Immigration 101 with Jill Martin Diaz

Transcript:

Jill Martin Diaz (00:00):

That is the strategy. They haven’t had to change any laws pertaining to privacy and professional regulation. Like none. Nothing has actually changed. And yet we are already changing all of our behaviors. <Laugh>.

Cassie Gillespie (00:17):

Hello, I’m Cassie Gillespie, and you’re listening to the Social Work Lens. The Social Work lens is a partnership between the University of Vermont’s Child Welfare Training Partnership and the state of Vermont. Today we have a really exciting guest with us here in the studio. We’d like to welcome Jill Martin Diaz. Hello, Jill.

Jill Martin Diaz (00:36):

Hi, Cassie.

Cassie Gillespie (00:37):

Jill is the Executive director of the Vermont Asylum Assistance Project and a professor of law and the former director of the Center for Justice Reform at Vermont Law and Graduate School. That’s a lot of titles,

Jill Martin Diaz (00:50):

Well, you know, you gotta get, you gotta get credentialed before you talk about the law.

Cassie Gillespie (00:55):

We do. And so, you know, really, we asked Jill to come today to chat with us about immigration law. In this moment, there’s so much coming at people and we hear from listeners and also just in are like I do candidly in my personal life from people. They’re really confused about what’s going on in this moment about immigration law in general, about all these executive orders coming in. So we’re so excited you’re here to help us kind of wade through it and figure some stuff out.

Jill Martin Diaz (01:24):

Well, hopefully this conversation will help me figure it out too, <laugh>. I hope. So.

Cassie Gillespie (01:30):

What else, if anything, do you wanna share about yourself before we jump in?

Jill Martin Diaz (01:35):

I guess I wanna name up top something I’ve been thinking a lot about in the last few days. You know, I wanna hold close my other identities.

Cassie Gillespie (01:43):

Yeah.

Jill Martin Diaz (01:43):

. I’m a Heritage Spanish speaking person. I am Cuban American. I am the descendant of Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe. I am non-binary. I am trans, I am. I’m currently speaking to you with my service animal on my lap. And …

Cassie Gillespie (02:00):

Hello Penny

Jill Martin Diaz (02:01):

Penny says, what’s up

Jill Martin Diaz (02:03):

Uand I wouldn’t be able to be here and to have this conversation with you if it wasn’t for insurance covered,gender affirming healthcare. So I just wanna shout out the intersections of, of, in bringing into the room, all those other parts of me.

Cassie Gillespie (02:18):

Yeah. Thank you for doing that. It’s so important. One of our other producers, China Boys, is right now as we speak in a meeting with someone planning our next episode on gender affirming care. So I’m, we’re trying to sort of dig into some of this to like sort through some of the craziness that’s coming outta the current administration about all the ways people are being impacted. So thank you for sharing that, and thank you again for being here.

Jill Martin Diaz (02:42):

Yeah. And thank you for having me. I also, I’m just, I love this podcast and so I’m really excited to < join the conversation. .

Cassie Gillespie (02:49):

Perfect! Okay. Well, let’s let people know about vap, the Vermont Asylum Assistance Project. What is vap? What does VAP do?

Jill Martin Diaz (02:55):

Vermont Asylum Assistance Project is a new legal services organization that was formed a few years ago on a volunteer basis, and then we incorporated and launched and hired me as first staff last year.

Cassie Gillespie (03:08):

Woo-Hoo.

Jill Martin Diaz (03:09):

We’re now an organization of four staff and many different works of volunteers. We try to increase access to immigration legal services for everyone in Vermont. And because we’re such a small team, and that is a lofty goal.

Cassie Gillespie (03:25):

Yeah.

Jill Martin Diaz (03:26):

We also carve out capacity for community education and advocacy work and technical assistance for partner organizations on the thought that, you know, we can’t be everywhere at once. So we can do some services, some capacity building, some advocacy, and that will help us stretch our impact while we grow into a bigger, more mature legal services provider org.

Cassie Gillespie (03:50):

It’s so cool. And are there other organizations like this in Vermont?

Jill Martin Diaz (03:54):

Not exactly like this. So immigration legal services have not kept up with the increasing immigrant population needs in Vermont.

Cassie Gillespie (04:03):

Yeah.

Jill Martin Diaz (04:04):

So that, you know, Vermont has diversified really quickly. And then,we have, as you know, we haven’t kept up with respect to investing in infrastructure to really ensure meaningful access, equity, inclusion, belonging. And legal services is one of the ways in which we give people the tools they need to integrate into their life here in Vermont.

Cassie Gillespie (04:25):

Yeah.

Jill Martin Diaz (04:26):

And so there are,a few community-based organizations that have embedded attorneys doing different buckets of immigration, legal aid, shout out to Association of Africans living in Vermont to U-S-C-R-I.

Cassie Gillespie (04:40):

Yeah.

Jill Martin Diaz (04:40):

To Vermont Afghan Alliance,to Wise Upper Valley. But most of those organizations don’t do removal defense work, and that removal defense work falls to VAP and the clinic that I, I formerly directed the Center for Justice Reform Clinic. So,suffice to say, this is a time where immigration enforcement is ramping up.

Cassie Gillespie (05:02):

Yeah.

Jill Martin Diaz (05:03):

And we already didn’t have the supply of services to meet the need. The demand.

Cassie Gillespie (05:09):

Yeah.

Jill Martin Diaz (05:09):

So, so,it’s definitely a,a time, an overwhelming time <laugh>.

Cassie Gillespie (05:14):

Yeah. Yeah. I’m probably gonna do this to you a hundred times while we’re talking, but like right off the top, what’s removal defense for those who are listening who don’t know anything about immigration law or any of the policies and procedures? What does that mean?

Jill Martin Diaz (05:28):

Great question. Immigration law in the US is generally divided into two halves. Okay. There’s one half that’s about gaining status. And status is just this thing we made up of who’s in and who’s out, who has the right to have rights, who has access to the rights.

Cassie Gillespie (05:50):

Is this what you sometimes hear people talking about as documented or undocumented?

Jill Martin Diaz (05:53):

Exactly.

Cassie Gillespie (05:54):

Okay.

Jill Martin Diaz (05:54):

Exactly. So there’s a whole half of the immigration laws that are about how you pursue status, access to pathways to rights,

Cassie Gillespie (06:03):

How you get documented.

Jill Martin Diaz (06:04):

That’s right.

Cassie Gillespie (06:05):

Okay.

Jill Martin Diaz (06:06):

And then the other half of immigration law in the US is when you are liable to lose your status, to lose your access to rights, you lose your right to have rights. And that half of the, of the law we’re gen, we generally refer to as removals.

Cassie Gillespie (06:21):

Okay.

Jill Martin Diaz (06:22):

You know, and removal proceedings is a deportation hearing that happens in an, in an immigration court. So there’s a really big unmet need in Vermont for people who need help getting documented.

Cassie Gillespie (06:32):

Yeah.

Jill Martin Diaz (06:33):

Not because they don’t have viable claims. A lot of people with viable claims toward pathways to citizenship are just waiting for the legal assistance needed to navigate complex forms that are not available in multiple languages.

Cassie Gillespie (06:47):

Yeah.

Jill Martin Diaz (06:47):

And weird legal standards that keep changing because of how politicized the issues are. And then there’s also this unmet need of people who either have status or documentation or don’t, but are now being subject to removal proceedings.

