NASW Social Work Talks - EP10: Immigration in Crisis

Episode Date: July 6, 2018

In this special episode, our guests weigh in on the crisis currently brewing around immigration in the United States, specifically related to children separated from their families at our southern border. Our guests are Melvin H. Wilson, LCSW, NASW's Manager of Social Justice & Human Rights, and Guadalupe G. Lara, LMSW, NASW Board of Directors Member-at-Large. See Episode 10 show notes for resources

Welcome to NASW Social Work Talks. The National Association of Social Workers is one of the largest membership organizations of professional social workers in the world. NASW works to enhance the professional growth and development of its members, to create and maintain professional standards, and to advance sound social policies. With our mission in mind, the purpose of NASW Social Work Talks is to inform, educate, and inspire. We encourage you to learn more about NASW by visiting www.socialworkers.org. And we thank you for joining us for this episode of NASW Social Work Talks. Hi, my name is Greg Wright, and I'm the Public Relations Manager

at the National Association of Social Workers. Today, our subject is the zero immigration policy implemented by the Trump administration. There is a lot of anger and also concern over this amongst social workers. Our guests are Mel Wilson. He is the social justice and human rights manager at NASW. Our other guest is Guadalupe Lara, Director of the Consortium of Hispanic Agencies. She's also our expert on immigration issues. First off the bat, why is our association outraged over this mail?

Well, you started off with talking about the zero tolerance policy. That in itself is something that was terrible, bad decision, and very harmful. The idea of zero tolerance, meaning individual families migrating for asylum, and as soon as they cross the border, they're under arrest. And the notion of criminalizing the need for help is intolerable. So that alone is an issue that really concerns us as social workers, given that we're dealing with families and children, and that it's simply an inhumane approach to dealing with a big problem. Guadalupe, when you first heard of this policy, what was your gut reaction to it right at that moment? Well, it's a racist policy. It's been our tradition as a country to welcome people who come from countries that are under tremendous unrest.

There's all kinds of problems with their governments. the cartels are, I mean, you just have to get facts and read about what's going on in these countries. And not just this, these countries in Latin America, in particular, Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras. And so, for instance, in Honduras, one out of 100 people, 80 are murdered. It's just a terrible situation. And I don't know why people can't see that this isn't any different than other times in our history. The Jewish people sent children here because they wanted them to live. During Mussolini's right, the parents there sent their children here. during the Cuban crisis. The parents sent their children here. These mothers are no different.

They want their children to have a future. They want them to live. And they love them so much, they're willing to sacrifice and come through the desert and come through all these challenges to get here. The only difference is that they are brown people. And, you know, we as a country have to be honest with ourselves. It's not the first time we've done this to people that are different from the mainstream. And I think if anybody gets it, because our code of ethics at social workers really tells us to be aware that we don't project our own biases here, that we right away saw this as unacceptable you know and as Mel said it is not a crime to seek asylum and so what the Attorney General Jeff Sessions did was pure racism saying well we will make this a

felony and we take your kids so we are going to make this a felony that these moms are coming here asking for us to help them as we've helped so many other immigrants. And he said, no, we're making this a felony. And if you don't want me to take your kids, then don't come here. So it's absolutely wrong. Can I add something to what you just said? Because people don't realize this, the family separation policy actually dates back almost the beginning of the Trump administration. The now chief of staff, Kelly, when he was at Homeland Security, actually articulated that policy many, many months ago. So this isn't something that suddenly they came up with. This is part of a strategy, and a strategy that we just can't tolerate.

Mel, how is this association reacting to this? Could you, as our social justice manager, what are the activities, meetings, and other things that we are involved in to actually mobilize membership on this issue? Well, we'll start off with the coalition part of it. I think the need for it to be a part of coalition is really essential. There's an immigration task force that probably encompasses at least 100, 150 organizations across the country. And they regularly have conference calls where there's a planning session and information gathering session. We are very much a part of that. I think when our CEO had a presser, it was through that coalition that that presser was put together,

and we were asked to participate in it. There's going to be the big march on, I'm going to get the dates wrong, on June 30th. June 30th, thank you very much. that we definitely are going to mobilize as best possible our members. We certainly will get the information out to our membership, and information not just about the Big March, but anything that we find is going on, we'll make sure that gets out to our membership.

The other part is just to be totally in tune as to what legislation, what kinds of policy actions are happening, and issue statements and actually get on paper what our points of view are, what our philosophies are, and what our policies are. We're going to join with several chapters to do a social justice brief, hopefully within the next two or three weeks. That's going to be a large piece that really drills down into the issue of detention, issue of child welfare, all those things that social workers need to know about,

and we'll have a series of recommendations in that brief, And we sort of just started, but we'll have something out there within a few weeks. And I want to add to that. I want to thank Mel and his leadership team because as a board member of NASW, we're very concerned. Of course, we care very much about policies, but we have to be in touch with the workers who are on the ground. And they've been calling individual board members who represent the country. You know, we have a large number of people in our roles here, over 100-plus members of the association. And they've been, like most people in the country, angry.

