Category: Archive

Delete Your Account: Holistic Defense

“This week, Roqayah and Kumars are joined by immigration attorney Sophia Gurulé who works for the non-profit legal advocacy group, The Bronx Defenders. Sophia has also participated in the CARA Family Detention Pro Bono Project in Dilley, Texas for which she helped provide legal services to asylum-seeking women and children. Sophia describes how the Bronx Defenders, which represents over 30,000 […]

In These Times: We Can’t Stop the Horrors of Trump’s Immigration Crackdown Unless We Reckon With Obama’s Role

“The criminalization of aid workers stems from the profound dehumanization of immigrants themselves. Sophia E. Gurulé, a staff attorney for the immigration practice of the Bronx Defenders, represents indigent people detained during their deportation proceedings. She tells In These Times that in September of 2018 she witnessed an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) attorney refer to a person […]

WFUV: Around My Block: Community Organizer Sees Beauty of The Bronx

“Born and raised in the Bronx, Carmen Piñeiro now works as a community organizer to uplift her community. Her block is the entire Bronx community. Through events from lobby days to block parties at Bronx Defenders she creates lasting change in both legislation and human impact.” Listen to the whole podcast here

The Hill: Removing children from their parents doesn’t just happen at the border

“In 2017, 10 percent of children were removed for inadequate housing, a number comparable or exceeding removal rates for physical or sexual abuse respectively. In fact, since 2009, removals based on inadequate housing having been steadily increasing. According to Emma Ketteringham, managing director of the family defense practice at Bronx Defenders in New York, Child Protective Services […]

Bustle: LGBTQ Asylum Seekers Need Protection From Our Government, Not Hostility

“While there’s celebration this Pride Month over how far LGBTQ rights have come, it has been a terrible year nationally for those most marginalized. The Trump administration has attacked health care access for trans folks, refused to protect queer youth, and comfortably rubbed shoulders with dictators who dehumanize LGBTQ people. Under this administration, one of the most urgent […]

The City: No Green Space In Sight At Bronx Youth Detention Center

“Justice watchdogs said the youths at the facility don’t have time to waste in getting access to the full expanse of open space, which before the construction project included a garden and even chickens. Robyn Goldberg of the Bronx Defenders remembers her clients participating in the gardening program at Horizon before renovations began — and […]

Diary of a Civil Public Defender: Critical Lessons for Achieving Transformative Change on Behalf of Communities

“As civil public defenders, we venture into courts, struggles and conflicts where no constitutional right to a lawyer, and very few other protections exist to ensure fairness in process and justice on behalf of the people we represent. We fight for the basic necessities that are destabilized or deprived once an individual is criminally or […]

Bronx 12 News: Bronx Defenders lauded for sticking up for LGBTQ rights

“The Bronx Defenders’ LGBTQ Defense Project is a team of advocates who provide specialized representation for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender members of the community in legal matters. A man, who identified himself as John, says the project saved his life. He says he escaped from Nigeria and came to the U.S. because he faced […]

City Limits: “And Justice For All” Means Barring ICE from NYS Courthouses

“The “Protect Our Courts Act,” sponsored by Assemblywoman Michaelle Solages and Senator Brad Hoylman, is one way New York state can counterbalance these devastating consequences, and we have one day left in NY’s legislative session to help protect our non-citizen community members. Thomas R. Decker, field office director for Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) New […]