NASW Social Work Talks - EP51: Immigration on the Texas Border, Before and After COVID-19

Episode Date: April 28, 2020

In early March, we spoke with NASW-Texas chapter Executive Director Will Francis, LMSW, and Government Relations Director, Alison Mohr Boleware, LMSW, about what the immigration crisis looks like in their state. Then the coronavirus health crisis hit North America, so we spoke with them again in April to see how things changed. See the show notes for related resources and a transcript.

Welcome to Social Work Talks. I am your host, Greg Wright. Thousands of migrants, including children, remain detained in facilities in U.S. border states and around the nation. In March, Social Work Talks sat down with NASW Texas Chapter Executive Director Will Francis and Allison Moore Bolivar, the Chapter's Government Relations Director. Will and Allison talked about the continued inhumane treatment of these migrants and how NASW has formed a special committee to advocate for them. Then the coronavirus pandemic hit. We revisited Will and Allison this month to talk about how the pandemic is affecting detained immigrants and what social workers can do to help.

Will and Allison, how are you doing today? Doing good. Thank you. Yeah, doing great. Thanks for having us on. immigration and the treatment of migrants has been in the news a lot lately. I was wondering if you have an overview of what's actually happening now, both in Texas and in other areas along the border. Texas is in an interesting place because obviously immigration is a federal issue

and a lot of what we do is determined by federal dollars and federal policy. And yet once someone is in our state. It's really up to Texas to determine the response. So we essentially have to deal with the president's policies, which are pushing people outside our borders if they're trying to legally immigrate here, which is really sort of cracking down, as it were, on what support systems we have once they're in the country, coupled with a state which is still pretty conservative politically and so we still put a whole lot of money into sort of securing our borders I guess the past two sessions we've put a little over eight hundred million dollars into that a lot of that goes to staff who patrol

or guard our borders a lot of that goes into military type resources that are seen as a needed protection against possible criminal activity down there but a little not a lot has really gone into how we address the issues facing someone who's coming to this country because they're many many times fleeing violence they're coming here to be with family they do have good reasons for wanting to come into our country and so we're still working that out and NASW's voice here in Texas at the chapter level is both trying to support good policy within our capital trying to advocate for funding and decisions that really

allow families to stay together and to get the mental health and other supports they need while also supporting NASW and DC's ability to really advocate for a greater social work role within the framework of our centers and and when those who are immigrants are in contact with professionals and and really for a better policy on how we process how we utilize our court systems and how we really move people to a resolution. Where are the majority of these migrants coming from and what is the situation back home that's actually forcing them to attempt to enter our nation? Yeah, I think that's a great question. And with us being, you know, on the border with Mexico,

we know that a lot of the immigrants are coming from the South, either Central America, South America, coming up through Mexico, fleeing extremely violent situations and other violence that's there in their home countries and really trying to escape that whenever they're coming into Texas. That's what we're seeing the most, I'd say, from our state. How are our chapters helping these people? So we, as the Texas chapter, we're involved in a number of statewide and national coalitions and networks that we engage with more to support their work we really see them as the on-the-ground experts and leaders and we just want to support them and the

efforts that they're already doing one such group is called the detention watch network and they're a group that looks at detention centers and you may know where the listeners may not know that a number of those detention centers are housed in Texas many of them actually pretty close to Austin where we are located so we see that a lot of social workers and social work students are really interested in engaging and the I guess making sure that the people that are in those detention centers are treated humanely and fairly but also acknowledging that within this detention watch Network how can we make sure that

we can be a coordinated effort to also try to stop those detention centers from growing as well as stop new ones from coming to Texas that's just one effort that we have we also have a number of social workers who are really on the ground and local branches across our Texas chapter that are really working with immigrants either helping with perhaps resettlement or helping with counseling and therapy once they are able to get settled and you know want to talk through things about their experiences we also have social workers working in the legal side of these issues as well yeah to add to that and

many people here for or immigrating to this country have to go through something called a credible fear interview which is an actual interview that discusses the violence that they're fleeing their experiences in their home country why they say that they they need to be here or else they will be unsafe if they go home and that is often done in conjunction with an attorney but many social workers are doing that and so what we need and what we support our social workers who can speak Spanish or actually other indigenous languages are are able to provide those.

