Latest / National Immigration Law Center Freedom to Thrive Podcast / Ep. #103: A Bold Vision For Immigration | Kica Matos

Transcript

Ep. #103: A Bold Vision For Immigration | Kica Matos · National Immigration Law Center Freedom to Thrive Podcast

• 0:00
  When my parents were children in Mexico, they weren't allowed to go to school.
• 0:03
  At an age when most of us are learning our ABCs, they were already working.
• 0:08
  In the 1960s, my parents came to the United States so that we,
• 0:11
  their children, could have a better life than they had.
• 0:14
  Their biggest dream was that we could get an education, something they were never able to do.
• 0:19
  My parents, like so many immigrants, came to this country seeking the freedom to thrive.
• 0:24
  And in that respect, they weren't different than the people we see on the news
• 0:28
  today, people at the border seeking refuge in this country.
• 0:32
  What was different is that when my parents came to the U.S.,
• 0:35
  there was an actual system, a clear process for them to immigrate and establish residency.
• 0:40
  Today, we're living under an immigration system that hasn't been reformed since 1986.
• 0:46
  In 1986, we were using floppy disks and VCRs were cutting edge.
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  Everything has evolved since 1986, except for our nation's immigration laws.
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  Don't we owe it to ourselves and to the people coming here from other countries
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  to provide a clear pathway for residency like we used to have?
• 1:05
  What's getting in the way? Why hasn't any progress been made since 1986?
• 1:10
  My guest today is going to help us make sense of the moment we're in.
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  She's a national leader, a lawyer, a mom, a badass fighter for justice,
• 1:19
  and she's the president of the National Immigration Law Center.
• 1:23
  Today, I'll be talking with Kika Matos, and I can't wait to hear what she has to say about all this.
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  This is the NILC Freedom to Thrive podcast, powering pro-immigrant narratives, one story at a time.
• 1:36
  I'm Victoria Ballesteros, Executive Vice President of Narrative at the National
• 1:41
  Immigration Law Center.
• 1:43
  Excited to welcome to the podcast,
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  the National Immigration Law Center's president, Kika Matos. Kika, hi.
• 1:49
  Hi, Victoria. Thank you for having me on your show. Thank you for being here. Welcome.
• 1:54
  Kika, can I just jump right in? Because as you know, immigration is such a tough, challenging issue.
• 2:02
  What drew you to work in this space?
• 2:05
  That's a really good question. I did not gravitate towards immigration in a
• 2:09
  really intentional way. what happened was that I relocated to New Haven,
• 2:14
  Connecticut in the early 2000s.
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  And I moved into a neighborhood called Fairhaven, which is a largely immigrant neighborhood.
• 2:23
  Over the many centuries in New Haven, every single wave of immigrants arriving
• 2:30
  to the New Haven shores settled in Fairhaven.
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  And I moved to Fairhaven and I'm a lawyer.
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  I was a lawyer then. I had relocated from Philadelphia to New Haven.
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  I'm a criminal defense lawyer by background. I used to represent people on death
• 2:47
  row and I end up in this neighborhood of immigrants.
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  I realized that the death row population in Connecticut was really small,
• 2:55
  that it was not in the cards for me to continue to do death penalty lawyering
• 3:00
  and that I had to do something else.
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  And so I was looking for a job and a friend of mine, Rafael,
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  reached out to me and said, hey, there's this organization, It's highly respected.
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  It's called Junta for Progressive Action, an organization founded by Puerto
• 3:13
  Ricans to help Puerto Ricans migrating to the mainland. They're looking for an executive director.
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  Would you apply for the position? And so I was, I agreed to apply and I'm sitting
• 3:26
  in the waiting area, waiting for them to call me for this interview.
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  And I started observing people coming in through the doors and they were all
• 3:35
  Spanish speaking immigrants, not Puerto Ricans looking for help.
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  And I was really struck that so many people were coming to this particular organization for help.
