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The PM Podcast
The Kids Still Need Us: A Conversation with Rachel Rutter, a 2024 Top Five CNN Hero
00:36:16
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- [00:00]
A
And people don't understand that. Well, for one thing, seeking asylum is one of the quote unquote right ways. Right. But also for most people, there is no path. And most of our like great, great grandparents or whoever would not actually qualify to come to the US under our current immigration laws. So just the idea that there's just like some line and people are just choosing not to wait in it is crazy because for most people, the line just doesn't exist.
- [00:26]
B
Welcome to the Philanthropy Masterminds podcast brought to you by Donor Search, the show that takes you inside the lives of thought leaders, innovators and change makers in fundraising, philanthropy, and civil society. I'm your host, Jay Frost. Rachel Rutter is the founder and executive director of Project Libertad, a nonprofit dedicated to supporting unaccompanied immigrant youth with free legal representation, essential services, and Newcomer programs. An immigration lawyer and passionate advocate, Rachel has been recognized as one of the top five CNN Heroes of 2024 for her work in helping over 1100 individuals navigate the legal system and rebuild their lives in the United States. So let me begin by just again congratulating you on being honored by CNN this year. And I think it probably brings a lot of attention to, not only to you and to the organization, but to the kind of work that you do and its importance right now. A lot of people, though, don't know much about your organization. Can you just describe the organization a bit for listeners?
- [01:30]
A
Sure. So our organization is Project Libertad, which means freedom in Spanish. And we serve Newcomer immigrant youth primarily in the greater Philadelphia area. We're here in Pennsylvania, and we are providing legal and social services to newcomers. So kids that arrive unaccompanied in the U.S. generally, like the government definition, which is important for their legal case purposes, is kids who are under 18, they don't have any immigration status when they arrive, and they arrive without a parent or legal guardian. So that's kind of the vast majority of our kids fall under that definition. And so we help them apply for asylum and other types of immigration status that they might qualify for. And then we have sort of a social services branch of the organization that provides a bunch of other supports outside of just that legal support, which I think is what makes us unique because there are organizations that do kind of one thing, but we're trying to take a really wraparound, holistic approach to how we serve the kids. So I think that is something that makes our work special is that we're not just meeting that one need of having immigration status or we're Kind of, you know, looking at the whole picture and trying to figure out all the different areas where they need support. So, for example, on that social service side, we have case managers who will connect kids with resources they need in the community. So maybe they have a lot of prior trauma and they need to see a therapist, or maybe they need access to, like, medical or dental care. Whatever the case may be. We have programs in their schools that help them kind of build community and get adapted to school. We have ESL classes that serve a lot of the parents and caregivers of the kids. So just kind of a wide variety of programs to try to tackle as many of those needs as they adjust as possible.
- [03:17]
B
What's the origin story of this? I know it goes back to 2015. Is that right?
- [03:22]
A
Yeah. So, like, on paper, we started in 2015. I was still in law school at that time, and this was sort of a, like, a side passion project. For several years after I graduated from law school, I was working at a different nonprofit doing immigration work with kids. And I just kept seeing over and over, like, how many of the kids that I was representing had all these other needs. Like, a lot of them deal with housing insecurity, where they might be, you know, 18. So technically they're an adult, but they're not really independent yet as well. And they, you know, maybe don't have family support. So they need, you know, help with having a safe place to live. But they're also, like, in that awkward position where they're not independent, but they're also too old for, like, children and youth to put them in foster care or something like that. So there really are no resources for those kids. We also have kids who need food. You know, I was personally, like, buying kids food and clothes and stuff like that, and it just, like, comes up over and over, and I was like, there's really no organization that's positioned to kind of do all these different things. A lot of people are covering, you know, like, a piece here or a piece there. So that was kind of where the idea came from to have an organization that could kind of do all these different things.
- [04:35]
B
And that's something you started when you were in law school. So what brought you to this interest in immigration law?
