Lawful Assembly Podcast - Episode 8: Honor World Children’s Day

Episode 8: Honor World Children’s Day

03/29/21 • 16 min

This episode is an interview with Rev. Craig B. Mousin, an Adjunct Faculty member at DePaul University’s College of Law and The Grace School of Applied Diplomacy. On November 20, 2020, the designated World Children’s Day, Rev. Mousin discusses what can be done in response to the thousands of children detained, deported, and excluded from applying for remedies permitted under the Refugee Act of 1980. In addition, he invokes the ten immediate priorities recommended by a coalition of several national organizations including among others, The Young Center for Immigrant Children’s Rights and the American Academy of Pediatricians to correct United States immigration and refugee law and policy regarding children.

The Immediate Priorities for the Protection of Immigrant Children can be found at: www.theyoungcenter.org/stories/2020/...%20Priorities. Amnesty International offers one way to take immediate action to protest the proposed deportation of the 28 children and their families through this link: act.amnestyusa.org/page/59764/acti...&forwarded=true

The podcast refers to an On Being interview with the late Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks which can be found at: onbeing.org/programs/rememberin...ord-jonathan-sacks/ Rev. Mousin’s article “You Were Told to Love the Immigrant, But What if the Story Never Happened? Hospitality and United States Immigration Law” provides additional information on Rev. Theodore Conklin’s description of the hospitality offered Mary, Joseph, and Jesus when they fled into Egyptian exile in the text at footnote 128. St. Vincent DePaul’s call to not abandon the children can be found in the same article in the text at footnote 172. See: papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?a...stract_id=2784951

For more information on World Children’s Day see: www.un.org/en/observances/world-childrens-day In addition, for a discussion on the Convention of the Rights of the Child and the United States’ failure to adopt it and its impact on asylum-seeking children, see Rev. Mousin’s article on “Rights Disappear When US Policy Engages Children as Weapons of Deterrence,” at: papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?a...stract_id=3317913

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Episode 3: Repair the Breach

Repair the Breach: Help All in Your Community Be Counted in the 2020 Census

This episode is an interview with Rev. Craig B. Mousin founder and former Executive Director of the Midwest Immigrant Rights Center and an Adjunct Faculty member at DePaul University’s College of Law and The Grace School of Applied Diplomacy. He discusses how the Census, by counting all those residing in the United States every ten years, if done well, helps the nation repair past breaches to our body politic. In the wake of a pandemic, civic unrest and the long road to healing our nation from the consequences of slavery and racism, the Census offers an opportunity for all of “We the People” to be counted and leading to a fairer representation. The government will stop counting residents in this Census on September 30, 2020, thus necessitating that we all use our resources to ensure a fair count. You can go to www.census.gov for information on how to encourage greater participation. If you would like to participate in a phone bank sponsored by the Urban League of Chicago on Wednesday, September 9, 2020 to encourage participation in the City of Chicago, you can volunteer by emailing [email protected] (Kareem Butler, Director of Learning and Evaluation, Chicago Urban League). The quotation from Professor Akhill Reed Amar can be found in American’s Constitution, A Biography,” (Random House, N.Y., 2005), 87. For a description of rotten districts / rotten boroughs see P.84.

Please share this podcast and links with members of your community or faith organizations, family members and friends. Encourage them to assist all members of their communities to file their Census form to generate a fair count of all. Thank you for your consideration of this request.

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Episode 10: Rebuild Refugee Resettlement

This is a podcast interview with Rev. Craig B. Mousin, founder and former Director of the Midwest Immigrant Rights Center and an Adjunct Faculty member at DePaul University’s College of Law and The Grace School of Applied Diplomacy. President Biden announced that he would restore the United States partnership in refugee resettlement by inviting up to 125,000 refugees to our nation in the next fiscal year while also exploring increases in the number of refugees previously designated in this fiscal year. This podcast describes the leadership Illinois demonstrated over the four decades since the enactment of the Refugee Act of 1980. It encourages us to rebuild our local community support for refugee resettlement by strengthening the public-private collaboration that has benefitted our communities. You can find information on the Illinois resettlement agencies and the work they do at: rcusa.org/wp-content/uploads/2...019IllinoisRCUSA.pdf.

Chicago programs include:

The Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of Chicago Refugee Resettlement Program: www.catholiccharities.net/GetHelp/OurS...ervices.aspx

Ethiopian Community Association of Chicago: www.ecachicago.org/project/give-clean-water/

RefugeeOne: www.refugeeone.org/

World Relief Chicagoland Refugee Resettlement: chicagoland.worldrelief.org/

Heartland Human Care Services: www.heartlandalliance.org/program/rics

HIAS recently invited individuals to urge the new administration to sign a Presidential Determination for resettling refugees and begin the work of rebuilding these programs. You can sign the letter by following this link: us.e-activist.com/page/email/click...d=JsUx9s5d%2B2Q=.