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  The long and the short of it is that I did my interview.
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  They offered me the job. I stepped into the role of the executive director at
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  Junta and realized that the population of immigrants that were most pronounced
• 4:03
  in New Haven at that particular time in my neighborhood were undocumented immigrants.
• 4:11
  Who needed help and support in this particular institution.
• 4:15
  And Junta was created to support Puerto Ricans.
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  And the agency needed to change its way of thinking because some of the solutions
• 4:23
  that we were offering were not solutions that were well suited for undocumented immigrants.
• 4:29
  And that's how I started working with this population.
• 4:32
  Until that time, Victoria, I knew I knew nothing about undocumented immigrants.
• 4:37
  I didn't know their stories. I didn't realize that it was an issue.
• 4:41
  I knew very little about immigration.
• 4:44
  But when I came to understand and when I came to engage with people in my neighborhood,
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  I realized that this was really part of my calling.
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  And that's how I made the pivot. it. It's so interesting.
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  I think a lot of people probably don't think of Connecticut as a place that
• 5:00
  has a lot of immigrants, right? People think of immigrants and immigration, think of the border.
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  But so here you are. And by the way, thank you, Rafael, wherever you are,
• 5:07
  for encouraging Kika to apply because Kika has become one of our country's leaders
• 5:12
  on immigrant rights. And so we are all so grateful.
• 5:15
  Kika, so now you're leading the National Immigration Law Center,
• 5:19
  which is one of this country's oldest and leading organizations working to advance
• 5:25
  the rights of immigrants.
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  And for people who maybe aren't familiar with the organization, how does NILC work?
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  What does NILC do to make a difference in the lives of immigrants?
• 5:35
  So NILC, our acronym, National Immigration Law Center, we love to call ourselves NILC.
• 5:40
  And we talk about the NILC-y way, which I think is a really cool way of referring to our organization.
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  NILC is 45 years old. We are a law and advocacy organization that is unique in a number of ways.
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  So what will I say about NILC and
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  what was it that drew me to work towards NILC? Here's what I would say.
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  NILC's reputation is equal to none. NILC has a reputation for being fearless
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  and for not being afraid to tackle the big issues.
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  So when people ask me what NILC does, my answer is usually when you think about
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  those big issues around immigration, just know that NILC is fighting somewhere
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  tackling those big issues. So we're not afraid to take on the big issues.
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  But how do we do it? We do it in a way that's really different.
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  So we fight for laws and policies that benefit immigrants.
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  Our mission is really simple.
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  We advocate for the opportunities and the rights of low-income immigrants throughout the United States.
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  We do it by changing laws and trying to change policy.
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  So we're not afraid to fight against laws that we think are racist and unconstitutional.
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  We're also not afraid to fight for laws that advance the rights of immigrants.
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  But we do it in partnership with what we know so fondly as the immigrant rights movement.
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  If you look at history, every significant social justice struggle has been fought
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  and won because people who are most impacted have been leading the way.
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  Think about the fight for abolition of slavery in this country,
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  for women's rights, the civil rights movement, marriage equality.
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  All of those fights have been fought and won because people most impacted have
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  been courageous enough.
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  To create a movement and collectively fight for justice. So we situate ourselves in the movement.
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  We are not these aloof lawyers who see people as plaintiffs.
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  We are deeply steeped in movement.
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  And then the last thing I would say is we engage in narrative change work,
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  which is really a fancy way of saying that it is important to us that we tell
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  the stories of people who are most impacted because that is the way that we
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  change the hearts and minds of Americans.
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  And you are the person at NILC who is leading the way in our narrative change work.
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  So you, more than anyone else, are able to tell us those stories and figure
• 8:09
  out how to tell the stories that really impact Americans and have them understand
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  the issues around immigration and why we should support immigrants.
• 8:19
  Yeah, that's really what this podcast is about, right, is we need to tell our stories.
