identify paths forward. you want to acknowledge the staff from law school to the center of a this event possible including alexandria, and many other student assistance for the lesson american and latina studies as well as several staff members here at the washington college of law. the special events team public relations team and others. you know how difficult it is to get the work done from donors to

provide these resources to make these events possible. so i want to acknowledge tremendous gratitude for the sponsors of this event including kirkland, and the law offices, thanks to all of you and others. for your support. [applause]. will be

of it, she was in a solomon i love to show this photo because it really be people people behind bars. anyway, it will leave you with that thought. even though there was this groundbreaking decision in 1996 that, there was much more contagious route for but so - many of us thought that would open the doors to all range for persecution but wasn't such an easy route in 1999. the board of emigration appeals in the matter of ari, reversing asylum. bruno connected violence, this was during the administration, and janet reno, the justice

department did this before the end of the administration. and she vacated it in her justice department issued proposed regulation that would have really contemplated protecting survivors of domestic violence another dinner persecutions and those regulations were proposed in 2000 and they have to this day, never been finalized. throughout the whole of obama administration, they've finalized them and that but they never happened. around this issue, going forward mr. a herself in the immigration judge, the level resulting in another high profile it mexican woman, also at the level of an immigration judge. not binding and it was not until mentors in 2014, we actually got

a decision saying that the violence could be the basis for an asylum claim. something about that. along the way from 1999 to 2014, to get a decision saying that the domestic violence, must belong with though. it was because of the type and ministration. what did they do. as i said, they were recognizing domestic violence. it recognized, remember i talked about the particular socialist definition and how that can be used in cases involving gender persecution. so did has a narrow holding saying that this post a defined by married women in guatemala unable to be a social group. in subsequent, even though it was a narrow holding, advocates really came in and did the arc jeep to successfully advocate for other cases.

so not just the married women but unmarried women pretty girls forced into sexual relationships with gang members. a child abuse survivors. they were not revolutionary but really they expanded. so what happened sessions during his time as attorney general, certified case called to himself. he used a beat to reverse ar steve g. in reversing it, what, doesn't matter of this level do. i hate sugar like this elated morning. the reason added this is because then the attorney general did this and i was actually contacted reporter for the

washington post. i'm very proud of the fact that this is actually back from the dark ages. i sent this refusal to recognize gender violence for domestic violence, is a violation of women's rights and the basis for asylum. it takes us back to the dark ages of how we content conceptualize women's rights. that was the headliner. i wanted to show you that. but it is true. the point that i was making, for those of you in this room knows that the history of women recognition and women's rights, the human rights is that this is really kind of pulling us back. this is just a photo of like many asylums, chose to maintain her anonymity. but this is to you a sense of the person herself. if i had time, she did a human rights short video about her in

her case talking about the persecution. so in her case, had very strong facts. this is the case with the attorney general was looking for a week case. she was married to her abuser, she had three children with him. the abusers brother was member of the salvador police and extreme physical violence or the entire ranks of the relationship. so the place were largely unresponsive. to the point of one time they issued her a protective order. her husband was being heard and threatening her. in the place said why don't you serve your husband. anybody and thinks about an enraged husband and telling a woman to serve our show that she went to the placement serve, just observed. she went away a tractor down. he actually return after the divorce. he told her that nothing but

death would set her free from him. so on those debts, what is she doing the decision of matters. a beat. i want to distinguish between what sessions attempted to do and what he actually could do legally because he's not operating in a vacuum. somebody tried to do was to foreclose all claims based on domestic violence, gender violence and fear of again. it is as broad language, persons pertaining to gang violence. they were not qualified for assignment. he's trying to send this message, don't grant these claims but the actual legal holdings is much narrower and a lot of with statements about the what the attorney general thinks. so he rejects the social groups

formulation that unmarried women, unable to leave, actually been formulation of developed by the department of homeland security itself as a set approach in arcg. but he said that didn't meet the standard or legal standard for another group and then remember i told you that they had to be on account up. and we said the violence is on account of this person being a woman in this relationship. and that's why the man abuses her. and that's with the domestic violence experts will say. but what's is getting at is saying is just personal. to try to separate out and say domestic violence is not about gender. this is what, i mean, about the ludicrousness of this. sort of the actual holes of a.b. in addition to what i just told you. member i said was a nonstate actor, the individual has to show the government unable and

willing to protect. says by the government by a private actor that the government is unable and willing. he tried to raise the standard to what it takes to show unwillingness. he also suggested without any evidence, that when the persecutors and this individual, and not the government, it should be easier for the person internally to be relocated and escape. escape the prosecutor. you could relocate and not be persecuted, you don't qualify for asylum. sue said these things in the decision without any basis. really more of an opinion. this is where start of the restoring of the protection was happening i'm going to go over these four areas. challenges of the av decision

and contacts of things like google and litigation in these individual cases, nationwide decision-making and then particularly strategies. so expedited removal. after the matter of av, or matter of a.b., and it issued after a.b., strongly implies that individuals hearing against can have screening standards that someone must have in the review. if you are an expedited removal and you don't show the screening path of standard for credible fear, your remote and are not permitted to apply for asylum. so with the government trying to do, was anybody who appeared with a claim or a gender violence claim or fear again, is

after a.b., they don't qualify. so there was a challenge to that, where the district court judge and of columbia, issued an injunction. we are cocounsel and argued that the attorney general and many legal errors in his decision. and the judge agreed. it issued an injunction against the application of a.b. and of incredible fear and i was a step because it prevented the government from screening these people out and not even permitting them to apply force on them. in the appeal this and we are awaiting a decision of the circuit court of appeal. we don't know which way it will go but. but for now, a.b. cannot be used to sue screen people out.

litigation in her own case, so if you know when an individual has been denied asylum, one of the things you do in that individuals case is you appeal it. because that appeal you hope to have the underlying decision reversed. so after the attorney general, issued his decision in a matter of a.b., it was impact the immigration courts and we needed to put in more evidence. so we put in about a thousand more pages of evidence about gender violence incident el salvador and the inability of the government to protect. i won't bore you with it. the immigration judge, denied it again. and catches one of these judges who has like 95 percent asylum denial rate. that's not normal. it is not normal for those of you do not practice immigration law. used to be a judge, elevated and promoted to this position.

