Six More Officials Are Charged in the Flint Water Crisis - The Atlantic

Six More Officials Are Charged in the Flint Water Crisis - The Atlantic:

More Charges in the Flint Water Crisis

Six officials were charged Friday in connection with the scandal in the city in Michigan.

 Six more Michigan state employees were charged Friday in connection with the Flint water crisis.

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A.G. Bill Schuette @SchuetteOnDuty

Announcing our third legal action of the Flint Water Investigation right now.

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State Attorney General Schuette announced the six additional charges at a news conference. Nancy Peeler, Corinne Miller, and Robert Scott, all officials with the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services, will be charged with misconduct in office, conspiracy, and willful neglect of duty.

Liane Shekter-Smith, Adam Rosenthal, and Patrick Cook, who were with the Department of Environmental Quality, will also be charged. Shekter-Smith will be charged with misconduct in office and willful neglect of duty; Cook with misconduct in office, conspiracy, and willful neglect of duty; and Rosenthal with misconduct in office, tampering with evidence, conspiracy, and willful neglect of duty.

“Each of these individuals attempted to bury or cover up, to downplay or to hide information that contradicted their own narrative, their story … these individuals concealed the truth and they were criminally wrong to do so,” Shuette saSix More Officials Are Charged in the Flint Water Crisis - The Atlantic:

CURMUDGUCATION: Free Marketing Schools

CURMUDGUCATION: Free Marketing Schools:

Free Marketing Schools

Free market fans envision a story something like this:

Finding themselves in a world where the power of the free market is unleashed, charters, private, and public schools all become transparent, competing with each other to be able to publish the finest student outcomes. Empowered consumers/parents study up on the student outcomes published by each school so that they can weigh the merits of each school and make the best selection for their children.

If this fairy tale ever came to pass, education would be the first sector of the free market to ever function in this fashion. Go turn on your television right now and wait for an advertisement that is a factual, data-based account of the effectiveness of the product. Wait for an advertisement that does not try to imbue the product with a personality or identity, even if products corn flakes and cleaning fluids do not naturally display any personality traits. Okay-- you shouldn't actually wait for any of that, because you will get old and die before you actually succeed.

Let me repeat what is perhaps my most-repeated observation on this blog.

The free market does not foster superior quality; the free market fosters superior marketing.

Now we have an academic study from the National Center for the Study of Privatization in Education at the Teachers College of Columbia University. "Perceptions of Prestige: A Comparative Analysis of School Online Media Marketing," by Sarah Butler Jessen (Bowdoin College) and Catherine DiMartino (Hofstra University) is a working paper that looks at how marketing plays out in a couple of education markets.

The paper is about setting up a framework for comparing branding and marketing practices, comparing the practices of different types of schools in "choice settings." 

Jessen and DiMartino draw on lots of literature studying the use and practices of branding and CURMUDGUCATION: Free Marketing Schools:

A Teacher’s Case For Hillary Clinton | Daniel Katz, Ph.D.

A Teacher’s Case For Hillary Clinton | Daniel Katz, Ph.D.:

A Teacher’s Case For Hillary Clinton

I suppose I ought to front load this:  In the Democratic Party Primary in New York State, I voted for Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders.  My reasons for the doing so were various, but they focused heavily upon how well Senator Sanders articulated what I consider to be a genuine crisis in our time: the out of control growth in income inequality and the consequent damage to opportunity and justice that comes with it.  Senator Sanders’ ability to make a genuinely competitive campaign outside of the system of large donor politics was also inspiring, and it pointed to another vital issue – how our campaign finance system grants large donors more access and more voice to the point ofcommanding far more attention than the voters.

In contrast, former Secretary of State and Senator Hillary Clinton, while acknowledging such issues, has spent the last quarter century at or near the very highest offices of political power in the country.  While I did not doubt that she recognizes these as problems, I did question her ability to give full critique to them while running a campaign that is fully enmeshed in big donor politics, especially when given the choice of Senator Sanders’ avoidance of typical large donors.  Further, as an advocate for public education and full-throated critic of the current reform environment, Secretary Clinton’s long standing connections to education reform was, and remains, a real difficulty for me.  Secretary Clinton has been supported by Eli Broad, whose education “philanthropy” has been consistently aimed at aggressively favoring charter schools over fully public schools.  Secretary Clinton’s PAC received a massive donation from Alice Walton, and the Clinton Foundation has been a financial beneficiary of the Walton Family Foundation whose education efforts are geared towards privatization and hostility to teachers’ unions.  “Democrats” for Education Reform, anorganization founded largely by Whitney Tilson in a effort to convince Democrats to support anti-union and pro-privatization policies that are  more typical of Republicans, greeted Secretary Clinton’s campaign with enthusiasm.  Secretary Clinton’s 2016 campaign chair is John Podesta who is President Bill Clinton’s former chief of staff and the founder of the Center for American Progress (CAP).  CAP, while often progressive and innovative on a range of issue, is reliably on the wrong side of education reform. If there is a bad idea being A Teacher’s Case For Hillary Clinton | Daniel Katz, Ph.D.:

