Sheller Center Creates Model Policies Toolkit for Communities Fighting Against Federal Immigration Enforcement

February 25, 2021 – The Sheller Center, in collaboration with the Pennsylvania Immigration and Citizenship Coalition (PICC), releases Dismantling ICE in Pennsylvania: Toolkit of Model Policies for Advocates & Communities Seeking to End Local Collaboration with Federal Immigration Officials. This toolkit aims to support community-based, immigrant-led movements that are fighting to end local government collaboration with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). 

By systematically targeting immigrants for arrest, detention, and deportation, ICE creates fear within communities and perpetuates cycles of trauma and hardship. ICE relies heavily on local law enforcement and other government officials to assist with gathering information, stopping, apprehending, and detaining immigrants in Pennsylvania. 

Immigration enforcement, however, is a federal responsibility. Participation by local authorities is entirely voluntary and not required by law. Further, by assisting with enforcement of federal immigration law, localities expend their own resources and open themselves up to potential liability. For this reason, several counties and cities in Pennsylvania have enacted policies that explicitly restrict local government participation in such collaboration. 

Dismantling ICE in Pennsylvania provides sample model policies. The toolkit is divided into four broad categories of interaction with ICE that localities can seek to address: (1) general assistance; (2) interactions with criminal systems; (3) information sharing; and (4) contractual agreements. Community-based organizations can use the toolkit to advocate for policies that remedy specific forms of local ICE collaboration happening within their own communities.

Beyond the model policies themselves, the toolkit provides additional resources about each policy, including talking points, statistics, and legal information that can help advocates in speaking with local government officials. It also details information about similar policies that have been enacted in localities across Pennsylvania, with the full versions available on our website.

Mana Aliabadi (‘22), Alexis Fennell (‘21), and Kate Steiker-Ginzberg (‘22) developed the toolkit as part of the Social Justice Lawyering Clinic. For the official launch of the toolkit, PICC will host a public webinar on February 26, 2021, followed by in-depth workshops in both English and Spanish. For more information on these events, please visit PICC’s website. 

 

Strengthening the Office of the Montco Public Defender

The Systemic Justice Project at the Sheller Center for Social Justice has released a preliminary report on indigent defense in Montgomery County, entitled “Strengthening the Office of the Public Defender.” The report provides specific guidance and recommendations for implementing best practices for the governance and operation of the county’s Public Defender Office. We welcome community and stakeholder input on this draft report at a public Town Hall to be held on Zoom on Wednesday, February 24 from 6-7 pm.  You can register for the Town Hall here  and/or provide written feedback here.

Strengthening the Office of the Montco Public Defender

The Systemic Justice Project at the Sheller Center for Social Justice has released a preliminary report on indigent defense in Montgomery County, entitled “Strengthening the Office of the Public Defender.” The report provides specific guidance and recommendations for implementing best practices for the governance and operation of the county’s Public Defender Office. We welcome community and stakeholder input on this draft report at a public Town Hall to be held on Zoom on Wednesday, February 24 from 6-7 pm.  You can register for the Town Hall here  and/or provide written feedback here.

Standing in Solidarity with Nancy

On October 8, 2020, Nancy Nguyen was arrested out of her house at around 7:30 pm in front of her two children (ages 18 months, 3 years old). The arrest was based on a warrant from Virginia for allegedly trespassing and littering during a protest in early September, in front of the house of Tony Pham, Director of ICE. Nancy is the Executive Director of VietLead, which focuses on sustainability and self-determination for Vietnamese and Southeast Asian communities in the region. The Sheller Center has collaborated with VietLead on a variety of projects in order to support them in advancing the rights of their community members. We have always been struck by Nancy’s leadership and vision for mobilizing and empowering community members.

Nancy’s arrest is likely the result of overreach by the local prosecutor and Philadelphia police. Yet it’s within the context of a current Administration that encourages retaliation against those who are engaged in resistance to the federal immigration system. Most notably, the government has stepped up surveillance and raids in “sanctuary” cities where immigrant activists and allies have actively advocated for such policies. ICE has also specifically sought out to arrest those who are immigrant rights activists, leading sometimes to deportation orders. These activities have created a chilling effect on activists while instilling fear more likely to depress organizing efforts.

Enough is enough. This is a country where dissent has played an integral role in fostering conversations that can help us reimagine how to reform our broken federal immigration system.

PA Law Professors Urge Limits on Admissibility of Information on Immigration Status

If evidence of immigration status can freely be revealed during court proceedings, immigrants or witnesses may choose to forego going to court. This fear can be a potent weapon against immigrants who need protection from abuse, seek unpaid wages from an employer, or have other legal problems. Allowing immigration information to be used in court proceedings on unrelated issues undermines the public interest and interferes with the obligations of the courts to vindicate the legal rights of parties. For this reason, the issue of when immigration status may be revealed should be strictly regulated.

