US Immigration Court

Friday the 25 we continued our encounter of America with a visit to the US Immigration Court. Boiling it down, the Court is the main and legal gateway for hopeful immigrants, seeking to be reunited with family, escaping political, racial, religious persecution or whatever urged people to go look up their luck in America. Today was no different. And then maybe a little.

Because, as the first asylum seeker, a male from the Ivory Coast, entered the court so did we. The whole HIA team packing up the court room with notebooks, business casuals and attentive listening, that only grew as the interpreter struggled his way through stories of rape, imprisonment, killing, political prosecution and an illegal journey ending in New York. Not that the 26-years old asylum seeking male in particular noticed the name of the city, when he sat foot on American soil. Probably the feeling of making it to the other side shook off the need of checking up the nearest road sign. He was in America - what else is there to wish for?
But even though it might not matter at first to our immigrant from the Ivory Coast, there is a lot to wish for and even though he might be a bit disturbed by the 20 business casuals looking at him from the guest seats as he goes through his life story, it turns up to be a stroke of luck, that he is sitting in exactly this court room in exactly this city.

Even though the change of being granted asylum is 44 percent, it turns out that the numbers differs in the nation's 54 Immigrants Courts. A Chinese immigrant seeking asylum in fear of persecution has 76 percent chance of being granted so in Orlando, but only 7 percent in Atlanta. And just to add to the confusing, getting in the right court room is not necessarily enough. Studies show that Colombians had 88 percent chance of winning asylum from one judge in the Miami Court but only 5 percent from another judge in the same court. Circumstances as lack of witnesses, passports or other documents means that the nation's more than 200 judges must go through cases based on scant or subjective information. Add to this, that the time is little as the judge determine wether or not the nation is going to welcome a new immigrant.

In the case of today's asylum seeker from the Ivory Coast this description is no different. He claims asylum due to political persecution - one out of five internationally recognized grounds for gaining asylum. Race, religion, nationality and membership in particular social group being the other grounds. With no passport and no documents that the court finds credible, the ruling is based on examine on the story, as it bit by bit unfolds in the court room.
New York is one of the cities that grants a high percentage of asylum. And today's case is not an exception. Though the State attorney do not find him credible, our guy in the court room is granted the asylum he hoped for. And though he has to update the English vocabulary with the word 'income tax' and even more important the understanding of this action, he walks out of there with an permit to American.

Refugees

After getting an insight in the legislative framework of refugees in the U.S. we spent the afternoon talking about what it actually meant to bare the refugee status and how refugees take their first legal steps in the U.S. American society. There are ten organizations supporting refugees in getting a basic orientation in the U.S.A. One of them is the

International Rescue Committee (IRC)

It is the second largest organization of its kind in the United States.

Talking about refugees in a global perspective one has to be aware of the fact that less than one per cent of people having fled there homes are actually relocated into so called third countries, which are neither countries of the refugees' origin nor countries into which the refugees flees and live in refugee camps. Currently the number of people that have been driven out of their home country is estimated to be around 14 Million. The number of internally displaced persons is believed to be much higher.

The U.S.A. has by far the largest resettlement program worldwide. Around 17,000 refugees are admitted annually. The process, however, is lengthy and can take a few years. The IRC alone has resettled between 8,000 and 10,000 refugees per year over the past decade. The numbers for this year are expected to be even higher. The IRC is taking care of 155 different ethnicities from all regions of the world.

As soon as a person is granted refugee status he or she is entitled to work. The IRC encourages the refugees to make their own living in order to be able to pay for housing and obtain health insurance. The IRC has developed a program called Individual Development Account (IDA), which is supposed to support refugees in handling financial issues. In addition to that the U.S. government grants the refugees an initial aid in terms of public benefit (the so called Refugee Cash Assistence). This aid is granted during the first eight months after the acknowledgment of refugee status. It is very low, but entails medical aid. Around 30 per cent of refugees arriving in the United States have family members that already live in the country. After one year of physical presence in the country refugees have the right of becoming a permanent residence of the United States. He can apply for citizenship after five years.

The IRC works together with the Bellevue hospital in Downtown Manhattan and is engaged in a partnership with their “Survivor of Torture” program. Usually, psychological problems refugees have do not show immediately upon arrival. Often it is the case that during the first months refugees are very engaged in getting used to the new situation. Only after they have started settling down post-traumatic symptoms or other psychological stress phenomena seem to appear.