Schools Matter: THE MIND TRUST SPIN-OFF IN CINCY AND BEYOND

Schools Matter: THE MIND TRUST SPIN-OFF IN CINCY AND BEYOND:

THE MIND TRUST SPIN-OFF IN CINCY AND BEYOND

In my book Hoosier School Heist, I expose the Mind Trust, formed by once Democratic mayor of Indianapolis Bart Peterson and his charter school director David Harris.  I have also written on the Mind Trust spin-offformerly known as CEE-Trust (and its ties to Bill Gates, George Bush, and Joe Klein), which now goes by the name Education Cities and is operating in at least 24 cities. 

Before doing a recent NAACP Indy panel on ALEC, the Mind Trust, and school privatization a few days ago, I decided to peek into what Education Cities has been up to. Here are just a few things I found. 

Besides having the Mind Trust’s David Harris and Earl Martin Phalen and corporate school grandfather Howard Fuller (BAEO/Edison connected) as board members, the Mind Trust spin-off Education Cities is being funded by well-known school privatization billionaire organizations like the Walton Foundation, the Dell Foundation, the Gates Foundation, the Kauffman Foundation, and the foundation started by Eli Broad, the Broad Foundation. 

The Broad Foundation is noteworthy because of recent events. 

Started by Obama supporter Eli Broad, the Broad Foundation placed its members in Arne Duncan’s Dept. of Schools Matter: THE MIND TRUST SPIN-OFF IN CINCY AND BEYOND:

Hoosier School Heist TV is Doug Martin's channel featuring videos of his book tour across Indiana speaking on the corporate takeover of public education. Order Hoosier School Heist at http://hoosierschoolheist.com/.

Follow Hoosier School Heist on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HoosierSchoolHeist

Tweet with Doug Martin at: https://twitter.com/DougMartinED

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Moral 'defibrillators' battle for the soul of the party.

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Moral 'defibrillators' battle for the soul of the party.:

Moral 'defibrillators' battle for the soul of the party.

"In this season, when some want to harden and stop the heart of our democracy, we are being called like our foremothers and fathers to be the moral defibrillators of our time." --Rev. William Barber

The two most important speeches at the DNC last night were barely covered in this morning's reportage. They came from Rev. William Barber and Gen. John Allen and represented for me, at least, the poles in the struggle for the soul of the Democratic Party and the nation.

Rev. Barber is the head of the N.A.A.C.P and leader of the Moral Monday movement in North Carolina. MMM is a multi-racial movement which has mobilized tens of thousands in this important swing state, to fight form civil rights, public education and social justice. It could hold the key to a Clinton victory in November.

Barber took to the moral high ground, bringing down the house with his call for shocking the system.

“When we fight to reinstate the power of the Voting Rights Act, and we break the interposition and nullification of the current Congress, we in the South especially Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Moral 'defibrillators' battle for the soul of the party.:

In Philadelphia, Progressive Education Organizers Fight ‘Disaster Capitalism’ - Working In These Times

In Philadelphia, Progressive Education Organizers Fight ‘Disaster Capitalism’ - Working In These Times:

In Philadelphia, Progressive Education Organizers Fight ‘Disaster Capitalism’

This week, Democrats descended upon the city of Philadelphia, attempting to present themselves as simultaneously progressive enough to be the party of racial, gender, and economic justice, but conservative enough to be welcoming to Republicans turned off by Donald Trump.

In a succinct illustration of some of the contradictions at play during the Democratic National Convention, vice presidential candidate Tim Kaine, the former governor of a Right-to-Work state, spoke proudly of his dad running a union shop. While K-12 public education hasn’t played a prominent role in the primetime speeches this week, it’s another thorny issue for a Democratic party struggling to appeal to unions while also advancing a neoliberal education reform agenda.