Cassie Gillespie (07:02):

Yeah.

Jill Martin Diaz (07:02):

And need to raise the claims and defenses there. .

Cassie Gillespie (07:06):

Okay. Let me back it up because when we were talking the other day, you said something so cool that I hadn’t heard before. And so correct me if I’m misstating, but you said one of the first things that happens in law school is they disabuse you of the notion that law and justice are synonymous. Did I get it right?

Jill Martin Diaz (07:22):

Yeah.

Cassie Gillespie (07:22):

Okay.

Jill Martin Diaz (07:23):

I mean, if I said that, that sounds great. When genius you did pro No, what I did was that someone, someone who is probably like a black trans femme person is someone who said that <laugh>. And then I heard it and repeated it, and now I’m getting credit integrated because that’s how justice works. Yes. Yeah. Yeah.

Cassie Gillespie (07:37):

But what does that mean? Like, tell me what that means in the context of this immigration conversation.

Jill Martin Diaz (07:42):

Yeah. you know, I don’t know. For me personally, I’m a first generation college student, so I, I didn’t have a lot of exposure to legal thinking and legal systems except for, you know, I have family who are directly impacted bythe Carceral Justice system. I grew up visiting close family members in prisons. Like I have that kind of experience, but I don’t know, I, I didn’t have like a lens through which to think about it in like, in a historical context of like, why was this created?

Cassie Gillespie (08:14):

Yeah.

Jill Martin Diaz (08:14):

Like, let’s just question to see is this actually necessary? What is this doing? Who created it? Who is it serving? Who benefits for what purpose? Yeah. and so a lot of my political education when I was studying to become a lawyer was starting to separate out what, you know, let’s put aside this concept of justice. And I still now 10 years in, I don’t know that I think it’s, I don’t know what I think about Justice <laugh>.

Cassie Gillespie (08:42):

Yeah.

Jill Martin Diaz (08:42):

But what I do know is that there are legal systems created,for really specific reasons by specific people to marshal resources.

Cassie Gillespie (08:51):

Yeah.

Jill Martin Diaz (08:51):

And power and immigration law is very much one of those systems. And it was directly rooted in racism and extractive capitalism.

Cassie Gillespie (09:02):

Yeah.

Jill Martin Diaz (09:02):

This idea that there’s scarce resources, we need to draw the line somewhere. There must be lines, that’s another assumption.

Cassie Gillespie (09:09):

Right, right.

Jill Martin Diaz (09:10):

And to marshal those scarce resources.

Cassie Gillespie (09:13):

Yeah.

Jill Martin Diaz (09:14):

And there’s gonna be people who earn their way in and people who lose the privilege. And we have to get kicked out and we’re gonna draw the line somewhere. And so it’s gonna be exclusive. And what’s happened in effect is historically, you know, this country’s wealth was really accumulated at the cost of the human rights of undocumented workers over the history of United States.

Cassie Gillespie (09:36):

Yeah.

Jill Martin Diaz (09:36):

And that continues to be true today. So in law school, I start to think about, well, wait, is there really scarce resources? <Laugh> wait, is it, you know, is immigration, you know, is, is family unity and community safety and stability really a privilege? Or is that a human right?

Cassie Gillespie (09:51):

Right.

Jill Martin Diaz (09:51):

And so you start to untangle all that. And now I know I look at law as a tool to achieve goals.

Cassie Gillespie (09:57):

Yeah.

Jill Martin Diaz (09:58):

It’s a methodology for solving problems and predicting outcomes. Ubut is law a tool for justice? UI, the jury’s still out on the, that for me.

Cassie Gillespie (10:06):

Yeah. <laugh>,

Jill Martin Diaz (10:07):

Pun intended.

Cassie Gillespie (10:07):

Yeah. <laugh>. Okay. I think that’s really helpful because one of the things I hear when I do chat with folks who are really supportive of the current administration and everything that’s happening is this idea, maybe this misunderstanding that there is like a functional immigration pathway and that folks right now who are here without status could have been here with status if they only were willing to follow the rules. You know, what do you, what do you say to that?

Jill Martin Diaz (10:38):

It’s funny ’cause I mean, hearing it put that way, I am struck actually by how, look, maybe we’re not so far apart on this issue. Like we’re getting distracted by identity politics and scapegoating and othering. And when we talk about resource allocation, like maybe we’re not that far apart. There was an immigration system I would beg to differ about it’s functionality and adequate resourcing and accountability. But, but there’s a system for better or worse that many of us have dedicated our careers to learning how to navigate.

Cassie Gillespie (11:14):

Mm-Hmm <affirmative>.

Cassie Gillespie (11:15):

And then there are these structural barriers that were put in the way of people’s ability to access that system.

Cassie Gillespie (11:20):

Yeah.

Jill Martin Diaz (11:20):

Like illegal. It’s virtually impossible to prevail in a humanitarian immigration case without counsel. Like you’re exponentially more likely to assert and win humanitarian legal claims. And those are laws passed by Congress.

Cassie Gillespie (11:34):

What are humanitarian legal claims like,

Jill Martin Diaz (11:36):

Like asylum and stuff like asylum.

Cassie Gillespie (11:39):

Okay.

Jill Martin Diaz (11:40):

So asylum is the best known, but there are many different pathways to documentation or status based on the bad things that have happened to you.

Cassie Gillespie (11:47):

Okay.

Jill Martin Diaz (11:48):

In your life. And nonprofits like ours typically takes on that work work because it’s complex and resource intensive.

Cassie Gillespie (11:55):

Yeah.

Jill Martin Diaz (11:56):

And you are working with an exclusively traumatized population. And the process of seeking those pathways is traumatizing. ‘Cause it relies on repetitive storytelling of the worst things that have ever happened to you.

Cassie Gillespie (12:07):

And that anyone who’s ever done trauma informed work can tell you what a fraught concept it is to ask someone who survived a traumatic experience to recount their traumatic experience as a justification for why they should be eligible for services. But that’s a separate podcast,

Jill Martin Diaz (12:22):

Yeah. And I mean, I, you know, I have HDAD, so watch out ’cause now I’m gonna, I just have to say, not just recount their story, but also be cross examined.

Cassie Gillespie (12:30):

Yeah.

Jill Martin Diaz (12:31):

By ICE counsel in open court about whether or not you’re a liar about your story.

Cassie Gillespie (12:37):

<Laugh>. Yeah. Yeah.

Jill Martin Diaz (12:37):

That’s, that’s that’s humanitarian immigration law.

Cassie Gillespie (12:40):

Let’s come back to that one. <Laugh>. Let’s do a second episode on that. Totally.

Jill Martin Diaz (12:42):

Okay. Totally. Uso the original question, the

Cassie Gillespie (12:46):

Original question was <laugh>, I dunno, <laugh> oh, this idea that there is a functional system.

Jill Martin Diaz (12:54):

Right.

Cassie Gillespie (12:54):

That people could be using if they were just sort of willing to do it.

Jill Martin Diaz (12:57):

Right. So instead we create this system that is shrouded in secrecy. It’s an administrative legal court system rather than a judicial court system. So it’s insulated from accountability or review really high stakes decisions being made with very little recourse if you disagree.

Cassie Gillespie (13:14):

Yeah.