the point i'm making is in order to adapt to that judge and he denied it initially and he denied it again. so we appeal that and we submitted again just last month were waiting for the board of immigration to decide. the board of immigration appeals theoretically could side with her but not likely. if the board of immigration denies that we get to the fourth circuit court of appeals. in the federal court, where we prevail if we do prevail, and get it reverse a lot of the legal reasoning in the matter of a.b. i just spoke to you about tracy whitaker, but that only applies to credible fear. so that does not restrain judges who want to deny on the merits because of the a.b. case. so in the face of this decision,

in the matter of a.b. what is happening in reality to the decision-making. we track, the assistant attorneys and then we can talk about the outcomes of the cases. his nonrepresentative example. it is not comprehensive. it's that simple of attorneys who asked for help from us. so often times, generally people are underrepresented, they don't know about this process. so this is what were saying from this. we seeing 50 unpublished cia unpublished, where fear of gain and, 370 miles and 13 back to the invasion judge and generally, they cite to the matter very superficial. and it's a matter of what a.b. decided and whatever.

not positive. but in immigration court we've actually seen something different. the same hundred and 70 asylum with holy grants, and partner abuse or child abuse cases. although, there's many denials. so i don't want to paint this kind of a picture. we've seen at least a hundred five denials. what is interesting, and this will be more for the people were started in the weeds on legal things here. is that after the attorney general struck down the social group and unmarried guatemalan women are unable to leave. there's a very simple social group that advocates have been trying to get recognized for a long time. it's just gender and women. to say salvador in women, 1 million women, and the number of immigration judges have been granting on that much more simple straightforward articulation of social groups. which again is positive. the number of circuit court

decisions and some positive, but i don't want to again painted overly rosy picture. but you can just see below quote from them. this was a case where the first one, the woman had proposed the social group similar to the one the sessions rejected and the court said her cases weekend but it doesn't automatically defeat a claim. recognizing, that each case had to be judged on the fact of the past in the record. in here, and judge had done exactly what i just said and granted on just gender and nationality. and then the board had reversed it saying it was to run. the ninth circuit said no no no, that is not to run. go back to this and look at it again. so these are some positive developments. also people raising because of the social groups, and work that much in cases involving women

are asserting the rights. attorneys are pretty forward because remember that it's one of the grounds that is based on the political opinion or belief that the woman not have the right to be beaten by her male partner. this is being recognized by the courts also read this opinion basis of the claim might've been based on this one. there is negative decisions and i don't want to go into this because were quickly running out of time. there's a little bit more of a mix where the courts said matter of a.b. does not automatically ban these cases but the cia was reasonable in finding that this was not a viable point. and similarly in this 11th circuit case.

what are some of the broader strategies. we are tracking and helping them build the record, litigating these cases. and we are tracking cases nationwide at the circuit court and beyond. that is where we can win. for instance, tracking, my left side will give you information about how you can report a case of that we can know what is happening. we are intervening, to bring our expertise. there is five dvd cases coming up for arguments in the ninth circuit in the next month. we've asked for them to be consolidated and putting things in place and also the term meat attorneys are giving us some argument time. is generally a good circuit and were looking to see if it will develop good outcome. and then were at the executive level. a lot of you in this room have

worked on a lot of new strategies i am talking about but there is this big book donated by immigration, but we are looking at what are all the changes we want and administration and where you are working on this broader issue of humanitarian protection. which includes the reversal of a.b. another bad decisions. we've been working with a lot of the presidential candidates, the staff of the lot of the candidates and most of them major candidates have sent a pledge to reverse a.b. if they were elected. so legislative and i am almost through. no running overtime. i think i have two or three more sides of that. also, there's a protection act, that is been introduced many times. and never had the chance of being enacted but if there is, at the 2020 elections are positive, and this and in house

might be more maneuverable. we actually, work with congressional staffers to fix key terms in the refugees definition of really get in the way, not just of gender claims but fear of getting names, children claims, you name it. on account of the removal, a lot of these requirements have been put in there really have been significant barriers. then there's number of congress members who are interested in standalone bills to address a.b. finally were trying to do a lot of education. to build a broader movement and so we have a website called immigrant women to pray to be have women survivors of violence and they been granted asylum. they are telling the stories. we've been working with local activists across the country to get, and the city council or town council level, resolutions approved about reversing a beat.

we want this to be a broader civil rights human rights thing. so those are all the things that are going on. i remain hopeful on this issue. my last lie, quickly mention a couple of things. so those of you are attorneys who don't know about us, we provide expert consultation. technical assistance and different data resources. please reach out to us. we are trying to track cases. how you can reach us to tell us the outcome in the case. there immigrant women websites. some of you know, we started a database of expert witnesses and a number of you in this room are experts. and you're already in our database. but were trying to connect attorneys with experts one might be interested in this article of abie one year later.

those trends that i had one or two slides about the circuit court level, those are all detailed most in this law review. so thank you very much retired. i decided to leave this to the organizers. thank you so much. [applause]. >> i think what we'll do, is not your fault, we did not put enough time into the beginning to answer the questions. so i think that and i wanted to remind the audience that we have question cards on the table. feel free to fill this out. you this question cards off to and they will bring them to the moderator. so if you questions for karen,

we can gently incorporate those into the questions of the q&a. for lindsay panel. saul invite lindsay and the panelists and families of now. just give us 30 seconds to set up nameplates. then we'll get started. [background sounds]. [background sounds].

[background sounds]. >> as for one of my early mentors, five of the last 15 years, when i said law student, her on going leadership is incredibly inspiring. she still doing this, and this is all about leading the way. so thank you so much karen.