The battle over public education is, in large part, a battle over labor, and there’s no better illustration of that than Philadelphia. In 2013, the city’s School Reform Commission (which is appointed, not elected) closed roughly 10 percent of the city's schools, laid off almost 4,000 teachers and other school staff and, in 2014, terminated the teachers' contract to save on health insurance costs. They remain without a contract to this day.

“The union has been under very sharp assault,” says Ron Whitehorne, a retired teacher and organizer with the Philadelphia Coalition Advocating for Public Schools (PCAPS).

In the years since the closures, Philadelphia teachers, parents and other public school advocates have been organizing.

“Organizing will help us provide a counter-narrative to shift the paradigm in the nation of how people view public education in our daily lives,” says Ismael Jimenez, a history teacher and member of Working Educators, the progressive caucus within the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers. To him, what’s happening in Philadelphia is illustrative of the attacks on education going on all over the country, including within the Democratic Party.

“I believe organizing is the only real political tool we have today to combat this two-party system that is beholden to neoliberal interests,” he said.

Jimenez was disappointed that the DNC held up Cory Booker, an advocate of the so-called education reform movement, which promotes public school closures and cheers charter schools, which are often non-union.

“This is a designed, planned strategy against labor,” said Antoine Little Sr., a public school parent and union member of the In Philadelphia, Progressive Education Organizers Fight ‘Disaster Capitalism’ - Working In These Times:

Education funding: A tale of two governors' failures - NonDoc

Education funding: A tale of two governors' failures - NonDoc:

Education funding: A tale of two governors’ failures

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. — Wednesday’s news that Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin is considering a special session for the purpose of passing a teacher-pay raise reminded me — not for the first time — of just how much she and the governor of my new home state have in common, especially when it comes to funding public education and teacher-pay issues.

Fallin and Gov. Pat McCrory (R-N.C.) are both hapless governors whose most superb political instincts appear to be sticking to their guns until they finally realize their actions have been interpreted as tone deafness or, worse, complete ignorance of reality.

To compensate, they spend an inordinate amount of time frantically backpedaling in an effort to save their political skins. When people haven’t been paying attention (and these governors definitely hope they haven’t), Fallin and McCrory try to pretend like they’ve always been champions of the people’s will. At least, that’s been my takeaway from watching these two political masterminds as of late.

Oklahoma’s education woes

When she became governor in 2010, Gov. Mary Fallin was known for many things, but being a champion of public education certainly wasn’t one of them. She was, however,brazen in her call to cut income taxes, a move that would overwhelmingly benefit wealthier Oklahomans and deprive the state of revenue necessary for delivering quality services to the public. A study released in January showed how income tax cuts over a 10-year period had indeed deprived Oklahoma of more than $1 billion in revenue. State officials, including Fallin, of course, quickly blamed falling oil prices as the culprit.

In May, Reuters published a scathing report that laid bare the state’s continued coddling Education funding: A tale of two governors' failures - NonDoc:

Will Public Education Survive the Next Administration? – Save Maine Schools

Will Public Education Survive the Next Administration? – Save Maine Schools:

Will Public Education Survive the Next Administration?

Donald Trump has called Common Core a “disaster.” The leaked DNC emails refer to the standards as a “political third rail.”

At this point, however, the controversial standards may be more of a red herring than anything else.

While the pubic remains largely in the dark, a massive upheaval of our public school system is well underway, and recent proposals from both major political parties indicate that the transformation will move full speed ahead regardless of who is elected president this fall.

The new system is designed to expand the education market by allowing out-of-district providers (online programs, non-profits, local businesses, and even corporations) to award credit for student learning.  At the same time, it doubles down on workforce development by aligning educational outcomes to the needs of industry leaders.

According to the U.S. Department of Education, students will “no longer [be] tethered to school buildings or schedules.” Instead, the system will require students to earn “digital badges” that they will display in individual competency-profiles accessible to potential employers and investors.

“By collecting skill-based badges, the record of achievement begun in secondary school becomes the foundation upon which workers build their capabilities and tell their stories to employers,” explains Will Public Education Survive the Next Administration? – Save Maine Schools:

Breaking News: @NAACP calls for national moratorium on charters – Cloaking Inequity

Breaking News: @NAACP calls for national moratorium on charters – Cloaking Inequity:

Breaking News: @NAACP calls for national moratorium on charters

I don’t believe that this has been reported anywhere else. Last week at the NAACP National Convention in Cincinnati, the delegates voted in a new resolution on charter schools. It’s approval as policy will not be official until the National Board meeting in the Fall of 2016. However, this is a big news story that (I suspect because of the political conventions) has not yet entered the traditional media.

