May 20, 2025

Fear.

Fear that government agents will, in their zeal to enforce immigration law, leave lasting emotional damage to innocent children.

Fear that whereabouts of undocumented loved ones will be impossible to determine for the weeks between their arrest and when their whereabouts can finally be determined in the web of federal detention facilities.

Fear that innocents will be misidentified, that children born in America will be deported, that deportees will be dumped in countries they have never laid eyes on.

This morning’s Forum focused on the work of a number of nonprofits and one law firm that have dedicated themselves to advocating for the people caught in the immigration issues dividing the nation of Lady Liberty.

Viewers of the video from this morning’s meeting will hear pleas for financial support, for volunteers to support families, and a call to action to advocate for legal pathways to citizenship for longtime residents of Charlotte who pay taxes and help build this community.

Participants on the panel were:

Sun H, Community Engagement & Power Building Director of SEAC Village, founded in 2012 as Southeast Asian Coalition.

Binta Muzuri Tady, CEO and founder of Amani Kids, a nonprofit organization “dedicated to supporting African refugee and immigrant children succeed in Charlotte.”

Daniela Andrade, Communications Lead for Carolina Migrant Network, a 2019 nonprofit that “fuses legal services and community advocacy to provide holistic support for our clients and their families.”

Sandra B. Kitembo, Community Engagement Manager for Our Bridge for Kids, a group that says it is the “only non-faith-based nonprofit in the area that provides resources and out-of-school programs specifically designed for immigrant and refugee children and their families.”

Cynthia A. Aziz, attorney of Lebanese ancestry and founder of Aziz Law Firm, who wrote on her website that the firm “believes our country is richly dynamic because of immigration, not in spite of it. Therefore, we exist to offer knowledgeable counsel and human compassion to each client we serve in immigration and naturalization issues.”

The last word goes to longtime Charlotte early childhood educator Dr. Thomas Moore. His comments at the end of the meeting are pulled out in the second video below.