Many times our social workers partner with attorneys as they go in. And we are a huge advocate as a chapter of ensuring that social workers are doing social work. And an attorney is not just using them as a translator, but is actually bringing all their professional skills into that relationship. There is an issue that has outraged a lot of folks

and it's a separation of the migrant children from their families. What would be a long-term effect of this happening? Because what I've read is that a lot of the children will be, like, separated for months, if not a few years, from their families. Yeah, this is a really big issue that we've been involved in for a long time. A couple sessions ago, we opposed a bill that would have brought our family detention centers under state oversight. It's not that we don't feel that they should be safe places and actually have, you know, regulations ensuring that we are able to observe what's happening there. We just feel those families should be in the communities and that these are really basically lockdown prisons that we're putting our families in for no reason other than the fact that they are coming here fleeing violence.

And so we oppose that. We've done a whole lot in trying to support families remaining together. You know, here in Texas, we have a really big push to make our child welfare system trauma-informed and that everyone in that system should have a trauma training. And we're huge advocates as a chapter that that should be the exact same for our immigration system and that everyone in our child detention centers or family detention centers or any of those facilities should have training in trauma. And so that's really how we try to put our voice in there. and then we do have this balance between you have unaccompanied minors whose families are not able to make the journey with them or something happens along the way and they show up at our border alone and then you have the families themselves are together we have at least one facility here that was

fathers and sons we have another that was mothers and sons and in all of those the reports we hear is that the conditions are very subpar that they're denied access to medical care or other therapeutic care simply as a punishment that children again are required to follow jail type standards and in all of these we really do raise our voice strong it is one of our priorities on our legislative interim agenda so right now the legislative session in Texas we're not in the legislative session so right now we're you know talking to legislative offices and this is something that we bring up but also

acknowledging like Will said that since so much of the immigration policy is at the federal level. What we do more at the Texas level is combat negative legislation or things that would harm immigrants even more or things that would take away more of their rights. And so I do think that there is a lot of interest in this. We have an extremely diverse state with a very large population of folks who are immigrants or have immigrants in their family. So this is a huge issue. The public charge issue is another one that we've been involved with. So the public charge rule I think it went into effect very recently last month or so and so we know that that affects how folks engage either in the health care system we're

hearing that some moms do not go to the to any prenatal care because they're fearful of either themselves or a family member being found out that they're undocumented we're hearing that a lot out of Houston we know that it changes how people engage in the health care system, how they engage, whether they apply for Medicaid for their children, as well as CHIP. We know that that's a huge issue. And we're seeing in Texas that a lot of folks just aren't engaging in benefits or services that they are eligible for out of fear that it would impact their immigration status or potentially deportation. Wow. I've also heard that our chapters, not only a Texas chapter, but others are working in an

Immigration Group. And I was wondering if you could tell me more about how that group works. Sure. So thanks for asking. We're really excited about this. So we were contacted by the New York chapter as well as the national NASW staff. The four of us have really been working closely, probably since the fall, to kind of talk about what would this working group look like. And what was decided was that this chapter, Immigration Working Group, would be housed within the Social Action Committee, and we decided that it would be dedicated to education, coordination, and mobilization of local and state NASW chapters, and that this work would really be on behalf of immigrants, including refugees and asylees, looking at legislative

and policy-focused issues with the ultimate goal to engage more social workers in immigration, refugee, and asylee-related work. We know a lot of people are interested in this, as you've shared, but we know that it's sometimes to collect information, know when information is important to social workers, so this is really what we're working on right now. We've only had one formal meeting and we invited other border states to join us and we're hoping to in the future get more formalized, but we're really excited about this work. Everyone's extremely passionate and sharing what things look

like in their state and knowing that the reality is different states have different political landscapes, so what's happening in California and Florida looks very different than what's happening in Texas. But we really want to mobilize more social workers on these issues, and that's the ultimate goal of the group. So in a perfect world, how should this issue be solved? I mean, I think it's a great question, and I'll take it, and I want to hear Allison as well, but I think we really have to advocate for change at the federal level. Some of that's going to come with the elections, that if we keep the same people who have power right now in power, we're going to see the same policies. You know, an old adage is, at some point, you can't

change minds, so you have to change people. And I think that's really important here, is that if we want to see our numbers of refugees that we allow into this country, if we want to see immigration policies that support DACA and DREAMers and others who come here and have shown that they're established, you know, all the data shows that people who immigrate here, whether legally or illegally, pay their taxes at some of the highest rates of anyone. And so these are people who contribute to the infrastructure of our country. And we really need to think about how we support that. Some of it comes to funding. Are we putting resources into mental health? We as a chapter advocate that every single person who is immigrating here, no matter what status, should

