Welcome from the 2015 Chair
My name is Naima Said, Chair of the AILA DC Chapter, 2015-2106. I am the mother of three children and grandmother to three grandchildren. That is my core identity.
I am honored and very humbled to serve as Chair of the AILA DC Chapter 2015-2016. I have a deep self-awareness that I should not be standing here given my humble beginnings. I was born in the middle of no-where in East Africa to my Muslim parents. I was the 6th of 7 children. My mother stayedathome and my dad was an engineer on a sisal estate. The nearest neighbor was a mile away. I owe everything to my incredibly resourceful parents who equipped us with the tools of life management. How they thought they could pull that off from a place that does not appear on Google Earth today is beyond me. But they did. I attended boarding school when I was 5 years old because there were no schools in our no name estate. I was prepared for this American melting pot coming from a community of immigrants from other parts of Africa, Europe and Asia and this also prepared me to raise three children alone. We celebrated Eid, Ramadhan, Christmas, Easter, Diwali and other religious holidays with friends. The “others” was normal. In this fantastic bubble my parents built for me, everyone added to our lives and the communitytook care of each other. That was normal. That was my world. Today, here among AILA members, I am surrounded by people with big, caring hearts who can give up a week or two to travel to a border to advocate for people they’ve never met. This is my normal. Nothing has changed in my world. The work this community does for the immigrant community, immigrant guests and the vulnerable cannot be quantified. Over the last year, as I listened to stories from AILA members about leaving their families and offices to volunteer help for children and familiesin detention centers at the border, I could not think of a group of people I want to have in my corner. They are our champions.
Speaking of champions, I want to thank all our member volunteers. This chapter is nothing without you. I am floored by the number of members who volunteer for this chapter. All the events this Chapter does takes away from their families and their paying jobs. I am deeply cognizant of that. I thank you all, from the bottom of my heart. The Fall Conference, National Day of Action, Citizenship Day, Pro Bono clinics and the Asylum Office Liaison committeemeet every 6 weeks! No one gets paid for what they do yet you do it with 100% commitment. Liaisons get solicit agenda items, put together Minutes, and advocate for you at agency meetings to be better mentors for our members and even better advocates for your clients. I especially want to recognize members who sign up for every monthly dinner meeting. We will continue these efforts together again this coming year. You are chapter’s engine and you make us the Platinum chapter we will be next year!
Speaking of platinum, let me introduce you to Chair-Elect Jackie Lee, Vice-Chair Catherine Reynolds, Secretary Dinesh Verma and Treasurer Elizabeth Kohler Maya. I am so blessed to have this team. When I asked each of them what their vision was for the coming year, the response was (1) continue to fund efforts to help children and families at the border (2) provide more support our solo/small firm members (3) expand involvement for new members (4) acknowledge our volunteers! With visions like this, you are all in good hands. We will provide these programs to support our members’ practice and clients. This team spends 15-20 hours a week working on Chapter matters. We will make it happen.
No one person can carry this chapter in spite of our chair-centric by-laws which are long overdue for an amendment. I will appoint a committee to amend the by-laws and we will amend them to reflect governance by consensus -- the way chapter business has been done for the last 15 years.
We will work hard to bring you quality programs and access tools to support your practice. We will raise funds to support our programs and raise our pro-immigration platform so our voices are louder than the ridiculous soundbites we see on TV week after week.
Mostly, we want to help with your practice and clients. We are talking to CIS and ICE offices to participate in summer programs. We want to give equal access, advocacy and litigation tools to all our members. If you can’t litigate, we’ll give you access to members who do. I have put together a committee to create a Virginia State Bar Immigration Sectionto duplicate successful efforts and strategies on the local level by the MD Bar. The Maryland Bar has an immigration Section –an important stakeholder at the state level that monitors immigration issues, educates its members on the impact of Maryland law and policy on the immigrant community. We have collaborative projects with other bars to educate our members on state issues, train family law practitioners on SIJ and criminal law attorneys on crimmigration. With partners like this, everyone wins. Last year, a few MD members got together and were instrumental in raising the age of the unaccompanied minor from 18 to 21 yearsto be consistent with the definition of “child” under federal law. This cleared the way for many SIJ cases in Maryland. AILA DC will work with VA members to duplicate this model. The MD bar has a relationship with the state PDO that works closely with the federal public defender’s office and problems are fixed at the state level before they become immigration violations. AILA DC will duplicate that model in VA. We want this chapter to be an extension of your law practice. We want know immediately about burdensome RFEs from the local CIS agencies, your experiences with ICE, ERO or with interviews and hearings with CIS and Immigration Court. We can only help if we are aware. For Facebook junkies, we are coming to friend you so we know what’s going on in your practice and strategize on how we can support you.
Next month, we have the privilege of hosting the 2015AILA National Conference. Lead by Host Committee Co- Chairs Kellie Lego, Allison Shurtleff and Lauren Vogt, many members volunteered to meet every week since September 2014 to put together a fantastic program for you. Let’s give them a big round of applause. If you will be attending AC 2015, stop by our Host Table to chat with our volunteers, register for the 2K fun walk and bring the kids; register for the Supreme Court tour, come to our Chapter breakfast, post-NMD event on Wednesday night, join bike rides and tours or just register to sweat it out with Parastoo Zahedi’s cardio session.
Lastly, thanks to everyone who volunteered for next year’s chapter committees. We have something for everyone – share your experience by hosting a webinar, signing up for conference panels, reach out to us if you are active with the local law schools or your bar association – to help us recruit new members. I believe we can surpass NY! I can’t help my competitive spirit. Write op-eds, raise your voices to be louder than the anti-immigrants through social and print media and make this Chapter even better. NDA should be every day for our DC Chapter which is a mere mile away from the Capitol.So join me and let’s have an awesome year! Thank you!