We Are MIRC

I joined MIRC in January of 2019 to help support MIRC’s expanding farmworker and immigrant workers rights litigation team. MIRC’s focus on equity and belonging for immigrants in Michigan communities is work that resonates with my lived experience. I was born in Honduras and came to the States a couple of months before I turned 4. I grew up in the Bronx in the 1980s and like many first or second generation Latinx immigrants, I learned and spoke English at school and Spanish at home and church.

I am a Washtenaw County-focused staff attorney with the Michigan Immigrant Rights Center. I have held that position for about a year and a half.  

Representantes del Michigan Immigrant Rights Center encuestaron a sus colegas sobre sus propias experiences navegando raza y otras posicionalidades en medio del panorama político actual.

* Originalmente publicado por Race Forward en su página web ColorLines aquí.

I am an intake coordinator with the Michigan Immigrant Rights Center since March this year. My position is to support all our staff in the Washtenaw county office with the management of our robust intake system and with capacity building in the Detroit Metro area. This year alone, we have had an increase in detained intakes of 500% and our overall intakes have doubled. This only means that human rights of immigrants are being violated more and in various new ways.  Through December 3, we have opened 2,678 cases this year.

I’m an attorney at the Michigan Immigrant Rights Center (MIRC). I represent children and youth who are in deportation proceedings and metro Detroit area residents on a variety of immigration matters. Over the past year alone, MIRC has represented approximately 280 children in immigration matters as a part of the Unaccompanied Minors program.

I joined the Michigan Immigrant Rights Center in March of this year as part of their newest program to expand legal services to the Detroit Metro area. The past six months have been filled with challenges and lessons learned. However, the past few weeks alone have been especially challenging with the case of Francis Anwana.

My mother is from Mexico. That’s the response to the inevitable question posed by anyone who gets to know me.

The question comes in different packages depending on the person asking. “How did you learn Spanish?” “Where are you from?” “What are you?” “Why do you have a Mexican flag hanging from your rear-view mirror?”
 
Growing up I would test out different answers to gauge people’s reaction. “I’m Mexican.” “I’m Mexican-American.” “I’m half Mexican.” “I’m Latina.”

But across the board, the reaction was normally either surprise or confusion.

[Maria Ibarra-Frayre shared the poem, The Right Way, prior to this presentation]

Good afternoon, and thank you for inviting me to speak at the Welcoming Michigan Statewide Convening and Michigan Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights summit. It is an honor to be invited to speak in front of a group of so many inspirational advocates, scholars, social workers, researchers, teachers, organizers, and yes, even lawyers.

I was born in 1985 in “Mesa Grande”, a refugee camp in Honduras. I was born there because, during the Civil War in El Salvador (1980-1992), my family had to flee from the state-led Armed Forces in 1981. We repatriated to our home country of El Salvador in 1988 with the support of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). This was four years before the end of the Civil War in 1992.