Tuesday July 29; GLBT, Asian-American and Indian-American minority issues

It’s funny how fears of being discriminated against seems to be a phenomenon that knows no boundaries. As Alan van Capelle, Executive Director of the Empire State Pride Agenda and speaking on the behalf of LGBT-Rights shared a remembrance of his early youth with us, being an teenager he blew out the candles of his birthday cake whishing that he wouldn’t be gay. When I was that young I tried to trick myself – since an important thing (which I don’t remember) turned out just the opposite of what I had planned it to be, I figured that if I kept repeating to myself that I was gay, clearly I would turn out not to be. Well, it didn’t work that way. However, the main insight of this little anecdote should be that even young teenagers on their way of courageously clearing a path through the jungle of unfamiliar rising emotions, they already sense the hostility of society towards sexual dispositions that are somewhat different from what is perceived by the majority as the “normal” sexuality or even just “normal” behaviour in the eyes of a few. Speaking of this early learned, or shall I say taught, inner fear or even immanent threat by society, it seems even more unclear to me, why some people take the argument, that being gay is something you happily chose for or decide against or a matter of “lifestyle”, which the word already includes the notion of there being a choice. I am sure, the kids on the streets that Kai Wright later on described, himself being a Journalist and devoted to the subject of (mostly) black gay kids and young adults in NYC in his recent book, would have loved to have had this choice, after having found the courage to come out having watched stereotype-representing but nevertheless gay liberty promoting serials like “Will and Grace” on TV, and consequently being thrown out of their families and homes and, moreover, as a result of no “gay spaces” in their surroundings and neighbourhoods ending up having to work the streets for living and having no other choice than putting their lives at risk (3000-4000 black kids in New York – every night that is! Not to speak of other backgrounds).

Be it what it is, I found Allens self-conscious presentation and strategy quiet intriguing since he mentioned that he wanted to make the state of New York something he called an “engined state”, meaning that his organisation, being structured like a union and mainly working together with 3rd party validators of the lower management level next to the top decision makers, was trying to install a catalogue of specific LGBT-rights in the State of New York in order to along with a few other states serve as a model for the rest of the country - out of the strong belief that revolutions in the past have only taken place, if there was a league of good examples already applying certain practices wished for. He also made a strong argument that language does matter, referring to the question of gay marriage, which civil union will never be an equivalent to, because it is not guaranteed the equal amount of rights, and therefore always somewhat dehumanizing the people concerned compared to heterosexual people. In my eyes a society accepting this biased treatment can never consider itself ideally democratic or even humane, because this would require treating all humans and participants equal and therefore guaranteeing to each human the same amount of rights - and not producing something like a second class. It’s not like we haven’t seen in the past, what thinking in classes can mean for a society as a whole.

Those were not the only topics of the day, though. Vanessa Leung spoke on Asian Americans and Bethany Berger gave a lecture on Native American Communities. Most striking to me was the thought of the strong tendency to connect manifest prejudice with whatever minority. Such as seeing the Asian Americans, the body as such itself consisting of a wide range of nationalities and complexions and therefore making this category a non-representative one, as the “model minority”. Being envious for their successes in education, but blending out that mathematics and natural sciences are the only areas that have the least amount of cultural variation, therefore almost being the only option. In the outcome, because they seem to be doing well as a minority somewhat neutralizing them, so they become invisible. Or the Native Americans, who because of the wrongly imposed connected image or stereotype of wilderness, simplicity and nature, are being perceived as stone hearted capitalists; just because of their natural und historically understandable strive for economic success, in this case in the gaming industry. Again blending out such things as the status of a “domestic depending nation”, meaning recognition, but not to give them a complete recognition after all, as well as the dangers and difficulties their representatives of culture have to face. I guess the majority in a society generally tends to take a very conceited and simple stand on very complicated issues.

Wednesday, July 23: Seedco

We ended a long day with two HIA senior fellows, Nikki Evans and Jeff Hochstetler, both of whom work with an organization called Seedco.

Seedco's mission reads as follows: "Seedco is a national nonprofit organization that works with local partners to create economic opportunity for disadvantaged job seekers, workers, and neighborhood entrepreneurs."

Nikki and Jeff explained their roles in this wide-reaching entity. Their work is multifaceted, which reinforced the complex underlying causes of poverty which had early in the day been espoused by Larry Mead and Henry Freedman. Seedco, like Grameem America, emphasizes economic and business opportunity over handouts. Realizing that it takes money to make money, Seedco helps to secure funding for entrepreneurs while simultaneously educating low-income Americans on financial management. They seek to both address problems unique to a particular community and also to export successful programs on the national level.

It was a bit difficult to come up with questions for Nikki and Jeff, something our group had never had trouble with before. I blame the combination of it being the end of a long day and the lack of controversy in their presentation. Clearly Seedco is an important company combating issues of poverty in an effective way. Nick reinvigorated the conversation by directing it into a more general discussion of poverty and race. And so ended the day.

