Barrett spoke with Xpress about how he has avoided burnout, his advice to young lawyers and North Carolina’s problem with “legal deserts.”
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Barrett spoke with Xpress about how he has avoided burnout, his advice to young lawyers and North Carolina’s problem with “legal deserts.”
Jacob Oakes, who directs Pisgah Legal Services’ immigration program and manages its Afghan Asylum Project, calls the latest influx of evacuees an “unprecedented situation” and a “learning experience” due to its breadth and magnitude.
“Mankind’s ability to corrupt racial equality, equal rights, immigration policy, gender realities, science and everything else is exponentially unbelievable.”
“As a community, we must come together and support our most vulnerable members.”
“How about coming legally. That’s a term that the lefties want to ignore.”
“Here’s a different idea: What if some [local] hotel owners, Airbnb owners and people with an extra bedroom or two decided to welcome a few families who are at the border to stay for free and raised the funds to transport them here?”
“Everyone knows that under the liberal ruling Democratic Party in Buncombe, the former county manager robbed the county blind. Now the new sheriff in Buncombe has already said he will not work with the immigration officials.”
Readers, you had a lot to say about local politics and civic goings-on in the region this year. From tourism and development to bears and the county government scandal, here’s a look back at some of the hot topics that sparked your opinions.
“In Western North Carolina, an April ICE raid placed 27 people in a detention center in Georgia, five hours away from their families.”
Immigration at the turn of the century spurred debate over policy, as well as the country’s future.
Over 1,000 people from Asheville and Western North Carolina participated in the “Families Belong Together” rally on downtown Asheville’s Haywood Street on June 30 to protest family separation at the country’s southern border and the current administration’s zero-tolerance immigration policy.
“Instead of being given the opportunity to build a better and safer life, as my family was, immigrant families are literally being torn apart for political theater. Seeking asylum is not in of itself a crime.”
“Undocumented alien is just as legitimate a descriptive as any of the words used for any other crime, which describes the criminal and the crime.”
“Reading that illegals have the temerity to insist that county commissioners do something to stop immigration enforcement should enrage anyone who believes in the rule of law.”
Henderson is the only WNC county that takes part in the federal government’s 287(g) program, which enlists local law enforcement personnel to help implement federal immigration law. That participation has become an issue in the race for Henderson County Sheriff.
ASHEVILLE, NC
Asheville, N.C.
Asheville is a city full of transplants that loves to celebrate its diversity. Yet the area’s third-biggest immigrant population goes mostly unnoticed.
Form the Get It! Guide: The Coalition of Latin American Organizations seeks to raise the voice of Western North Carolina’s immigrant communities.
On a recent Thursday night in a downtown Asheville church, a group of residents gathered to discuss “Coming Out of the Shadows” — what it’s like to be a “Dreamer’ one of the estimated 1.7 million youth who grew up here but were brought to the U.S. illegally by their parents.
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