LOWELL – On Monday, December 1st, 18th Middlesex District State Representative Tara Hong and partners hosted a forum at Stoklosa Middle School in Lowell, focusing on up-to-date information and resources for immigrants
The forum was attended by State Representative Vanna Howard, State Representative Rodney Elliott, Middlesex County District Attorney Marian Ryan, immigration attorney Elizabeth Goss, Lowell Public Schools Superintendent Liam Skinner, at-large city councilor Vesna Nuon and city councilors-elect Sidney Liang, Belinda Juran and Sean McDonough, Sergeant Justin Velez of the Lowell Police Department, and several community organizations and nonprofits.
The forum was attended by more than 75 people, with over a dozen of them taking advantage of free legal consultations provided by the Massachusetts Office for Refugees and Immigrants.
“I am grateful to Governor Maura Healey for connecting my office with ORI so that we could bring this valuable information back to our community,” said Rep. Hong. “I also want to recognize the efforts of our many partners in this event, like Lowell Alliance and Lowell Public Schools, without whom none of this would have been possible.”
The forum opened with comments from elected officials, and representatives from the city of Lowell, county and state. Mercy Anampiu of Lowell Community Health Center served as the emcee.
Representative Vanna Howard cited her work in the immigration space during her 12 years in Congresswoman Niki Tsongas’s office.
She emphasized that due process is afforded to anyone residing in the United States, and the importance of getting “accurate information from the experts…about your inalienable rights protected under the constitution.”
Representative Rodney Elliott reiterated the importance of providing accurate and update-to-date information about immigration issues in light of the “misinformation trickling down from the Federal government.” Rep. Elliott also highlighted the State’s five million dollar appropriation secured earlier in the year for the immigrant legal defense fund.
“It’s my job as district attorney to protect the 1.8 million people who live and work here in Middlesex County,” said District Attorney Marian Ryan. “A piece for every one of us of being safe is having people in the community who feel empowered to call the police, to report when they see things, to come to court when they need help.” DA Ryan recounted an incident in Lowell last year when an undocumented woman called 911 to report an early-morning apartment fire. After calling, the woman even entered the building to warn residents that there was a fire. Despite the woman’s heroism, she did not want to be recognized due to her immigration status. DA Ryan emphasized that “no one is safe when people are afraid.”
Sergeant Justin Velez of the Lowell Police Department said the department works directly with immigrants and refugees daily.
“There’s a lot of misinformation out there,” said Velez, “I’ll be the first to say the Lowell Police Department does not enforce federal law. Our duty is to protect and serve [anybody] in the community, it doesn’t matter where you come from.”
When Lowell Public Schools Superintendent Liam Skinner took the podium, he prompted the crowd to raise their hand if they were native American—not a single hand was raised. “If you’re not a native American, you’re an immigrant… so we have to help one another, and we have to help the people who are new to the country.”
The superintendent expressed that the political climate had changed from when he came to the United States from Ireland, and that immigrants seemed more fearful. He had a message for those families who were fearful to send their children to school: “I’m going to promise you that your child will be safe in our care, in our schools.”
Rep. Hong introduced Cristina Aguileira and Susan Church from ORI, who gave a presentation with information regarding the current climate around immigration issues, recent changes to federal immigration law regarding citizenship, and guidance on what bystanders or those directly affected should do if contacted by immigrations enforcement.
After the presentation, there was a Q&A for those in attendance both in-person and virtually, as well as breakout sessions for one on one legal consultations arranged by ORI with volunteer attorneys to answer legal questions concerning immigration or probate issues.
“There are a lot of resources offered locally and at the state level,” said Representative Hong. “I want to make sure that know that their community and the state are here for them, and here to help. The message from my colleagues in the legislature, from the DA’s office, from Lowell Public Schools and Lowell Police, and from state is that we are all made unsafe when anyone in our communities is living in fear. One way to combat that fear is to make sure people know where to turn for accurate information and for support.”
Community members are encouraged to check out the information and resources available on the Massachusetts Office for Refugees and Immigrants website: https://www.mass.gov/communityresource-toolkit
2 responses to “Rep. Hong Hosts Refugee and Immigrant Forum”
It’s a bit disheartening that Superintendent Skinner doesn’t appear to know the meaning of words. “immigrant” is a pretty straightforward word and shouldn’t be so hard. It means a person who was born in one country, or has lived for a very long time in that country, but then has moved to another country. The immigrant has emigrated from the first country, and immigrated to the second country. The Latin roots of these two useful words are very much in evidence. They are the same word, except that “immigrant” has the Latin prefix “in” meaning in or into, and “emmigrant” has the Latin prefix “ex”, meaning out of. So easy.
Now, a person who is descended from immigrants is not also an immigrant. For example, several of my great grandparents emigrated to the US from Ireland, and were, therefore immigrants (also emigrants, from the point of view of Ireland), but I am not an immigrant. This concept, that being descended from some one with a property does not mean you automatically have that property, should be not hard, either. For example, I am descended from my father, but I am not male. Or, and apologies to the people who don’t believe in the essential truth of Charles Darwin’s explanation of the origin of species, around 70 million years ago, when the dinosaurs died out, my ancestors were small, ferret-like mammals. I, by contrast, am not a small ferret like mammal.
Unless you believe in special creation, then, to be rational, you have to understand that some people in the United States currently are immigrants, but everyone in the United States is an immigrant or descended from immigrants, because the Americas were originally people by immigrants who migrated from far eastern Asia sometime between 60,000 and 10,000 years ago. (The values fluctuate, because archaeology, carbon dating, and the new science of doing statistics on genomes don’t always agree.)
I think that Superintendent Skinner may be coming out as a Lamarckian, which is a bit weird for a superintendent of a school in a state like Massachusetts which prides itself on being all science-y.