Yesterday in the post How will history remember the @NAACP on charters? I discussed the 2010 and 2014 NAACP charter school resolutions. The 2016 NAACP convention voted and approved the following resolution.

The 2016 NAACP delegates at the national convention called for a moratorium on the proliferation of privately managed charters.

So for those of you who emailed me yesterday saying that NAACP chapters in various places have gone rogue supporting charters— know that the force of the national organization is NOT on their side.

In sum, I believe the NAACP, the nation’s vanguard of civil rights, has AGAIN demonstrated and articulated critical leadership sorely lacking from many other civil rights organizations on the issue of school choice.

For more on what’s going wrong with charters click here.

Please Facebook Like, Tweet, etc below and/or reblog to share this discussion with others.Breaking News: @NAACP calls for national moratorium on charters – Cloaking Inequity:

Want to know about Cloaking Inequity’s freshly pressed conversations about educational policy? Click the “Follow blog by email” button on this page.Breaking News: @NAACP calls for national moratorium on charters – Cloaking Inequity:

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CURMUDGUCATION: Looking for Mr. or Ms. Change Agent

CURMUDGUCATION: Looking for Mr. or Ms. Change Agent:

Looking for Mr. or Ms. Change Agent

Over at the Fordham, Mike Petrilli has been slowly unspooling a series of posts looking at how reform goals might be pursued through means other than policy and politics. In his latest, he considers the leadership development approach to school reform.

Petrilli expresses mixed feelings about the argument. On the one hand, he recognizes that great leaders have value. On the other hand, he's not sure that leaders can make a difference in the vast dry dead desert of public schools, and wouldn't we all be better off just putting our energy into helping leaders grow in the lush gardens that are charter schools?

As always, Petrilli has part of a point. Superintendents and principals are fighting an uphill battle these days, though it's certainly worth noting that many of the obstacles were created by reformsters like Petrilli, hamstringing schools with the crappy Common Core State [sic] Standards and bad-test-based accountability. The last decade-plus of ed reform have sidled school leaders with truckloads of crap and foisted on them priorities like "get student test scores up or get fired." So yes-- there are "government" policies in place that subject principals to "the dysfunction of the larger system within which they must work, and the Gordian knot that’s been tied by decades of contradictory, often compromising, laws and regulation"-- and that big mess has been largely grown and built with the assistance of guys like Petrilli, criss-crossing the country to advocate for those same government regulations.

Petrilli also throws shade at "unruly elected school boards," and I wonder once again why reformsters love the rugged chaos of parents choosing their own schools, but hate the rugged chaos of voters choosing their own school board. Choice is good except when it's terrible.

Petrilli nods to Rick Hess's cage-busting while rightly acknowledging that the cages are real and 

American Students of Color Are Still Not Treated to an Equal Education | US News Opinion

American Students of Color Are Still Not Treated to an Equal Education | US News Opinion:

An Unequal Start

Racial bias still persists in U.S. schools, and we must fix it.

 Is racial bias hindering the success and well-being of our nation's children? Civil rights,racial justice scholars and activists have long answered yes; they have also continuously worked to address the structural racism they see as pervasive in our nation's institutions.

During the first night of the Democratic National Convention, the speakers addressed education and inequality at home. "It's about making sure that young people in this country are in good schools and at good jobs, not in jail cells," Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders said. Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren and First Lady Michelle Obama both touched on critical gaps in the educational system we provide our nation's children. And last week, Donald Trump underlined the pervasive bias in his Republican National Convention nomination acceptance speech by asking, not declaring, if all American children have the same rights. "Every action I take," Trump said, "I will ask myself: Does this make better for young Americans in Baltimore, in Chicago, in Detroit, in Ferguson who have really, in every way folks, the same right to live out their dreams as any other child in America?"

But American children are not treated or protected equally – especially when it comes to education. A report last month from the U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights provides important and troubling data on the detrimental consequences of racial bias for students of color, and draws from the Civil Rights Data Collection from 2013-2014, which included data for 99 percent of public schools and districts in the country.

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Among the findings is that black and Latino children are disproportionately issued school suspensions as early as pre-kindergarten. Black preschoolers are 3 1/2 times more likely than their white peers to be suspended – despite an overall decline in overall suspensions nationwide.