Jill Martin Diaz (13:14):

If the decision is adverse, there’s no funding for council, there’s no right to council. And immigration is a federal law and a federal system. And so even if you have council ICE can decide to move you to a ice detention facility in another state and separate you from your council <laugh>. Oh, wow. And so the first thing I want, like the first thing I would say to folks who are supportive of the administration and, and talking about like the right pathways,the right quote unquote, pathways were set up,and absolutely no infrastructure <laugh> was invested in making sure that those pathways were accessible.

Cassie Gillespie (13:53):

Yeah.

Jill Martin Diaz (13:54):

And by the way, the pathways that were set up include asylum seeking. Right. So us, you know, Congress made very clear in 1980 that a person need only be present in the US and afraid to trigger a right to a fair hearing on their fear of returning. And there’s no wrong way to seek asylum.

Cassie Gillespie (14:13):

Yeah.

Jill Martin Diaz (14:14):

So people arriving at the US Mexico border declaring their fear at the border and entering removal proceedings to seek asylum, that is also one of the quote unquote right pathways.

Cassie Gillespie (14:24):

Yeah.

Cassie Gillespie (14:25):

That’s the process working. Right? Yeah.

Jill Martin Diaz (14:26):

Right.

Cassie Gillespie (14:27):

This might be a moment to even just parse out. What’s the difference between someone who’s seeking status as an asylee or someone who is refugee status?

Jill Martin Diaz (14:35):

The difference is, you know, if I describe status as the right to have rights.

Cassie Gillespie (14:41):

Yeah.

Jill Martin Diaz (14:41):

A person who has refugee status or asylee status, if they were classed as a refugee here in the us, they have access to a suite of benefits and protections under the law.

Cassie Gillespie (14:54):

Okay.

Jill Martin Diaz (14:54):

Including access to,public support to meet your daily needs like housing and shelter and healthcare. And people who are asylum seeking or petitioning for status or have pending applications for status, they continue to be in the status they were in when they applied unless and until their application is decided.

Cassie Gillespie (15:16):

Okay.

Jill Martin Diaz (15:16):

So if you’re an asylum seeker.

Cassie Gillespie (15:18):

Yeah.

Jill Martin Diaz (15:18):

And you, your case gets stuck in the backlog of the millions of cases that have been languishing in the system since Trump won.

Cassie Gillespie (15:24):

Mm-Hmm <affirmative>.

Jill Martin Diaz (15:25):

You may remain an asylum seeker that whole time.

Cassie Gillespie (15:29):

Right.

Jill Martin Diaz (15:30):

And I, we have clients here in Vermont who filed their asylum applications as long ago as 2016.

Cassie Gillespie (15:35):

Wow.

Jill Martin Diaz (15:36):

Whose cases have not been decided yet. And so that whole time you don’t have access to the full bundle of rights. Yeah. You don’t have the status, and so you don’t have access to public assistance and public supports and ability to travel and,a lot of other rights that come from immigration status.

Cassie Gillespie (15:55):

Yeah. And then what does it mean to be a refugee? Legally

Jill Martin Diaz (15:58):

A refugee is a person who is outside their country of origin.

Cassie Gillespie (16:03):

Mm-Hmm <affirmative>.

Jill Martin Diaz (16:04):

I’m gonna truncate the definition,outside the country of Oregon.

Cassie Gillespie (16:07):

Fair enough.

Jill Martin Diaz (16:08):

Who can’t go home or won’t go home because their government is not able to protect them or unwilling to protect them from persecution, a very severe form of harm.

Cassie Gillespie (16:20):

Okay.

Jill Martin Diaz (16:20):

That’s being motivated by a protected aspect of their identity, something about their identity that they can’t change.

Cassie Gillespie (16:27):

Mm-hmm <affirmative>.

Jill Martin Diaz (16:27):

Or shouldn’t have to change.

Cassie Gillespie (16:29):

Okay.

Jill Martin Diaz (16:29):

It comes from international law international laws that were passed after World War ii. You know, this was a time when the world came together and decided to engage in a social contract where like, we shouldn’t be sending people back to places where they will experience this severe harm called persecution. So let’s all agree to at least that. And then several countries like the US added additional rights on top of that by Statute.

Cassie Gillespie (16:54):

Okay.

Jill Martin Diaz (16:54):

So the Immigration Nationality Act incorporates the refugee Act of 1980. And, and we say, not only will we not return you, but maybe as a matter of discretion, we’ll give you a pathway to permanency.

Cassie Gillespie (17:06):

Okay.

Jill Martin Diaz (17:06):

You’ll be an asylee or a refugee in the US for one year, and then you’re eligible to apply for permanent residence if bad things haven’t transpired in that year, bad things haven’t happened to you that might make you ineligible.

Cassie Gillespie (17:18):

Mm-hmm <affirmative>.

Jill Martin Diaz (17:18):

And then you get your permanent residence or your green card, and several years after that you can apply to become a US citizen.

Cassie Gillespie (17:24):

Okay.

Cassie Gillespie (17:25):

And so what is the difference for folks who are new to this whole kind of you know, array of titles and legal definitions? What really is the difference concretely between an asylee and a refugee?

Jill Martin Diaz (17:38):

There really isn’t one, it’s just a matter of where you went through your legal proceeding of, of, you know, becoming, going through some kind of adjudication by US led government. I mean, it was historically, like the US is a huge funder of the U-N-H-C-R. And we see that that’s all being rolled back now in this moment.

Cassie Gillespie (17:55):

Yeah. Yeah.

Jill Martin Diaz (17:56):

The federal government’s divesting from inter all of the social contracts we made at the international level. And so if you were a refugee, you were, you might have fled your home country to another country and pursued a legal process there in this like third party country.

Cassie Gillespie (18:12):

Okay.

Jill Martin Diaz (18:13):

Um and if you had a mechanism by, you know, by walking, by, flying by busing, by driving by whatever, to find yourself at a US border or within it and you are asking to be found to be a refugee, then if, if you’re proved, you’ll be an asylee.

Cassie Gillespie (18:29):

Okay.

Jill Martin Diaz (18:30):

Refugees arrive with the right to have rights.

Cassie Gillespie (18:34):

Okay.

Jill Martin Diaz (18:34):

And asylum seekers are sitting around waiting for the right to have for those rights.

Cassie Gillespie (18:39):

Mm-Hmm <affirmative>.

Cassie Gillespie (18:40):

Thank you for helping us through it. I wanna ask you quite a bit about what’s happening right now, but is there any other foundational information that you think is important? <Laugh>, I mean, probably loads of it, but is there burning foundational information you think it’s important for our listeners to have about the sort of bigger picture function of the immigration system in the US at this moment?

Jill Martin Diaz (19:03):

Two things come to mind. Two concepts because I think there’s a lot happening right now that predates the Trump administration.

Cassie Gillespie (19:11):

Yeah.

Jill Martin Diaz (19:12):

Uit’s just that it’s happening in a different way or it’s happening more visibly now.

Cassie Gillespie (19:17):

Okay.

Jill Martin Diaz (19:17):

We’re paying more attention to it, and so it feels different.

Cassie Gillespie (19:19):

Yeah.

Jill Martin Diaz (19:20):

Ubut for what it’s worth, it’s preexisting. And that might lead us to have a different conversation as a society about whether we wanna change that going forward.

Cassie Gillespie (19:31):

Yeah. What are examples of some of those things?