>> i'm a professor at the university and the district of columbia. about 1 mile away from your. and he's right emigrations and human rights clinic. i have the honor of monitoring this incredible panel of advocates. we will you perhaps even deeper into the dark sides. sunday, feels like this whole it's always building to this panel was indeed very dark amendment has been think about family separations. when i say a dark amendment, i don't mean to be misleading. because the family separations crisis, which is manufactured by this administration in 2019, by no means began in april of 2019 when the attorney general and ounce the scholars policy. so as we will discuss, family separation existed in the previous separation and continues to operate today.

but i think that what happened in 2018, was certainly, a very dark moment in our history. and were continuing to work here. it was also catapulted the treatment of immigrant children enters the public spotlight. international content. we saw in mainstream media, really for the very first time, in a way that we have not before. this is headline news and also there was such a ground swell public support opposing the separation. so if there's any silver lining to this administration, relentlessly policies, and immigration it is that we have the segments of society and know many of you in the room has been in the fight for a long time. i thought this with the trump administration. so if you have joined the site in response to what you have seen. someone silver lining to me is this new generation of immigration advocates.

they are more aware and on these issues than ever before. we can focus on substance. but if you take a look at those concerns for yourself that you advocate on this panel were privileged to have r&d are some of the many courageous individuals who have been on the front lines alongside immigrant families and children in the last few years and will before. we should really start with a round of applause and what company michelle, ashley, kristi and michael to the station a. [applause]. will try to do this a little bit more conversation and some of the other panels i will start with kristi. and now we sent sent family separation and become these button issues and intimate headlines. since april 2, 0018 he shared with this little bit of the history behind his policies, where did they come from, today

exist before they exploded into mainstream media. >> thank you lizzie. so i've actually been reflecting a lot on the panels yesterday. and in thinking about the principle of the best interest of the child and i think that is a really important framework because a lot of what happened during family separations, during the crisis than before, is really due to the fact that there is no guiding principle around the best interest of the child in the border context. especially for families that are arriving at the border. there is no real consideration of the best interest of the child. when border patrol processes them. the absence of having that, will lead the groundwork for this to be able to happen. a lot of these problems are still with us today. and i will go into that in more detail but we still don't have a

guiding set of principles or standards relating to the best interest of the child in terms of processing families as a supporter. so it is important to recognize the family separation didn't just start during zero-tolerance. it was one ongoing long before and it was going on into prior administration although to a much lesser extent. i did want to mention that back in early 2017, roman refugee commissions, dinner report called the family values. and that report he advocate started to recognize this was a problem and hearing that could be a much bigger problem in the current administration. and apart documented several instances of separation of at the borders. instances of separation of siblings and family units and the lack of tracking all the problems related to that.

so also forcible separations and some cases of biological parents and children. then as we know now, later in 2017, advocate started to see a very disturbing number of forcible parent-child separations. we know that that was from the pilot project happening in the el paso border patrol sector. where the administration was basically testing out this theory that what would happen if parents and child were reportedly separated. there wasn't of course a lot of thought that went into that. there are huge problems, huge tracking problems but also going back to the reports in 2017, all the recommendations from the reports are actually very relevant the report identified massive by the government to provide tracking for sums to connect families and to know

which pair might be with much child. new systems never put into place. and we saw the absolutely horrific consequences during that tolerance. and the government struggled to connect parents and kids. and i know you're going to touch on the reunification process. and one of the key recommendations from the report, was that dhs would improve those tracking systems and talk to the other agencies and develop better standards. but to also and i think this is really important that dhs should always consider the best interest of the child and all processing, custody removal and reentry decisions. another key recommendation with the dhs should require the hiring of child welfare professionals at the borders. to oversee away in. so those two like key recommendations from early 2017,

of course they did not get implemented. and of course the groundwork for all of the chaos horrific consequences of zero-tolerance. i think it is also important to point out, go back to this a little bit in the panel but even now, after we have been through the horse family separation. we still do not have those standards in place. cdp is still not evaluating the best interest of the child. we don't have to really evaluate the best interest of the child. so we've been through so much litigation but in many ways, very tragically, were kind of back in the same place that we were even back in 2017. i will get into more detail later but there was a reason decision in the case that he gave permission to dhs basically to continue to separate parents

and children in many circumstances where the questions about the parent has a prior criminal history. again, just going back to the actual processing i'm a we know now that in that split second, basically where the border patrol makes the determination to separate the parent from a child read that is a very small kind of step process it doesn't take very long for them to make that determination but the last thing in the rippling effects of that are so profound because we know of course immediately after the decision is made, child could be sent 3000 miles away to an or facility in the parent goes to adult detention facility were some of parent is frequently departed from the united states and the child is left in our facility still,

there huge problems with information sharing between the two agencies. and with their information sharing between or and advocates and attorneys for children, and is still very hard to reunify parents and children. even when improper separation has occurred. so we know now that there have been at least 1200 children that have been separated since the end of the tolerance policy. that's kind of an important starting framework, again where we are still in this position were fighting for better standards. finding a better framework in place. not to take us through darker estimate of the place now but i think worse still where we started in 2017. [inaudible question].

>> april 2018, or public awareness, they were organizing efforts and americans, and in the streets protesters, resulting in people asking for an end to the family separations. you speak to this. it is been a other cases. can you speak to those how they have played out. how did they resolve the cases and how many are still ongoing. >> the main family separation case i think everyone knows, that case was filed by the aclu in early 2018 on behalf of a woman was separated from her child before the zero tolerance policy was in place. so it's more than that pilot

project stage pretty. >> in the southern district who presided over the case issued an injunction on june 26, 2018 enjoying the government from separating parents and children finding that the separation violated due process the constitutional rights of families integrity. and i know we will hear from ashley a moment around the injunction, there was a massive effort to reunify apparent children in this what we saw really when all of the issues related to tracking and data and information, in the late spring kind of around that same time. there is a session case that was filed. in the mmm case. so the door case was pretty

focused on the facts that parents when they had had their interviews and reasonable fear interviews after they had been separated from the child did not have a meaningful opportunity to present their case reliefs. they were understandably, upset by the fact that they were separated from the child. the trauma was enormous. talking to someone to really see, and mental state they could begin to focus on their asylum claim at the moment. so that was one case in the mmm case was more focused on the child procedures. all three cases were grouped together. it was for the negotiation of the settlement agreement. that ended up covering certain aspects of the cases. the key issues in the cases pray