The Abortion Myth

Today we spoke with Randall Balmer on the history of Evangelicals in America and their influence on domestic politics.

„I Call it, ,The Abortion Myth"

Julia: I liked Balmer´s notion of the „Abortion Myth“ behind the rise of the Religious Right in the early 1980s. We usually hear of the Religious Right as an anti-abortion movement, yet Balmer explained that this issue is mainly used to mobilize voters, but not pursued strongly in policymaking.

Florian: Right, I found it shocking that, basically, he argued that the rise of the Religious Right was founded on racism, not abortion. They began to rise in the 1970´s in protest of a District Court ruling that segregated organizations could not have charitable status, and therefore, tax exemption.

J: This idea was new to me, but it made a lot of sense in the context of the Conservative revival in national politics in the 1980s with the candidacy of Reagan. Many of their policies seemed in response to the Civil Rights Movement, though cloaked in the terms of moral decay in society.

F: But abortion is still legal, even after many years of Republican rule. During an 11-month period, in 2007, when the Republicans held power both in Congress, The Presidency and the Supreme Court, there was no serious attempt to outlaw abortion. That proves to me that they were just feigning concern.

J: I agree, but the situation is somewhat more complicated than he led on, since even with control over all three branches of government, the Republicans could not restrict abortion rights without a case before the Supreme Court challenging the Roe. v. Wade. decision legalizing abortion.

„The Religious Right is Starting to Collapse Under its Own Weight“

F: It seems that they are getting tired of this abortion-topic and searching for alternative issues to mobilize their base, such as gay marriage.

J: That issue has not proven very successful with the younger generation of evangelicals, who are becoming more interested in the environment and social justice.

F: I wonder if religion will really provide an answer to global climate change.

J: I don´t know, but it seems like a positive development that young people are using their faith as a motivation to work for progressive causes, as long as they don´t take it too far.

F. Trust me, they will find a way.

„Bush Declared That Jesus Was His Favorite Philosopher“ (Election Debate 2000)

F: Well, I wonder what Jesus would have to say about that.

J: Right, or about the Bush presidency for that matter.

F: If I were Jesus, I would tell the American politicians to keep us preachers out of it!

J: Haha, that is a very good point, but his evangelical religion has played a central role in his life and political thinking.

F: Its unusual for me that politicians talk so much about their faith just to get the support of some fundamentalists. Why not ignore them?

J: Well, evangelicals have been a powerful force in American politics since the post-Civil Rights era . Unlike earlier candidates who many have pandered to the Religious Right, however, Bush seems to sincerely believe that he is Born Again. Plus, Bush probably could not think of any other philosophers to mention.

F: At least both candidates in this election seem to have a more moderate approach towards religion in politics.

Thursday, July 24: Education

Thursday: July 24, 2008 Education System in the United States

We started the day with going to the Robin Hood Foundation, located in 826 Broadway Street. The first seminar, “ Education Reform in the US Public School System,” was given by Richard Stopol. He spoke about the history and the process of transformation of the public school system. In addition, he explained the available governmental programs that aim to improve this situation. At the end we commented the last reform made by New York City.

Mr Stopol claimed that the education system in New York is currently an experiment. He said that it is not excellent but it’s a good step to improve the level of education. The reforms were needed because the public school system doesn’t work in this country and fails to provide equal opportunities. There are some voices calling for regulations at the national level, but it most likely won’t work in the future.

Basic data about the public education system in New York state:
1,400,000 children; 56,000 teachers; 14,000 public schools.

New York public school system used to be decentralized and lead by the districts. Now, it’s Mer that regulates and controls it. The aim of the system is to have the following elements in each school: leadership, empowerment, accountability, innovation. Mr Stopol said that there are still two concepts which should be raised in the discussion of education in the US. First is a funding of the public schools; there is lack of good distribution of the governmental money within the system of the public schools. The second thing is the quality of the teachers; there should be more money put on the education and professional development of the teachers and professors to make it possible for them to learn how to deal with such a diverse society.

The second presentation, “Uncommon Schools and the Charter School Movement,” was given by very brisk and competent Norman Atkins. He explained to us this phenomenon, which aims to reduce the achievement gap which was created by over 40 years in the United States. The main problem of the system is that in poor communities the schools offer a very low level of education, and there is no environment to help the students to develop themselves at the professional and personal level. Mr Atkins repeated the statement made by previous lecturer that the main problem of the public schools is that they are built based upon an “agricultural” model (example: they offer the classes just from 8 AM till 2 PM) and that they haven’t adjusted to the current global situation that is based on high-level technology.