Jill Martin Diaz (19:34):

One is our system of immigration detention. And the executive branches, the federal governments and the president and the agencies that report to the president, their virtually unchecked power over quote unquote protecting the homeland and national security, the Supreme Court has decided over and over and over again that, look, Homeland Security is the president’s business. It’s the political, you know, the people have elected their president. The president hires the agencies, and they get to protect the homeland. And so there’s really nothing we can do about it. And that means that the Congress has over the years, passed increasingly draconian, harmful, dehumanizing laws about how immigration proceedings should be handled in this country, including the right to detain immigrants while their removal proceedings are pending.

Cassie Gillespie (20:24):

Yeah.

Jill Martin Diaz (20:25):

For years, because the government won’t staff the courts to hear their own deportation cases that they’re bringing.

Cassie Gillespie (20:32):

Yeah. Yeah.

Jill Martin Diaz (20:34):

And this idea that Congress can make that law and the agencies can start to implement those laws and the Supreme Court can intervene. And so, and that’s it. Everyone’s hands are tied. And so

Cassie Gillespie (20:45):

Oh yeah.

New Speaker (20:46):

Part of, you know, immigration detention, it has expanded already under Trump. The Lake and Riley Act,was passed in the first weeks of the administration, but,it has always been true that ICE has been empowered. And Homeland Security Investigations, this other armed enforcement branch, I’m gonna refer to them generally immigration enforcement.

Cassie Gillespie (21:05):

Okay.

Jill Martin Diaz (21:06):

Immigration enforcement picture, you know, people with guns who are allowed to detain you and put you into removal proceedings.

Cassie Gillespie (21:13):

Yeah.

Jill Martin Diaz (21:14):

It has always been true that they have jurisdiction within and around our borders. Not only our land borders with Canada and Mexico, but also our land board, our Sea Borderers.

Cassie Gillespie (21:23):

Okay.

New Speaker (21:23):

So like the majority of the United States population lives in a place where homeland security, immigration enforcement have jurisdiction to like walk around and protect the homeland. <laugh>.

Cassie Gillespie (21:35):

Is there like a particular designation of how far inland from the coast, or how far from the board? Oh, she’s, they’re nodding. How far is It?

Jill Martin Diaz (21:41):

Yeah. And that part has changed over the last 15 years.

Cassie Gillespie (21:46):

Yeah.

Jill Martin Diaz (21:47):

It’s, we’re having border creep. So now as of today the, the border now includes within 100 miles of, inside of the actual border.

Cassie Gillespie (21:59):

Okay.

Jill Martin Diaz (21:59):

So if you look at the state of Vermont on a map, that’s basically the whole state.

Cassie Gillespie (22:04):

Oh, wow. Okay.

Jill Martin Diaz (22:05):

And so, you know, all of that, those laws were just all waiting.

Cassie Gillespie (22:09):

Yeah.

Jill Martin Diaz (22:09):

Like, they were just like, it was just a button waiting to be pushed. Those laws have been creeping up over the last many years. And this is not a, this is bipartisan. Right, a lot of the most draconian immigration laws are were passed by the Clinton and, and Obama administrations. And Obama had, was the first person to test implementation of like, what would it be like to really press these buttons and deport people and like detain them in these ways, deny them due process in these ways. And so what we see, like zooming out, is just, I mean, this is the most extreme result of what happens when a politically elected official gets to have this much singular unchecked power.

Cassie Gillespie (22:50):

Yeah.

Jill Martin Diaz (22:50):

Over this big of a population’s access to rights. So that’s one thing I wanna name. And then the other thing kind of relatedly is that there’s been this this, you know, decisions by the Supreme Court over and over again that deportation is not quote on quote punishment.

Cassie Gillespie (23:09):

Okay.

Jill Martin Diaz (23:10):

Right. Ueven though my clients when they’re detained and VAP does have detained clients right now.

Cassie Gillespie (23:16):

Okay.

Jill Martin Diaz (23:16):

Um you know, they’re in jumpsuits and they’re in shackles, and they won’t release their handcuffs to sign documents with me. And, you know, I’m talking to them through glass and they’re in ice specific beds, typically in gen-pop correctional facilities. The consequences of losing their removal proceeding is banishment, which is one of the most severe harms humans can order against each other. Right.

Cassie Gillespie (23:43):

Yeah.

Jill Martin Diaz (23:44):

It’s like life without parole like banishment. And yet, because immigration is a quote on quote civil system of law, not criminal, it’s not it doesn’t benefit from any of the due process protections, the constitutional level protections like innocent until proven guilty.

Cassie Gillespie (24:00):

Right. Everything you think, you know, from like a court drama.

Jill Martin Diaz (24:03):

Right. Exactly.

Cassie Gillespie (24:04):

Why is it that those persons then, are detained in prison or, you know, the types of physical places that are connected to that law enforcement system?

Jill Martin Diaz (24:16):

I think that you know, fortunately <laugh>, the feds have not, as, as federal governments have begun to push the buttons.

Cassie Gillespie (24:24):

Yeah.

Jill Martin Diaz (24:24):

And, and implement these draconian immigration laws and, and deportation laws, laws of exclusion. Uthe feds haven’t been building new carceral facilities in step. Uthey, you know, they rent bets from state facilities in Vermont. We have,very limited agreements, very limited bed space agreements. Ubut we still do have some. And,whenever Vermonter gets detained, ICE has the discretion to either send them to an ICE facility if there’s a bed available or to contracted ice beds in other, like, private facilities or state facilities. And,notably they’re for, you know, most impactful for Vermonters is there’s about to be,they just announced, they’re setting up a facility in New Hampshire that’s gonna operationalize 400 beds when it’s built. So more beds, more detention, and less access to counsel to defend yourself from removal. But remember, this is not a criminal proceeding.

Cassie Gillespie (25:24):

That’s So wild. Okay. If we zoom in a little bit to Vermont in this moment, I think I understand, or I have heard you speak about the fact that we don’t have a centralized office to support migrants who are coming to Vermont. What does that mean? Like, can you tell us a little bit about that?

Jill Martin Diaz (25:41):

Vermont has this amazing network of grassroots organizations, regional specific organizations or populations specific organizations, affinity groups who have all kind of stepped up in the absence of you know, state government leadership, state government resources.

Cassie Gillespie (26:01):

Yeah.

Jill Martin Diaz (26:02):

To make this a welcoming, inclusive, and sustainable place for our immigrant communities, some of whom are not new, have been here forever, and are the backbone of Vermont’s major economy.

Cassie Gillespie (26:14):

Yeah.

Jill Martin Diaz (26:15):

Including agriculture, hospitality, and right, construction and, and our, our universities, you know, our international students.

Cassie Gillespie (26:24):

Yes.

Jill Martin Diaz (26:24):

All those populations. And it’s also been really hard for us because as we, like small organizations step up, we fundraise for ourselves, we choose, we set a mission. Right. We, we take a piece of the pie.

Cassie Gillespie (26:35):

Yeah.

Jill Martin Diaz (26:35):

Uno one of us has the resources to take it all.

Cassie Gillespie (26:38):

Yeah.

Jill Martin Diaz (26:38):

And then on, and then we have to also kind of look out to one another and try to organize ourselves and collaborate amongst each other to figure out where systems issues are happening.

Cassie Gillespie (26:50):

Mm-Hmm <affirmative>.

