San Francisco’s office of the public defender has a unit dedicated to defending immigrants in court. In most states, they often have no representation because there is no right to counsel in immigration cases. Francisco Ugarte, managing attorney of this unit, talked with “Civic” about how handoffs between agencies work and what happens to someone who is arrested by immigration enforcement in San Francisco, as well as a class action suit the unit helped litigate over COVID-19 outbreaks in detention facilities.
Category: Immigration
Posted in“Civic” Podcast, Bay Area, Immigration
Immigration Attorney: Rapid Deportations a New Facet of Old Policy
In October, officials with Immigration and Customs Enforcement — ICE — began implementing an expansion of rapid deportations, in which undocumented immigrants may be removed from the country without a hearing before an immigration judge. While such deportations have been conducted for decades, the new policy expands who might be affected.
Posted in“Civic” Podcast, Government & Politics, Immigration, Media
‘Unforgetting’ Confronts Painful Personal, Political Histories of U.S. and Central America
Difficult and painful history connects gang violence and severe policing in Central America and in the United States, as well as mass migrations of refugees. In his new memoir, “Unforgetting,” Roberto Lovato teases out these connections with research and reporting, but also by telling his own story of coming of age as a U.S.-born child […]
Posted inCoronavirus, Immigration, Law & Justice, Social Justice
S.F. Immigration Lawyers Cut ICE Detention Centers Population by Two-Thirds
In late March, a cell phone video made by detainees was leaked to the public from Mesa Verde Immigration and Customs Enforcement Processing Center in Bakersfield, Calif. Dozens of men in orange jumpsuits walked past the camera while Charles Joseph read a petition. “Many of us have underlying medical issues,” he said. “This turns our […]
Posted in“Civic” Podcast, Housing, Immigration, LGBTQ+, Social Justice
LGBTQ Refugee Doc Debuts on Public Television, Streaming
The San Francisco Bay Area has a reputation for being a kind of “queer promised land,” says filmmaker Tom Shepard. In the documentary “Unsettled,” that notion is put to the test. The film follows four LGBT refugees as they try to build new lives in San Francisco after fleeing violence and discrimination in their home countries.
Posted inCoronavirus, Immigration
Nonprofits Retool to Serve Refugees Struggling During COVID-19 Shutdown
Refugees who arrived in the Bay Area around the time shelter-in-place orders were issued, as well as those who have been here for an extended period, are struggling to stay afloat, organizations who serve them said.
Posted inCoronavirus, Education, Immigration
Teachers Pledge to Funnel Crisis Checks to Undocumented Neighbors
Teachers in San Francisco have begun pledging their federal coronavirus relief checks to undocumented members of their communities.
Posted inCommunity, Immigration, Labor, LGBTQ+, Neighborhoods
Latinos in This Liberal City: From San Francisco’s Big Strike to Gay Liberation
Years before charting the evolution and diversity of Latino political life in the city, a historian came here to become an activist. His book recalls major battlegrounds from the 1930s to the 1970s: union campaigns; civil rights organizing; elections; Great Society mobilizations; and feminist, gay and lesbian activism. Read an excerpt from “Latinos and the Liberal City” by Eduardo Contreras.
Posted inBay Area, Government & Politics, Immigration, Law & Justice, News, Public Safety
Why Privacy Needs All of Us
One American city has gone further than any other in creating a workable solution to the current inadequacy of surveillance law: Oakland, which has pushed a pro-privacy public policy along an unprecedented path. Its Privacy Advisory Commission acts as a meaningful check on city agencies — most often, police — that want to acquire any kind of surveillance technology.
Posted inGovernment & Politics, Immigration, Labor, Public Safety
Immigrants Legally Here for Years Fighting to Stay After Trump Ends Protections
They are the latest immigrants whose fortunes have changed for the worse under President Donald Trump: More than 200,000 people from Central America and the region who are losing Temporary Protected Status after legally living, working and raising families in the United States for years.