• 8:24
  So are there any wins or any successes or any highlights over the NILC 45-year
• 8:30
  trajectory of the past that you would want to share or talk about?
• 8:34
  Yeah, there's so many of them. I will start with a big win that NILC had a lot to do with in 2012.
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  So 12 years ago, when Obama was president, he announced this executive order
• 8:48
  that is known as DACA. And I hate acronyms, so I'm going to ask you to bear with us.
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  So DACA stands for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, which breaks down
• 8:59
  to protection from deportation and a right to work or go to school for people who are DREAMers.
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  DREAMers are young people who came to this country undocumented.
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  And so Obama announced that he was going to protect this group of people through DACA.
• 9:18
  Yeah. This executive order has benefited hundreds and thousands of young people
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  who all of a sudden went from being in despair, trying to figure out what do
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  I do with my life? I'm undocumented.
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  I can't in many places get a driver's license. I can't go to school. I can't work.
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  But this is the country that I know as home. Some dreamers came to this country
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  when they were months old. Many of them didn't even discover that they were
• 9:45
  undocumented until they said to their parents, hey, I want to apply to go to college or hey.
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  I need my birth certificate because I want to get a driver's license or something
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  that people with privilege of having legal status in this country don't even think about.
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  And so Dreamers got DACA. We have seen Dreamers flourish. No cut of hand in
• 10:07
  making sure that DACA was advanced.
• 10:08
  But since then, we have been also active in protecting DACA. Why?
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  Because when Trump came into power, one of the first things he did was to strike
• 10:19
  down DACA. He said, no more.
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  This is, as we know, a president whose platform was deeply anti-immigrant,
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  and it was shattering to hundreds and thousands of young people who had turned their lives around.
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  So since DACA was struck down, we have been fighting in the courts and in partnership
• 10:36
  with DREAMers to make sure that we do everything we can to protect DACA.
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  So that's a longtime victory that we fought and won.
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  Most recently, I said earlier that we're not afraid to take on the big fights.
• 10:50
  We sued Texas. And let me just say, we sued Texas.
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  And why did we sue Texas? We sued Texas because they passed this law that is
• 11:00
  racist, and it's unconstitutional.
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  It's known as SB4. And this law empowers law enforcement to be able to arrest
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  anyone in Texas that they think is undocumented.
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  What do we think that's all about? It's about racial profiling.
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  How can you tell somebody or suspect somebody is undocumented, right?
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  We know those code words. So this law says anyone in law enforcement,
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  local or state in Texas, can arrest anyone they suspect of being undocumented,
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  and judges can deport anyone who is undocumented.
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  And to be clear, the United States immigration laws are part of the domain of
• 11:44
  our federal government. Right.
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  So Texas decided that it was going to try to make a mad power grab.
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  Right. And announced that they were somehow authorized to engage in immigration
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  enforcement, which is not within
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  the constitutional bounds, to put it in a lawyerly way. So we sued Texas.
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  And that was really cool. The litigation is now ongoing and we will stay the
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  course. And then most recently in Indiana, we sued Indiana. Why?
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  Because Indiana passed a law that said that anybody who had humanitarian parole
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  and humanitarian parole is simply a way that people are able to legally remain in this country.
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  So lawmakers said, we're going to pass this law that says that anybody in Indiana
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  who has humanitarian parole can have a driver's license, but only if they're from Ukraine.
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  And we said, oh, no, no, no, no, no. That is unconstitutional and that is illegal.
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  So we sued Indiana and we actually won in court.
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  But the terrible thing is that the legislature then went back and struck the law down.
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  And so now nobody who has humanitarian parole in Indiana is able to get a driver's
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  license. So that's a little bit of a flavor and a taste of some of the litigation
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  that we have been engaging in.
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  That's amazing and powerful work.
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  And I'm curious, when you speak of SB4 in Texas, is NILP tracking these other
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  laws that are popping up in other states?