Jill Martin Diaz (26:51):

And to try and redress systems issues. So, you know, we’re often dealing with systems issues on an individual basis, so,

Jill Martin Diaz (26:59):

I’ll give an example. We, last summer under the Biden administration, we had a client that we were co-counseling with the Center for Justice Reform Clinic and Migrant Justice.

Cassie Gillespie (27:10):

Okay.

Jill Martin Diaz (27:10):

Who were providing legal support and case management. And this person, the clients was a survivor of trafficking, of labor trafficking in Texas. And we were experiencing the Department of Homeland Security violating her rights flagrantly and like kind of, you know, I don’t know, I don’t know what’s intentional or not, let’s assume good intentions and say that they just weren’t clear on what her rights were and they were denying her, them you know, we have this one person and I’m gonna try and go to the different agencies, the state leaders, congressional advocates, and say, Hey, like, what can we do about this person?

Cassie Gillespie (27:51):

Yeah.

Jill Martin Diaz (27:51):

But also, what would it look like to get all of the congressional delegates together and all of the service providers together who probably also are experiencing rights issues, rights violations with the department.

Cassie Gillespie (28:02):

Right.

New Speaker (28:02):

To say, how can we all work together to make the system work more as it should.

Cassie Gillespie (28:07):

Yeah.

Jill Martin Diaz (28:07):

In a more fair and equitable manner. And that’s like a systems level intervention that half the states get to enjoy,through state-based office of New American equivalents.

Cassie Gillespie (28:19):

Okay.

Jill Martin Diaz (28:19):

So I know a, you know, a New American is, is a really, is an outdated term, and it’s an exclusive term that doesn’t include the many immigrants who were already Americans.

Cassie Gillespie (28:28):

Right. because they’re coming from south or Central America,

Jill Martin Diaz (28:32):

Many states about half the states, including states that are Republican, majority government led.

Cassie Gillespie (28:37):

Yeah.

New Speaker (28:37):

Um have created offices of new Americans or state-based mechanisms for coordination referral making, information sharing and vetting grant making and, and, and issue resolution where, you know, people are experiencing barriers in other state agencies. There’s a state-based person who can help bring everyone together and solve the problems. Vermont doesn’t have that.

New Speaker (29:00):

Yeah.

Jill Martin Diaz (29:00):

Uand I don’t think that it’s for lack of a, a lack of a will. Uyeah. I think that affinity organizations, especially who have been here doing the work under these really challenging circumstances without State support and infrastructure, I think people are understandably reluctant to say, if, if we’re gonna inject some money into this system, it should happen through the creation of a new like, executive level state office.

Cassie Gillespie (29:24):

Totally.

Jill Martin Diaz (29:25):

I totally get it. UI’m a constrained direct service provider, <laugh>.

Cassie Gillespie (29:28):

Right, right.

Jill Martin Diaz (29:31):

And, and, and, you know, especially in the last six weeks or so, every single day, the conversations that I’m a part of, as we all come together to think about how to meet this moment, we every day we think, wouldn’t that be a great job for a State based point person.

Cassie Gillespie (29:50):

<Laugh>. Right.

Jill Martin Diaz (29:52):

So that’s what we’re doing in the State house this session. We have complimentary bills up in both houses S 56 and H 3 75, and we’re in contact with the office of New American National Network and talking to Oona leaders and advocates in other states and trying to bring Vermont up to the state of the art.

Cassie Gillespie (30:12):

Yeah.

Jill Martin Diaz (30:12):

And get really, we’re not creating a new office, we’re trying to shore up the existing state refugee office and just expand their mandate.

Cassie Gillespie (30:19):

Yeah.

Jill Martin Diaz (30:20):

Remember the state refugee office of Vermont and state refugee offices nationwide are funded by the federal government through a federal mandate that the Trump administration has made their top priority to dismantle.

Cassie Gillespie (30:30):

Yeah. So, you know, the majority of our listeners are child welfare workers, social workers people, and helping agencies all across Vermont and New England. So for the Vermonters out there who are interested and want something concrete they can do on this topic can they support S 56 or H 375?

Jill Martin Diaz (30:49):

Yeah. So folks can, can absolutely support these bills and other bills. There’s a suite of bills that are up this session.

Cassie Gillespie (30:57):

Yeah.

Jill Martin Diaz (30:57):

. That are, as with every legislative session, trying to make Vermont a little bit more equitable and inclusive for immigrant communities. And to make this a place that immigrants can come and stay not only for, you know, for social and humanitarian reasons, but also for economic reasons that are very urgent for Vermont’s future. And people can encourage their representatives to support the bill. They can get in touch with VAP if they want to share testimony about what a little bit more, you know, what would a point person in the state government who could help us all coordinate and work together more efficiently and impactfully and in more trauma-informed ways. Like how would that help you in your program? We wanna know.

Cassie Gillespie (31:41):

Yeah. Yeah. And just for people who haven’t formally been involved with supporting bills in one way or another, what’s your recommendations about the most impactful ways that constituents can get involved?

Jill Martin Diaz (31:54):

Well, this is just one man’s opinion. I am new to state legislation, you know, to state-based advocacy.

Cassie Gillespie (32:01):

Yeah.

Jill Martin Diaz (32:01):

But I, I was sitting with some of my UVM social work service learning students earlier this week, and they were listening in on a call I was having with a legislator who had some questions for me.

Cassie Gillespie (32:14):

Yeah.

Jill Martin Diaz (32:15):

‘Cause I have technical expertise that the state lacks, which is why we need the owner.

Cassie Gillespie (32:19):

Right.

Jill Martin Diaz (32:19):

But anyway, they were calling me and we were just having a conversation, like two people with shared values and shared goals and assessing risk and, you know, coming up with strategies, agreeing action steps, like, and then we hung up. I was like, oh. So, so I think that’s lobbying. I guess it’s just you, you may like, it’s, it’s professional relationships with respect and, and information sharing. And as someone who has overcome a, like what may surprise some people as like a really overwhelming anxiety disorder in my youth, like the idea.

Cassie Gillespie (32:52):

That does surprise me, <laugh>,

Jill Martin Diaz (32:53):

Oh my gosh. Like, truly

Cassie Gillespie (32:55):

It’s such an amazing public speaker And Like out in all these communities me doing the work. Yeah.

Jill Martin Diaz (33:01):

Pass me, you would not,have been able to, to envision this future for myself, but I’m like, it would’ve been really, it would’ve felt really mortifying and like high stakes to send an email to a legislator as a constituent or to go to a, a statewide committee or board meeting or taskforce meeting and, and offer to speak at the, in the questions section. Like that kind of stuff. Using your voice.

Cassie Gillespie (33:24):

Yeah.

Jill Martin Diaz (33:24):

With these p spheres of power, especially in public or recorded ways is like, can be really intimidating, but it is just like, you just like reach out and you’re just like, Hey, this is important to me. I want you to know I have non-citizen clients who are afraid to put their kids on the bus to school now, and that’s bad. So if you could help invest some resources in, in helping us navigate this moment, that would be great.

Cassie Gillespie (33:46):

Yeah.

Jill Martin Diaz (33:46):

Like, it can be just so authentic. And you have Vermont lawmakers that don’t have staff, and so it’s really just them man manning their inboxes.

Cassie Gillespie (33:53):

Yeah.

