In the United States, 9.6 million children are living in poverty. Federal and state tax credits are among the most effective policy tools for fighting child poverty. However, nearly 2 million children – 1.6 million US citizens and 270,000 non-citizens – are living in poverty and are ineligible for these poverty-fighting tax credits because they have at least one undocumented parent. In this episode of CMSOnAir, Roberto Suro explores this inequality and other findings from the paper, “Tax Equality for Immigrants: The Indispensable Ingredient for Remedying Child Poverty in the United States,” which he co-authored with Hannah Findling. At a moment when the Biden administration and Congressional Democrats are pursuing substantial expansions of tax credits for working-poor families, an important question remains: Who will be eligible? This episode of CMSOnAir is part of a series featuring academics, policymakers, and advocates who have written for CMS’s Journal on Migration and Human Security (JMHS). READ AND DOWNLOAD THE JMHS REPORT: https://cmsny.org/publications/jmhs-suro-findling-090221/

This episode of CMSOnAir is the third in a series featuring academics, policymakers, and advocates who have written for the Center for Migration Studies’ (CMS) Journal on Migration and Human Security (JMHS). In this interview, Dora Schriro speaks with Michele Pistone and Jack Hoeffner about family residential facilities and her 2017 paper, “Weeping in the Playtime of Others: The Obama Administration's Failed Reform of ICE Family Detention Practices.” During the Obama administration, Schriro served as senior advisor to US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Janet Napolitano and then as US Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) first director of the Office of Detention Policy and Planning. She later served as a subject matter expert on the DHS Advisory Committee on Family Residential Facility formed by Secretary Jeh Johnson. Schriro shares her insights on working to reform immigrant detention practices, the difference between criminal and civil detention, and the impact of family detention on parents. Schriro recommends a case management approach to the reception of families and suggests US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) as the first point of contact. “Weeping in the Playtime of Others: The Obama Administration's Failed Reform of ICE Family Detention Practices.” https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/233150241700500212 Learn more about the Center for Migration Studies: https://cmsny.org/

This episode of CMSOnAir is the second in a series featuring academics, policymakers, and advocates who have written for the Center for Migration Studies’ (CMS) Journal on Migration and Human Security (JMHS). In this interview, Jennifer Podkul, the Vice President of Policy and Advocacy at Kids in Need of Defense (KIND), describes the United States’ recent history with respect to the humanitarian protection of children and offers an overview of the current situation at the US-Mexico border for child migrants. An international human rights lawyer and expert on child migration to the United States, Podkul recently testified before the House Committee on Homeland Security on the best practices for the care and protection of child migrants. Podkul’s 2016 JMHS paper, “The Impact of Externalization of the Migration Controls on the Rights of Asylum Seekers and Other Migrants,” examined how the United States, Australia, and the European Union sought to prevent migrants and refugees from arriving at their borders to seek protection. One example presented in the paper is the Obama administration’s response to the increase in unaccompanied children in 2014. Podkul describes what has changed since the Obama administration with respect to the deterrence of child migrants and offers policy recommendations for the care and reception of child migrants. Read the JMHS paper: https://cmsny.org/publications/jmhs-impact-of-externalization/

This episode of CMSOnAir is the first in a series featuring academics, policymakers, and advocates who have written for the Journal on Migration and Human Security (JMHS). Created by the Obama administration in 2012, the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program offers certain young immigrants who came to the United States as children work authorization and a temporary reprieve from deportation. As the Supreme Court heard oral arguments regarding the Trump administration’s efforts to terminate the DACA program, CMS released a paper offering detailed estimates about DACA recipients, their economic contributions, and their deep ties to US communities. The paper found that: *83 percent of DACA recipients is in the labor force. From this pool, 95 percent is employed; *346,455 US-born children under the age of 18 have at least one DACA parent; and, *81 percent of DACA recipients has lived in the United States for more than 15 years. The paper, which also features testimonies of several DACA recipients, was subsequently published in the Journal on Migration and Human Security (JMHS), CMS’s peer-reviewed, public policy journal. In this episode, Daniela Alulema — author of the JMHS paper and herself a DACA recipient — describes the paper’s findings and shares the stories of the DACA recipients. She also outlines potential policy directions for the DACA program, given the Supreme Court’s decision that the way the Trump administration ended the program was unlawful and the Biden administration’s support for the program. Read the JMHS paper: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/2331502419893674