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  Because it seems like SB4 in Texas maybe was the beginning or maybe it started in Florida.
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  I don't know, but it seems like there's a whole bunch of other states that are
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  starting to pass these kinds of laws. Yeah, we call them copycat laws.
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  And let me say that we sued Texas, but our lawsuit in Texas is built on anti-immigrant
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  laws like that that have been passed over the course of the last several decades.
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  And so, for example, we were also very active in Arizona over a decade ago when
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  Arizona passed a similar law.
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  It went all the way to the Supreme Court, and the Supreme Court ruled in our
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  favor and said that Arizona had overstepped its bounds, right,
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  and had tried to make a mad power grab over issues that it had no business making laws around.
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  And so we've seen that before. We've been active. We have fought against it.
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  Now with Texas, Texas has been really one of the states that's been leading
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  the way in terms of really advancing outrageously offensive and racist anti-immigrant
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  laws that make people suffer.
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  Imagine you being undocumented, a person of color in Texas and facing this tremendous hostility.
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  We're there now. We were there in Arizona over a decade ago.
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  And so now what's happened is since Texas passed its laws, all of these other
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  states are now trying to copy Texas and we will stay the course.
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  And so we see it our business to not just fight in Texas, but to fight in those
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  other states where we've seen these illegal laws passing.
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  I love it. And thank you for that reminder about Arizona, because that was a
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  really important and critical victory. So, okay, I want to shift gears a little bit.
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  Immigration is the number one issue for millions of Americans right now. It's top of mind.
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  And for many people, when they think about immigration, they think about the border.
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  Most of us only know what we see on TV when it comes to the border, right?
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  So, but you've actually been to the border and you've met with immigrants and
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  talked with immigrants.
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  What was your experience like there?
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  It was heartbreaking. Let me share with you a little bit of what my experience was like.
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  I went with a delegation of civil rights and human rights organizations at a
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  critical moment when the Biden administration was trying to implement these
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  new policies that would really restrict the ability of people to come to the U.S. to seek asylum.
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  And let me say something about asylum because I think there's a real misperception about asylum.
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  The laws of asylum are such that if you enter U.S.
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  Soil, whether you cross the border or you fly into the United States,
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  and you believe that you have a case for asylum, you have a legal right to ask for asylum.
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  So many of the people who are coming to the border are people who qualify under asylum.
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  They have a well-founded fear of persecution based on five different categories.
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  I just didn't name a few. Your race, your ethnicity, your national origin.
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  There's five different religions. There's five different categories, right?
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  So what's happening in the border is that many people are coming and seeking asylum.
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  Now, not everybody who who comes to the United States seeking asylum qualifies,
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  but you have a legal right to do that.
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  We have seen this massive global wave, and it's not just specific to the U.S.,
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  it's all over the world of people having to flee.
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  Their home countries. And why
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  are they fleeing? They're fleeing because they're asylum seekers, right?
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  They're facing danger in their home countries. And they're afraid that if they
• 16:55
  stay in their home countries, they could be killed or tortured by the government.
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  Some people are fleeing because of climate change, right?
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  Because the conditions in their country are such that they can no longer literally
• 17:07
  live where they are living.
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  And so they are forced to move. Some people are fleeing for economic conditions.
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  They can no longer afford, right, to live. They can't feed themselves.
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  They cannot feed their children. But this global migration pattern is not specific
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  to the U.S. People are fleeing all over, all over the world.
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  Some are making it to the United States.
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  When I went there with this delegation,
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  it really was to learn about the experiences of Black migrants. Why?
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  Because the host, the person who invited us was the Haitian Bridge Alliance,
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  and they do advocacy for Black immigrants.
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  So I went to Matamoros, Mexico, and I went to Reynosa, Mexico,
• 17:44
  and I interviewed and talked to mostly Black migrants, but not exclusively Black migrants.
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  And here's the thing that breaks my heart, right? The conditions,
• 17:54
  first of all, were wretched.