also a steering committee was created to assist with the reunification particularly with the parents who have been deported from the united states without the children. we are a member of that committee. along with the women's refugee commission and justice in motion. we meet weekly even now. and we discussed various ongoing issues. the settlement agreement that came out of the three cases when there were grouped together, as a result of a lot of negotiations, but the different attorneys that were involved in the cases that come from my perspective, it was so hard for all of those issues to be grouped together there were a number of people involved. and i think that we came out with really imperfect results. time was not involved in the negotiation of the agreement. the settlement agreement

entitled parents who had not passed their interviews or have an opportunity to have a review. they were not entitled to be reviewed. but they could have one before the asylum office. it also granted the right to anyone whose notice to appear had not been filed at the time of the settlement agreement. to actually file an application for asylum as though they are affirmative. which is interesting. ended up being a nice benefit for a lot of people the big problem remains, not how these things have been fully implemented. the asylum offices, year and half later, have not gotten the training. we had a couple of cases to go forward through these processes but not a lot. so there is still a lot of people who were waiting. and wondering what is going to

happen. in one year filing deadline we are heading in the same time so for a lot in our cases, we have a few hundred cases in total. we had to go ahead and preserve that filing deadline without knowing what was happening the process. the other elements of the settlement agreement, i will cover quickly. was the opportunities for in cases where parents have been supported from the niceties without the children for rare and unusual cases to be brought to the attention of the court for consideration of the possible return to the united states of the parent. there's a lot of confusion about what that really meant. every situation in which a parent was deported, separated from the child and supported without the child, should be

rare and unusual. it is absolutely egregious. certain cases were identified through steering committee which made thousands of calls to those parents and partners on the ground, and justice and emotion, they met with his parents. they found that a number of parents, have great serious protection concerns are still, and also had very serious violations of due process. in the context of separation and many of them were coerced so they were told that they would not see their children again unless they agreed to be supported. or deported. there are other serious defects in the process. i will wrap up quickly here to say that after a lot of

back-and-forth, negotiating with the department of justice, ultimately the right date return of 11 parents to the united states and they really rent to the records and files of every parent to find those cases where there was that. or serious defects in the process. it resulted in the southern huge effort by a local, to bring back 29 of the deported parents. to the port of entry which many people have heard about. and one more thing to mention is that in 2019, and the more extensive reports submerge, the family separations really started back in 2017, pilot project. brought upon a motion also agreed to expand the class and i think that was a pretty remarkable aspect of the history of the litigation.

this went back to july 1st of 2017. so than the government had to account for all of those additional of hundreds of kids who are separated. then turn over all those names to the committee. since really continuing along now. and we are all working together to try to contact those parents to confirm that they've been in touch with their children. and see if there are any serious concerns like with some parents, they been contacted, they have said i want my child back in the case where they've been deported and i don't know how to do that. so we been able to connect them up with different partners and is in motion now. this kind of the current view of things. were still trying to contact others. it is turned out that it's a lot harder to find families that in

central america. so the student committee actually sent out letters recently to a lot of them. all just for that out there, you may potentially if you're working with kids, or with parents, some people may be getting those letters. ... ... are seeingmany of the same

issues . we were thanks in part to make the efforts of the litigators, particularly from the missed out, we were approached by the trump administration because they needed to comply with the judge's order to reunify certain families and needed assistance to dothis . we think in part we were approached because both us cpd migration and refugee

services and irs are usc service providers in combination with hhs offices, we have extensive experience in the presence of the border in different points. i think it's important to understand that in the moment there was no clear cut view for reunification. that can be applied to as national agencies with national presence and experience, decades of experience in this area can also be applied to hhs and the department of homeland security. i think the individuals working for the government on the ground work every bit as hard as we did night to do this but you literally could say we were building the airplane as we were flying and i have a report that we and the lutherans did on kind of the story of the

reunification that'savailable outside . talks a little bit in more detail i just want to highlight a couple of things. first, per this litigation, the children were kind of grouped into two different groups along with the age 5 and other one was five through 17 and we were instructed toreify based on those two classes . the way that the reunification occurred for that age 5 and under is that we were instructed to bring children who had been identified to certain sites and then reunify them with the parents who would be transported to the individual sites. okay. that was a pretty successful initially. i will say to you service organizations were very concerned about the trauma that these children, underage children had experienced so we as part of trying to be as responsive as possible to the

family and the reunification, offered services afterwards. we offered ourcontact information, where the families were going . a number of under five children, i say we had a 50 percent response rate. parents wanted nothing to do with follow-up services from anyone. they were terrified . once we had finished the quote" phase 1, we moved into the larger category of children that were to be reunified with children age 5 to 17. for this, the homeland security and hhs decided that the children would be brought to the detention facilities where the parents had been identified area they would be reunified pending interview and then they would be sent to either catholic or lutheran assistance center along the border for that reunification of her, stabilization and the immediate occurrence and then

the families moved on. for that effort, we with the lutherans were able to reunify approximately 1025 family units. the lutherans in our partnership were able to assist approximately 200 family units and the catholic network assisted about 900 family units. i will say to you that there were so many moments i think of real concern with kind of how the process was going. i'll children were goingto reunify with their parents . once that would look like in terms of you know, their stability going forward. how the family unit would continue. one thing i think is important that we find ourselves doing and dealing with today is this issue of data and this issue of making sure that people are accounted for. my colleague mentioned we are

still grappling with the numbers and this is particularly true in this small class of 1100 that were subject to the litigation reunification area we are not certain what the department of homeland security and hhs had a number of the children they were subject. five and had an accounting on their own. we did our own accounting of this information. it is written in the report but again, i'm not certain there was any clear-cut way to ensure that their data was correlating with our data as we sought to reunify the children with their parents . again, for the stage ii group we did try to offer social services and we did try to ensure that a lot of the families that at least have access to legal information or know your rights. we saw a higher degree of participation in terms of what i would describe as los angeles services but not as much as we would like and in

