What happened today?
Why is this happening?
The Trump Administration has chosen to use the immense weapon of incarceration and family separation to punish and terrorize immigrants, particularly immigrants from communities of color. The law never required that these men be detained; the law never required that these families be separated; and the law certainly never required — in fact, it is rather unprecedented — that these men be imprisoned in a federal penitentiary.
But in the deportation process, when people are detained and hidden deportations come fast and easy. Keep them hidden. Keep them isolated. If no one cares, then it is as if it never happened at all. Right?
And that’s the mistake the Trump Administration made.
They weren’t expecting hundreds of Oregonians to step up and say: we are in this to win it. Unique in the United States, Oregonians–hundreds of you– have promised to defend these men in the courts, their families, the law of asylum — and by that simple Constitutional fact of due process and fairness, you are defending the rule of law and democracy.
What’s next & what can you do now?
- Be ready. As soon as we open access–and we will–things will happen very very fast and you will need to be available. We cannot say when yet.
- Learn about asylum. We’ve developed an online training curriculum to show you the basics.
- Learn why the role of counsel in rapid removals is so important.
Be well & more soon,
The Sheridan Pro Bono Project
Chanpone Sinlapasai, Eileen Sterlock, Stephen Manning, Caroline van der Harten, Luis Garcia
