April 18, 2025
On April 1, our organization, Proyecto Faro received a call from the superintendent of ER Central School District because about 40 immigrant children in Spring Valley Senior High School received a message from DHS telling them they must self-deport by April 24. This was following the Trump administration’s decision to terminate the CHNV parole program. School administrators called us because we have a legal empowerment program and help many East Ramapo families navigate the immigration system. When we arrived, we found terrified and distraught students, many crying. Parents, teachers, and administrators were equally distressed about their fate. We went to assure the students we would do everything in our power to help them to apply for another program. It is the job of adults, of society, to keep children safe- which means keeping them in their homes, with their families.
But this is becoming increasingly difficult to do with the aggressive targeting and criminalizing of immigrants. How can we reassure those playing by the rules when the unfolding immigration policies and practices are so lawless and draconian? When ICE takes people without signed judicial warrants, and racially profiles and arrests those for whom there are no orders? When the current administration is tearing apart families, disappearing loved ones into detention centers and brutal prisons, to punish immigrants who did everything right, who followed the rules of our immigration system? The illegal deportation of Kilmar Abrego Garcia to CECOT in El Salvador is a human rights violation, an atrocity, and a terrifying example of what our community members face.
The executive orders Trump is issuing related to immigration and the aggressive deportations are having the devastating effect they intend: Immigrants feel terrorized, punished; their rights are being trampled. The weaponization of the immigration system is targeting an already traumatized population and ruining lives immigrants painstakingly rebuilt with blood, sweat, and tears. Xenophobic and racist policy is being enacted to empty our community of those who contribute to it enormously and make it a culturally rich place to live. We demand that the Trump administration adhere to the decision by District of Massachusetts Judge Indira Talwani to block the termination of Cuban, Haitian, Venezuelan, Nicaraguan humanitarian parole program, known as CHNV parole.
Those with CHNV parole, those with DACA, those with TPS, those seeking asylum– they are our volunteers, neighbors, family members, and friends. They are children who were brought here to live safely and get an education. They are the people who work difficult, necessary jobs that American citizens don’t want and keep our robust landscaping, construction, and service industries going. They enable our local economy to not just function but to thrive. In 2022, immigrants paid $100 billion in federal, state and local taxes.
For them, our friends and neighbors, we call on President Trump to follow the rule of the court, to follow the decision Judge Talwani made on Tuesday to preserve the CHNV parole program. We know Trump has little respect for the courts. It’s important to know, if he ignores Talwani’s ruling, that some of the people whose parole was canceled might be eligible to stay by applying for asylum or other immigration processes and they may not know this. Some notices may be incorrect or misleading, and they were still told to leave. Legal help is limited, and many don’t know their rights or options. We have to ensure the self-deportation notices are halted and that there is no ICE enforcement for parolees with pending legal matters or community ties. No one should be forced to leave while waiting on a judge or a pending application.
We need emergency funding for legal aid and community legal clinics so immigrants can get consultations and avoid unlawful removal. And we urge Assembly Members Caroll and Eachus and the rest of the NY state legislature to champion and pass the Access to Representation Act (A270/S141, ARA) and the Building Unrepresented Immigrant Legal Defense Act (A2689/S4538, BUILD) to invest $165 million in immigration legal services and infrastructure in the FY26 budget.
We call on the Trump administration to follow the rules of our court system. Respect the rule of law, as our immigrant communities do. But if he ignores the court on CHNV, we have to urge US lawmakers to push to extend protections or provide pathways to lawful status for those affected by this termination, especially those who have already begun asylum or family-based processes. We need a humanitarian parole program or other legal mechanisms specifically for children and families. Solutions must prioritize child welfare, family unity, and long-term stability for those fleeing violence and instability.
Of course, the conditions from which many flee to come to the US, including those from Cuba, Haiti, Venezuela, and Nicaragua are so often very grave due directly to the destructive policies and practices of the US, with its decades of aggressive military and economic interventions focused on protecting US interests and undermining left governments. So, the local and the global cannot be addressed separately.
Because of this, and because there is an enormous need to stop the wars, colonialism, and human-made economic, political, and environmental catastrophes that produce refugees and migrants, we must also demand an end to the tyrannical steps Trump is taking to silence political dissent, quash the first amendment, and dispense with due process. Disappearing immigrant college students like Mahmoud Khalil, Rumeysa Ozturk, Mohsen Mahdawi for their political views and activism must be understood as a signal to us all. Whether we agree with these students views or not, we must speak against their arrests. Nicole Micheroni, a Boston immigration lawyer, received a self-deport letter supposedly by accident but it’s not farfetched to consider it as a veiled threat which my colleagues and I could very well soon face, merely because we believe immigrants deserve to have their human and civil rights respected. We must make the connections and speak out loudly against these tactics of intimidation.
We are quickly descending into a terrible authoritarian period but we can and we must resist together. To avoid Pastor Niemoller’s fate, we must speak out for immigrants, even if we are not immigrants. We must speak out for Palestine solidarity activists, even if we are not Palestine solidarity activists. We must speak out for immigration attorneys even if we are not immigration attorneys. We must speak out for others so there are others left to speak out for us. Migration is a human right and Proyecto Faro will continue to stand up and speak out for all immigrants, be they Nicaraguan, Haitian, or Palestinian. Unity, solidarity, and refusal are the only real tools we have. Fortunately, they are the most useful tools against a complete consolidation between capital and the state, which is fascism. Unity, solidarity, and refusal are our best tools against what Hannah Arendt called the banality of evil. Building a broad, unified resistance movement across difference is our only meaningful way out of this.