The Jesuit Refugee Service (JRS) is an international Catholic organization with a mission to accompany, serve, and advocate on behalf of refugees and other forcibly displaced persons, that they may heal, learn, and determine their own future. In this episode of CMSOnAir, Joan Rosenhauer, the Executive Director of JRS-USA, shares how JRS is adapting its advocacy for a new administration and transforming its programs in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. She also shares stories about the “proactive, resilient, hopeful” refugees she has met through her work with JRS. If you want to learn more about the Jesuit Refugee Service, please visit: jrsusa.org RELATED WORK FROM THE CENTER FOR MIGRATION STUDIES https://cmsny.org/publications/rebuilding-usrap/ https://cmsny.org/publications/biden-refugees-martin-021921/ https://cmsny.org/publications/biden-refugees-martin-021921/ https://cmsny.org/publications/us-refugee-resettlement-program/

This episode of CMSOnAir features four students at the University of Notre Dame who are doing research about international migration. Syeda (Fiana) Arbab, Sofia Piecuch, and Kara Venzian are graduate students pursuing their Masters in Global Affairs at Notre Dame’s Keough School. They partnered with Catholic Relief Services on a research project about how internally displaced persons and refugees describe and create home. Elsa Barron examined migrant integration, dialogue, and religious acceptance using the first mosque in Athens, Greece as a case study. An undergraduate student, Elsa conducted her research with support from the Nanovic Institute for European Studies at the University of Notre Dame. Here’s Elsa, Fiana, Sofia, and Kara describing the findings of their research at the Catholic Immigrant Integration Initiative Conference.

Dominican University is unique among Catholic colleges for its commitment to immigrants. About 10 percent of the students at Dominican University are undocumented or have temporary legal status, including Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) recipients. This episode features an interview with Donna Carroll, president of Dominican University. She reflects on the challenges facing undocumented college students, including: lack of federal financial aid funding, the difficulty of career planning, and integrating into campus life. She also talks about the leadership of undocumented and “DACAmented” students and why the university adopted a Sanctuary Campus Covenant in 2017. Carroll describes the university’s efforts to support immigrant students during the “triple pandemics” of COVID-19, racism, and economic injustice — all of which have been exacerbated by restrictionist immigration policies.

In recent years, many Catholic grade schools have had to shut their doors due to funding issues. This trend has accelerated due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Partnership Schools, a network of nine elementary and middle schools in urban areas of New York and Cleveland, is trying to stem the tide of Catholic school closings. Their network is taking a unique approach to funding, relying heavily on philanthropic support and keeping costs down, while maintaining high-quality education. In this episode, we hear from Jill Kafka, the executive director of Partnerships Schools, and Abigail Akano, principal of Sacred Heart School in the Bronx, one of the schools in the Partnership network. They describe how the network works, how they seek to include immigrant students and their parents, and why they created an emergency COVID-19 assistance fund to support families in their network.

Sister Gabriela Ramírez, MGSpS, is the Director of Hispanic Catholic Social Services (or “La Casita” as it’s known to community members) in the Diocese of Birmingham in Alabama. In “normal times,” La Casita provides low-cost immigration legal services, language assistance, adult education, and religious formation. Since the start of the pandemic, La Casita has shifted many of its regular services to remote platforms and sent food boxes to community members. Sr. Gabriela has also been instrumental in making COVID-19 testing available to immigrants at local parishes.

The mission of the Scalabrinian order is to accompany people on the move. In the COVID-19 era, it is harder than ever to live out that mission. In this episode, we hear from Rev. José Juan Cervantes González, c.s., a Scalabrini priest who runs the Casa Scalabrini – Centro de Pastoral Migratoria in Guadalajara, Mexico. He is working to get the permission of the Mexican government to reopen the organization’s shelter and has stepped up advocacy efforts on behalf of migrants during the pandemic. We’ll also hear from Rev. Peter Ciallella, a Scalabrini priest by training who has settled in the Diocese of Hamilton in Canada. He has found new ways to reach out to migrant farmworkers during the pandemic, and like Rev. José Juan, he has become a stronger advocate since the start of the pandemic. Despite the challenges of this moment, Rev. José Juan and Rev. Peter are finding new ways to strengthen their ministries and cooperating with health officials to ensure safety.