see a social worker, should see a mental health professional, should be able to be assessed for trauma, should be able to get connected to resources that they need. And then again, the other piece is the policy piece, which is just we have to understand people are fleeing violence. People are afraid for their lives. This is an incredibly hard journey. It is fraught with peril along the way. And if someone is willing to make that trip, it means that they're leaving something that is horrific. And we need to respect that. And we need to think about how we can support them here. And then the other piece of that, and it's a larger, you know, how we focus on our national, I mean, global policy is what are we doing to support these countries? We know places like Honduras

in El Salvador, the violence and the gang is incredibly hard there. I'm not saying we come in and we intervene and we necessarily tell that country what to do, but we think about what resources could a country like that utilize that would perhaps help them address some of the problems at home, and maybe that's where we support some of the influx of people. Allison, if it was a perfect world and if we had a perfect policy, what would it be? Well, I think I'm going to, you know, go back to the rule book and looking at the social work speaks. I really love how it's written in our policy statement on immigration and really looking at how can we promote social justice and avoid racism, discrimination, profiling and decent travel bans. And also just promoting, you know, both U.S. and other countries immigration policies to focus on human well-being, world peace and stability.

And I don't think I could say what specific policy it would be, but like Will said, I think looking at things comprehensively and not just what's going on in our country, but what's going on in other countries, how can we make people, you know, feel, if they do come to the United States, feel welcome here and not, you know, treated poorly and inhumanely. And sadly, that's kind of where we are right now. And especially in Texas, there is a lot of negative rhetoric about immigration and about refugees and asylees. For example, our governor at the beginning of this year decided that Texas would not allow any new refugees to be resettled in Texas.

And we spoke out very quickly against this as a chapter, saying that we see the value that refugees bring to our state. We have pockets of refugees resettled in some rural areas of the state that have brought some really amazing benefits, both culturally and economically and have really done an amazing job assimilating and growing in these really rural parts of the state and we see that across Texas there are so many examples of this where they have brought benefits to the communities and that we want Texas to be seen as a welcoming place and that y'all means all and we think that includes refugees so that's just an example of one policy that we that we do disagree with and that we wish that our governor had chosen differently on. If I'm a social worker who is outside of a board of state and I want to like

help out, what is advice you would offer me? That's a question that we get all the time and I appreciate you asking that because we often hear from other chapters or other social workers saying, I heard about this issue on the news. I really want to come help. I'm a retired social worker. I have the ability to sort of travel down there. What do I do? And my caution is you really have to look at the rules of the state where you're going. And so in Texas, for instance, we have title protection here. And to do social work in Texas, you have to be licensed in Texas as a social worker. And so I would just be cautious about, say, coming down and volunteering and serving in maybe a clinical role or doing assessments or doing social work in ways that

could impact your license back in your state where you come from, or could say something happened and someone made a complaint and it turned out you weren't licensed here, potentially bring some negative attention to the whole situation. So just be very thoughtful about that. Look at the rules of the state, if it's Arizona, if it's California, if it's Texas, see what that looks like. And then understand that there's probably a pretty good need back in your own state, that there's refugee services there, that there's other ways you can donate time and resources at the local level or money at the national level to causes, but that we just want to be cautious about people just sort of jumping in into a situation that may

impact licensure there was an article in The Washington Post it's actually gotten a lot of play all around the nation and it's on a therapy notes issue I was wondering if you're also following that at a chapter level there yeah we released a statement on that very quickly and we want people to understand there's a couple of issues here one there there are therapy notes and there's the medical record and therapy notes are protected and as long as those are kept physically separate here in Texas you have greater protections on that so you have to be thoughtful about the way the process is the other piece

however is if you work for an agency organization that is ice or is connected or has those contracts you may be required to turn certain information over and we were incredibly saddened by the by the ethical lapses I think that were made in a situation of someone promising information would be kept confidential and it wasn't and and so as social workers and as mental health professionals we really need to be thinking about how we disclose our roles to clients and we've come out and said we don't think it's appropriate we hope that ice changes their policy that they do not use information that was shared

within a therapeutic setting in a way to bar someone from remaining in this country but that if those are the systems we work in and those are the policies in place then we have to be crystal clear about our role and what we can share and we really have to support clients at the end of the day and if that client needs greater therapeutic support for some trauma that happened in the past then they may need to get it outside of an interview like that and it's more of a referral or it's more of an understanding of how other resources that protect that client need to be utilized