Black students are also disproportionately expelled from schools and, along with Latino students, are more than twice as likely as their white peers to be arrested or deal with law enforcement throughout the K-12 years. The targeting of students of color for disciplinary actions is all the more troubling because, as the report points out, it is coupled with the reality that these same students are more likely to have underprepared teachers and lack advanced courses in their high schools.

These findings are echoed elsewhere, too. A recent study of Virginia public schools further evidences racial disparities in disciplinary actions taken by schools. They find that American Students of Color Are Still Not Treated to an Equal Education | US News Opinion:

One Democratic Convention Speech Nailed The Progressive Vision

One Democratic Convention Speech Nailed The Progressive Vision:

One Democratic Convention Speech Nailed The Progressive Vision

When Rev. William Barber, best known in progressive circles as the leader of the Moral Mondays protests against the right-wing governor and legislature in North Carolina, was brought to the stage at the Democratic National Convention Thursday night, there was cheering from the North Carolina delegation but polite applause from the rest the hall. They did not know who Barber was, and then they not know what was coming.

Ten minutes later, when Barber finished his address, the entire convention hall was on its feet.

“I come before you tonight as a preacher,” he began, and from that moment Barber took the convention delegates through the convergence of progressive populism and “faith and morality.”

“It may sound strange, but I am a conservative,” he said, “because I work to conserve a divine tradition that teaches us to do justice, love mercy and walk humbly with our God.”

The core of his speech was a challenge for the delegates at the convention to be “moral defibrillators” of the nation. “We must shock the nation with the power of love.”

It is a message that Barber has been consistently pushing as the director of the North Carolina NAACP and an increasingly sought-after spokesperson for his unique ability to frame progressive policy objectives in a values frame. As Barber put it Thursday, “Some issues are not just left vs. write or liberal vs. conservative; they are right vs. wrong.”

In 2013 the Campaign for America’s Future gave Barber the Paul Wellstone Citizen Leadership Award for his work in North Carolina organizing against the budget cuts, voter suppression and other policies advanced by the state’s Republican government.

The words of the Biblical prophet Isaiah, Barber said, calls on us to “pay people what they deserve, share your food with the hungry. Do this and then your nation shall be called a repairer of the breach. Jesus, a brown-skin Palestinian Jew, called us to preach good news to the poor, the broken and the bruised and all those who are made to feel unaccepted,” he said.

The use of religion and faith to promote “meanness” shows that we have a “heart problem,” Barber said. We need to “embrace our deepest moral values and push for revival at the heart of our democracy. … When we fight to reinstate the power of the Voting Rights Act, and we break the interposition and nullification of the current Congress…when we fight for 15 and a union, and universal health care, and public education, and immigrant rights, and LGBTQ rights, we are reviving the heart of our democracy.”One Democratic Convention Speech Nailed The Progressive Vision:

A Quick Note on Race Talks in Education Spaces #EduColor | The Jose Vilson

A Quick Note on Race Talks in Education Spaces #EduColor | The Jose Vilson:

A Quick Note on Race Talks in Education Spaces #EduColor

Premise: educators who aren’t challenged to think about systemic inequity offline don’t want to think about it online.

In the last week, much has been made about my impromptu #educolor chat about race and schools, but, like #EduColor itself, it wasn’t borne of a chat, but by resistance to ignorance amongst our colleagues.

You can read the recap for yourself here.

Behind the scenes, I had contemplated whether I even wanted to participate. There were pros and cons to both. The main con was that connected folks of color shouldn’t have to participate in this chat because white educators should do the work themselves without our involvement. This puts the onus on white folks to talk to white folks about race in a space that normally doesn’t do it.

But as I watched it unfold, I started to see how few participants either wanted to engage. In fact, the folks who were originally energized by the topic started to drop out quickly as they saw how quickly A Quick Note on Race Talks in Education Spaces #EduColor | The Jose Vilson:

CURMUDGUCATION: Other Suns and the Illusion of History

CURMUDGUCATION: Other Suns and the Illusion of History:

Other Suns and the Illusion of History

It was impossible to drive across the country without thinking of Isabel Wilkerson's masterpiece The Warmth of Other Suns, a stunning telling of the story of the Great Migration.

Wilkerson weaves numerous threads together (including those of her own life) and shifts effortlessly between close focus and the larger picture, but the book revolves around the stories of Ida Mae Brandon Gladney, George Starling, and Pershing Foster, as each of them makes their own personal journeys. The Great Migration was an unprecedented shift of population in this country and, as Wilkerson says, "it was the first big step the nation's servant class ever took without asking."

