Monday, January 13, 2025: Our team of advocates collaborates with immigrant clients and communities to fight fearlessly for legal protections and a just immigration system.


Announcement: This is the announcement from Denise about an upcoming discussion on how we might be able to assist and accompany immigrants. There are several opportunities for helping within the Sanctuary movement as our community of Emmaus: Here are brief descriptions provided by The Interfaith Movement for Human Integrity. We will discuss these opportunities at future liturgies.


One of the projects I'm working on is a series of 7 brief videos in English and Spanish, which explain the rights guaranteed to all immigrants to the US. The videos are sponsored by Catholic Charities of the Diocese of Santa Rosa. I've written 6 scripts and am waiting for the 7th. Denise Dixon has done a lot of work for Catholic Charities and was instrumental in the founding and funding of Caritas Center in downtown Santa Rosa. She introduced me to the communications team at Catholic Charities and I've been working with them for the past few weeks. 

Our last script is on the important subject of how businesses should respond to a knock on the door from Immigration Enforcement (ICE).

Here's a flyer about a Zoom training for businesses called "Know Your Rights." I signed up -- and I would love it if others of us did too.  It comes from a terrific non-profit called Public Counsel:



Public Counsel envisions a world where all (im)migrants live with dignity, power, and opportunity.


Since the dawn of humanity, people have migrated to find new opportunities, flee persecution, and seek safety and refuge. Yet, our nation’s broken immigration system harms untold numbers of people seeking sanctuary and looking to build a better life.


Public Counsel practices holistic, trauma-informed advocacy, recognizing that our clients come to us with extraordinary strengths, but also vulnerability due to the violence many have experienced through forced migration and our dysfunctional immigration system. Our team of advocates collaborates with immigrant clients and communities to fight fearlessly for legal protections and a just immigration system.


Public Counsel’s Immigrants’ Rights Project serves individuals and families from countries throughout the world who have fled persecution and are seeking asylum. Our clients have been persecuted due to their religious or political beliefs, anti-LGBTQ violence, and/or their membership in marginalized groups in their homelands. Presently, a significant percentage of our clients are families who have fled gang violence in Central America and then survived additional harm during their flight to reach safety and in U.S. immigration custody.


Some of these families remain separated or are recovering from the trauma of family separation carried out by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). Our staff provides direct representation and recruits and mentors hundreds of pro bono attorneys to represent clients through the asylum process and provides social work support to clients.


Visit our services page to learn more about our immigration services:

https://publiccounsel.org/issues/

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