part because of some of the trauma and some of the difficulty the family hadbeen having to reintegrate as a family unit , to find stable housing whether it was family or friends and then i think as michelle talked about, the great obstacles for meaningful legal services and access to data systems. being said there were a couple moments i think where the existing framework of legal services really kind of shines through. any of you may be familiar with the information help desk, it's a relatively new program that's been implemented. california was one of the largest destinations for the families we saw and we had a really hard time ensuring that we could get some sort of legal screening and know your rights. luckily the information help desk in los angeles was able to actually make contact with 4 or 5 family on their and help identify them through their own path to getting

some assistance. i can't say enough as we think about the importance of these programs but they are everything. we have to continue to fight to maintain legal orientation, legal orientation for custodians of aoc and we also have to work to scale them torespond to the increased attention that we're seeing. while that was a positive thing , i do want to i think we are going to talk about this later but the data collection issue still remains and is particularly, it seems as if lessons have not been learned. our report similar to the lutheran women's refugee commission report gives recommendations to just suggest best practices and i think we are going to talk more about this but i think it's vital to understand that while we as a community were able to come together and really capture national consciousness and initiate a

turn back, these issues are still occurring and we do have to work harder i think to press for just basic access to services and transparency of data as well as eliminating the sort of separations that tend to be so casually occurring every day. thank you so much ashley and i don't know about everybody else was listening to that, as a human being, but i want to build on what ashley has said and asked michelle if you can work on needs that the families have. legal and nonlegal that you've seen. i know clinics, organization is in our foldable populations program and now the project that you have, the national assistant project has been working hand-in-hand with the families and with various partners. >> thank you lindsay and thank you to everyone today but more specificallyto the planning committee . we have a couple of jayesh's

soldiers from his army and he has created over the years so we are very, very grateful to him on that front. as kristi was saying, it's hard to find certain populations in the united states. you wouldn't think it would be harder to find them in the united states as opposed to el salvador but it is. we learn this firsthand with our work on the pro bono project which is the family detention project that we had , working alongside with lindsay on. the mothers, the family detention project there was mothers and children who were detained and still are and that's texas and when they were getting released from detention they were going all over the country. we were noticing the absent charades, that isorders of deportation issued by immigration judges when people don't show up to court . those days wereskyrocketing . so we quickly figured out how

to get in touch with the mothers so that we could take her out how to get them the information to of course be able to navigate the immigration process but also give them information on specifically among other things how to avoid in absentia order of removal so we created a facebook online private community secret group for the mothers and that is now over 3000 mothers . we started it as a clinic but now established i'll talk about the advocacy project, a great organization so they now have created ways to ensure the family know the information and how to reach them. given that experience, we also created a facebook group for the formally separated families and we have think it's everyday changes of course but i think over 220 parents in that group that allows us to understand what they're facing, what they need, how we can respond and

another way we know what's happening is through the national united family assistance project so that in particularis something we lead with. asap an innovation law , and he and his organization innovation law allowed tried to tie together this all day of these ashley was talking about that is so important. so is anational database , done in a confidential manner where we have partners across the country when they findout there's a family out there , they plug their information into the database and that way we know who they are, we can see their hearingis coming up, do they not have counsel ? that allows us to focus on those families who did not have counsel, try to find them counsel. we know for example that there are 100 family in this area at dc, maryland and virginia who has hearings coming upand do not have

counsel so if you're interested in representing one of those cases let me know after the panel . so what are the buckets of needs of families are facing? there's legal needs, transportation, mental health needs of course. interpreters and the other, the last one is just like protection from i guess generally scams and i will talk about that last but the hasty manner in which this whole thing was done, even our luggage is better connected to us after a flight and the children were to their parents. and that's insane. but given that the manner in which it was all done and in which the families are reunited, we have parents don't have their complete immigration file so as we were trying to place the cases we have no idea where in the process these parents are. do you need another credible during interview jamar what do we do next? we have no idea. was a fraternal and we ended

up finding a lot of yes and that's in litigation for the families so try to justify where they were in the process isimportant . once we figure that out also can see that they needed motions to change venue. what happened with the families that had also with family detention with the mothers and children is that those cases were venues along the border where they were reunified at the lutheran and catholic children that actually talk about. not where they were going to their loved ones, the interior of the united states area so already there at a disadvantage because they're going to have to do a motion to change venue in english . and they may need and if any of that, theyprobably should have an attorney for that . or just go to the hearing, travel all the way back where lots of trauma was going to be triggered again in addition to having to travel. so getting changes of venue

was the first hurdle, not to mention judges who " for example in el paso were issuing an expert requirement in order to get the changes of venue approved area so they definitely did the attorneys that we realized that. we also looked to motions to reopen, some of the families i'm not going to their hearings because they didn't know where they needed to go. they were confused, they were going in an ice check-in and the court that also happened on with the family detention situations that we saw from the facebook group so there's a lot of parallels on lessons learned so we've been following filing motions to reopen for the family and we either do them and house even though the clinic is not primarily direct services with some exceptions read our direct service providers, their nationwide network of nonprofits across the country . so we will just do a motion to yield ourselves, have

engaged offer to do this work as well becauseit's something that can be remotely that's something we can from the family detention doesn't learn . with emotions reopened for a lot of those mothers also have a report on we had one percent reopened success rate and we did those motions and so far so good with the family that have been separated. with their motions to reopen but we are willing totake that all the way to the court of appeals if needed . the other thing, they second that i talked about his transportation. we had been lucky in certain areas to find counsel in and one of the ways we found counsel for the families is the report that they issued in addition to the national united families system project database area we learned that florida was the number one recipient state of the families. and mostly in like apple and northern florida we were able to place two attorneys devoted to representing these

families, primarily inorlando immigration court was one of our affiliates so is great . we had two fellowsthere, we found some wonderful attorneys . fully accredited representatives to take on these cases but the next hurdle was family didn't have transportation. they couldn't even get to court they didn't have extension order so we had a partnership with lift so that lift could help us get the families their concierge service where we would dispatch with to pick them up and take them so that the second need how we try to respond to the two ways that our facebook and our database. mental health needs, ongoing need where basically we get family that were able to place trying to get pro bono, find some funding for the lobo mental health assessments ongoing need because this isn't just about an assessment, ongoing need areaand if they don't get it , i really worry about that for the children. but we see the trauma come