- [04:43]
A
I think that really kind of looking back at it, started for me even back in college because I was working at a youth center in Gettysburg. I went to Gettysburg College for my undergrad. And that was when I really kind of fell in love with working with kids, particularly immigrant kids and families. So it really Started back then as just like an interest of mine or something I might want to do. And then during law school, really, I worked at, which is an amazing organization based in Philly. They do legal services and refugee resettlement, and there's also like a national Highest and other branches as well. And then I really, I think law school, if you've talked to any lawyer, is not like the most fun experience. So, like, Highest was really such a bright spot for me and being like, oh, yeah, there's like a purpose for, you know, why I'm putting myself through this and kind of, you know, seeing that you can use your law degree to make a difference. And so then that was really kind of brought me back to that initial interest that I had developed in college of working with these kids. And I ended up working at HIAS for several years after graduating again, while this was still sort of just an all volunteer kind of like side project that I was doing. And then in 2020, I left my full time job and decided to commit to this full time because it was kind of getting to the point where it was hard to balance both and where if we wanted to really grow the organization, I needed to be spending all my time on it. So that's kind of how that came to be.
- [06:11]
B
As you say, HIAS is a remarkable organization. I used to work at irc, which does refugee resettlement too, and they do lots of things. But it sounds like you saw a.
- [06:22]
A
Gap in services for sure. And yeah, like, at the time that I was at hias, I was a part of our immigrant youth advocacy team. So it was just doing legal representation for primarily unaccompanied children in immigration proceedings. And yeah, I just felt like there was a gap in, like the social service side of things. And I and my colleagues find ourselves kind of doing social work, even though we're not social workers by training or education. So, yeah, that was kind of the gap that I recognized.
- [06:54]
B
I imagine also you were pretty close in age to some of the people that you were helping.
- [07:00]
A
Yeah, I mean, I've definitely felt that fade over like the last few years as I've gotten older. But yeah, I definitely, when I was, you know, just in law school or just out of law school, I remember thinking, you know, how I couldn't imagine being on my own without my parents in another country, you know, at the age that they were at, or even at the age I was, I was, I guess, like in my mid to late 20s. So it's, you know, just thinking about how connected some of us stay to like our, our like, what's the word? I'm thinking of like our nuclear family. It really is harrowing to think of how young some of these kids are really being on their own here without that support.
- [07:41]
B
Well, they're also here without, without proper documentation yet in most cases, I guess so that would mean that it would not only be a foreign environment for them, literally and figuratively, they don't know where to get anything from a place to sleep to food that they need, to medical care and dental care, all these things you've described. But then in addition to that, even if they knew where to source them, it must be a fraught existence trying to get those access to those things that they need when maybe there are all these barriers to receiving those services.
- [08:20]
A
Absolutely, there are a ton of barriers. And like, that's also kind of one of the things that makes kids and families vulnerable to immigration fraud. Especially in like an election year like this when there's so much more fear than there might be in a non election year where people kind of get taken advantage of because they are looking for like a sense of safety and people can take advantage of that. So that's why education is also a big part of what we do. And trying to get good information out there and connect people with, you know, if we can't directly represent them, connect them with lawyers that we know aren't going to be defrauding them. And yeah, that's a big part of what we do is helping kids navigate those systems because as you said, they may not have, or they don't have any documentation really when they come to us. And so there are, you know, kids with no documentation don't qualify for medical assistance, food stamps, any of those type of social safety nets as they get their case underway. There may be things they qualify for, like for example, if they have an asylum case pending, they can qualify for medical assistance, which is health insurance. So we'll help them apply for that and help them kind of be aware of what things they are eligible for because in some cases they might be eligible for things they don't know about once they do have their status in process. But yeah, there are a lot of barriers and the systems are really hard to navigate, like even for people who speak English and are adults. My husband and I are in the process of adopting our daughter who is 16 and she's from Guatemala and she was a child that we met, I kind of met through my work and then we ended up, you know, inviting her to live with us and the rest is history. But even just, like, helping her access things, like, as a lawyer who is a US Citizen and speaks English, like, that really gave me even a more clear idea than I already had of, like, how difficult it can be to access things for, you know, for kids who don't have all those, like, privileges that I have and I'm able to benefit from.
