About Isaac Christopher Samuel

Unmasking the Problem of Temporary Employment in Pennsylvania

During Douglas Bell’s first day of work, he stepped off a township garbage truck while it was moving and sustained a fatal head injury. Bell was not an employee of the township. Rather, Bell had been placed in the job with the township by a staffing agency as a “temp” worker. Both the staffing agency and the township were aware that Bell had never ridden on the back of a garbage truck. Each expected the other to make sure Bell was prepared to perform the job that day.

Bell’s tragic death highlights the problems with temp work. In an employment relationship with three players, host employers and staffing agencies can “pass the buck” between one another, evading employer responsibilities to the detriment of the temp worker. Read more here about the increasing phenomenon of temp work in Pennsylvania and the ways in which temp workers are at special risk for workplace injury and financial harm.

Pennsylvania Workers in Jeopardy: The Hidden Problem of Temporary Employment was written by law students, Rebecca Daily, Tracie Johnson, and Holly Smith, in the Social Justice Lawyering Clinic.  See today’s article in the Philadelphia Inquirer about the report.

 

Help with DACA

Yesterday, the federal government announced that it will phase out the DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) program. We’ve set up a DACA page containing information on the details of the government’s plan, how the plan will affect people who currently have DACA, and whom to contact for further help. We’ll update the page as information becomes available.

Barriers persist for non-English speakers in Pennsylvania courts

Unfinished Business, a new report from the Sheller Center for Social Justice at Temple Law School and Villanova University Charles Widger School of Law reveals that in some Pennsylvania courts, non-English speakers may not receive interpretation assistance during their hearings. This report is a follow-up study to the Sheller Center’s 2014 survey of Pennsylvania’s magisterial district judge (MDJ) courts.

The study performed court observation in 19 MDJ courts in Montgomery, Delaware, and Chester counties. It found that the majority of courts observed failed to provide certified interpreters for civil hearings. Court staff also did not consistently provide interpreters when speaking with limited English proficient individuals at the front desk nor did they uniformly provide notice of the right to language services. A minority of courts, however, were observed to provide exemplary language services.

“What is most concerning about our results is the inconsistency between courts. This means that individuals with limited English proficiency have unequal opportunities to access and participate in court matters depending on their location,” commented Anne Bonfiglio, a 3L law student and co-author of the report.

Magisterial district judge courts are Pennsylvania’s “small claims” courts. Litigants in these courts frequently do not have attorneys. Without access to adequate interpretation, non-English speaking litigants cannot understand what is happening in their court case.

The study concludes that these variations among courts came from the lack of consistent procedures and the limited accountability for courts that fail to comply with state and federal law. Further, a judge’s personal commitment to and understanding of language services directly contributed to the quality of language services provided in the courthouse.

The study comes on the heels of a comprehensive statewide Language Access Plan issued by the Supreme Court in March 2017. In order for this statewide plan to be truly effective, this report calls for statewide training of court staff and judges as well as forceful monitoring and enforcement.

 

Students create Welcoming Schools Toolkit for students, parents, and educators

The Youth Organizing Project at the Pennsylvania Citizenship and Immigration Coalition (PICC) came to the Sheller Center asking for help in creating a toolkit that would help immigrant communities advocate for the policies and practices needed to create safe and welcoming schools. After the fall election, PICC was flooded with questions from parents and teachers across PA, asking whether it was safe to send their children to school and what schools could do to protect students.

Social Justice Lawyering Clinic Students Tessa Carson (’17), Emily Diaz (’18), and Ashley Rotchford (’18) created the Welcoming Schools Toolkit. Emily Diaz states, “its purpose is to provide students, parents, and educators with the tools to advocate for schools that are committed to ensuring that all students—regardless of their immigration status—are welcome, safe, and protected in the school environment.” The toolkit offers sample resolutions and policies that represent proactive steps that schools can take to keep children safe from immigration enforcement raids, protect students’ privacy, and affirm a commitment to inclusiveness. Diaz, along with her partners, debuted the toolkit at PICC’s statewide convening in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania in May 2017.

 

Our unfair system of cash bail

The time has come to end the use of cash bail in Pennsylvania, says The Cost of Buying Freedom: Strategies for Cash Bail Reform and Eliminating Systemic Injustice, a new report from the Sheller Center’s Justice Lab and Redeemed PA, a community organization.

