Boston officials, community leaders support residents living in fear of deportation in Dorchester

On January 28th, 2019, a group of neighbors, social advocates and several Boston officials participated in a forum held in Dorchester about the issue of deportations affecting Massachusetts residents, especially those from the Vietnamese and Southeast Asian community.

Hosted by Kevin Lam, Organizing Director of the Asian American Resource Workshop (AARW), attendees to the event learned about recent deportation activity in the area and shared information and resources to support vulnerable residents living in fear of being deported.

Lam remarks that the issue of deportation is more than just the “physical act or the physical impact,” but also mental health issues and trauma that suffer the relatives of the deportees or potential deportees.

Dorchester neighbors have been directly impacted by forced deportations, as is the case of the Sparks family, separated in 2017 when the family’s mother, Nhan, was deported back to Vietnam, leaving her husband alone raising their three daughters.

Boston elected officials attended to the forum to learn about the issue and to show their support, as was the case of Dorchester State Representatives Liz Miranda and Daniel Hunt, City Councilor At-Large and Dorchester resident Annissa Essaibi-George, City Councilor for District 1 Lydia Edwards, City Councilor for District 2 Ed Flynn, and Quincy State Representative Tackey Chan.

Boston City Councilor Lydia Edwards, representing the community of East-Boston, attended the forum to show her support to residents who are told “they are not welcome” by the “oppressive presidential regime” in the White House.

“Our biggest concern is about the fear of deportation that is driven a lot of people underground,” Councilor Edwards said, and continued: “so they are not seeking resources, they’re not having their kids going to school, not seeking medical attention… Sometimes the threat of deportation is worse and more oppressive, causing anxiety, depression in children, that even the deportation itself.”

Edwards explained that the first way to “combat this kind of oppression” is to be “very” honest about it. “People don’t understand how many undocumented people we have, what it means to be undocumented… is just a piece of paper,” the Councilor said.

Edwards said that regardless the City Council is with the “hands tied” about the issue, there is an opportunity at the State level if the “Safe Communities Act” is passed.

5th Suffolk District (Dorchester-Roxbury) State Representative, Liz Miranda, explains that she attended the event to show support to those residents, families who are being torn apart and the communities destabilized by deportation.

“I come from the Cape Verdean community, we have over 400 deportees on the list,” Miranda said.

Talking about the possible actions her office would take to prevent forced deportations, Representative Miranda said she filed the “Safe Communities Act”(Bill HD.1520) to “tell our police department that we don’t want them to work with ICE to deport people.”

Dorchester resident and Boston City Councilor At-Large Annissa Essaibi-George, explains she attended to” understand the challenges residents are facing the fear they have,” in order to provide better services, especially mental health care.

“Although a lot of these issues are not directly involved with what we do at the City Council these are our residents,” Essaibi said.

“I will be hiring an immigration lawyer to work at the District Attorney office”

Suffolk District Attorney (DA) Rachel Rollins showed up to the forum because “immigration is something very important as a District Attorney.”

Rollins explains that her focus as DA with immigration will be the crimes “not that serious” that “may have really big consequence as a result of something stupid.”

“I believe is the prosecutor job as well as your criminal defense attorney to make sure you are not deported” for misdemeanors “if we look into the entire situation and determined that’s right,” Mrs. Rollins said.

The Asian American Resource Workshop is offering various resources for residents, including two events next week, a Southeast Asian Deportation 101 Workshop to be held at their office on February 6th, and Asian Outreach Unit Legal Intake Training to be held at the Greater Boston Legal Services offices (197 Friend Street, Boston) on February 8th.

Greater Boston Legal Services (GBLS) provides guidance, referral and free legal assistance to low-income Asian immigrants in the Boston area, they may be contacted at (617) 371-1234. The Asian American Resource Workshop (AARW) is a pan-Asian community organizing on issues impacting Asian and Asian-American community members in Boston, their office is located at 42 Charles Street, Dorchester, and may be contacted at (617) 942-8178. The Boston Immigration Justice Accompaniment Network (BIJAN) is a network of faith communities, individuals and activist groups working to reduce the “escalating harm” of the immigration system, they may be contacted at (857) 308-2527.