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  People living in open-air camps, some of them with not even a tent over their
• 18:02
  heads, without access to basic hygiene, right?
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  Open areas where where you use the bathroom, people really struggling.
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  The basic necessities were not there.
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  The stories of suffering, some of them had actually come through the Darien
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  Gap, which is that really dangerous crossing in the border of Colombia and Panama.
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  And they come with stories of deep trauma, their loved ones being killed.
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  Some of the women had terrible stories of sexual assault, terrible things being
• 18:37
  done to them or to their children, tremendous loss and tremendous grief and tremendous trauma.
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  But this amount of resilience and determination that they were going to do whatever
• 18:48
  they could to protect themselves and protect their children.
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  Those are the stories that I heard in the border. Now, when you look at TV and
• 18:55
  you see Fox News and you hear some of this really toxic language from anti-immigrant legislators,
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  you see a very different, terrible, inaccurate picture of who these folks are.
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  When I left, I was heartbroken.
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  It was very moving. But here's the thing that I want people to understand.
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  And the qualities that I saw in many of people, many of the people who were
• 19:22
  there are the kinds of qualities that we as Americans actually uphold.
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  It is a commitment to family. It's courage. It is bravery.
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  It is resiliency. It's a desire to create community because there was one very
• 19:43
  wretched camp that really where I,
• 19:48
  you know, quietly broke down and I had to leave because I was so upset by what I saw.
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  But even within that camp, even amongst the terrible conditions,
• 19:56
  there was a sense of community.
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  And there was this woman, Alicia, who I will never forget.
• 20:01
  Alicia was a community organizer in that camp. She'd been there. She was from Venezuela.
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  She left her two young sons behind because she said she could no longer survive in Venezuela.
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  She came all the way to the border by herself.
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  She told the story of being in a bus and having the military come in and kidnap
• 20:22
  all of the women except for her.
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  And she told that story. And she'd been in that camp for three months,
• 20:28
  desperately trying to use her phone to be able to get that app that allows you
• 20:34
  to have an interview to come to the United States.
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  And for three months, every day for hours, she was using her app.
• 20:39
  But when she wasn't using her app, what was she doing? She was welcoming new
• 20:43
  arrivals into to that camp.
• 20:44
  And she knew which tents had been emptied out, right? So I saw her say,
• 20:48
  these tents are empty for you and your family. There's the clinic.
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  And there was a woman whose children were really sick. So she showed them the clinic.
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  And so those are the stories that I was left with, stories of resilience and
• 21:02
  human dignity and a sense of belonging.
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  And that's what I want people to understand about what's happening in the border.
• 21:10
  Thank you. Thank you for amplifying the humanity of immigrants.
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  And people think about this broken system or the system, but they're not thinking
• 21:18
  about the people, that there's people here who are suffering.
• 21:22
  I hope all the best for Alicia. I hope she's reunited with her children and
• 21:27
  for everyone who is. So I have a good, happy story.
• 21:31
  I need to hear it. Yes. After five months of living in these wretched conditions.
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  One day I just got a text from her and it was a photo of her standing in front
• 21:42
  of this giant sign in Texas. And she said, I made it.
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  So she got on a bus and she made her way to New York City.
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  And she is now in New York City doing what she did at the border,
• 21:54
  which is helping other Venezuelans get acclimated in the city.
• 21:58
  And so Alicia now is in the United States. I love it. I love it.
• 22:02
  See, now you're going to make me cry, Kika.
• 22:04
  Okay, so okay, well, let me ask you this then.
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  What could or should the Biden administration be doing today to improve the
• 22:13
  system so that people like Alicia and the many, many more like her don't have
• 22:17
  to go through this kind of suffering to seek safety and refuge?
• 22:21
  There's a lot that the Biden administration could do that it's not doing.