- [10:22]
B
So I'm tempted to ask about your own adoption process because that's. That's a remarkable story. And maybe you. You can talk more about that. But first, can you put kind of a human face on this experience for people who don't live it and breathe it like you do, what it's like for. I know there's no typical person receiving these services, but a person who might be coming through and needing to find them what their experience is like from the time that they somehow get across the border, maybe even before that, to when they start receiving some services from you.
- [10:59]
A
Sure. So, yeah, like I said, we're working mostly with kids from Central America and Mexico. We do have kids from other places, but that's kind of where the vast majority are coming from. So most of them had some kind of factor that pushed them to leave their home country. So there's generally some type of trauma there. In a lot of cases, there's, like, multiple types of trauma that are driving them. One of the really big things we hear about often is the gang violence in Central America. So we have kids who are being extorted. We have young girls who are being, like, forced to be, quote, unquote, girlfriends to a gang member who is usually like an adult man. And this is a young girl. We have boys with teen boys. It's often that they're trying to be forcibly recruited into the gang, and they don't want to be a part of a gang, but they're being threatened or their families being threatened if they don't join the gang. So those are some really common, like, fact patterns that we hear. And then often there's other stuff going on because we really have to dig into their story for their legal purposes. So that gang violence is often one of the main, like, push factors. But oftentimes under the. Where asylum law is currently, those aren't very winnable asylum claims, even though the danger of them is, like, very real. The laws just don't often recognize asylum claims for just general gang violence. So we're digging into, like, what else might have happened to you or how can we make it kind of fit in the right boxes to qualify for asylum. So we'll dig into their family history, and there's often either physical or sexual abuse for children there. There's a lot of labor, the child labor or labor trafficking. In some cases, it's like, truly what you would think of as, like, trafficking in a movie, Right. In other cases, it's more like poverty driven, where they had to drop out of school and work. So oftentimes, there's the combination of these types of factors going on. We also have a lot of LGBT kids who are leaving for that reason because there's a lot of discrimination and harm against them because of that. So whatever kind of push factor outweighs the danger of making this journey, because the journey is very dangerous, it's very expensive, it can be really long, and they're at risk of being victimized further on the trip as well. So I always say, for people who don't understand why kids are coming here, think about how desperate you have to be to undertake that journey or to send your child on that journey. So then usually they're traveling for. It can be weeks to months. It kind of depends on their situation, what their family was able to afford. In some cases, I've heard with, like, older teens, some of them might travel more, like, on their own, and they're kind of working and making their way north. For some kids, where they have, like, that family support, or maybe they're younger, their family pays for a guide to bring them. So I've heard, you know, all different types of stories. It kind of runs the gamut. A lot of kids are coming with a debt that they then have to repay for the journey. Like, their family maybe put their house up as collateral for paying for their trip. So then they are expected to come here and, like, immediately start working to pay that off. And then they come and end up in Pennsylvania, where school is compulsory until you're 18. And then that's a conflict and a big problem. And a lot of schools have to adjust to, like, understanding that these kids have this financial pressure. So, okay, I'm getting off track. But they made this journey. They've gone through. You know, it's very dangerous. There's really high rate of, like, violence, especially sexual violence for women and girls. There's cartel violence. There's, like, the elements, not having food, sleeping outside, being lost in the desert, like, all of that type of stuff. And then a lot of the kids are just turning themselves in at the border, and then they're processed as unaccompanied children. So what that means is once they come into contact with Border patrol agents, they're supposed to be in that kind of adult detention jail like setting for no more than 72 hours. Supposed to be. That doesn't always happen. But then they're supposed to be transferred to the Office of Refugee Resettlement, which is kind of the child welfare branch of the government. And they'll be sent to. It could be a foster home or a group home or shelter kind of depending on their age and also just where there's space available. So then they're in that youth shelter type setting and they'll be assigned a caseworker whose job is then to figure out who they might know who's like already here in the US So that could be a family member, family friend, a parent, and then they're trying to reunify them with that person. There's a whole host of like background checks and stuff like that the person has to go through. And like the more removed you are from like how close of a family member you are to the child, like the more intense all that is. And then ideally they'll be released to that person and that's how they would like end up here in Pennsylvania where would end up working with them. So maybe they have, you know, an aunt in the Philadelphia area and they get released to live with that aunt. And just to clarify, when I say that they get released to that person, that doesn't mean that they get to stay here in the US legally or anything like that. It just means they're being placed in removal proceedings or deportation proceedings in court and they're going to live with that sponsor, their aunt or whoever it is while that process is going on. Which basically is so that the government doesn't have to house kids for like years on end because the process takes so long.