through in so many ways and it's really hard. the interpretation needs. these families have a lot of rare indigenous language needs that we have not seen before so that's an extra cost that we had not prepared for in our kind of funding, for example with our two fellows in florida but we needadditional funding . we need additional services for indigenous language interpreters. if you are a such a person to the audience, if you know anyone, please come see me afterwards . and then last but if you will , just protection from scams. it's kind of a blanket term because a lot of the families are having wage and hour issues so they're not getting paid for the work they do and a lot of the states of the south . it could be alabama, take note they had a big rate in mississippi at the poultry plant there so wage and hour, scams and also just this past weekend, we heard a family

getting phone calls saying you need to call in the next three hours to give us this information andif you don't give us this information you're in trouble with immigration . i ended up calling and figuring out it was a scam but they're susceptible to so many scams this happens to immigrant populations, is not the one that has gone through this but being able to get on the facebook group to see if you get a call from immigration that says return our call, give us data, that's notimmigration, do not call them , let us know right away that's another way that the facebook group have been helpful as well. i think these were not enough, i think i will end their with a rundown of the needs. >> again, we have so much experience with this panel so much to share. we have yet to talk about the issue of damages and on

behalf of the familiesact, they speak spanish so what they've been through, i would urge you if you have questions about that talk to the parents afterwards . there's a great sleep right after this panel you can do so to have insight on that. we also are hoping to get to talking about the issue of family separation and how that affects some of the other issues we've been discussing over the past 2 days. migrant protection protocols, i said prosecution protocol because that's really what they are but sorry, advocates: migrant persecution protocols. there technically protection. it, we may get to that and we may not but i want to make sure we get to our medical answer on the panel mike mintz because we've been talking about these families and they are an innocence candy demonizing so i want to bring this back to contextualize this through a case study and help us understand some of this is very obvious but i think it

merits explanation area some of the fence physical and mental healthconsequences of separation for these families . >> i'd be happy to. thank you for having me here. it's not a pleasant topic but i'm glad to have the opportunity, when i met the child that i will be talking about today it was disturbing to hear what she had been through. and i was ashamed that i am a citizen of a country that would do that to a person so i'm glad i have the chance to talk about it . it's not a pleasant thing to talk about. so i'm a psychologist and i have the opportunity in this case to provide a psychological evaluation for a child who had been brought to this countryby her mother . and separated from her mother

upon crossing the border into the united states and thegoal of the evaluation was to show how the experiences in her home country were impacting her emotionally . but and also show the risks that if she were forced to return to her home country and i think what was most shocking to me in this situation was, first of all, she was one of the first children i had met who had been separated from her parents. this is in 2000, i met her i think six or eight months ago so i thinkthe separation took place in 2018 . and upon having the experience, i have the sense that i had tosee more of this and i started seeing more of this .as anyone can imagine there's a significant emotional impact, psychological impact when children are separated from parents, especially whenthere is for the separation that's true for any child that they are at high risk of depression, anxiety , when we talk about ptsd,

posttraumatic stress disorder we're usually talking about perceived reps to someone's physical well-being, threats of death . threats of death, threats of sexual violence, threats of physical violence. however, when we think about the emotional experience of being separated from one's primary caregiver, particularly in the setting of coming to a new country, being exposed to different languages, the fear thatcomes with integrating , i think mick noticed a that it is an accidental threat or the children. it is perceived as a wrist of being in the same way that we perceive risk when we are at threat of being physically harmed. another point that i really want to hit on, excuse me. is that many of these children are already more vulnerable than the average child at the time they are

brought to this country area a good way of thinking about is to consider the asus study, the asus study has been a really big deal and basically what asus, , adverse childhood experiences and the children who are exposed to one or more of these adverse childhood experiences are at risk of significant long-term challenges and so the adverse childhood experiences detailing the study are those associated with abuse, a victim of physical, verbal, emotional abuse, sexual abuse . what or living in extreme poverty and then there are household factors like being raised in a home where a caregiver uses all, a home where a caregiver goes to prison, a home where a caregiver dies, witnessing domestic violence in the home so as you can imagine many

children being brought to the united states are not being brought here because everything was fine at home. many of these children have been exposed to these risk factors the child i'm going to talk about today, i call her gabby was exposed to several of these and many other specific experiences lay the groundwork for what became the severe emotional distress that the parent-child separation caused after crossing the border. so gabby was born in central america . and she lived with her parents for her first 2 years , both parents during that time, she witnessed domestic violence. her father abused alcohol. there was a lot of conflict between her parents throughout her early childhood and i believe her father was in the home until she was around four or five years old. immediately prior to her parents separated, gabby was a victim of attempted sexual assault perpetrated by her

father and she recalled some of the memories associated with 2 experiences as a child ofrisk of sexual assault . after those experiences her mother decided to separate from her father for the following three years they lived in relative peace.her mother, gabby and her mother's mother so gabby fraternal grandmother , when gabby was eight or nine years old her biological father contacted her mother and made attempts to reconcile with, which her mother rebuffed and at that point gabby'sfather began making threats . threats to gabby's mother but also threats cynically about gabby. threats to kidnap her, to take her away threats that gabby would not ever seeher mother again . and although gabby's mother is, does not recall telling gabby about these threats,

gabby heard whispers about it maybe or heard her mother and grandmother talking about it . gabby actually told me she was under the impression that her biological father and said she was going to, that he was going to come steal her. so she was aware to some degree of the threats that her father was taking. you can anticipate where this is headed. gabby while living in her home country before the family came to the united states was experiencing some fear that she could be separated from her mother. here that her biological father who had assaulted her, physically and assaulted her sexually, assaulted her mother, that her father would take her away from hermother and she wouldn't see her mother again . there was one or two instances right before the family decided to immigrate to the united states where gabby and her mother were leaving school and her father

was there so her father started stalking her this was the first time she had seen her father in three or four years. he probably had very little memory but when she saw him she knew he was. her mother was fearful and they fled the scene and were able to get away and that's when they decided to come, that's when gabby's momcited to bring her to the united states . fast-forward to crossing the border into the united states, there separated from one another as is that she was thrown in acage . with many other children, all the children were crying, all the children wereseparated from their parents . she was given a small blanket which i think he described as a bad and she remembers being cold . she remembers being afraid that she would not see her mother again and in part because of a guard told her her mother was probably going to get deported so she