• 22:24
  Let me, I don't want to sound wonky, so please forgive Forgive me if I sound
• 22:28
  wonky, but there's something that I want to make sure that folks who are listening
• 22:32
  to this podcast are watching it understand, which is that our immigration laws
• 22:37
  in this country are hopelessly broken.
• 22:40
  The last time we had comprehensive immigration laws passed in the United States
• 22:45
  was in 1986 when Ronald Reagan was president.
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  Imagine how much has changed.
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  And some people listening to this podcast weren't even alive in 1986.
• 22:57
  How much has happened in the decades since then? Our world has changed.
• 23:02
  Our country has changed. And yet, because of the nonsense and the politicking
• 23:07
  in Washington, D.C., our legislators are simply unwilling to change our laws.
• 23:13
  And so our laws are antiquated and they're not the kinds of modern laws that
• 23:18
  we need to respond to the situation today. So I will just start off with that.
• 23:23
  I will also say that the Trump presidency had a terrible impact on the lives
• 23:32
  of immigrants. And so under the Trump years, what did we see?
• 23:36
  We saw really terrible policies being advanced.
• 23:40
  There were over 400 executive orders that were deeply anti-immigrant.
• 23:45
  People suffered the climate and the messaging. We talked about narrative change.
• 23:50
  We saw a lot of terrible, nasty stereotypes put into place about immigrants.
• 23:56
  And we are still suffering from that today.
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  And today, the political climate is such that both Democrats and Republicans,
• 24:04
  sadly, are now embracing anti-immigrant policies, which to me is quite frankly
• 24:10
  a disgrace. What do I want from Biden?
• 24:13
  I want Biden to put forth a bold vision of immigration.
• 24:18
  I want Biden to create more opportunities for immigrants to be able to legally
• 24:24
  come into the United States, because we have very few opportunities for people
• 24:28
  to be able to legally migrate into the United States.
• 24:31
  And so that is why we see what we see at the border with so many people asking for asylum.
• 24:37
  It is because there's just not enough opportunities.
• 24:40
  I want Biden to shift us away from this toxic, racist, deeply anti-immigrant
• 24:47
  narrative that we're hearing. And I want him to uplift the contributions that
• 24:52
  immigrants are making to this country.
• 24:55
  And I want him to be a part of that changing leadership that reminds people
• 25:00
  that unless you're Native American or you are part of the history of enslaved
• 25:06
  Africans like me, that's my legacy and that's my history.
• 25:09
  You came into this country as an immigrant.
• 25:12
  And so that is what I want from Biden. I want him to move forward boldly with
• 25:17
  a vision and to create more pathways for people to be able to come into the
• 25:22
  United States and live really fulfilling lives that benefit all of us.
• 25:27
  I want to highlight something that you mentioned, this hopelessly broken immigration
• 25:32
  system and and not having been touched since 1986.
• 25:37
  A lot of what we hear, a lot of what I hear when I'm looking at,
• 25:41
  you know, sort of public sentiment is that people feel like they support immigrants and immigration,
• 25:45
  but they support immigrants who do things the right way, who come to this country
• 25:50
  the right way. I hear the right way millions of times.
• 25:53
  And I feel like there is no right way. There is no line.
• 25:57
  They say, get in line. I support immigrants who stand in line.
• 26:00
  It doesn't sound like there is a line or a right way.
• 26:04
  No, that's the myth. I hear it too. Why can't they just get in line?
• 26:10
  They're just breaking the law and they're breaking the law because they just
• 26:14
  don't care or they want to cut in line.
• 26:16
  There is no line. There are not enough pathways.
• 26:20
  There are not enough opportunities for people to be able to avail themselves
• 26:25
  of a way to change their status from undocumented to documented or to be able
• 26:32
  to come to the United States.
• 26:34
  That is one of the biggest systemic problems that we have right now.
• 26:38
  What are the ways you can come to the United States?