- [16:44]
B
And I guess there's really no guarantee once they end up in Philadelphia or elsewhere that they are being cared for. They are just they have a relative to be released too. Is that correct?
- [16:54]
A
Yeah, absolutely. There's very little follow up. I believe in certain cases if there was like a history of prior abuse that the government actually knows about, there can be some limited like post release services they call it, where somebody will call and like check in, but there really is very little oversight. Like after they're released to that person. You might have heard news stories recently about how there are like 300,000 kids who were lost. I don't love those stories because I don't think they've done a good job of like contextualizing what that actually means. But all that means is that, like, somebody from the Office of Refugee Resettlement tried to call and wasn't able to, like, get in touch with someone. I feel like when it was reported on, it was kind of like, these kids have been, like, kidnapped, and Nobody knows where 300,000 are. But I feel like that it was just an inaccurate, like. I mean, really, I think it's probably better that, like, understandably, people don't want to have involvement with, like, what they perceive as ICE or immigration. And I think people are just wary of, like, picking up, you know, calls from the government when they don't really know or understand who's calling them. And also, people are just working and trying to survive. So I feel like those stories were a bit overblown. But to the point of the stories, there really isn't a lot of, like, supervision or anything like that once they're released. And that's how we end up having kids who have, like, food, housing, insecurity and all of that, because their sponsor situation did not work out well.
- [18:24]
B
Well, speaking of statistics, and, you know, statistics can be used lots of different ways for different purposes, but it does seem like there is in the neighborhood of half a million unaccompanied children, people under the age of 18 in the US at least. And that's people all over the country. About how many do you think are in Pennsylvania or Philadelphia specifically? And how do they find you? How do you find them?
- [18:49]
A
Yeah, so I don't know exact numbers. I know. So the Office of Refugee Resettlement releases numbers of how many kids they release to each county in each, like, fiscal year. And I think the most recent numbers are that they released over 700 to our area in, like, the current fiscal year to date. So it's a lot in the Philadelphia area and then the kind of the collar counties around Philadelphia. And the way that they find us or that we find them is primarily by working with their schools. We partner with a bunch of local school districts, and one of the main programs we do is our know your rights program, where we'll go in and talk to them about what their legal rights are at school in terms of, like, ICE raids and things like that, what the different types of immigration status are, how you can know if you qualify, how you can get a lawyer, et cetera. We find a lot of kids through that program that we end up representing. And then there's also just a lot of, like, word of mouth. Once, you know, we have built up our client base, they pass our number around to, you know, whoever they know who comes To. To the US after them or family, friends, things like that. Schools particularly like the eld, English Language Development teachers are really good partners. And they're always referring kids to us. Other organizations will refer them. But yeah, I would say kind of the bulk of them come from our partnerships with the school districts that we work with.
- [20:15]
B
So how many people are you working with annually?
- [20:20]
A
And yeah, I would say on average we serve around 1,000 people a year. Last year it was about 1,100 in 2023, I have not done the official count for 2024 yet. And then in terms of how many we represent in legal cases, we represent around 90 right now. Yeah. And that. So the number served kind of varies too, by program. That 1000 is kind of like grouping all of our different programs together. The Know youw Rights Program. So far this year, we've served over 500 students. So it kind of depends which program we're looking at. But in terms of like how many kids we represent, I would say hovers around 90. So one of our goals is to hire another attorney because right now it's just me, and that's too many. And then there's all the like, administrative stuff of like running an organization that takes up a lot of time. So. So that's a top priority for me at least.