Allison and Will the big issue now is on a coronavirus pandemic and it's really spreading in prisons, jails, nursing homes, like places where people are really locked in? How is it affecting thousands of detained migrants? There has been a lot of fears of the lack of supplies within the detention centers, the lack of social distancing due to the close proximity of all the folks living in there, as well as lack of testing and other supplies that are needed in those detention centers. And so there has been a big push from what we've seen of people just asking for more votes to be released from the detention centers, as well as asking for no new people to be

sent to the detention center. So kind of a twofold approach there. And so we definitely agree that it's a huge issue. And the last thing that we want is for people to be, you know, not only in the detention center, but sick in the detention center and unable to get the supplies that they need and, you know, to spread it to others that are there as well. Yeah, one of the things that's been so upsetting to us from a social work standpoint is we've really seen this issue get politicized. we've seen our own state our own Attorney General really talk about how we should be putting our testing kits towards frontline personnel and not worrying about those incarcerated either in the criminal justice system or in our

immigration system and really sort of using rhetoric that frames them as not worthy or that if we do put resources into those populations we're taking it away from someone else and I think that that's really a harmful way to look at this I think we need to be thinking that everybody needs access to everyone needs to be as safe as possible. And it doesn't matter whether you're in a jail or you're in a detention center or you're out there in the front lines, you need to be a priority and that we need to be looking at getting tests everywhere and not sort of trying to pick and choose who should get it. So I'm really frustrated with how the rhetoric is really sort of pointing fingers at these people

who may very well be sick and who may need medical care. Yes. So I was wondering if anyone has any like estimates now on how many folks are detained and how many might be ill at this point? You know, I think that's a really good question. And I'm honestly not sure if anyone can even say that. I think that there has been a lot of issues in Texas with testing in general and reporting in general. So I think that already there are issues outside of the detention centers with knowing all of the exact numbers. And I can only imagine that. I think it's tougher even within the detention centers to know who might have the virus or not because of lack of testing, exactly like Will said. And I think that there is a huge fear of the lack of resources that already these detention centers

had, exactly like Will said, that things are being diverted to other parts of the state and other areas. But the folks that are in the detention centers, as well as jails and prisons, also need humane treatment and need to be taken care of as well. And right now, we know that there just hasn't been the same effort towards some other populations that is very needed for the detention centers. Yeah. And while Allison was talking, I got to look up some research. So this is not something that I had at the tip of my tongue. But it looks like right now, we've got a little around 30,000 people or so from April 2019. Texas has about 14,000. Louisiana has about 4,000. Arizona has about 4,000. California, 4,000. Georgia, almost 4,000. And those are just the

top states. And then according to the federal government data, 70% of those people are held and privately run immigrants. These are big numbers we're talking about. And this could be anyone from someone who is seeking political asylum to someone who was picked up for not possessing the correct documentation. It could be someone who was moved from a jail into this population. It could be a family, a parent and a child. So we're talking a really big number here and we're talking a really, really big group of people that traditionally have not had good medical care anyway, good mental health and other care. And if they're in a situation where they're afraid for themselves or their children and are worried about whether they've contracted the

virus, maybe they have previous medical history that makes them more at risk, they need mental health supports. It's a giant gap that I think our administration is currently leaving those needs unmet and is actually using this as a way to push an agenda even bigger than the one it should be, which is how do we support all of the people within our borders, as well as beyond as well. Will, to like make that clear, these 30,000, those are the number of detained migrants that are in those facilities in those border areas. Correct. Those are just the biggest. We know that other states, Pennsylvania, and I want to say some of the other small other states do have smaller ones. And we know that there's littler numbers, but those are the big facilities. And

those are where we have the most. And again, the more, the reason why those are the biggest risk, because the more people we have feather at any one time, more of the risk we have for spreading it. Yes. And I think as we've seen that there have been some prisons across the country where those rates have grown, sorry, the positive test rates of coronavirus within a prison have grown rapidly. Once one person who is in the prison has it, it can spread quickly. And so, as Will said, with so many people in the detention centers, and Texas does have a large number, there's a lot of fear that if it is within a detention center, it will spread quickly. And I don't really think we can say how many people have tested positive because we don't think that

those people are getting tested yet? Most people spend about a month or less in detention. And so that means that they're back out in communities. And that is a hugely risky thing if they have contracted it while in detention. Well, I've also been reading in the news that they are sending infected migrants back home. And a lot of these nations don't have adequate health care anyway. So it's like spreading it even more. Right. And I think, Greg, you bring up a really good point. So we had a forum with some of our social work members a couple of weeks ago, and we were really asking them, what are some things that y'all are seeing in your community? What questions do you have?

