Sean McCarthy, Immigration Task Group, UUSJ Board Member, UU Congregation of Rockville
I retired in early 2014. I’d had a career in corporate law, but I now wanted to do something that would be of greater benefit to society. When my local bar association put out a call for volunteers to help unaccompanied children as young as five or six, who were showing up at our Southern border in large numbers, I offered to take a case. Then I took on another and another. My new clients, abandoned or neglected by their parents and seeking to escape gang violence in Central America were mostly teenagers, but I found a new purpose.
Around the same time, I discovered the Unitarian Universalist church and got involved in my church’s social justice programs. That led me to the Immigration Task Group at Unitarian Universalists for Social Justice. I didn’t have to be a lawyer to work with a friendly group of UU’s who were working on a much wider scale advocating with the federal government for a fairer, more progressive system. We work to help get better treatment for all prospective immigrants, including asylum seekers, refugees, abandoned children, those with temporary protected status, and “dreamers”. Despite the fact that the US immigration legal system is Byzantine in complexity we work with other faith groups and with the help of those with expertise in immigration law to encourage Congress to advance a progressive immigration agenda more reflective of UU values. We have urged Congress to enact progressive reforms, hold oversight hearings, and pressure the Trump administration to stop terrible practices such as separating children from parents and unnecessarily detaining immigrants in facilities with Covid-19.
On behalf of UUSJ or on our own we have also submitted written comments opposing the xenophobic, anti-immigrant regulations of the soon to be departing federal administration. We have focused on regulations whose human implications are clear such as the expanded “public charge” rules. Those new rules discourage otherwise qualified applicants for permanent residency from accepting Food Stamps or public health benefits for themselves or their children, because they fear being labeled as a potential “public charge” and denied permanent residency or citizenship. Because our comments have in the end only helped slow the implementation of such new regulations, we have also occasionally joined other faith groups a “friend of the court” in litigation to attempt, sometimes successfully, to stop them.
Most exciting has been the opportunity UUSJ provides to make our case for immigration reform directly to Congress. Sometimes we meet with the staff of Senators, Congresspersons, and relevant House and Senate Committees and Subcommittees to encourage or confirm their support for progressive immigration legislation. Sometimes we provide position papers and in-person support to UUSJ volunteers who make immigration issues the theme for a monthly UUSJ “Advocacy Day”. With the Covid environment, all these meetings with Congressional staff or Members of Congress are now being held virtually. This makes it possible for UU’s from anywhere in the country to join the meeting. It also helps us get the attention of Senators and Congresspersons from anywhere in the country where UU’s are interested in helping.
Working with the UUSJ Immigration Task Group has given me a renewed purpose, made me feel like I am helping make a small difference in progress on a difficult social justice problem and introduced me to many wonderful UU’s. And there are other UUSJ task groups I could join which address other issues such as climate change, economic inequality, and democratic processes. I think volunteering to work on any of those could be equally rewarding for anyone who supports UU principles wherever they live in the US.