AUDIO SAMPLINGS
This section will
feature audio recordings of different activities during the U. S.
Conference of Catholic Bishops Border Delegation.
You will need to
have the appropriate software installed in order to listen to such
recordings.
Day 1 - Day 2
- Day 3 -
Day 4
Day
1
Joanne Welter, Director of the Catholic Social Mission Diocese of Tucson and Tricia Hoyt,
Director,
Office of Peace and Justice, Catholic Social Service, Diocese of
Phoenix, discussed Diocesan work and cross-border collaboration.
(8MB - 08:09 Mins)
Monday, October 23, 2006.
Erica Dahl-Bredine, the
Mexico Country Manager of
Catholic Relief Services discussed her work. Erica guided the
delegation in Altar, and offered translation for the group. In the
lead-up to our visit to Altar, she briefed us about this important
migration point and how it fits within the context of greater
socio-economic changes.
(28.5MB - 18:38 Mins)
Monday, October 23, 2006.
Tim Jefferson, of the Arizona League
to End Regional Trafficking (ALERT), gave a general overview of
trafficking issues and his group’s work around them.
(17MB - 31:11 Mins)
Monday, October 23, 2006.
Migrants at
Centro Comunitario de Atención al Migrante y
Necesitado (CCAMYN) - They ranged in age, with the eldest being a man
of 72 years of age.
(34MB - 37:04 Mins)
Monday, October 23, 2006.
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Day
2
Debra Fergus,
of the Unaccompanied Refugee Minors program, talked about the
social and legal services her agency provides to victims of
trafficking and minors. She discussed the needs of foster care
programs, family reunification and sponsorship. She also went
into the gaps in service provisions.
(16MB - 17:09 Mins)
Tuesday, October 24, 2006.
We also heard from the Florence
Project’s Children’s Immigration Attorney, Aryah Sommers.
She talked about technical issues, such as types of legal
relief that can be used to protect children. She also talked
about the nature of working with children as a lawyer, which she
termed “therapeutic jurisprudence.”
(17MB - 18:25 Mins)
Tuesday, October 24, 2006.
Bishop Soto
reflected on one powerful memory from the trip to Altar the day
before
(1.09MB - 01:12 Mins)
Tuesday, October 24, 2006.
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Day
3
Visit to the United States
Attorney's Office -- Southern District of Texas to look at the
relationship between law enforcement and non-governmental organizations,
including faith-based agencies, providing services to human trafficking
victims. We received a background briefing on their protocol on
identification, case assessment and victim support services.
They featured a profile of Houston's Human Trafficking Rescue Alliance (HTRA),
a "collaboration of local, state, and federal law enforcement agencies
working together with area social service organizations to identify and
assist the victims of human trafficking and to effectively identify,
apprehend, and prosecute those engaged in trafficking." HTRA seems to be
a model for bringing together government and community-based agencies to
work on trafficking. He discussed several successful cases in which they
prosecuted traffickers.
(44MB - 48:22 Mins)
Wednesday, October 25, 2006.
The
Immigration and Customs Enforcement an agency within the Dept. of
Homeland Security. We wanted to analyze its role in prosecuting human
trafficking cases. They described how they investigate cases, the
obstacles they face, and how they deal with trafficked juveniles. The
relationship between ICE personnel and faith-based service providers
also came up for discussion.
(38.5MB - 42:01 Mins)
Wednesday, October 25, 2006.
After visiting St. Michael's, we went over to the Chancery of the
Archdiocese where the Bishops presented a commendation from USCCB to
Archbishop DiNardo for the tremendous services
Catholic Charities of Galveston-Houston provides unaccompanied
minors and human trafficking victims at the St. Michael's Home for
Children and the St. Jerome Emiliani's Home for Children.
(22MB - 24:03 Mins)
Wednesday, October 25, 2006.
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Day
4
Bonna Kol, the head of the Catholic Charities of
Galveston-Houston, talked to me generally about the work they do
with unaccompanied minors and the victims of human trafficking –
from the shelters and foster homes to the legal programs. She
also talked about the greater immigration debate and how it
relates to the agency's work.
(2.28MB - 02:30 Mins)
Thursday, October 26, 2006.
The supervising attorney of the Catholic Charities' legal
program, Wafa Abdin, led a presentation on the
Houston Area Trafficking Coalition. Along with John
Sullivan of Fulbright & Jaworski, L.L.P., she went over
the legal services provided to unaccompanied minors, the vast
majority of whom still go to court without legal representation.
Sullivan's firm partners with the coalition on a pro bono basis.
They discussed recent trafficking cases in Houston, and reviewed
the challenges they come against in their work.
(22.6MB - 24:45 Mins)
Thursday, October 26, 2006.
After we left, I caught up with one of the meeting's attendees,
Mary DeLorey, a policy advisor with Catholic
Relief Services. She laid out some of the root causes of human
trafficking, from the economics of the home countries of the
victims, to education access, and several other determinant
factors. She told me CRS will be publishing a study on
unaccompanied minors. The study, she says, explores the links
between minors migrating by themselves and the dangers of human
trafficking.
(6.47MB - 07:04 Mins)
Thursday, October 26, 2006.
At the airport, Bishop Soto reflected on the art
created by the youth at St. Michael's the day before. He found
the pictures they painted, and the stories they told, deeply
moving.
(2.5MB - 02:43 Mins)
Thursday, October 26, 2006.
Bishop Soto
also analyzed what the issues of unaccompanied minors and human
trafficking say about the state of the immigration system
(1.72MB - 01:52 Mins)
Thursday, October 26, 2006.
Bishop Barnes reviewed broadly what we have done
during the trip so far, and what he considers to be the
essential issues underlying the fact-finding purpose of the
delegation.
(3MB - 03:16 Mins)
Thursday, October 26, 2006.
Bishop Barnes
also spoke, in Spanish, about how
the delegation has related so far to the original mission for
the delegation
(1.86MB - 02:02 Mins)
Thursday, October 26, 2006.
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