- [21:17]
B
It does sound like a lot. And how many people do you have working with you? I know you're doing all the legal cases, but how many other folks are working with you at the organization?
- [21:26]
A
There are six staff members. So it's me and one other full time person right now. And then we have four part time people. And then we have a board of about eight people who are volunteers, but they're very involved. Because we are such a small organization, we're lucky to have a very involved board. That helps out a lot too.
- [21:43]
B
Just to put this in context, if you are a lawyer in private practice and maybe in fact you do those cases as well. I don't know. Do you?
- [21:51]
A
I do not.
- [21:53]
B
So all your time is doing this work. But if you were in private practice, how many cases could you possibly manage in a year?
- [22:00]
A
I honestly don't even know. I know. So immigration lawyers in private practice are also not getting rich off of this. But I mean, you know, if you compare us to like a corporate lawyer or something, I'm sure we're making way less money. And in terms of caseloads, to give a sense, when I was at HIAS, I did a fellowship through AmeriCorps for my first year at highest. And we had a limit on, like, how many we were allowed to take, and that I think the limit was 30 per year. So I meant 90. So I don't know if that 30 is, you know, 100% standard, but I would say somewhere between 30 and 90 would be a better right.
- [22:43]
B
Hence the need for additional attorneys working with you. But it also does speak to just not only the need, but how much commitment that you and your colleagues have to this. It sounds like the water keeps flowing and, you know, your cup is still relatively small, so you have to keep filling it over and over and over again. I know that this discussion about immigration right now is really challenging. What kind of reactions are you getting from people, especially now after the CNN recognition? Is there a tendency for people to ask better questions about the experience of people coming here unaccompanied, especially kids, less judgment, more interest? Are you finding that there's an opportunity for discussion that benefits from the work that you do in addition to just providing these services?
- [23:37]
A
Definitely. I mean, I think in terms of the reaction, like, from the clients that we work with, it's primarily been, like, fear and panic and people reaching out. And even kids where we represent them and their case is in a good place or it's already approved, you know, are just really afraid because they have this sense that Trump's just going to be able to deport everybody, like, no matter what. And so there's a lot of fear. So we try to respond pretty quickly to that by putting together some resources, like on our website that we can easily send out to people. And the advice that I'm giving is kind of the same as what it would be under any administration. But I would say, like, even more important to take advantage of now, which is just for people to actually learn their, you know, learn what their rights are, generally in terms of ICE interactions and things like that. Talk to an attorney if they haven't, because there's no need to be living the undocumented life if you don't have to be right. If you have an option you just don't know about, and then having those, like, emergency plans in place in case of a detention or raid, and then in terms of reaction from, like, other people, not our clients, I would say from cnn, the reaction has overall been very positive. But, you know, there is a fair amount of, like, hate out there as well. And it was interesting. I talked with some of the other, like, honorees, and I was kind of telling them how we've gotten some really hateful, like, messages, emails and things like that, and I was sort of surprised that it only happened to us. And I guess that sort of clarified to me that, like, oh, yeah, immigration is still this very, like, polarizing thing for people. Even among these, you know, all these causes, it's sort of the one that provokes a lot of hatred with people who don't really understand it. So in terms of that, we've, you know, like, we made a police report and have been doing that type of thing just as like, a safety precaution. And I think one thing that we've been focusing on this past year, even before the election, was doing, like, outreach locally to different groups where we go. And kind of the stuff that we talked about in the beginning of, like, what's the journey? Like, what's the human face to this, this issue? We share information like that. And I feel like people at those types of events have been willing to listen and learn when it's not just like someone in a comment section, you know, on a news article who wants to kind of be hateful from their keyboard. But I feel like when you can get people face to face and, like, have a conversation and help them see the pictures of the kids that we work with and things like that to humanize it, that really helps. But I mean, yeah, it is a really, a really difficult time because I think it's one of those issues where a lot of myths get repeated, like, over and over, and it's really hard to change people's minds when they're not willing to listen to, like, facts.
