By Luis A Gomez

The second Know Your Rights forum discussing immigration rights and legal defense brought together a group of activists, lawyers and concerned members of the Fordham community to address the recent uptick in Immigration & Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids.

The event, hosted in the Flom Auditorium in Walsh Library on Monday night, was jointly sponsored by Fordham’s Bronx African American History Project and Urban Studies Program.

Speakers from the CUNY CLEAR Project, Bronx Defenders and the Muslim Social Justice Initiative discussed organizing, activism and legal tactics to help community members understand their rights, as well as potential civil disobedience tactics to prevent ICE agents from detaining undocumented immigrants.

As the Trump administration changes federal priorities regarding deportation and local prosecutors increase their scrutiny towards undocumented immigrants, the forum discussed legal strategies for avoiding or combating ICE’s tactics.

Naz Ahmad, staff attorney at the CLEAR Project, an organization that provides legal services to communities that face national law enforcement scrutiny, described how ICE agents often show up unannounced, fail or refuse to identify themselves and try to enter a home by lying to residents. She also performed a demonstration with a volunteer after describing what to do if confronted by federal law enforcement.

“I don’t mean to toot my own horn, but I think [people] find [the demos] fairly effective,” said Ahmad. “We often get clients because they were at our workshops, or they watched our workshops online and a month or two months later they called us and were like ‘oh, I was at your workshop, and the FBI came to my door and I knew exactly what to do.’”

Nabila Taj, staff attorney at Brooklyn Defender, said that one of the biggest challenges in navigating immigration law is the legal complexities of the system.

“It’s a behemoth of laws, and they’re constantly changing, sometimes in our favor, often not,” said Taj.

The event essentially took the form of a long question-and-answer session, with speakers and organizers asking questions of one another, searching for the most effective way to aid undocumented immigrants.

Katherine DeFonzo, FCRH ’18, said she hoped those in attendance would be better informed to find the best way to continue the conversation surrounding immigrant rights.

“More than anything, I hope that students recognize the importance of asking questions about issues surrounding immigration and are never afraid to have an open and honest dialogue with one another about these issues,” she said.

Mark Naison, Ph.D, professor of African and African American Studies and founder of the Bronx African American History Project, said that the next step was to tap the university’s resources to help the larger community.

“We are going to create a Fordham Rose Hill Immigrant Defense Network to bring together people at Fordham working on immigration issues and to make what resources we have at the university available to people outside of Fordham, especially people in the Bronx who need our help,” said Naison.

Annika Hinze, director of Fordham’s Urban Studies Program, cautioned that more information and connective resources via programs like Naison’s proposed defense network are key to supporting undocumented students. She said the concept of sanctuary campuses neglect the larger legal issues in protecting students.

“…Universities are also severely limited in what it is they can do to actually protect – again, this is where this whole term ‘sanctuary’ is quite misleading because a university can’t really protect students, they can’t prevent law enforcement coming on campus and arresting someone,” she said. “What they can do is provide legal advice, social advice, counseling, things like that.”

For Ahmad, universities can create supportive environments that help undocumented students find the resources they need.

“Knowing that there are people around you on campus who want to make sure that you can access those resources – I think that’s a big thing because some resources that you need are out there,” said Ahmad. “It’s just a matter of finding them.”