Jill Martin Diaz (33:53):

. So you just like have that direct access And they, from the feedback I’ve gotten.

Cassie Gillespie (33:59):

Yeah.

Jill Martin Diaz (33:59):

Is that they so appreciated

Cassie Gillespie (34:00):

<Laugh> hearing about stuff. Yeah. That’s my sense of it as well. So if you’re out there and you’re debating if you should make the call or send the email, do it.

Jill Martin Diaz (34:07):

Yeah. And actually to that point, I would say not just with the legislative branch, also with state agencies, the executive branch. Right. Sometimes people, you know, when people ask me like, well, who can I call when things go wrong? When my person is, my person I’m working with is being denied access to meaningful interpretation.

Cassie Gillespie (34:24):

Yeah.

Jill Martin Diaz (34:24):

Or they, you know, they’re being excluded from a benefit that I think that they’re eligible for whatever it is. And then I’ll say to them, well, you could complain to this agency or file with this one. And they’re like, I don’t think they’re gonna do anything. Remember that. Making those complaints, using those avenues, giving that communication to the government serves two purposes on the individual basis. It might help this person seek a remedy your

Cassie Gillespie (34:48):

Client. Right.

Jill Martin Diaz (34:49):

And then on the systems level, we are making our record, we are informing the government of the issues. And that’s a lot of labor on us. And that’s hard.

Cassie Gillespie (34:58):

Yeah.

Jill Martin Diaz (34:59):

And it’s what the government looks to when we tell them there’s a problem, they say, okay, prove it. Yeah.

Cassie Gillespie (35:05):

Yeah. I mean, that’s the whole, we talk about this in social work, but inaction is also an action. It’s a choice. Okay. Before I get too preachy about that, <laugh> I know we’ve been going already for longer than we targeted, but there’s two things I at least we definitely need to ask you about. So before you go, but one is for social workers, for child welfare workers, for people who are working directly with clients who were not born in the United States, we’re hearing something along the lines of like, worry that they have a worry. Well, they have a lot of worries, but a specific, almost like a liability focused worry of what if my clients are undocumented do I have a responsibility to check people’s documentation? Do I have a responsibility to report someone? You know, I think there’s maybe some conflation or confusion between like mandated reporting structures around abuse and safety and as they may or may not pertain to documentation and status. What do you want providers to know about that?

Jill Martin Diaz (36:06):

What a good question. And I think your question relates back to how you framed up the beginning of this discussion of like, there’s a lot of misinformation and a lot of confusion.

Cassie Gillespie (36:17):

Mm-Hmm <affirmative>.

Jill Martin Diaz (36:18):

First of all, I wanna validate for everyone,the confusion that you feel, the misinformation you’re being flooded with,the worry that you have, the uncertainty around liability, all of that was by design that is being curated for you by the federal government because it’s a cost-effective way to achieve their purpose. If the government wants to scare non-citizen communities and their families and their supporters into the shadows.

Cassie Gillespie (36:48):

Yeah.

Jill Martin Diaz (36:48):

A really cost-effective way to do it without actually needing to go through many lawmaking processes, bureaucracies, is to just say a bunch of stuff constantly threaten constitutional protections that would require a very long time to override, like birthright,

Cassie Gillespie (37:04):

Birthright citizenship, birthright

Jill Martin Diaz (37:05):

Citizenship. And to get everyone in this state of chaos and fear and panic and it so that it will naturally have a chilling effect. Because wouldn’t it be they don’t need to hire more ICE officers to go looking for folks that they wanna charge with removability if they can scare human services professionals <laugh>.

Cassie Gillespie (37:23):

Yeah.

Jill Martin Diaz (37:24):

Into accidentally mandated reporting or whatever.

Cassie Gillespie (37:27):

Yeah. Right. Yeah.

Jill Martin Diaz (37:27):

Or, you know, I’ve, I’ve also heard, I wanna validate, like I, I’ve heard questions from trusted colleagues in our community about, you know, is it safe for me to continue to provide my services to non-citizens because I have to keep case records and what if ICE wants, can ICE make me give them

Jill Martin Diaz (37:42):

Subpoena my records?

Cassie Gillespie (37:43):

Yes.

Jill Martin Diaz (37:44):

Yeah. And all of those questions are so valid. And, and like that is the, the strategy. They haven’t had to change any laws pertaining to privacy and professional regulation. <Laugh>, like none, nothing has actually changed. And yet we are already changing all of our behaviors. <Laugh> Yeah.

Cassie Gillespie (38:03):

Attorney general clerk was on, was in here just the other day talking about the same idea that we’ve sort of capitulated in certain ways by seeding some of the power we have.

Speaker 1 (38:12):

That’s right. That’s right. And so, you know, I don’t, when I, when I, oh, that’s my dog. She’s, she doesn’t want to be here today. I don’t know why, but it’s a

Cassie Gillespie (38:19):

Very upsetting topic. Penny know, we’re with you on this.

Jill Martin Diaz (38:22):

Penny is like, this is, I am incensed. Yeah. People, you know, I, I don’t say this dismissively, but I want it to be reassuring to folks.

Cassie Gillespie (38:31):

Yeah. Yeah.

New Speaker (38:31):

That nothing, right. Nothing legally has changed about FERPA, like people’s right to privacy in, in educational settings, HIPPA, people’s right to privacy in healthcare settings, you know, they’re still protected,by professional. All of us have like our same professional norms and ethical responsibilities and licensing requirements all still apply. So in some ways, like it is business as usual.

New Speaker (38:56):

Yeah.

New Speaker (38:56):

Uand, you know, these immigration laws existed before, remember? Yeah. So, and so think back to that time before all of this fear was being deliberately cultivated in our community and what our standards of practice were.

Cassie Gillespie (39:09):

Yeah.

Jill Martin Diaz (39:09):

Um and, and rest assured that actually they, like this deportation machine is not new. And you were doing a great job before and you’re, you’re like, so, you know, keep, keep serving folks.

Cassie Gillespie (39:21):

Yeah.

Jill Martin Diaz (39:22):

Um and know that their information is protected and so are you.

Cassie Gillespie (39:25):

Thank you. I really appreciate that. Along those lines of, there is confusion out there where people do not know what’s happening on the ground. What, if anything, are we seeing happening on the ground here in Vermont that’s different or fallout from some of this, you know, larger kind of federal, I don’t know, narratives about immigration and mass deportation and all of these things?

Jill Martin Diaz (39:47):

We do see an increase in enforcement actions. And the reason we know that is because we’re tracking it. So we’ve set up an ice activities tracker. We did it pretty quickly just because I’m naive and like neuro diversion. And I’m like, this is a need and, and I can do it. Let’s do it. I have a website. I’m some guy with a website. So I did it. But since there have been like lots of different organizations stepping up to try and filter good information and disseminate good information and so we’re connected with regional and national colleagues to filter information and to adopt our model to keep up with best practice, but we need information. Previously what gave all of your listeners this sense of comparative security?

Cassie Gillespie (40:31):

Yeah.

Jill Martin Diaz (40:32):

Um even though these laws existed, was the norms of what we, what we saw in practice.

Cassie Gillespie (40:37):

Okay.

Jill Martin Diaz (40:37):

And so practitioners like me could report out and say, yeah, but in practice we actually them only enforcing removability, you know, taking people into custody and detention a couple times a year. You know, people who are longtime community members.

