Panel: Deportation Laws and Their Local Impact
The Inaugural Event for a semester-long Immigration and Deportation Initiative at John Jay.
Monday, September 16, Time: 4-6pm
9.64 Conference Room, New Building, John Jay College, 524 W. 59th St, NYC
RSVP to oar@jjay.cuny.edu.
Commissioner Dora Schriro, NYC Department of Correction
Alina Das, NYU School of Law Immigrant Rights Clinic
Marianne Yang, Brooklyn Defender Services
Angela Fernandez, Northern Manhattan Coalition for Immigrant Rights
(Coordinated by Dave Brotherton, Sociology Department, JJC and Dan Stageman, Office for the Advancement of Research, JJC)
New York City is well-known as a destination for immigrants, with a population that is approximately 37% foreign-born. Less well-known is the fact that thousands of NYC’s immigrant residents face deportation annually, criminal offenses and immigration-related civil charges alike. While a great deal has been written about the role of immigrant communities in the City’s cultural and economic life, what do we know about the effects of deportation on these communities? What are the legal and administrative processes that individual immigrants experience on their way to deportation? How might these processes change in the light of immigration legislation being considered by the US Congress? What are the secondary effects of deportation on families and communities left behind? A panel of experts explores these questions as the inaugural event of John Jay’s Fall 2013 Immigration and Deportation Initiative.
Panelists
Dora Schriro, Commissioner, New York City Department of Correction
Dora B. Schriro, Commissioner of the New York City Department of Correction, is a nationally recognized innovator in reentry, and the only person in the nation to have led four correctional systems.
Dr. Schriro was appointed to direct New York City’s 12,500-inmate jail system by Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg on September 21, 2009. Immediately prior, she had served as Special Advisor to Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano on Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Detention and Removal, and was the founding Director of the Office of Detention Policy and Planning at Immigrations and Customs Enforcement. In that role, she directed work on the Department’s plan to overhaul the nation’s immigration detention system. The Department released the report and its plans for reform in October, 2009.
Previously, she served for six years as the Director of the Arizona Department of Corrections and, from 1993 to 2001, as Director of the Missouri Department of Corrections. In each state, she was the first woman selected to lead the agency. Commissioner Schriro also served first as Warden and then Commissioner of the St. Louis City division of corrections.
Among her volunteer activities, Dr. Schriro also serves as a commissioner on the ABA Commission on Immigration as well as a commissioner on the Women’s Refugee Commission.
Alina Das, Assistant Professor of Clinical Law and Co-Director, Immigrant Rights Clinic, New York University School of Law
Alina Das is an Assistant Professor of Clinical Law at New York University (NYU) School of Law. Professor Das is Co-Director of the NYU Immigrant Rights Clinic, a leading institution in local and national struggles for immigrant rights. She and her students represent immigrants and community organizations in litigation at the agency, federal court, and Supreme Court level, and in immigrant rights campaigns at the local, state, and national level. In addition to her clinical work, Professor Das engages in scholarship on deportation and detention issues, particularly at the intersection of immigration and criminal law. Her recent articles include Immigration Detention: Information Gaps and Institutional Barriers to Reform (U. Chicago Law Review, 2013) and The Immigration Penalties of Criminal Convictions: Resurrecting Categorical Analysis in Immigration Law (NYU Law Review, 2011). Professor Das is a recipient of the LexisNexis Matthew Bender Daniel Levy Memorial Award for Outstanding Achievement in Immigration Law, the NYU Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Faculty Award, and the NYU Center for Multicultural Education & Programs Nia Faculty Award.
Prior to joining NYU, Professor Das was a Soros Justice Fellow and staff attorney with the Immigrant Defense Project, and served as a law clerk for Hon. Kermit V. Lipez of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit. She is a graduate of Harvard University (A.B. in Government), NYU Wagner School of Public Service (M.P.A.), and NYU School of Law (J.D.).
Marianne Yang, Immigration Unit Director, Brooklyn Defender Services
Marianne Yang directs the Immigration Unit of Brooklyn Defender Services (BDS), a public defender office that represents more than 40,000 Brooklyn residents every year. She and her unit advise BDS’s immigrant clients on the immigration consequences of criminal charges, working closely with BDS’s criminal defense lawyers to avoid or minimize those deportation and other negative immigration consequences whenever possible. BDS’s Immigration Unit also defends indigent Brooklyn immigrants against detention and deportation proceedings. Before joining BDS in 2010, Marianne was with the Immigrant Defense Project of the New York State Defenders Association, first as a staff attorney and then as its Project Director. At IDP, she led its efforts to transform the immigration and criminal justice systems to prevent the unjust detention and deportation of immigrants that tears apart immigrant communities. Marianne has also consulted for foundations that support immigrant rights and for community-based immigrant advocacy groups. She received her AB magna cum laude in American History and Literature from Harvard College and her JD from New York University School of Law, where she served on its Law Review as Articles Editor.
Angela Fernandez, Executive Director, Northern Manhattan Coalition for Immigrant Rights
Angela Fernandez, Esq., is the Executive Director and supervising attorney as of October of 2012. Ms. Fernandez is a graduate of Columbia University School of Law who has 20 years professional experience in law, media, non-profit management, government, policy development and advocacy. Her public interest law experience includes working with the Center for Human Rights Legal Aid in Cairo, Egypt and providing pro bono legal services through the American Immigration Lawyers Association. Ms. Fernandez has also successfully founded and managed elementary schools in the South Bronx and in Washington DC, was a Women’s Studies instructor for the LCC Inmate Education Program at Riker’s Island and was a staffer for former United States Senator Bill Bradley. Ms. Fernandez’s past media experience includes working as an Off-air Reporter for ABC News, World News Tonight with Peter Jennings and writing a weekly column on immigration matters for El Diario La Prensa, the most widely read Spanish language daily in the North East. She has also regularly appeared on NY1, Univision, Telemundo and CNN addressing issues related to immigration. Ms. Fernandez is fluent in English and Spanish and proficient in French.