According to the report, the cash bail system discriminates on the basis of poverty, not dangerousness (as one interviewee noted, “Poor folks stay in jail and rich folks don’t”). And the result, for people who cannot afford even low bail, is not just loss of liberty; pretrial detention also makes it harder for them to assist in their defense, thus unfairly increasing the likelihood of conviction.

According to the report, the cost of keeping people in jail who don’t need to be there runs into the millions of dollars each year. Cash bail doesn’t accomplish its goal, since the likelihood that a defendant will return to court is not enhanced by the setting of a high bail figure. The system is also unnecessary: under state law, the most dangerous defendants can be detained without bail in any event. (And there’s other strange stuff; did you know, for example, that you’ll forfeit a percentage of your bail even if you’re found not guilty?)

Effective alternatives, including validated risk assessment tools and innovative supervision programs, are now in use in cities and counties around the country.  Pennsylvania should follow the lead of those jurisdictions, say the report’s authors — students Adorah Nworah, Paige Joki, and John Farrell.

Discussions about cash bail are already underway in Philadelphia, which — as part of its criminal justice reform plan — has undertaken to “establish a robust range of alternatives to cash bail based on risk level.” And both candidates for District Attorney have been addressing the subject; Beth Grossman (R) reportedly supports the continued use of cash bail, while Larry Krasner (D) states that he will implement alternatives for those charged with nonviolent offenses. Hopefully, the findings of the report will contribute to these discussions — in Philadelphia and statewide.

Sheller Center’s Temp Worker Project debuts at 29th annual Worker’s Memorial Day

At the 29th annual Worker’s Memorial Day, the Sheller Center’s Temp Workers Project made its debut in front of an audience of hundreds of people, including Governor Wolf. Temp workers in Pennsylvania are increasingly found in blue collar industries and low-wage work. They are especially vulnerable to health and safety risks and pay violations on the job. A report by Rebecca Daily (2L), Tracie Johnson, and Holly Smith (2L), students in the Social Justice Lawyering Clinic, will be forthcoming this summer.

Ripple effects from “advocacy in action”

We’ve shared lots of information about the Justice Lab effort that, in collaboration with many partners, led the City to decide to stop charging parents for the costs of their child’s incarceration. But Monday’s panel discussion about this example of “advocacy in action” brought out an additional point: social justice efforts can have a ripple effect.

L to R: Prof. Colleen Shanahan, Councilman Kenyatta Johnson, DHS Commissioner Cynthia Figueroa, parent Kameelah Davis-Spears, student Wesley Stevenson, YSRP Co-Director Lauren Fine, and students Kelsey Grimes and Sela Cowger. Photo by Abraham Gutman.

Thus, the fact that City Council, the Department of Human Services, the Youth Sentencing and Reentry Project, and Temple law students were able – despite their differing roles — to cooperate in achieving this policy change had implications beyond the issue of incarceration costs. In a sometimes fractious political environment, “it showed,” DHS Commissioner Cynthia Figueroa said, “that we can work together.”

Likewise, Philadelphia’s decision to stop charging parents may have implications for other counties, since the State is now considering revising statewide guidance on the issue.

And there’s more: the discussion is also no longer just about charging parents of incarcerated children. City Councilman Kenyatta Johnson stated he’s “in it for the long haul” of questioning the array of fines and fees that further impoverish people whose incomes are already too low.

It’s an encouraging set of ripples. And it was encouraging, too, to hear Councilman Johnson say that often in government, “the best common sense comes from the activists.”

Guest post: crime and policing

Guest blogger and Temple Law student Samantha Ramagano shares her thoughts on the second panel in our “Making Sense of the Legal Headlines” series.

In January, former U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch stated that the Department of Justice investigation of the Chicago Police Department had found “a pattern or practice of the use of excessive force” in violation of the Fourth Amendment.  Only a little more than a month later, new Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced that DOJ would be scaling back on investigations of police departments.

This policy shift seemed like a step backwards for civil rights and the Department’s push to end racial discrimination and the use of excessive force by police department nationwide. (A history of DOJ’s work in this area is here.) Not knowing how the new administration would affect efforts at reforming policing in my own community of Philadelphia, I found myself looking for answers at the Sheller Center’s “Crime and Policing” panel discussion last week.

The message I took away from the event was a hopeful, albeit complicated one: real reform should not focus on policing alone, but on the entire criminal justice system. Because reform requires a holistic approach, potentially harmful policy decisions and rhetoric at the federal level will not derail the process, although they could slow it down.

