Name: Logan Chen

Social Justice Group: Refugees and Migrants in NYC (A)

Date of Fieldwork: January 23, 2025

Name of Organization and person (people) with whom you met and their title(s):Cecilia Aranzamendez from LSSNY

What I did and what I learned about my topic, activism, social justice work or civil and human rights work from this fieldwork:

On Thursday, January 23rd, I had the pleasure to meet Cecilia Aranzamendez. She has over 16 years of experience working with migrants especially, both in legal work and from a management perspective. She works at LSSNY (Lutheran Social Services of New York) to oversee their Immigration and Safe Haven for Children programs which works with unaccompanied minors, with many of them being migrants who were separated from their families. She says that working in that program, her and her colleagues have taken on a parenting role for kids who really need the help. We covered many topics regarding migrants, their rights in NYC, and what their future may hold.

She told us that there are many differences between civil law and immigration law. For example, an immigrant or migrant is not entitled to a lawyer. Although you have the right to counsel with one, the government will not provide a lawyer to a migrant. With many migrants coming in with little wealth, that makes hiring a lawyer simply impossible.

I also learned about what jobs many new coming migrants are taking, if they can find any. If you didn’t know, migrant workers are not allowed to be employed until they’ve spent 180 days in the United States. However, Biden did amend this for New York City being a sanctuary city, and it was changed to 30. Yet, Trump’s anti-migrant beliefs may change this drastically. It is heartbreaking to learn that some families aren’t even legally allowed to provide for their children especially when it’s all they want; even if they are taking minimum wage jobs in the food industry or construction.

Through all this fear with the new Trump administration coming for a second term, she told us some ways that we are trying to fight against that. Red cards are being handed out which tells a migrant what rights they have. “Know your rights” seminars are popping up everywhere. Talking with Aranzamendez, the thing I take away from this the most is that our government can be so cruel towards innocent people trying to make better lives for themselves. But, it’s good to know that there are so many people out there who are a shining example of what we can do to help.

*Photo from the LSSNY website