• 26:41
  The biggest ways are through family, right? We have a history and part of the
• 26:45
  laws are shaped such that one of the biggest ways that people are able to legally
• 26:50
  come to the United States is through family.
• 26:53
  Your family, you get status and then you petition.
• 26:56
  Your family members to come. Then there's work visas. Those are limited in numbers.
• 27:01
  And then there's the lottery visa, which is random and random opportunity for
• 27:06
  people who live in countries where we don't see significant numbers of migrants
• 27:11
  coming to the United States to be able to apply.
• 27:14
  And it literally is like winning the lottery.
• 27:16
  You put your name in and maybe you'll be lucky and then you'll be able to come into the United States.
• 27:22
  And then for those who are seeking asylum, and those who benefit from our refugee program, right?
• 27:29
  Really, that is the extent of maybe a few more ways, temporary protective status.
• 27:35
  I'm not going to get into them, but they're very, the bottom line is that there
• 27:40
  are not enough opportunities for people to come to the United States or to legalize their status.
• 27:46
  And there's no such thing as getting in the back of the line,
• 27:49
  because I can guarantee you, right, that people more than anything else,
• 27:54
  people who are undocumented in this country, they want legal status.
• 27:59
  They want to figure out a way where they can get, they want a line to be able
• 28:04
  to get into when there is no line.
• 28:06
  If there was a line, people would be standing in it. Yeah. Exactly.
• 28:10
  So I'm going to shift gears again. With all of this dysfunction in Congress
• 28:14
  and inaction from the White House, who or what inspires you to keep going in
• 28:22
  the face of so much adversity?
• 28:24
  I have been incredibly privileged to work with and fight alongside Alongside
• 28:35
  many people whose stories are stories of courage and resilience.
• 28:44
  And these are people that you might see on the street and not think twice about.
• 28:53
  People who work in the kitchens in our restaurants,
• 28:57
  people who are the ones who clean up our hotel rooms when we go stay there,
• 29:02
  the people who feed us because it is their sweat and their labor that allows
• 29:09
  us to have the meals that we're able to have at the table.
• 29:13
  And I am constantly humbled and inspired by those stories.
• 29:20
  And the stories of courage when people who have next to nothing make that extra
• 29:25
  sacrifice to help others or who, you know, you do this a lot at NILC, Victoria,
• 29:34
  you remind us of the freedom to thrive, right?
• 29:37
  People who make it their business to try to thrive despite the fact that the
• 29:44
  odds are against them. And I'll give you a story.
• 29:46
  There's a woman, and this again, I don't want to traumatize us by going back
• 29:49
  into the Trump years, but I want to talk about Nuri Chavatia,
• 29:52
  because Nuri Chavatia is a woman who continues to inspire me.
• 29:56
  Nuri lives in Norwalk, Connecticut.
• 29:59
  She's originally from Guatemala. She's lived in the United States now,
• 30:03
  I would say probably for about 30 years. years, she has four U.S. citizen children.
• 30:08
  And under the Trump years, her youngest was nine years old.
• 30:13
  And during the Trump years, people who she had applied for asylum and she was denied asylum.
• 30:19
  So every year she had to go to her immigration officer to check in and they
• 30:24
  would stamp her papers and say, OK, you're good for another year.
• 30:26
  They wanted to make sure she wasn't breaking the law and everything was on the up and up.
• 30:30
  During the Trump years, when people went for for those routine visits,
• 30:34
  what usually happened is what happened to Nuri, which is that her immigration
• 30:38
  officer said, give me your ankle and put in front of Nuri's nine-year-old child,
• 30:45
  put an ankle bracelet on Nuri and said, you have 30 days to leave this country.
• 30:50
  And that was the end of that visit. Imagine you've been here for over two decades.
• 30:55
  Your four U.S. citizen kids are here, and you were told you have to get the
• 31:00
  hell out of here, and you got 30 days.
• 31:02
  And so Nuri decided that she was going to fight to stay.