Former Philadelphia Police Commissioner Ramsey summed it up well when he said that the focus of reform cannot be on policing alone. While that may be the aspect of criminal justice reform that gets the most media scrutiny, there are other aspects of the system that are just as much in need of attention.

Luckily, these are areas in which we, the public, can make a real difference.  For example, Meg Reiss, from the Institute for Innovation in Prosecution, noted that prosecutors at the local level are publicly elected officials, so paying attention to these elections is extremely important, as well as continuing to hold these officials accountable between election cycles. The point is, not all hope is lost and while the road may be long, a more holistic approach to criminal justice reform will pay off in the long run, as long as we are all willing to put in the work.

Guest post: border security and interior enforcement

Guest blogger Anne Bonfiglio, a second-year student at Temple Law, shares her reflections on last week’s Sheller-Center-sponsored panel (the first in our “Making Sense of the Legal Headlines” series).

Midway through the Q&A of last week’s panel on Border Security and Interior Enforcement, a student prefaced a question with the comment, “this is really depressing.”  Exiting the event, a professor confessed that only seconds before that remark a colleague had whispered the same to her.  For those who care about the rights of immigrants, January’s executive orders certainly are disheartening.  For those in the country without status, they are terrifying.  But I left with a more hopeful takeaway: these orders are vulnerable in the face of resistance.

The lecture, given by Professors Ramji-Nogales and Spiro, focused on the two Executive Orders signed January 25, 2017.  The first, “Border Security and Immigration Enforcement Improvements,” orders the construction of the infamous border wall.  The second, “Enhancing Public Safety in the Interior of the United States,” attacks “sanctuary jurisdictions” by removing their eligibility for Federal grants.  Additionally, these orders authorize an expansion of detention facilities, expedited removal, and immigration officer hiring, expand the definition of a criminal alien, and require the publication of data supporting the President’s anti-immigrant position.

On their face, these provisions are alarming.  Unfortunately, some, such as the expansion of expedited removal, are well within the President’s statutory authority (though they may present constitutional questions).  But others are less secure.  Some provisions, including increased hiring, detention, and the wall, are subject to Congressional budgetary approval.  Others, like the various reporting obligations, have inadequate infrastructure.  And the crackdown on sanctuary jurisdictions has at least three possible legal arguments against it: precedents prohibiting the commandeering of local law enforcement, constraining the use of funding to force compliance, and basic Fourth Amendment Protections.

While these orders have yet to be challenged in court, they can be resisted, whether through lawsuits or local community support of undocumented residents.  As an immigrants’ rights advocate, I find inspiration in these possibilities.  Yes, recent policy is depressing and the toll on families is staggering.  But it is important that one doesn’t become overwhelmed by these costs. Immigrant advocates are mobilizing; as social justice lawyers and students, it is our job to promote an understanding of the legal arguments available in this fight.

Anne has put together two sets of links for further reading — one comprising legal sources, news and commentary, the other a collection of “know your rights” and other materials for community education and organizing. 

Insights into working with children and youth

“Working with Youth” was the topic of yesterday’s panel discussion among Alysha Clark and Brianna Shaw, both Temple Law students, and Liz Yeager, of the HIAS Immigrant Youth Advocacy Project. The panel was part of a Social Justice Advocacy Institute created by Rubin-Presser Fellows Paige Joki and Sela Cowger and supported by the Sheller Center.

Ms. Yeager discussed the challenges of representing children and youth in the stressful context of immigration proceedings. And Ms. Clark and Ms. Shaw, both of whom had had years of personal experience as wards of the child welfare system, spoke candidly about how it had felt to have lawyers, social workers, judges and others intervene in their lives.  Some key themes: really listening (too often, young people are talked at, or talked around); accountability – i.e., doing what we say we’re going to do, an especially important issue for young people who have experienced too many broken promises; and managing our resources as advocates so as to be able to help clients most effectively.

Alysha Clark commented: “Conversations like this are the perfect start to understanding what forms and methods of advocacy are effective with youth and which are not so effective. It is particularly excellent to have these conversations early in our legal careers.”  And Brianna Shaw put it this way: “It’s important for all attorneys to be knowledgeable about working with youth because it comes up in so many aspects of public interest work. Oftentimes, we take our own personal experiences as youth for granted — but a lot can be learned from situating yourself in the shoes of youthful clients.”