Emily Butera
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August 4, 2017
Recent news stories have detailed how President Trump’s immigration policies continue to target women and children and rip families apart. He has instructed US Immigration and Customs Enforcement ( ICE ) personnel to arrest, detain, and deport indiscriminately. Just this week , two brothers in Maryland – one a 19-year old rising soccer star who had just secured a college sch olarship – were deported after one of them made a courtesy call to ICE to inform off icials about his college plans. Earlier this yea r, a mother of three children – all U.S. citizens – who had fled the drug cartel...
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May 20, 2013
By Michelle Brané and Emily Butera This blog was originally posted on May 17, 2013 on the Huffington Post On April 17, we at the Women’s Refugee Commission (WRC) welcomed the introduction of S. 744 , the “Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act of 2013.” For those of us who are veterans of the immigration reform efforts of 2006 and 2007, this day marked a long-awaited return to a serious national conversation about our immigration system. But April 17 also represented a major step forward for the protection of immigrant women’s rights – something we at the WRC...
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December 19, 2012
By Emily Butera, Senior Program Officer for Migrant Rights and Justice, Women's Refugee Commission and Kate Kelly, Washington College of Law Distinguished Fellow, Women's Refugee Commission “Children need to be with their parents so they can succeed. I just want to be with my family. Please don’t take my parents away, and I promise I will be a productive member of society.” —Letter from a young boy from Florida, read at the Wish for the Holidays press conference Over the past few months, thousands of young people across the country have written letters to Congress as part of the A Wish for...
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November 22, 2011
Emily Butera is the Senior Program Officer for Detention and Asylum at the Women's Refugee Commission Maribel was driving in Virginia with her one-year-old child when she was pulled over by a police officer, who asked to see her driver’s license. A Mexican citizen living in the U.S. without a visa, Maribel was arrested for driving without a license. She was quickly transferred to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody and agreed to be deported. Maribel only wanted to take her child—a U.S. citizen—with her. Her child, however, was placed in foster care because Maribel was not...
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October 4, 2011
Fifty years ago, Alabama found itself at the center of a national battle for justice and civil rights. The bus boycotts, freedom rides and efforts to integrate schools and universities are widely looked upon as watershed moments in the march towards equality. The history books tell us that progress on this front has been significant and sustained. Yet once again, Alabama is a focal point in a controversy over civil and human rights, the outcome of which could have far-reaching implications for families and communities across the country. Judge Sharon Blackburn’s decision not to block...
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