Ian Grodman has been busy.
The former Maplewood Deputy Mayor and longtime Chair of the Maplewood Democratic Committee is also a lawyer who provides immigration services.
“It’s busy,” said Grodman. “It’s a crazy world we’re living in right now,” referring to, among other things, the raft of executive orders on immigration signed by President Donald Trump in January promising of mass deportations.
In a conversation with The Village Green in late January, Grodman talked about reframing the conversation around immigration, how large-scale reform of the system is needed and long-overdue (and nowhere in sight), and how to deal with the immediacy of raids by ICE — or U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
ICE Raids
Grodman stressed that all immigrant residents need to know their rights.
“You still have to have a warrant when you’re going in to search any kind of premises, looking for people who have any kind of outstanding immigration issues, undocumented people, you need to have a warrant that’s been issued by a judge in order to do that,” Grodman stressed.
“And that was not the case in this raid that took place in Newark” in January.
“I’m sure you’ve read all this and you’ve heard all this, but there were American citizens who were detained in that raid, one of whom was a United States military veteran who happened to be Puerto Rican. So I guess to the ICE officials, he looked Hispanic, and, they thought, ‘Let’s detain him.'”
Grodman noted that many of the initial raids were targeting “people living in the United States who already have an order of removal, which is basically a deportation order.” But, Grodman stressed, even with an order of removal, ICE still needs a signed warrant from a judge to perform a raid.
“You can’t just barge into somebody’s home or business and do something like that. This is the United States of America,” said Grodman.
Grodman shared these links for immigrant rights and support groups in New Jersey:
- maketheroadnj.org
- njimmigrantjustice.org
- American Friends Service Committee (in Newark)
- Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of Newark
On its website, the New Jersey Alliance for Immigrant Justice notes that, since the November election, it has provided over 60 hours of Know York Rights (KYR) activities for nearly 1,000 people, and that its online engagement and requests have increased 170% and “we have depleted our supply of printed KYR cards.”
Those printed cards are provided (at a cost to non-members) so that immigrant residents can carry them in case they are approached by immigration or law enforcement officials. The cards are available in English, Spanish, Portuguese, Hindi, Gujarati, Arabic, Tagalog, French, French Creole, Korean with Urdu being updated. The information can be found via the links.
KYR’s cards from NJAIJ in French Creole:
The Economic Impact of Undocumented Immigrants
Grodman said that — besides providing individual counsel to immigrant clients and providing resources and information — it’s important to continue to educate the public about the positive impacts that undocumented immigrants have on the U.S.
“The only way to get through to a lot of these Republicans is talking about the financial impacts,” said Grodman.
Grodman says that there are an estimated 440,000 undocumented immigrants in New Jersey — approximately 5% of the state’s population — and the loss of these immigrants would lead to a collapse in sectors such as construction, agriculture, food service and childcare.
Mass deportations, said Grodman, would not just hurt New Jersey but “impact the economy throughout the country. You deport 11 or 12 million people who are doing jobs that no United States citizen wants to do and the economy is going to fall apart.”
A difficult, if not impossible, process for many
Meanwhile, many immigrant groups often lack the language skills or money to navigate the immigration process.
“There’s not a lot of organizations that can do this work for free. New Jersey Catholic Charities actually traditionally has helped people with these cases. American Friends Network in Newark has traditionally helped people with these cases. But the thing is, the resources that are available to them and the number of people who need help, makes it very difficult when we’re talking about over 400,000 people who need help.”
Grodman says that the current deportation atmosphere is opening many citizens’ eyes to the flaws in our system — but perhaps too late.
“I’ve had two instances in the last year where local contractors have brought me one of their employees that they want to try to help if they can. More often than not, there’s really nothing that can be done for them. One of these people came to me with his employee who was from Ecuador. He loved him. He was the greatest guy in the world. And the whole time we’re in the meeting talking about it, he’s saying to me at the same time, ‘He’s not like these ones that Biden is just letting storm the border.'”
“Once you get to know people, all of these untruths start to melt away,” said Grodman. “He knew this guy, he loved this man. He thought he was the greatest person in the world. But it’s because he knew him. And if you take the time to get to know people, you’re going to realize the vast majority of undocumented immigrants are hardworking, salt of the earth people who just want to make a better life for their families. That’s what it really boils down to.”
The need for immigration reform
Grodman said that many U.S.-born citizens don’t realize that and undocumented worker can’t just apply for a green card.
“If somebody enters the United States and flies into the United States, or drives in, or takes a boat or whatever, and has their passport stamped, the United States has a record of the fact that you are in the United States. And there are a lot more options available to you to correct your circumstances, to legalize.
“But, if you enter across the border, walking across the border from Mexico or from Canada, the United States has no record of you being in the United States,” said Grodman. “So more often than not, there are not options available for you to correct your status unless you go home and try to come back to the United States legally as a tourist or whatever it might be. But you’re not going to be able to do that because if there’s any kind of record that you entered the United States in that kind of way, you are going be barred from coming back to the United States for, very often, up to 10 years.”
“I started doing immigration work as part of my practice, probably close to 12-14 years ago at this point,” said Grodman. “You could apply for a green card and get a green card on a marriage-based case in New Jersey in six months; now it takes more like a year and a half to two years. Also the highest number of deportations that took place in modern history were while Barack Obama was president…. I think that he was doing that in the hopes of it was going to make it easier for him to revamp the immigration system. But the Republicans got back control of Congress and he was never able to do that.”
Now Grodman says, “I think a lot of Democrats are backing off from [immigration reform] at this point because of what they’re hearing and what they’re seeing.”
Meanwhile, how can residents in South Orange and Maplewood help their neighbors now?
“We can invite people into our homes, we can get to know them better. We can introduce them to other people. Make sure people know their rights, distribute Know Your Rights information to people in your life,” said Grodmam.
Also, said Grodman, get involved in politics.
“You don’t have the luxury not to get involved. You’ve got to speak up.”