• 31:07
  And there were some of us in Connecticut that were working with faith-based
• 31:11
  institutions to offer sanctuary.
• 31:13
  And so we offered Nuri sanctuary, and she said yes. And so Nuri,
• 31:18
  with her youngest child, she found guardians for her three older children.
• 31:23
  And she and her youngest child sought sanctuary in an institution,
• 31:28
  faith-based, a Pentecostal church across the street from me.
• 31:31
  She gave everything up and she sacrificed everything she had to fight for her
• 31:36
  right to stay in the United States.
• 31:38
  It's people like Nuri. And I remember intensely working with Nuri.
• 31:43
  And because she was so close to me, I would visit her every day.
• 31:45
  I would visit her child and the amount of courage that I saw in the,
• 31:51
  in that woman blew me away.
• 31:54
  She had everything to lose and nothing to gain.
• 31:57
  And she fought with so much dignity and that she was a picture of grace under fire and she prevailed.
• 32:05
  And so the good story, cause I do like, I do like stories that have the endings.
• 32:09
  She got relief from the courts and now she is back in Norwalk with her children.
• 32:16
  And every now and then I'll see her because what she does every year is that
• 32:19
  she goes to the church that offered her sanctuary and she goes to one of their
• 32:23
  services and she spends time with a pastor and the congregation,
• 32:28
  especially the leaders in the congregation who protected her.
• 32:30
  And when she does that, she'll come over and ring my doorbell to say hello and thank you. Beautiful.
• 32:35
  Thank you. Thank you. That's really inspiring.
• 32:38
  And as you mentioned at NILC, we do believe in a vision of this country that
• 32:42
  lives up to its promise and potential.
• 32:44
  And we're all of us, no matter how much money we have, what we look like or
• 32:47
  where we were born, have the freedom to thrive.
• 32:50
  So now I'm going to give you a magic wand, Kika. So you have your magic wand
• 32:54
  and you can wave it over this country.
• 32:57
  What would your ideal or reimagined country in the United States look like? Okay.
• 33:04
  It would be a place where people would not only have the freedom to thrive,
• 33:10
  but the freedom to live lives that are free from want.
• 33:16
  I dream of a country where we put our tremendous resources into play such that
• 33:24
  everybody has the fundamental right to health, to an education,
• 33:30
  to housing where there is no need, where there There is no violence,
• 33:35
  where every community that we go to is a community of people who thrive.
• 33:41
  I want people who look like me, right, Black people, brown people,
• 33:46
  people of color, to not ever have to suffer the indignities of racism and oppression.
• 33:53
  I'm a big supporter of culture. I want this country to be a country where you see culture manifest,
• 34:03
  right, where music and art and culture is accessible, no matter,
• 34:08
  like you just said, Victoria, where you live or how much money you have.
• 34:13
  And I want the budget for this country to reflect a deep commitment to the people
• 34:19
  who live in this country.
• 34:21
  That is, if I could wave my magic wand overnight, that is part of what I would
• 34:25
  want to see for all of us. Yeah.
• 34:27
  That is a country that I would love to live in. And I'm honored to be working
• 34:32
  with you to do what we can, whatever we can to try to make that a reality for
• 34:36
  all of us. And right back at you, Victoria.
• 34:38
  Thank you for the amazing work that you do at NOC. Thank you.
• 34:40
  Thank you for sharing your story with us today. I feel like I could talk to
• 34:43
  you all day about immigration and just your personal story is incredible.
• 34:49
  And I really appreciate you sharing it with us.
• 34:51
  And again, it is just so important for us to keep telling our stories and sharing
• 34:56
  our immigration truths.
• 34:59
  I want to thank our listeners for spending time with us. For more immigration
• 35:03
  truths, visit us at nilk.org and freedomtothrive.com.
• 35:07
  And make sure you subscribe so you don't miss any future episodes.
• 35:10
  I look forward to continuing this conversation with all of you.