Photo: Jonathan Wiggs/Globe Staff
Attorney Elizabeth Read led a session at “Know Your Rights Day” at Boston International Newcomers Academy, a high school.
The lawyer in the photo above is someone I met in April, when we were both volunteering in a Jewish Vocational Service class for Haitians learning English. I was surprised to see her picture the very next day in the Boston Globe, doing a related kind of volunteer work. She certainly has found multiple ways to serve.
Evan Allen wrote, “Attorney Elizabeth Read stood before the classroom full of teenage immigrants at Boston International Newcomers Academy [and] explained their rights if they are ever detained by an immigration official.
“ ‘You have the right to make a phone call,’ she told them Friday afternoon, as their teacher translated into Spanish.
If you are detained, they can take your cell. You must memorize phone numbers. It’s hard! But you must.’ …
“The talks were organized by the Political Asylum/Immigration Representation Project and conducted by volunteer lawyers. …
“The PAIR Project has trained more than 300 lawyers across the state, and delivered 250 presentations to 10,000 people in community centers, health centers, churches, and schools. …
“ ‘I feel sad,’ said 15-year-old Alvaro … ‘I’m with my dad here, and at any minute, immigration could come and there’s nothing we can do.’
“All the students were given red cards to hand to immigration authorities that outline their rights, including the right to remain silent and to refuse to allow authorities to enter their homes. Alvaro said feeling prepared was a relief. …
“[Headmaster Tony] King said he has tried to reassure students by explaining their rights, reminding them that politicians in Massachusetts support immigrants, and talking to Muslim girls who wear head scarves about what to do if someone becomes aggressive. He gave them numbers to call — including his own — if they need help. …
“Sowda Roble, a 16-year-old Somali refugee wearing a sparkling silver headscarf and a Red Sox shirt, said through a translator that America is a country where ‘every opportunity — education, everything — is available.’
“She arrived here from a refugee camp in February 2016 with her mother and two brothers; four other siblings and her father stayed behind. …
“ ‘I know what it feels like to be in a refugee camp, and wait for hope. It hurts. [All of a sudden,] you are told the hope dies.’ Sowda started to cry. She had walked for days through the desert to the refugee camp, people dying around her, she said.
“The Know Your Rights presentation from the attorney, she said, was helpful. And she still loves America. The people ‘have good hearts.’ ”
More at the Globe, here.
Suzanne's Mom's Blog 
How do you find so many heart-breakingly important stories to share?! Thank you yet again.
You know how the Ancient Mariner collars the Wedding Guest in the Coleridge poem because he can always tell who needs to hear his story? Well, these stories collar me. They jump out of the page.
Thanks. It is not only in the US you need to know your rights. It is everywhere and this story is important to be told.
Adherence to the rule of law helps everyone.
I’m glad to know people are doing this–explaining to the vulnerable that they have rights and how to demand them. It must be reassuring in a world that seems unstable and so scary.
Just to have a phone number to call is huge. I need to get a good one myself in case someone I work with needs help.