developed a very reasonable fear that she would never see her mother again or that her mother would not be in the same country letalone in the same facility . over the course of the week that she was separated from her mother , gabby made a friend was helpful for her to have a friend because they can keep each other warm is to be verydisturbing . and she described the week and horrific terms as you can imagine. after a week apart she was reunited with her mother had they came to the dc area where they began living with extended family members gabby was obviously glad to be reunited with her mother . she experienced a severe emotionaldecompensation following the reunion . her mother described it as gabby kind of going crazy. she would tantrum like a baby but at the time she was nine, 10 and a half years old . so we heard of throwing

tantrums. she had difficulty regulating her emotions . . her mind described gabby was having many symptoms of ptsd including intrusive memories symptoms, having difficulty not thinking about what had happened . she had symptoms of depression. she seemed sad most of the time and was extremely irritable and mom described of your behavioral challenges . gabby was unable to sleep on her own where she had been sleeping on her own for many years. she and her mother started cosleeping again and the symptoms persisted for about a month as gabby readjusted to being with her mother and trying to mend the damage to the relationship that the separation had caused.

i saw gabby approximately one year later. and by that time both gabby and her mother explicitly described how she was doing well. the tantrum had long faded. she wassleeping well . she had started school andwas doing fairly well in school . my experience with gabby was not that she was doing well. i had a lot of trouble, i think kids this age have a sense of what it means to see a psychologist even if they don't quite cognitively know what it means. they know they will have to talk about their feelings, talk about traumatic experiences . gabby presented as a child who had been through severe trauma area she was extremely withdrawn. there was, it was really hard to develop rapport or much comfort and our relationship area avoided eye contact, spoke in a quiet voice. i never once was able to get

anything resembling a smile out of her. . i'm not saying that's what she's like in her day-to-day life but that's she was like with me . and even though both she and mom said she wasdoing well more generally speaking , there were other kind of signs underneath the surface there was still a lot going on in terms of response to trauma so i did some projected testing was basically testing that design illicit more in terms of potentially unconscious or underlying emotional distress so these examples i showed a picture of a child with a parent and they're doing something got a job described anyone want to just read the details about her responses because they werereally striking . so i showed her 10 heart and my job is to just get a sense of what are the themes of what she described it. he described the child as

feeling sad or in response to the hearts of some of the cards are designed to elicit some of these cards are not on the card you use either the word sad or scared, afraid. to describe people feeling angry on at least five occasions, to use words reflecting positive emotions on just one occasion. she also described as fearful and seeking safety and protection. children, he described a girl", wanted to be protected because of what was happening. he described a story in which two childrenare on each other because of the bad is happening . that they don't want to see their protecting each other. she also described a child feeling afraid because of nightmares, also and this is afraid because of the nightmare and also afraid of reality afraid of what she will see in shock. in that story she described the child wakes up and sees

if not real but remains very scared. she also described an instance in which a woman is being forced to kiss a male and forcing himself on another woman. in general, described many girls specifically who are at risk of physical danger. so as bethel, for presentation during the interview . for responses on projected testing, despite the fact that she was quote unquote doing well and recovering and quite frankly, given her experience i think she is doing really well . despite that, there's a lot going on underneath the trauma is still there. and my goal in addition to sort of detailing all of this in the report and presenting it to the lawyers so that they can use it to hopefully help this family what they need from a legal

perspective, my goal was to make sure mom understands one, that is completely normal what gabby is going through. what she went through what she described in terms of that month long period after the separation is normal. the fact that these things are, that her behavior is improving and get, there are still thechallenges, all that is normal . and preparing mom for the fact that even though she's doing well now, she's a risk of long-term challenges. anything that comes up that might trigger the underlying emotional distress that i want mom to be on the look out for including meeting with me, including meeting with lawyers, including potential court dates might be coming up. and obviously encouraging the family is therapy for. which is a hard sell given that daddy does not want to talk about these things read

the last thing she wants to talk about is the things so gabby, like i said was the first child i saw who endured the parent-child separation. and i'm sad to say that i think i've seen a few more since then i fear that more are on the way. thank you so much michael. so michael's just painted a picture of the devastating short and long-term consequences that a week of family separation had. and we know that this is still happening so wehave a couple questions from the audience . another question here for the panel is can you give any examples of how families are still being separated today and we know is not true, complete through this current policy but how does remain in mexico and see work and operate with manyother policies . >> since 2018 and still exist today to force these separations.

>> can be really any of you. >> going back to what i was alluding to getting about the ongoing issues. in the litigation on this sort of general lack of standards from cde. parent-child separations are continuing to happen. and fortunately from the ruling from a few weeks ago judge sobol, dhs can continue to separate when there is basically, when there's a parent criminal history issue. and that is very deeply troubling to us because as we know, there are many different types of criminal offenses that do not mean that someone would be unfitto be a parent or someone is a danger to their child . so we can keeping a close eye on that issue . about a year now and we really saw last spring, we

started to see a very disturbing updateagain in separation . and we know now there have been over 1000 kids since the injunction in june 2018. so most of the separations are due to criminal history. some were due to communicable disease. we even had a case where a dad was separated from his daughter because he was hiv-positive. the judge did ultimately find that separation to the unlawful goodness but i think it just demonstrates the ongoing impunity of cdc and the lies discretion they have to make those discriminations at the border. and unfortunately because of the ruling from a few weeks ago from the judges, they are permitted to continue to do this when the parents has a criminal offense.

and again, it does not have to be a criminal offense that necessarily involves any consideration of dangerto the child . i think we are still digesting that order to be honest, i think we are trying to think about possible strategies for moving forward. there is one piece of good news that i'll mention that in the recent appropriation package, that went through, there were as funding appropriated for child welfare professionals to be located at patrol stations which is great. and could be in an enormous achievement, but now the hs is supposed to implement that i think within 60 days and how often is that going to happen? but that could be a big step area that could certainly help.

