MATT PORTER: Hello, I'm Matt Porter, and welcome to this bonus episode of JFK35. Each year, the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation and Institute of Politics at the Harvard Kennedy School ofGovernment award the John F. Kennedy New Frontier Award.
The award honors Americans under 40 who are changing their communities and the country with their commitment to public service. In this bonus episode, we'll speak with immigration reform advocates, Christina Mansfield and Christina Fialho, who co-founded the organization, Freedom for Immigrants. That interview is next.
JOHN F. KENNEDY: And so, my fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you-- ask what you can do for your country.
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MATT PORTER: Christina Fialho was in law school, and Christina Mansfield was in graduate school, when the two came together to start a visitation network for immigration detention facilities across the country.
10 years later, the group has flourished and evolved into the Freedom for Immigrants organization, which has influenced new laws in California to protect immigrant rights and stop the expansion of controversial private detention facilities for immigrants. The two were honored for their accomplishments earlier in February, with the JFK New Frontier Award. I had the chance to speak with them before the ceremony.
We have the special privilege to introduce today two winners of the 2020 John F. Kennedy's New Frontier Award, Christina Fialho and Christina Mansfield. Both are co-founders and co-executive directors of Freedom for Immigrants. Christina and Christina, thank you for being here.
CHRISTINA FIALHO: Thank you.
CHRISTINA MANSFIELD: Thank you.
MATT PORTER: So you're being honored today for your work with Freedom for Immigrants. Can you tell-- can one of you, or both of you, tell me a little bit about what Freedom for Immigrants is and how it began?
CHRISTINA FIALHO: Sure, so Freedom for Immigrants is a national nonprofit, working to abolish the US immigration detention system through a two-pronged approach. First, we are the only national nonprofit monitoring the human and civil rights abuses of people in immigration detention on a consistent basis.
Our network of 4,500 volunteers visits people in immigration detention on a weekly basis as a way to offer people a connection to the outside world, but also as a way to monitor the system for human and civil rights abuses.
But we also know that that alone isn't going to end the system. We have to not only envision but, to the extent possible, model what a world without immigration detention will look like. So, in the last couple of years, we've raised over $1.6 million to bond out over 250 people from immigration detention and provide them with post release support as a way to prove that we can be a country that welcomes immigrants rather than imprisons them.
MATT PORTER: Christina, do you want to add anything, or tell us a little bit about how you two got together and how this all started?
CHRISTINA MANSFIELD: Sure, yeah, so Christina and I began working together in 2010. At the time, both of us had decided that we wanted to start community visitation programs in the SanFrancisco Bay Area. And so we connected over that desire and realized that our vision for that program were very similar and very compatible.
So we started working together, and that really blossomed into what is now Freedom for Immigrants. At the time, there were only a handful of these community visitation programs around the country.
So we started connecting with the other programs-- there were about four others at the time-- and we started having monthly phone calls and, you know, a small Listserv. And that started to just grow very, very quickly. And, by 2012, there were quadruple that number of programs.
MATT PORTER: What-- why is it important for these visitation programs to happen? What would do you guys find when your volunteers go out to do these visitations? Tell me a little bit about that.
CHRISTINA FIALHO: Well, when we first started doing this work, it was mostly just attorneys that were going into immigration detention facilities-- family members, when they were allowed to, and people who were in DC doing policy work.
So we really wanted to show people that there were these immigration detention facilities in their backyard, and the best way to do that was to actually take them into these detention facilities. And that’s kind of the idea behind our work is that we want to educate people about what's really happening with their tax dollars behind these closed doors but literally in their backyard.
There are over 200 immigration detention facilities across the country. Most of them are county jails or, actually, private prisons that are run for profit by prison corporations. And when volunteers go into visit with people in immigration detention, they find lots of different things.
But one of the top complaints that we receive is about medical abuse and medical neglect. So we have documented, actually, hundreds of deaths in immigration detention. We did a report with HumanRights Watch where we found that, actually, most of the deaths that we analyzed were because of substandard care inside of these facilities. We've also documented thousands of complaints about sexual assault, sexual harassment, rape inside of these facilities by guards. And, again, this is being done with our tax dollars.
CHRISTINA MANSFIELD: And I would just add, sort of, at a base level, what we find when we go into these immigration detention centers is that many people have not spoken to their families. Many people have been in this-- you know, been in prisons for months and had absolutely no contact with the people that love them. And, in many cases, they don't even know what state they're in. So there’s just a complete lack of transparency in the system.
MATT PORTER: Exactly. And, you know, immigration has obviously become a political issue the last four years since the last presidential election. We're now in the next presidential election. How has that affected your work with immigration, you know, being the focus of the current administration? And, also, advocates like yourselves, who are working outside, how has your work changed in the last few years compared to when you started?
CHRISTINA FIALHO: Well, it's actually so interesting because even though Ellis Island was actually the original immigration detention facility, not just in this country, but in the world, it was really only in the early 1980s that our modern immigration detention system started.
So, prior to the 1980s, there were only about 30 to 3,000 people held in immigration detention on any given day. Now there are over 50,000 people in immigration detention. And each administration since the Reagan administration has increased immigration detention.
I used to joke that it's true that immigration detention has been a bipartisan issue in the sense that every administration since the Reagan administration has contributed to the building and growth of our modern immigration detention system.