The good news is that the Rules Committee of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court has proposed a new rule of evidence concerning immigration status. The Sheller Center, in conjunction with law professors across Pennsylvania, has submitted a letter commenting on this new rule. While the letter applauds the creation of a rule, it urges the Committee to make additional changes to ensure that the rights of immigrants are adequately protected.

This letter, which is a follow up from the first letter from Pennsylvania Law Professors, suggests further narrowing of the situations in which immigration status can be considered in civil proceedings. It also requests that a more explicit procedure be put in place for litigants who wish to introduce evidence of immigration status, such as requiring an advance written motion and in camera review. Not only are these suggestions comparable to what states like Washington and California are doing, but they also serve the important purpose of allowing courts to maintain open access to the courts for all Pennsylvanians.

This fall in the Access to Justice Clinic

Students in the Center’s Access to Justice Clinic, profiled in this month’s Philadelphia Bar Reporter, work on projects aimed at creating better systems for helping people who are unrepresented in civil matters. This fall, students are:

  • Studying Philadelphia’s small claims court, where mostly-unrepresented people are sued — typically by large debt-buying companies — over credit-card and other debts. The difficult experience of unrepresented defendants in consumer-debt courts, and ideas for ways of leveling the playing field, are the subject of a recent national study by the Pew Charitable Trusts, How Debt Collectors are Transforming the Business of State Courts.
  • Exploring the experience of parties to child custody proceedings in Family Court, where hearings are now held virtually rather than in-person. On-line proceedings can pose hardships for unrepresented people, especially when internet access is limited and private space hard to find.
  • Looking into the possibility of creating a legal “incubator” that could help law graduates set up affordable practices serving small businesses in Philly. Currently, the city’s smallest enterprises have difficulty getting help with taxes, contracts, compliance, and other matters, and the pandemic has exacerbated the need.

We’re also continuing to work on promoting the recommendations contained in our two  reports from last summer, Reducing Default Judgments in Philadelphia’s Landlord-Tenant Court and A Powerful Resource in Plain Sight – How the Free Library Can Promote Access to Justice. We welcome suggestions for ways of moving our projects forward — as well as ideas for new efforts!

The Free Library and access to justice

Many Philadelphians are unable to get help with legal questions involving housing, health, access to benefits, family matters, and other basic needs. A new report from the Sheller Center suggests that the Free Library could play a significant role in narrowing this “justice gap,” which disproportionately affects low-income communities and communities of color.

In A Powerful Resource in Plain Sight – How the Free Library Can Promote Access to Justice, students in the Center’s Access to Justice Clinic report on innovative ways in which libraries around the country are helping patrons connect with legal information, forms, apps, court web sites, “help centers” and nonprofit organizations, and other sources of assistance. The report suggests ways in which the Free Library could provide a similar service here.

As the report notes, the Library is well suited to perform this role. It has branches across the city as well as a user-friendly website to which legal information could easily be added. Much of the information that patrons need, moreover, is now available electronically. While there’s work to be done to sort out what’s useful from what’s not, the Library would not need to buy expensive new books or subscriptions; instead, the task would be to assemble and curate existing resources, and to provide training and guidance to library staff.  Philadelphia has a strong public-interest and pro bono legal community that could partner in such an effort (and perhaps in creating a more extensive “lawyer in the library” program as well).

The report was developed by Access to Justice Clinic students Alex Burns, David Frias and Basmah Raja.

New report: reducing “evictions by default”

Over half of all “legal” evictions in Philadelphia are based on default judgments entered against tenants who have not appeared at their eviction hearings. In these situations, the Court hears from only one side — the landlord — and typically enters a judgment for back rent and eviction in accordance with the landlord’s request. Eviction follows within a few weeks.

By contrast, when both parties are present, the Court tries to help the parties negotiate a settlement. If that can’t be achieved, the judge hears the tenant’s side of the story, as well as the landlord’s, before making a decision.

A new report, “Reducing Default Judgments in Philadelphia’s Landlord-Tenant Court,” addresses some of the reasons that defaults make up such a big part of the Court’s docket. The report is based on the work of students in the Sheller Center’s Access to Justice Clinic. Through observations, interviews, and a review of several hundred court records, the students identified  problems with the Court’s operations that, if addressed, could bring the default numbers down.

Some tenants apparently do not appear because they do not get notice of their hearings, or do not understand the notice they received, which is written in complex legal terms (nearly all tenants are unrepresented). Other tenants do not know, since the notice does not tell them, that they can request a change of their hearing date if they have an unmanageable conflict such as a medical procedure. And there are other issues, including the startling fact that the courthouse is barely marked, so that some people miss their hearings simply because they can’t find the building.

Much of the students’ research predated the pandemic and the current moratorium on evictions. But the findings and recommendations are all the more timely now, given the backlog of cases that advocates fear will result in “mass evictions” later this year. The report urges that, as the Court plans for reopening, it take every possible step to ensure that its own procedures do not contribute to the occurrence of “evictions by default.”

The students whose work contributed to the report were Sarah Kim Eisenhard, Alice Elmer, Kevin Kulesza, Xavier O’Connor, Ranjani Sarode, and Julia Sheppard.