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What Immigration Education Looks Like
Posted on Mar 09 2020
“We see them when they come in for vaccinations for school: young people who ‘just got here’ somehow over the summer. How can we help them?”
“These kids seem super-vulnerable.”
“What are the legal ways we can be helpful to them; first to be safe and then to get them on a path to citizenship?”
When attorneys Kathy Klos and Joyce Bennett offered a workshop to child service workers and public health nurses in Worthington, these were among the concerns raised. The workshop offered an overview of legal issues affecting young immigrants.
The Immigrant Law Center of Minnesota (ILCM) has three focus areas: representation of individual clients, education, and advocacy. This workshop is one of many ways that ILCM works to educate immigrant and non-immigrant communities across Minnesota. Other educational presentations focus on crucial current issues, on topics such as becoming a citizen, or on more general overviews of immigration law and policy.
When the Trump administration first proposed its wealth test for immigrants, ILCM worked with Southern Minnesota Regional Legal Services, Mid Minnesota Legal Aid, and the Volunteer Lawyers Network to put together information on the public benefits/public charge regulation for attorneys. ILCM and others worked over the succeeding months to translate the legal language into plain language for the community. We helped to keep community members up-to-date on legal actions to block the new wealth test, and finally on its implementation.
Lawyers, social workers, immigrants, and non-immigrants need this information: the threat of the new regulation has had a chilling effect on immigrants. Across the country, citizens and non-citizens alike have abandoned benefits to which their families are entitled. Some, for example, have pulled children out of school lunch programs, although these programs are not covered by the 200+ page regulation.
Regularly scheduled ILCM presentations provide information about naturalization for both lawyers and immigrants. About 46 percent of Minnesota immigrants have already have become citizens. That’s an indication of the high interest in naturalization that brings immigrants to these presentations. ILCM’s pro bono program recruits and trains volunteer lawyers to represent immigrants in the process of becoming citizens.
“What percentage of Minnesota’s population are immigrants?” (8.3 percent)
“Do immigrants pay taxes?” (Yes.)
Questions like these come up in presentations everywhere from college classrooms to church basements. Information and myth-busting go hand-in-hand for ILCM presenters speaking to general audiences concerned about immigration.
For immigrant audiences, presentations may focus on more specific concerns about DACA or Know Your Rights information, or on rapidly and continuously changing immigration policies.
In 2019, ILCM has spoken to lawyers, social workers, immigrants, non-immigrants, religious organizations, unions, activist groups, the VFW, high school and college classes, and more. If you or your group would like to schedule an ILCM presentation, here’s the link to begin the process.