- [26:24]
B
What are some of those myths that you run into?
- [26:27]
A
Yeah, so the idea that there is, like, an invasion and we have open borders right now is totally false. Like, Biden had really continued some of Trump's, like, harshest border policies. The idea that immigrants are, you know, hurting our economy. There are many studies that show that they benefit the economy. There are many studies that show that immigrants are less likely to come commit crimes than US Born citizens. Probably the one that frustrates me the very most is when people say that, you know, my great grandparents came here the right way, and so people should just come here the right way. And people don't understand that. Well, for one thing, seeking asylum is one of the quote, unquote, right ways. Right. But also for most people, there is no path. And most of our, like, great, great grandparents or whoever would not actually qualify to come to the US under our current immigration laws. So just the idea that there's just like, some line and people are just choosing not to wait in it is Crazy because for most people the line just doesn't exist.
- [27:31]
B
I'm imagining that giving those explanations can be exhausting after a while, a little bit.
- [27:41]
A
I mean it's always great when you get people who actually want to listen and learn though. I love that. That gives me hope. And I find, yeah, like those in person interactions where we can go like do a presentation at like a Rotary or a club or whatever and people actually are like, oh my God, I didn't know that. Like that's great. And then online trolls, we just ignore them and keep doing what we do because not going to change their minds.
- [28:06]
B
So what else gives you hope?
- [28:09]
A
The kids. I mean I just like even like at the event for cnn, I was really nervous before, like my turn and then they were playing like clips of our video and I was watching their faces and I know them all personally, all the kids in the video and I was just like, like, just like. I don't know that just that connection just really gives me hope and makes me happy. And I was really excited to come back from that trip because I was traveling before too. So I hadn't seen them in a few weeks. And like I went back to their classroom on Friday and I just had like a line of like 30 kids like all hugging me when I went. And it was just like so wonderful. And I love making time for that just because that keeps me grounded. And it's like, oh yeah, that's why I'm doing all this like bookkeeping or whatever is so that they can keep like having this program.
- [28:55]
B
So, so where, where are you taking the organization in the future? Especially as we have a change in administration which potentially means some significant changes in policy.
- [29:05]
A
Yeah. So I mean in terms of the legal, like the legal and case management work, we want to kind of replicate what we've been doing of having lawyer and social worker like work together in our different geographic areas. Right now we have sort of cobbled together different various grants that all have different like geographic restrictions to make that work happen. So I'm hoping to expand some more like unrestricted funding to be able to have that model in each of our locations because right now it's sort of heavily focused where that funding falls. And then one thing I'm really excited about is that we are working with a local church in Norristown to be able to open a shelter program for youth like 18 to 22, 23 ish. Because as I mentioned, that's like a huge thing that comes up over and over and I would love to have like A safe home, like, environment for those kids to go to versus trying to like, you know, piece together. Like we have sometimes, you know, random community people who want to help. And I'll be like, yeah, I'll take a person in, but something like more sustainable. So I'm really, really excited about that and hoping that will continue to move forward this year.
- [30:19]
B
So are you imagining scaling the organization and how are you working with other organizations? If there are any around the country that are trying to address this issue?
- [30:29]
A
I definitely imagine scaling and expanding through Pennsylvania and then we'll see after that. And then in terms of other organizations, we do, as I mentioned, we partner closely with schools. They're really important partners. And then we partner with other agencies to try to not duplicate our services and to kind of expand access. Like we work with a really great organization called Immigrant Psychology Network to do a lot of our mental health services and they're really wonderful at kind of expanding. We have different sort of levels of that. Like we at one point had a grant. We're able to provide therapy to kids in different languages, which is awesome. And then we have other things for kids who don't need that high of a level of care where we do like assemblies where they'll teach them about, you know, coping with anxiety and stress and things like that. And then, yeah, we partner with other organizations. Like we've done events with HIAs where we do know your rights events and bring in attorneys from both agencies and things like that.