the other thing i'll just mention briefly and i just want to chime in is the interaction with mcp. separations, family separations that we are seeing domestically are down in the last few months but it's really as a result of mcp self family instead of being separated are being sent back to mexico. but we're seeing like what we're calling the north iteration of family separation now which is that some families that were subject to npp, different circumstances, sometimes we are hearing from kids that their parents disappeared in mexico. and then the kids are presenting at the port of entry and being processed and placed in or. i think some families are making the difficult decision to do that intentionally because families don't feel that their kids are safe in mexico. they are being threatened or the kids are ill. so families are deciding to

present at the port of entry. at times now we've seen about 40 cases like this where kids now in our custody were previously subject to the mvp program and there's also a slightly different take on that is that we have heard of some instances where border patrol has processed the family unit. and had a question about parentage meaning that they suspect that the parents is not the real parent for the biological parents and not the legitimate legalparent . they have been placed the parents in mpg and processed the child under the pdc ra so that the child due to our facility and i just heard a story a few days ago about a kid that told us that cde ripped up his birth certificate and said we don't believe this is true since his dad back to mexico and he

got placed in or custody. >> i would just again, we provide services for unaccompanied children . we are as our other uac service providers seen children who were part of a family subject to npp for now designated as uac in our custody. i think chrissy did a good job of explaining it but i want to go back to this data issue. yet again this is not something that's in the uac portal, not something that is being tracked formally despite many alarm bells and regulations requiring that type of tracking. so what are we a service providers doing, we have implemented guidelines for our social workers to start to ask some of these questions. i know we work with other legal service providers and other uac service providers are doing this is important to understand that some of

the lessons learned clearly have not been learned and it's children's well-being that is really at stake here as we see this fourth iteration. it is an issue we are seeing more children who are in this dance. and you know, we are in a room full of lawyers i don't think anybody needs to think twice about some of thelegal complications come from this . let alone the social, service needs for a child who's been subject to npp and now is an unaccompanied child according to our system area. >> there's one this qualification questions and there are questions for each of you are not going to getto i invite you to come up here . okay. so one clarification question . chrissy, you just mentioned some parents are still separated under the recent order based on no history, criminal offenses and the question is our illegal reentry or reentry considered a criminal offense? >> the short answer is yes.

i think there is, i think i have some confusion about really the language of judge sumrall's order on that point. and i think the aclu maybe just you. i don't think it's totally clear. but yes, basically it did state that illegal reentry, is basically the same as a criminal felony offense and therefore could be an exemption from the class. but i think his expectation is that those parents after their process for illegal reentry should have the right to be unified with their child but they can still be separated for the insurance areas. >> still remains to be worked out and i'm hoping we can end up in a maybe more hopeful love. this lesson is for michael and is how can dental health care providers for agencies or with local public school systems to identify aces

needs of students involved and find mentalhealth support for them and then finally if you have anyideas on how people can get involved , or connect with people in the system . >> requested and i'm glad to hear the school system brought into it because i honestly after a lot of kids are being identified and it's where they're spending their time. but also identified and lots of kids are receiving services there. >> i think that there's a big push in primary care and i think doctor newman might be ableto say more about this . you try to quantify aces, try to screen for aces.and i think the primary caresetting is more appropriate . because that school setting might not be the right place to ask about the same area which is hard because the role is we want guidance counselors and psychologists to pick up on these things

too. and unfortunately they can get tied and when kids are starting to show your problems and as we know, when kids are depressed , they don't often don't look depressed in the way adults do. they can act out or engage in what we call externalizing behavior. so often times, the psychologists at school get involved when children start to act out. i don't think i have any silver bullet answer for how to help. is it a question specifically in terms of? >> about engaging in the schools but for anyone who's interested in engaging. on any of the immigration modes, we have ideas for how you can help these families by dealing with what michael has done and providing psychological evaluations by connecting it with them for ongoing therapy services. >> as lawyer's goal is one normalizing it, helping families understand that

these are traumatic experiences and as a result even if it's not something that typically qualifies for ptsd, these trauma -related symptoms we described as intrusive symptoms for intrusive thoughts and nightmares, avoidance symptoms so trying to avoid memories for avoiding things that remind you of the trauma , symptoms in terms of negative alterations in cognition or mood or depression, enjoying different aspects of life and positive emotions, distancing oneself the final category is arousal symptoms, so sleep disturbance, concentration issues , irritability. helping parents understand one normal, it's normal for parents to have these experiences, normal for children . just because their faith doesn't mean that the symptoms are not going to persist . in the case of gabby i hope i am at that point home. and in a perfect world, helping the family connect to a place where the child is at

least being monitored. from a psychological emotional perspective so primary care home like mary's center in dc or children, where they have access to mental health services that are tied in to the primary care services. i think those are always good steps that lawyers, you all can do just to make sure the family is aware. the family understands that it's normal and the family as some type of support the monitor for psychological distress or mental health challenges that might, >> thank you michael, we're heading into a those are great questions. i'll just share with you the topics in case anyone else wants to come up and hear the responses, there are questions around the privacy of the facebook groups for

relief families and formally separated families read michelle mentioned questions around the age group, what if the kids ate out and was undertaking when they came into the us. a question about children who have died in us custody area and that another about families being terrified as ashley mentioned to receive services. and thinking about how do we get through that and enable families to get the services for which they may be eligible i hope that you will join me on thanking our panelists for the work they have done. upon. >>. >> thank you for sharing your experiences with us and we have a break, i think youhave until 11:25 for the next panel, thank you .

[inaudible] >> tonight president from a campaign rally in phoenix arizona. watch live at 9 pm eastern on c-span, online at cspan.org or listen live on the free c-span radio app. >>.

>> this week we are featuring book tv programs showcasing what available every weekend on c-span2. tonight starting at 8 pm former secretary of state condoleezza rice talks about us china relations in the 21st century and then nabil corey, a retired foreign service officer who served in the middle east for 25 years talks about us policy in the region followed by michael rubin and brian catullus on instability in the middle east. enjoy the book tv this week and every weekend on c-span2. >> with the election season in full swing group of panelists talk about how technology can impact voter turnout and the best way to educate local journalists uncovering these issues. this discussion is hosted by