I won't try to capture the entire book, but I will share some of what hit me when reading it.

Some were simple factoids. The first Jim Crow law? Passed in Massachusetts.

Some of it echoes our present. Foster's parents were educators, and the picture of black schooling in the South is brutal. For instance, on the matter of financing schools:

"The money allocated to the colored children is spent on the education of the white children," a local school superintendent in Louisiana said bluntly. "We have twice as many colored children of school age as we have white, and we use their money. Colored children are mighty profitable to us."

And perhaps most striking and effective because of Wilkerson's thoroughness, is the ordinary everydayness of the racism these people lived through.

Travel always makes me think of the book because of Foster's story. At one point, this educated physician sets out to drive cross country, heading out West to create a new life, and the simple CURMUDGUCATION: Other Suns and the Illusion of History:

Private Prisons on Steroids …The for-profit detention centers - Wait What?

Private Prisons on Steroids …The for-profit detention centers - Wait What?:

Private Prisons on Steroids …The for-profit detention centers

While many are aware of the rise of private prisons in the United States and the lucrative contracts that are given to for-profit companies to run those correctional facilities, far less attention has been given to the for-profit largess associated with massive contracts to run the federal government’s immigration detention centers and other related programs around the country.

As the Center for American Progress explains;

Surprisingly, the largest detention and supervised release program is not operated program in the country is not operated by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), but by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which oversees the nation’s immigration detention centers.  According to the Department of Justice, its Federal Bureau of Prisons has nearly 200,000 individuals in custody as of December 2014.  On the other hand, the Department of Homeland Security’s immigration detention program detains around 400,000 each year.

The nation’s paranoia about immigrants has dramatically enhanced the revenues for two massive for-profit prison companies that are now raking in over $1 billion a year in taxpayer funds running much of the federal government’s prison and detention programs.

As a result of legislation approved by the United States Congress and signed into law by President Obama, the Department of Homeland Security MUST maintain no less than 33,400 detention beds a day — regardless of whether those beds are needed.  It is the only mandated bed quota of any federal agency.

To acquire that many beds, the government turned to for-profit companies to build and run many of the facilities.  Today, more than 60% of the immigrant detention beds are Private Prisons on Steroids …The for-profit detention centers - Wait What?:

To locate your detained loved one:

Go to this website : https://locator.ice.gov/odls/homePage.do

 

Contact the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement Deport Office (see Phone List below). 

Ask to speak with a supervisory deport officer. Give them your loved one’s full name and A#. (Note: Deportation officers may be mean and not speak to anyone besides an attorney. However, it is still worth trying) 

Contact your Consulate. Some Consulates are required by law to be notified when one of their nationals is detained.

The last resort is always to contact the different county detention facilities or wait for your loved one to call.

Remove any blocks on your phone for collect calls.

If you need a lawyer...

Do not rush to hire an attorney if you don’t have a basic idea about your loved ones case. First learn as many facts about your loved one, and then approach an attorney

Hire someone specializing in deportation. Many attorneys do not know immigration law and many immigration attorneys do not know deportation very well. If the lawyer does real estate, business and immigration, they are most likely not deportation specialists.

Keep the full information of EVERY lawyer you had. Make sure you receive a copy of everything your lawyer files.

Get a written contract before you give the lawyer money. The lawyer must give you a “retainer agreement.” Read it carefully. Make sure you understand it.

Make sure to inform your lawyer of your entire criminal and immigration history so that they may give you the best advice possible. Do not assume that ANY information is not important.

Ask your lawyer for written information about the immigration consequences of your crime before you plead guilty. If you have an old order of deportation ask your lawyer for written information about how they will prevent your deportation.

If your attorney ever refuses to provide information he promises you in writing, send a certified mailed letter to him outlining the promises he made to you and asking for written verification or clarification of those promises.

File a complaint with the Attorney Grievance Committee if your lawyer cheated you (see Phone List).

Phone List:

Free Legal Information/Advice

Legal Aid Immigration Unit:  (212) 577-3456

Immigration Defense Project: (212)725-6422

Northern Manhattan Coalition for Immigrants Rights: (212) 781-0355

Brooklyn Defenders Services: (718) 254-0700)

Bronx Defenders: (718) 383-7878

Pennsylvania Immigrant Resource Center: (717) 600-8099