Immigration Policy and Practices Talk Notes, Anna Gallagher, Racial Justice Conversations, Dec. 3, 2025

Intro

• Anna Gallagher, Executive Director of Catholic Legal Immigration Network, Inc. (CLINIC).    https://www.cliniclegal.org/
• Work to protect rights of immigrant families and to advance Catholic tradition of promoting human dignity and welcoming the stranger.
• Proud daughter of Irish immigrants – motivates me in work to serve immigrants.  Years working in Guatemala, and in Europe, helped me understand why people flee and look for places of hope.   

CLINIC’s mission and work

• Our mission is to ensure that low income and poor  immigrants have access to quality, affordable immigration legal services.
• There is a severe shortage of access to immigration legal services.   A study by Center for Migration studies calculates  1 Immigration Legal Services  (ILS) provider for  1,431 immigrants. https://cmsny.org/publications/jmhs-kerwin-millet-092822/ 
• While there is a right to legal services, there is no guaranteed access through public funding to immigration counsel.   This is in contrast to the right to counsel in criminal proceedings, including fee counsel if a person does not have the means.  
• Immigration cases 2023, 31% had access to counsel  In 2024, just 21%. https://tracreports.org/reports/736/ 
• Study showed that 74% non-detained with counsel successful in their cases.  Just 3% of those detained without counsel successful. https://tracreports.org/immigration/#m_reports 
• Access to immigration legal services saves and changes lives.   People without status can’t work legally. Exploited. Undocumented parents may be separated from their children through the tragedy of deportation.  People who fled violence returned to the same violence and danger.
• Act of mercy, true act of Christian charity to help people obtain status to keep families together, gain lawful employment and have a dignified flid.
• Bishops recognized this is a ministry in the 1980s after Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 (IRCA) and established CLINIC.
• In 37 years, CLINIC has grown to 400 plus affiliates. Largest immigration legal non-profit in the US, serving half a million immigrants per year.  Many affiliates are Catholic, but many are not.   We all have in common mission to service immigrants.

CLINIC and the legal landscape today

• Worst I’ve seen in 40 years.  Unprecedented.   
• ILS more urgently needed then ever.   Yet at same time, our providers have never faced greater challenges—operating with fewer resources and under pressure, AND growing scrutiny and criticism of vital work.
• We are working our affiliates more closely than ever as they face funding cuts, rapid changes in policy.
• Walking alongside them help navigate the changes and provide best services to clients.

CHANGES in Policy/What’s Going on Today

• Immigration legal system bad and growing worse for years. In need of comprehensive reform.  Some of the long standing problems we face:
  • Extremely limited pathways for many
  • Crumbling backlogged asylum system
  • Economic incentives to maintain underclass of undocumented workers
  • Failed and inhumane systems of enforcement, including our detention system and militarization of the border.
• Past years spiraled without control.  Toxicity around immigration debate and policy has reached new levels.
• Convenient for politicians to scapegoat immigrants for our nation’s problems.
• Rising tide of anti-immigrant sentiment led to movement to remove as many immigrants as possible. 
• Don’t get me wrong – it is possible to have a good-faith debate on what levels enhance common good, how to enforce law properly, and about ways to help US workers and industries as immigrants arrive.   
• The current government is not acting in good faith.  Failure to understand human dignity and goal of common good.  Rhetoric and policies degrading, dehumanizing and unchristian.  
• Gone is the sense that immigrants are human beings with dignity.    Seen as a threat.   Gone awareness that they are the backbone of our country and culture. Data is clear that their presence is a benefit to all.
• Large scale violation of basic human rights.
• Expedited removal – Under the George W. Bush, enforced expedited removal for those who entered illegally within two weeks of arrest and within 100 miles of the border.  Now applies to anyone found anywhere in the US who cannot immediately prove two years presence in US.  
• Majority of arrests and deportations immigrants with no record.  https://tracreports.org/reports/767/
• Detention centers far away – no access to legal counsel.  
• Access to legal assistance programs for Unaccompanied Alien Children (UAC) or Unaccompanied Minor Immigrant Children, survivors of torture and refugees, such as Afghans, are extremely limited.   
• Temporary Protected Status (TPS) has been eliminated for thousands.  https://www.americanimmigrationcouncil.org/fact-sheet/temporary-protected-status-tps-overview/#:~:text=Since%20TPS%20was%20created%2C%2018,reversed%20through%20the%20judicial%20system. 
• Asylum applicants in immigration court proceedings wait years to have their asylum claims heard and decided.   The Trump Administration has no instructed the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Trial Attorneys (prosecutors) to broadly terminate immigration asylum court cases, arguing that the applicant has not filed sufficient information to prove their cases.   years waiting, cases dismissed in court.  https://nipnlg.org/work/resources/fighting-day-court-understanding-and-responding-pretermission-asylum-applications It is important to understand that there are rules for filing evidence usually 30 days before a final hearing and the Immigration Judge is the one who makes a final decision on whether there is sufficient evidence.  Many Immigration Judges are refusing to grant ICE trial attorneys motions to pretermit (terminate).   
• Dire situation.  When legal rights and constitutional rights are ignored for a minority or vulnerable group, puts all at risk.  

How are people helping?  What can we do? What is your piece of the puzzle?

• Know Your Rights campaigns.  
• Social services (housing, healthcare, education, etc.)  How to support families and neighbors with everyday needs.  
• Legal assistance.  Many former federal government attorneys are volunteering at legal clinics and to take cases.  
• Pastoral services.  Talk with your church folks to see how they can support our immigrant brothers and sisters.  Regular public prayer sessions outside immigration courts.  

Resources

Statistics

∙       Center for Migration Studies at https://cmsny.org/research-and-policy/data/

∙       Syracuse University Transaction Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC) at https://tracreports.org/immigration/index.html

Reports

∙       Immigration Enforcement and the Christian Conscience at https://catholicvote.org/immigration-enforcement-and-the-christian-conscience/

∙       “They Didn’t Let Me Say Bye”: Revealing the Human Toll of Deportations Today at https://www.kinoborderinitiative.org/abuse-documentation/

Organizations

∙       Catholic Legal Immigration Network  (CLINIC) at www.cliniclegal.org

∙       Catholic Charities USA at https://www.catholiccharitiesusa.org/what-we-do/immigration-services/

∙       Jesuit Refugee Services USA at https://www.jrsusa.org/

∙       Kino Border Initiative  at https://www.kinoborderinitiative.org/