And the number of questions that we got on, I need to help clients that I have that are undocumented, that are struggling with housing or health care access or food. But because those folks might be undocumented or have someone undocumented in their home, they're not eligible for certain programs or they are fearful to try to get a program involved with their family because they're fearful of deportation. So I think there's so much lack of trust of certain institutions that those communities might not reach out for the very services that are needed. Building on previous fears because of public charge rules and other things that have gone on with ICE and deportation, there's just a lot of distrust in the community, which then only exacerbates the lack of resources that those folks have. I was wondering if I'm a social worker and this issue has enraged me, how can I act? I mean, what are a few concrete things that our members and the wider social work community can do to help these people? Well, I know here in Texas, we have a number of groups that are really on the ground working with folks. and I can share some information with y'all to put on the podcast notes, but REACES is an amazing

group. We have several members of NASW Texas that work for them that are really experts on immigration, refugees, and asylees, and can really speak to the issues on the ground and can really, and donating money to them can help them provide more services. We've been contacted by a few different people within our membership, do we know any mental health supports that are available for undocumented immigrants? So I think, too, donating to groups that you know are providing mental health supports to people because this is extremely traumatic. The fear of deportation is only an added trauma. So I think having those mental health supports in other languages is so important. We also have a human rights committee within NASW Texas, and we are working right now

on a few different items to educate social workers on how to better support undocumented immigrants, and we will make sure that we release some action alerts once we have some more concrete ideas. You know, Will and I really want to make sure that we're listening to the community, that we're working with community partners that are already working on this, and we do have a meeting later on today, actually, with a group that helps social workers support folks that are in detention centers that really know that community well and know the population well. So we will probably have some more direct action alerts even later today or tomorrow. We also are working with a number of other chapters and ASW chapters within the country on our immigration working group, which is a

subcommittee within the Social Action Committee. And we have been, we had a meeting earlier this week. We are working on a few different items right now. Mel and Eric are really leading the charge and we're alongside them. And it's been really great to see what all different states are doing right now. And so I think that we will have some more action items coming out of that immigration working group that NASW members can really plug in and take action. If people want things to change, then you have to have people in power who are sympathetic to your views. And so I think elections are a big part of it. Our president has, he's had an announcement on DACA, as well as a ban on all immigrants coming in. And I was wondering, what is your

opinion of all of these actions? Yeah, again, I think this just speaks to how political this is about when you have President Trump coming out on Twitter saying that he's going to take major action here, and then what he essentially does is that he puts a 60-day ban on all people seeking parts or, you know, legal residence here as a way to sort of, quote, protect American jobs. You really have to question what the motivation is. We know that so many of our healthcare workers are people who come from an immigrant background. We know that so many of the people working on our front lines or even just doing tasks such as working in grocery stores or working in essential businesses for your car and other things, really are here to keep up the infrastructure. These

people who come, who have immigrated to the United States or come here in many, many different ways, be it immigration, be it refugee status or whatever. And so to really sort of point the finger outside, I think really is something we have to question. We know that the United States currently has the most confirmed cases of coronavirus. We know that we have some of the most deaths. We know, and that's what we've reported, we know obviously there's a lot of data out there that we don't have, but those are some really big numbers about how we need to really be making sure that our internal mechanisms are in place. And then in the most recent stimulus package, they put a whole lot of relief for university students, and they just declared

yesterday, the Department of Education, that DACA students would not be allowed to access those dollars. There's 700,000 people who are in the DACA program. Many, many of them are in universities. Many of them are seeking that education. That college degree, all the data shows, is the way to become that productive, taxpaying, backwards-contributing member of society. That's how your income is raised. That's how job opportunities are available to you. to sort of close the door on people who are seeking that. Again, I think it's just cruel. I think it just doesn't align with social values. And I think it really shows how I think the current administration has lost a lot of control on this situation. It's really trying to look the point of fingers in other places when what they really should be doing is really saying, how do we get our medical and our financial supports as broad as possible to as many people

that need them. Wow, there's a lot happening, and I'm really glad that you're able to give us an update on it. Thank you for all of your hard work, and also for giving us a few moments of your time, Will and Allison. Thank you so much for being on Social Work Talks. Thank you, Greg, you're awesome. Thank y'all so much. 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. Thank you.