And they want to channel that anger because when you do something to help others, it's very difficult to be upset and angry. It's a healing thing. And they wanted to know, what can we do? What can we do? And so our board, led by Mel and his team, on Monday night, we developed a tip list because we have people on our board that know and are working on these things. And we developed a tip list. And thanks to staff and Mel, they posted it on Tuesday night, and it was very timely because on Wednesday morning, all of the people here for the National NASW Conference went down to Congress, to the Rayburn Building. We had a panel. And afterwards, we all gathered. Media was there, Congress representatives, their staff. And lo and behold, all of the outcomes of this coalition and the tip list that morning, over 100 plus had visited the site to do some of the recommendations that we had asked.

And of course, the president signed the order to change his own policy that he had created to stop the separation. But we have a lot to do. And workers, please don't think that the work is done because there are still children that need to be reunited that are still held in these cages down in the border. And I want to talk about something that I'm already getting calls about from the feel, and that is, what about these agencies? Like, they have different names, but it's Lutheran Children's Services. And I have to say that these people are good. They have been taking care of children even before the unaccompanied children that came in 12, 13, and 14. And they have services at these places where they place them. My concern for social workers, some are already picketing

some of these places. Their goal is to reunite these children, to get them out of the cages. And I think that while we're not in agreement with these children being further removed from their mothers, they have this, these places are better for these children. You know, they have schools, they have care, good care. There are social workers there and their commitment is to reunite our only concern and this is where social workers can pressure is what how many days because they haven't set a timeline how long do they give themselves to connect these children with the moms because they're under contracts and so social workers can volunteer there as as is on our tip list you they need bilingual translators so go to these places like in my

own state of Michigan. We have a large group of children that are coming here, Virginia and some others around here. Go to these places and ask, can you volunteer in whatever capacity they need there? And stay aware, stay in tune. And then the other thing is for social workers to continue to speak out the facts. And in Michigan, when I come back, I've already connected with our executive director of the chapter in Michigan of NASW. I will be providing a training with CEUs for social workers to come and get the facts about this, because they are confusing, as some people are confusing, what happened with the UAC, the unaccompanied children, with these children. Those children came alone. These children are coming with their mothers. So it's an emotional

issue, but you have to step back and get the facts. Now, immigration is a big issue. Right now we are in a crisis, but I wanted to ask each of you, what should our immigration policy be? What are legislative things that actually need to be done to make us have a fair, equitable, humane immigration policy. The broader one would be certainly passes at some point in time, a comprehensive immigration reform bill that's been going back and forth for, my God, years. And at one point, it almost got through and through our politics, it's gotten scuttled. The second one is DACA.

we're at a point now where that one bill that no one really likes, there were two out there, no one liked either one of them, but they're being held up and it probably will not pass. That 600,000, I believe, number of DACA eligibles will be in limbo and stay in limbo. So we are totally advocating for that as an immediate legislative fix, but certainly there has to be at some point a comprehensive immigration reform bill, path to citizenship all the things that's necessary i totally agree comprehensive immigration bill our current system is really broken there's too much differential practices going on

and i don't need to elaborate on that i think people know this as um a final question social workers are upset frustrated etc i was wondering if you have um encouraging words for them um as they're like out there in the field dealing with this issue guadalupe yes absolutely when i get workers like this morning calling me and saying i'm in a dark place i just don't even want to turn on the news i don't want to listen anymore i i've i hear them you know i give them support but i tell them it's okay to take some time out i have to do that sometimes but you have to strengthen yourself by coming back out and just helping one person it doesn't even have to be on this particular issue because we need to still take care of the

homeless we still need to do housing development we still need to take care of children who are involved in communities where there is an epidemic of the opiates or drugs. So if you're not working on the Board of Children, but you're working in health care to bring comfort to people that are in dialysis every day, or you're helping cancer patients, or you're working in community organization, or you're working on Get Out the Vote, you are helping this cause. Yeah, I think Guadalupe really made a point. Someone said on the panel yesterday that we shouldn't expect that everybody's going to flood down to the border or have something just immediately to be involved in.

There are things happening in every state somewhere, and the points that Guadalupe made about social workers already contributing, and we just need to continue, maintain, but understand this is our issue. We can't backtrack on that. This is child welfare, and this is something that we should be committed and ready to roll on. Mel's right, and I think it's everybody's issue. It's not just social work. Everybody should be concerned.

It really makes me sad that it's like empathy and compassion have just disappeared for a great majority of the people in our country. And even when presented with a child right there crying, they want to rationalize it. They want to explain it as they're breaking the law. This is a human being standing in front of you. What is wrong with us? Absolutely. Thank you so much. We'll be back on this issue. I know. And we actually hope to, like, have you here back with us. I thank you, Guadalupe Lara. Thank you, Greg. And Mel Wilson.

Thank you. Bye-bye now. you have been listening to nasw social work talks a production of the national association of social workers we encourage you to visit nasw's website for more information about our efforts to enhance the professional growth and development of our members to create and maintain professional standards and to advance sound social policies you can learn more at www.socialworkers.org. Don't forget to subscribe to NASW Social Work Talks wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks again for joining us. We look forward to seeing you next episode.