- [31:24]
B
And I do have to ask you about your future daughter. How did you meet and how did you, you know, make this, this kind of partnership? Because adopting a 16 year old is. Is a different set of circumstances to many adoptions and it's, it's one that involves not just the trust of the parents, but clearly the trust of the child.
- [31:43]
A
Yeah. So I met her through my work and I. She was just in a very precari, you know, even compared to some of the other kids that I work with. And I just felt very drawn to her. I just kind of felt like a connection with her and then got my husband on board with it, which is obviously another important piece of the puzzle and had built up, you know, trust with her through working with her. And then we just kind of made the offer and let her think about it for a little bit and she accepted. And it's been really great. It's been a learning experience for me, for sure. We've never had children before, so it's not like we had any practice. Then we went right to the teenage years, which everyone jokes about, but it's been actually very smooth. She's a wonderful kid and. But yeah, like I said, it's been like, interesting for me to go through sort of the other side of like the work that I do, you know, kind of from the perspective of one of the families that we serve. Obviously it's not exactly the same, but just like helping her navigate like different systems like, you know, school and healthcare and all this stuff, I definitely have learned a lot and I already thought I knew a lot before that. So it's definitely been eye opening. Like I said, even with all the benefits that I have, how difficult it can be sometimes. It just gave me a new appreciation for like, how challenging it can be for our kids too, when they don't have, you know, the English speaking parent who can like send an email to the school or whatever and navigate all of that more easily.
- [33:13]
B
So maybe the last question. I don't frequently ask this of people, but this is a really, a unique time in the country's history. I'm wondering if you have any thoughts, any kind of suggestions or advice for people who are reading the news right now, thinking about these issues and specifically thinking about children who are uniquely vulnerable is how they might view what they see, hear and read so that they can be informed citizens and, and think responsibly about our interactions with these vulnerable children.
- [33:57]
A
I mean, I would say definitely, like, in general, media literacy is so important and it's something I tell my clients too, because they maybe see a video on TikTok that like scares them and they freak out about it and I'm like, just ask me. Don't get your legal advice from TikTok. And same for news, right? Like, just I would encourage, like, I would. I love when people email and ask me questions. And we got some of that from like the CNN publicity. I love talking about immigration and like clearing up, you know, questions and things like that. So I would honestly tell people, like, literally go on our website and email me if you, if you're not sure. Like, I would love to answer questions and to just try to keep some hope, which is something I keep like, you know, telling myself too. I feel like after the election it was a rough couple of days because I practiced under the first Trump administration. That was kind of my introduction to immigration law, really, because I got my license in 2016 and then January, so I didn't have much, you know, of a calm time before that to even, you know, that's kind of what I'm accustomed to is practice. And so I was really worried for a few days. And then I feel like I gave myself those days to, like, absorb the news. And then I was like, okay, like, now what do we do? And I think that's the attitude we have to have. Like, take the time that you need. But the kids still need us, and they're gonna need us even more, you know, come January and beyond. So to, you know, not lose hope and to get involved. Like, we have a ton of volunteer opportunities for people who want to get involved and make a difference on this issue.
- [35:36]
B
Well, that's all for this episode of the Philanthropy Masterminds podcast. If you'd like to learn more about Project Libertad, go to projectlibertat.org Our thanks to our sponsor, Donor Search, the world leader in AI and donor research for nonprofit fundraising, and our producer, Jack Frost. If you like what you heard today, please subscribe on Apple Podcasts, the donor search YouTube channel, or wherever you like to listen and consider giving us a like and positive review so others can find us as well. Check out our live webinars on Tuesdays and Thursdays and come back next weekend for another interview with a leader in the world of social good. Until then, this is Jay Frost. Thanks for joining me. See you soon.