So we really need our elected officials, we need people in our community, people across the country, really to stand up and say, this isn't what we want being done with our tax dollars. And this is not related to the values that we hold dear to ourself as US citizens, as Americans, as people who live in the United States.
And, in the last couple of years, we've, of course, seen an increase in the number of people who are detained. So, at the end of the Obama administration, there were close to 40,000 people in immigration detention on any given day-- at least 34,000 every day. And now there's over 50,000 people in immigration detention.
We've seen families separated at the border. But the reality is is we've been experiencing and seeing families separated in the interior-- and, to some extent, at the border-- since we started doing this work 10 years ago.
CHRISTINA MANSFIELD: Yeah, I would say that the silver lining of this administration has been the awareness in the public that this is actually an issue. In the beginning years of our work, no one knew that there was any immigration detention system, and so it made it very difficult to advocate for change.
MATT PORTER: You both have done some significant work legislatively, in addition to your programs. Do you want to tell me a little bit about some of the legislative initiatives that you've tried to put forth to address these problems?
CHRISTINA FIALHO: Sure, yes. So, in 2018, we passed a bill called the Dignity Not Detention Act in California, and it was the first statewide bill in the country to put a moratorium on immigration detention expansion. It's SB 29-- the Dignity Not Detention Act.
And that paired with a budget amendment that we also helped draft and get passed through AB 103 that same year. We were able to not only put a moratorium on immigration detention expansion, both at the county jail level and in private prisons in California, but also give our state Attorney General $10 million over the next 10 years to monitor immigration detention for abuse.
And, just this past year, we also got another bill signed into law by Governor Newsom-- AB32-- which actually abolishes all private prisons in the state of California in both the criminal and immigration contexts.
So it's going to be a phaseout, but we're going to see in, you know, the sixth largest economy in the world really an end to immigration detention. So we feel that if we can do this in California, we can do this across the country.
And we've actually put forth legislation that was introduced by Senator Harris and Representative Jayapal called the DONE Act-- the Detention Oversight Not Expansion Act-- which actually puts a federal moratorium on immigration detention expansion, would reduce the population of people in immigration detention by 50%, and it would use the dollars that are currently going to these private prison corporations to actually fund community-based alternatives to detention, which our organization, Freedom for Immigrants, is proving works and is obviously more humane than caging human beings.
MATT PORTER: President Kennedy's speech, "The New Frontier" speech, is a speech at the Los Angeles 1960 convention, where he says that, you know, the world is embarking on a new frontier, new challenges. And that people, like yourselves, young people, will have to rise up to meet those challenges.
You've accepted this award in his-- that's in his name. How does that resonate with you with the work that you've done? Do you think that's sort of his legacy of public service and building a movement like you have sort of connects? Are you inspired by this award tonight, and what it means?
CHRISTINA MANSFIELD: Yes, absolutely. We are very inspired by this award. I think it's a recognition of the work of the movement overall to bring this issue to light. So, yeah, it's a huge honor. And his legacy certainly resonates with us.
CHRISTINA FIALHO: And I'd also add that, for us, the new frontier is actually a world where no person is in prison for crossing a border. And, for me, this award is deeply meaningful because whenPresident Kennedy was senator of Massachusetts, he authored a bill that brought my great grandfather to the United States, and then my grandparents followed along with my dad.
So I wouldn't even be here if the United States hadn't welcomed my family in a time of crisis. But this isn't how all families are treated. And I think what this award is doing is uplifting our work to say that this isn't how we should be treating families. This isn't how we should be treating human beings who are coming and looking for a new home in our country.
MATT PORTER: That's right. That is the bill that he opened up-- the immigration system-- so that it wasn't just, like, people who had the highest degrees, but that there was a fairer system to bring more people in. That's amazing connection right there. And what do you-- you know, having built this movement and being young people yourselves, you know, starting this sort of when you were out of college.
CHRISTINA FIALHO: We started it in 2010. I was in law school, and Christina is a cultural anthropologist and was in grad school.
MATT PORTER: So you were in law school in grad school, and, you know, you've built this organization. What do you believe about our country, as a whole, moving forward in the abilities of people like you-- motivated young people who care about their communities-- and that power to change their communities with people like yourselves?
CHRISTINA FIALHO: Yeah, I have a lot of hope for this country. We've seen so many more individuals get involved, both young people and retired individuals who are, you know, saying that this isn’t what they want in their backyard anymore. So I'm excited to see what the future for this country looks like. I think it'll be a lot brighter and a lot freer than it is today.
CHRISTINA MANSFIELD: Yeah, I think-- we're so inspired by the relationships that are forged through these visitation programs that are part of our network. Individuals form really strong bonds with the people that they're visiting, and it becomes a personal connection. And it's no longer just a political issue that you can turn away from.
And the kinds of relationships that are built are incredible. Many of our volunteers end up hosting, in their homes, people who have come out of immigration detention, and supporting them as they get on their feet in a new country. And so, just to see that kind of move-- really, grassroots movement building-- is a huge inspiration.
MATT PORTER: Well, thank you both for taking some time to tell us about your organization and what you guys are doing. Congratulations, again, on being honored for the New Frontier Award. You both definitely embody the public service and new frontier that John F. Kennedy spoke about. Take care.
CHRISTINA FIALHO: Thank you so much.
CHRISTINA MANSFIELD: Thank you so much.
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