Category: Archive

BxD’s Sarah Deri Oshiro, managing director of the Immigration Practice speaks with Telemundo about the New York Immigrant Family Unity Project and our work to keep immigrant families together. To watch the interview, click here.

Powerful op-ed by BxD’s Emma Ketteringham in the New York Times about poverty and the child-protection system: “For more than a decade, my colleagues at the Bronx Defenders and I have represented thousands of parents like Eline in child-protection proceedings. A majority of them have never abused a child. Yet child services charges them with “parental […]

“All of our clients are indigent, many of them are trying to survive day by day. If they have five dollars on them, they need to choose between spending that five dollars on a meal, or a MetroCard, or food for their children, or diapers, or formula. So making a claim that just because people […]

“There has never been any vehicle for public accountability—the police department has vigorously resisted it. Finally, there will be some measure of accountability.”—Craig Levine, the policy director at The Bronx Defenders. Levine speaks with the Gothamist about the importance of the recent bill passed by the City Council that will require the NYPD to annually […]

“When you have entire households in the South Bronx surviving on less than $10,000 a year, the real crime is to continue punishing people who can’t afford a MetroCard. Policies like this only compound poverty and structural inequalities in New York City.” —Alice Fontier, managing director of the criminal defense practice at The Bronx Defenders. […]

New Yorker writer Jonathan Blitzer visited BxD to speak with our client Christian Yarleque about his experience in immigration detention. Mr. Yarleque, a long-time New York resident with a green card, spent over a year and a half in ICE custody before being reunited with his wife and children. His story highlights the human cost […]

“The court has rightly recognized that low-income people should not be held in immigration detention with no end in sight while their case is pending, simply because they cannot afford to pay an immigration bond. By ruling that ability to pay must be taken into consideration when determining a bond amount, the court is ensuring […]

WNYC reports on the recent compromise reached in Albany by the New York Senate Codes Committee regarding speedy trial reform. As Scott Levy, special counsel to the criminal defense practice at The Bronx Defenders, tells WNYC, the new bill “falls short of structural change” but is a “significant step” toward larger changes. We remain committed […]

“As a former judge, I know firsthand the importance of having an attorney in court proceedings. Nonlawyers are rarely able to protect properly their own legal rights. Immigration proceedings are no less important or complicated than criminal ones. Yet immigrants who cannot afford an attorney are not provided one. New York City has sought to […]