Columbia Protesters Charged For Disrupting Controversial Speaker; and Immigration Defense Project: ICE Arrests Increase

Columbia University Protesters Charged For Disrupting Controversial Speaker

On October 10, 2017 the notorious British anti-Semite and Islamophobe Tony Robinson appeared by Skype on the Columbia university campus. He was invited by the College Republican Club.

Many Columbia University students registered for the event and protested the things he said. The protesters did not disrupt the event but rather engaged the speaker’s comments.

17 students were investigated and interrogated and charged with Columbia University rules violations for briefly interrupting a university function or disrupting a university function or rendering its continuation impossible.

Guest ” Columbia Law Professor Attorney Katherine Franke about the commissions findings and recommendations and the objections to the reports conclusions. Katherine Franke is a former executive director of the National Lawyers Guildthe and chair of the board of the Center for Constitutional Rights. She is the Sulzbacher Professor of Law at Columbia Law School, and also the Faculty Director of the Public Rights/Private Conscience Project, a think tank that brings legal academic expertise to bear on the multiple contexts in which religious liberty rights are in tension with other fundamental rights to equality and liberty. Her book is titled Wedlocked: The Perils of Marriage Equality.

Guest -Kayum Ahmedis a Doctoral Fellow in International and Comparative Education at Teachers College, Columbia University, and an Adjunct Faculty member at Columbia Law School. Before joining Columbia, Kayum served as Chief Executive Officer of the South African Human Rights Commission from 2010 to 2015. During this period, he led a team of 178 colleagues to monitor, protect and promote human rights in South Africa, and oversaw the management of nearly 45,000 human rights cases.

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Immigration Defense Project: ICE Arrests Increase

Although they have yet to hunt down undocumented people in churches, hospitals, and schools, ICE is now arresting people inside of our state courthouses.Making people afraid to enter court houses is another indication of the further disintegration of democracy which has rapidly accelerated under the Trump administration.
There have been 900 incidences of ICE arresting people inside of a courthouse in America this year, 70 in New York City. Just two weeks ago in Brooklyn a rebellion of legal aid attorneys occurred when ICE tried to arrest a client of Brooklyn Attorney Rebecca Kavanaughs who was there appearing on an order of protection matter.

The persons arrested in court houses are people that are free to leave, not in jail, not held on any charges ” in all kinds of court houses including where people are coming to seek protective orders in domestic violence situations, special human trafficking courts, and family courts. There has been a 900% increase in court house arrests in New York City alone this year. In response to this, there has been much organizing going on to get ICE out of the courthouses.

Guest – Andrew Wachtenheim – Supervising Attorney at IDP. He works with IDPs non-profit and pro bono partners on litigation before the federal courts and Board of Immigration Appeals, and provides technical assistance, litigation support, and training to immigration and criminal law practitioners on the immigration-criminal law intersection. Andrew came to IDP from the immigration practice at The Bronx Defenders, where he represented noncitizens in immigration-related proceedings primarily at the agency level, and consulted with noncitizen defendants and criminal and family defense attorneys about the potential immigration consequences of contacts with the criminal justice and child welfare systems. Andrew is a graduate of Wesleyan University and Fordham Law School.

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