Cassie Gillespie (40:51):

Yeah.

Jill Martin Diaz (40:51):

And so I can tell you now normatively that we’ve seen in the first few weeks of the administration, you know, explosion, you know, numerically for Vermont, we have a state that’s like our population’s the size of the city of Rochester, New York.

Cassie Gillespie (41:06):

Right.

Jill Martin Diaz (41:07):

But it has been, it’s been a big increase in enforcement actions and increase in calls for help and including for people who have pending applications for status.

Cassie Gillespie (41:18):

Yeah.

Jill Martin Diaz (41:18):

And it’s not that we haven’t actually seen any Lake and Riley act detentions being made.

Cassie Gillespie (41:25):

Okay.

Jill Martin Diaz (41:25):

So far we’ve seen an increase in discretionary detention, just.

Cassie Gillespie (41:29):

Okay.

Jill Martin Diaz (41:29):

The government exercising their authority. The people that they are prioritizing for enforcement, right now we’re seeing are people who come into contact with the criminal legal system.

Cassie Gillespie (41:39):

Okay.

Jill Martin Diaz (41:40):

A lot of it is like driving infractions and DUIs and things of that nature that are common in rural areas like Vermont. So

Cassie Gillespie (41:47):

Let me just pause you there. So not what we might consider like crimes Correct. <Laugh>,

Jill Martin Diaz (41:53):

Right. Driving without a license. So one of the reasons why the government can detain you during your immigration proceedings is to quote on quote promote community safety. So if you like, road safety arguably falls into that bucket.

Cassie Gillespie (42:10):

That’s Wild.

Jill Martin Diaz (42:11):

And you know, in Vermont we have a fair and impartial policing policy.

Cassie Gillespie (42:14):

Mm-hmm <affirmative>.

Jill Martin Diaz (42:15):

It’s not a law, it’s a policy,that’s set at the state level. And yet,federal law prohibits the state of Vermont from not complying with FBI requests for information.

Cassie Gillespie (42:29):

Okay.

Jill Martin Diaz (42:29):

So what that means is the fair and impartial policing policy in Vermont, our cops are prohibited, not supposed to affirmatively reach out to ICE and say, got one. Yeah. This is this person. You can find them here. I’ve got them detained for this traffic infraction, come get them. Which happens when we’ve had clients detained as soon as they head to the New York side of Lake Champlain that that has happened to.

Cassie Gillespie (42:51):

Okay.

Jill Martin Diaz (42:51):

Um but when you get arrested, when you go through booking and processing in the Carceral system, your fingerprints get taken and checked against national databases for any outstanding warrants. And ICE has access to that. And so if they notice and care, they, they can use that information to come look for you.

Cassie Gillespie (43:09):

Okay.

Jill Martin Diaz (43:10):

So that’s been the primary focus of folks we’ve seen getting detained. It’s like folks who have had an arrest history or some other, like, legal system involvement, and I don’t mean legal system, like they went and sought a relief from abuse order, but someone where they are defending themselves against an accusation of wrongdoing in the legal system. Okay.

Cassie Gillespie (43:30):

Okay. That’s really helpful.

Jill Martin Diaz (43:31):

Yeah. And, and then, you know, there’s been a couple of instances where people were just driving too close to the Canada US crossing where a lot of our agricultural like farm worker community live and work and they’ve just been swept up in, in the border crossing dragnet.

Cassie Gillespie (43:47):

Yeah.

Jill Martin Diaz (43:47):

But but yeah, that’s, that’s really what we’re seeing. I did hear of Vermont’s first workplace raid, and that’s a term I use with air quotes around it. In Stowe which is everyone, you know, Vermonters and every everyone knows Vermonters know is home to our seasonal worker population who staff the ski resorts. And there were a workplace raid is like a generalized enforcement activity. Like I’m not, I’m looking for one or more people generally. We’re gonna show up and like spot check immigration papers for everyone in a workspace. And there was a workplace raid and,some arrests made there in Stowe this weekend. And that’s the first time I’ve heard of like a bigger action like that.

Cassie Gillespie (44:33):

Yeah.

Jill Martin Diaz (44:33):

In Vermont. So, you know, it’s only been a couple weeks, but,that’s, you know, just a quick plug for Fourth Amendment. Know your rights training, particularly for employers.

Cassie Gillespie (44:44):

Yeah.

Jill Martin Diaz (44:44):

There’s a lot you can do. There’s not a lot you can do to prevent like armed officers with guns from letting themselves into your kitchen of your restaurant because they’re gonna do what they’re gonna do. But there are things, steps that you can take to create circumstances where if they do that you have constitutional rights to claim remedies.

Cassie Gillespie (45:06):

Yeah.

Jill Martin Diaz (45:07):

And maybe would be able to get the person’s immigration like removal proceedings challenged or thrown out because of deficiencies in process.

Cassie Gillespie (45:16):

So if someone listening is like, yeah, I need that. Where do they find a know your rights training?

Jill Martin Diaz (45:22):

There’s a few, I mean, there’s so many great sources mm-hmm <affirmative>.

Cassie Gillespie (45:25):

What do you recommend? Yeah.

Jill Martin Diaz (45:27):

Well, if folks are interested in meeting my dog <laugh> VAP offers, she’s really cute. <Laugh>, thank you. VAP offers a fee for service tailored know your rights trainings. So no matter the scope or scale or geography or modality, if it’s in person or hybrid or online we encourage organizations to get together. Right now we’re asking $500 a path. And it’s just because I’m also the fundraiser in chief of my org and 50% of our funding is federal and is under threat.

Cassie Gillespie (46:00):

Yeah.

Jill Martin Diaz (46:01):

And so I can justify, you know, I wanna share my expertise with the community and also not shirk my responsibilities to VAP. So we’re available and doing these, I’m doing one this afternoon for the Vermont network to end domestic violence. So.

Cassie Gillespie (46:15):

Very cool.

Jill Martin Diaz (46:16):

So that’s an option. And other, you know, there’s a lot of organizations with expertise. But just consider paying, paying for your labor if you make a request of especially affinity based organizations.

Cassie Gillespie (46:27):

Yeah.

Jill Martin Diaz (46:28):

Movement based organizations, if you call them in to help orient you to constitutional rights and encounters with law enforcement, consider contributing to their orgs. Cause everyone, we’re all under threat at this moment, and then there’s so much great information available online.

Cassie Gillespie (46:42):

Okay.

Jill Martin Diaz (46:42):

Um you know, this is a time of mass misinformation and disinformation, but also we’ve never had more access to good information.

Cassie Gillespie (46:51):

I Love that point. Right. Nobody says that enough.

Jill Martin Diaz (46:54):

You’re Like, oh, I heard it again. I I’m sure it was actually like a, a stunningly beautiful genius black trans fem like, you know, scholar who said it, and then I.

Cassie Gillespie (47:01):

Yeah.

Jill Martin Diaz (47:02):

Now internalized it.

Cassie Gillespie (47:02):

Here you are just some guy repeating it.