The discussion concerning what to do with public schools started in the nineties. Although the Democrats who were in power at that time usually supported the unions and tried to protect them, Democratic president Bill Clinton supported the idea of charter schools.

The first charter public school was opened in 1991 (now there are 4,000). The charter schools are open to everyone, do not have any extra fees, and are governed independently. They focus on using new technology and teach their pupils to build relationships based on love, friendship, compassion, and respect. They put a lot of effort into establishing a personal approach to the students and to helping them overcome difficult situations. 80% of students in New York and New Jersey are students of color or/and are from low income families. In 2005 the charter schools had a little bit better results than the districts schools. While the differences were not overwhelming, we have to remember that changes do not come very quickly. We will have to wait a few years to compare the students to see how they are doing in their lives.

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Norman Atkins gave us a thorough explanation of his perception of the American education system and how his programs, KIPP and Uncommon Schools, seek to address some of these issues: racial inequality, unprepared teachers, and chaotic classrooms. So I was optimistically anticipating our visit to the Bronx KIPP school that afternoon, hoping that the charter school might provide a model for eventual major change in the US education system.

However, the most lasting vision we took from our visit was perhaps not so much the respect among the students or the calm kept by the teachers, but more so the somewhat disturbing conformity and uniformity required by the school. Upon arrival we heard from KIPP’s principal, a young Latino woman (yes, I am going to be the race-aware American, no apologies to Magnus), and then were invited to sit in on the grade-level meetings taking place that day (I observed the fifth-grade meeting). We didn’t even have to wait for the meeting to begin to realize that these students were in a much different system than most American middle school students. The kids, vigilantly assembled into a single-file line of “KIPP: There are no shortcuts” T-shirt-wearing sardines, marched into the room along a scotch-tape line positioned down the middle of the hallways. The ban on shortcuts applied to getting to class as well; one boy, slightly off of the line, was reprimanded for not falling precisely in place.

The principal led the meeting with a tough-love attitude, both demanding absolute attention and respect from and among the students but also joking with the kids and other teachers. The gathering began with a discussion of a disciplinary issue that had arisen the previous day. Rather than lecturing the students, the principal called on the students to describe what had occurred. The volunteer speaker would stand, make sure he had “every pair of eyes” on him, and then begin: “Fellow students, teachers, and guests . . .” He would remain standing until the principal was finished questioning him. The level of enthusiastic engagement and cooperation among a group of fifth graders was astonishing. I was impressed by the development of public speaking skills (no “What had happened” grammar in this classroom), of the patience to sit attentively, and of respect for others – all valuable capabilities that will help these students present well as they seek admission to schools and job opportunities. The classroom was an environment of calm, engagement, care, and respect – ideal conditions in which to learn.

There was consensus among the fellows I spoke with that the school’s ability to create a safe, caring, and orderly place in the Bronx for learning is significant and admirable. However, this consensus was persistently conditioned by a ‘however . . .’. Some of the German fellows were particularly disturbed because the conformity and obedience required by the school connoted visions of Nazi Germany. I was put-off by the laughably overwhelming positive propaganda found in the school. “Work hard, be nice” seems to be the mantra of the school, appearing on the walls of every classroom. It is a good reminder for students, but its obviousness leaves the sentiment open to ridicule especially likely among teenagers.

I was primarily concerned with the lack of encouragement of creativity and out-of-the-box thinking of the education. I found the school’s strength to also be its weakness. KIPP is a respite from some of the difficulties of life in the Bronx. But, because it is detached from the otherwise reality of these children’s lives, the school is conditioning them to function within a specific system. Unless the students manage to get into a private or public school with a likewise supportive, positive educational environment for high school and college, they will need a different set of skills to succeed: creativity, self-reliance, determination, self-discipline, and out-of-the-box thinking. A uniquely brilliant student would probably have to stifle his creativity and uniquity in order to fit into KIPP’s system. I think a difficulty could also arise for even those students who fit comfortably in the school; it takes different abilities to excel in a KIPP environment than it does to excel on the streets of the Bronx, and both should be addressed and developed.

I would hesitate to characterize charter schools as the hope for the US education system. The principal said that each charter school is unique in its feel, and the stringent measures employed by the Bronx KIPP most likely suits the culture and conditions in that area – an environment that, as an outsider, I do not understand. In reflection, the opportunities offered by the school certainly outweigh the potential difficulties of living in such a regimented system. These potential issues are much less damaging than those of the drugs, gang violence, and appalling education encountered in public schools. As Kinga explained, charter schools offer an improvement to the status quo of education. The problem is that the status quo is currently so low that even improvements have a long way to go.

KIPP Academy

KIPP School

pictures - Justice & Fun...