Jill Martin Diaz (47:04):

Yeah. Yeah. I’m just some guy. But it’s, it’s true that, and I’ve learned this in my job ’cause there’s so much about my job that I didn’t learn in law school. <Laugh> actually most of my job, I didn’t. I think

Cassie Gillespie (47:16):

That’s true for all. Even as of an educator, I say, I think this is true of all professions. Practice-Based perfections That’s right. And so you know, and I’m just figuring it out. I’m like watching on YouTube just like the rest of us <laugh>. And so we’ve taken that approach at VAP and lots of organizations. We don’t have the bandwidth to be reinventing the wheel, producing our own like one pagers and fact sheets and stuff. But there’s so much out there, expert content out there, and we curate it on a library that’s available to everyone, and it’s called Vermont Asylum Assistance Project, but it’s a federal system so it’s relevant to all.

Cassie Gillespie (47:51):

Yeah. Yeah.

Jill Martin Diaz (47:51):

Like check it out. And there’s videos, multilingual infographics. There are pictorials that are geared at younger audiences or people with low literacy. There’s a lot of different ways to learn about your rights and learn who to call when the inevitable happens, when the government violates your rights.

Cassie Gillespie (48:10):

Yeah. Yeah. We’ll link to that, you know, in our notes. So if you’re listening, you can go to the webpage associated with this episode just to get there. Along those lines, I feel like we would be remiss in wrapping up without talking about for our child welfare worker audience, are there things especially you suggest that they should be thinking about or even suggesting to the people they’re working with who might have a variety of different statuses? Y

Jill Martin Diaz (48:36):

Yes, hank you for that question. So first of all, I would adopt a framework that was just introduced to me by a Vermont long graduate school student. We were just riffing on the weekend, but like we are all in this posture now of risk assessment and harm reduction.

Cassie Gillespie (48:54):

Yeah.

Jill Martin Diaz (48:54):

Right. That’s, that’s the name of the game. This is not business as usual because things are changing rapidly, you know, in different, the practice and the resource distribution that stuff’s changing rapidly.

Cassie Gillespie (49:06):

Yeah.

Jill Martin Diaz (49:07):

Uwe’re throwing sand in the gears of the system, like the…

Cassie Gillespie (49:10):

Where we can. Yeah. Yeah.

Jill Martin Diaz (49:11):

And so it’s kind of, it’s a wild time. So when you’re, for folks who are providing services to immigrant individuals, families, children, try, the most important thing we can all do is take care of ourselves, like regulate ourselves, you know, take a beat. Because I’ve been in meetings with, you know, people who I look up to and aspire to one day be when I grow up, who have way more experience than I have even been alive. Like.

Cassie Gillespie (49:39):

Yeah.

Jill Martin Diaz (49:39):

And, I’ve seen them become really dysregulated by a notification from WaPo of whatever the latest BS is from the feds. Yeah. And if we are feeling that way, imagine how our staff are feeling, imagine how the community’s feeling. Right. and so part, you know, my first step is always like, okay, take a pause, ground myself.

Cassie Gillespie (50:00):

Yeah.

Jill Martin Diaz (50:01):

Think like, zoom out a little bit. What are the facts? What do I know who are my primary allegiances to, like who are my duties to.

Cassie Gillespie (50:07):

Yeah.

Jill Martin Diaz (50:07):

And what are their goals and what are ways to help them understand what options are available to them so that they can,minimize harm in pursuit of those goals.

Jill Martin Diaz (50:20):

And you know, there’s, I get questions all the time, for example of like, yeah, kiddo doesn’t wanna go to school, parent doesn’t wanna take kid, kid to school because driving, they don’t have a license and they don’t wanna be on the,

Cassie Gillespie (50:30):

They’re worried they’re gonna be scooped up.

Cassie Gillespie (50:31):

That’s right. Don’t wanna take kid to,health clinic appointments, what have you. And or, you know, young people are like, Vermont has cool dispensaries, I’m gonna go smoke weed because it’s not criminalized at the state level. And it’s just a matter of like, if I tell a young person, don’t smoke weed, that’s one approach.

Cassie Gillespie (50:46):

Yeah.

Jill Martin Diaz (50:47):

Another approach might be to help an immigrant youth understand you know, unfairly they experience adverse consequences if they have anything to do with controlled substances.

Cassie Gillespie (50:56):

Yeah.

Jill Martin Diaz (50:56):

From the federal perspective.

Cassie Gillespie (50:58):

Yeah.

Jill Martin Diaz (50:58):

And it’s just a matter of like helping people to understand. Yeah. Okay. You can not go to school know that truancy is criminalized And criminalization puts you at risk of immigration enforcement. So it’s just like helping people to really think through okay, what are the option? What do we know? What are the options? What are our goals? And then just like having your community’s backs, like also trusting the people we work with to decide what’s best for them. Some people are more risk averse than others.

Cassie Gillespie (51:25):

Yeah.

Jill Martin Diaz (51:26):

And are gonna choose to shelter in place during this time. And rather than disagreeing or like fighting them on their exercise of their autonomy.

Cassie Gillespie (51:34):

Yeah.

Jill Martin Diaz (51:34):

Makes, you know, we can think extra legally, how do we work around this Then what mutual aid groups are delivering food to sheltered in place immigrant communities, like on farms in Vermont that we can connect our clients to.

Cassie Gillespie (51:47):

Right. Right.

Jill Martin Diaz (51:47):

How do we help them meet their needs in the way that is most accessible to them? Awesome. One thing I would also flag for child welfare workers.

Cassie Gillespie (51:57):

Mm-Hmm <affirmative>.

Jill Martin Diaz (51:58):

There is a couple of like flags to look for, issues to spot for immigrant youth who or family members who might have pathways to status to documentation.

Cassie Gillespie (52:11):

Yeah.

Jill Martin Diaz (52:11):

That I just wanna make sure on folks radar, and this is also like documented online and on our blog, but youth under 21 who cannot reunify with one or both of their parents for reasons related to abuse, abandonment, neglect, or something similar like the death of a parent.

Cassie Gillespie (52:29):

Mm-Hmm <affirmative>.

Jill Martin Diaz (52:30):

Those youth have a pathway to permanency, to a green card. So if, if you see that like, you know, an immigrant youth who can’t reunify with a parent.

Cassie Gillespie (52:40):

Yeah.

Jill Martin Diaz (52:41):

That’s call an immigration lawyer. If you see a survivor of gender-based violence in any of its forms or labor trafficking.

Cassie Gillespie (52:48):

Yeah.

Jill Martin Diaz (52:48):

That’s a flag call for an immigration lawyer. Ua person might have,lingering pathways to regularizing their status if a person was a cooperating witness in, you know, an investigation of a crime committed against them either by police or,like a relief from abuse judge.

Cassie Gillespie (53:07):

Yeah.

Jill Martin Diaz (53:07):

Or you know, an interview with a state’s attorney. Uthey might be eligible for a U Visa. So there’s, there’s all these different, there’s a few little flags to kind of familiarize yourself with,because the strongest defense against deportation is pursuing status. Yeah. And there are a lot of people out there who Have claims and don’t know it yet.

Cassie Gillespie (53:26):

All right. That is the perfect place to end. Thank you so much.

Jill Martin Diaz (53:29):

Thank you so much, Cassie.

Cassie Gillespie (53:34):

The Social Work lens is produced by the University of Vermont’s Child Welfare Training Partnership and the state of Vermont. Our theme music is composed and performed by local band Brick Drop, and our sound production and engineering has been brought to you by Egan Media Productions. We’d also like to give a special thank you to our in-house administrative production assistant Emma Baird for the social work lens. I’m Cassie Gillespie, and we’ll see you next time.