Webinar: Immigration Detention in the United States

We have seen the accounts of refugees and immigrants being imprisoned inhumanely. What is the current legal situation that permits this and what has changed? There are people now huddled at our borders and treated as the enemy. What is different now that has created this crisis?

This webinar explores the current legal status of our immigration laws and offers a glimpse into the challenges faced by so many at our borders.

As a follower of Jesus and the God of justice and mercy, participants learned ways to respond to this crisis by putting love into action.

Webinar Panelists: 

Tana Liu-Beers, Immigration Legal Counsel at Disciples Home Missions

Tana joined DHM as Immigration Legal Counsel in July 2011. Her office is in Durham, North Carolina. Prior to joining DHM, Tana was an immigration attorney at the North Carolina Justice Center’s Immigrants Legal Assistance Project, where she represented clients in immigration court and worked to combat the negative effects of increasing immigrant detentions. Tana has also worked with migrant workers and trafficking victims at the Southern Poverty Law Center, El Centro de los Derechos del Migrante, and the Farmworker Unit of Legal Aid of North Carolina. She earned her Juris Doctor from the University of North Carolina School of Law.

Rev. Dr. Sharon Stanley-Rea, Director of Refugee and Immigration Ministries for Disciples Home Missions

Sharon is Director of Refugee & Immigration Ministries (RIM) for Disciples Home Missions. RIM works to mobilize Disciples congregations around the country to offer hospitality to immigrants, provide refugee resettlement assistance to refugees, strengthen relationships of solidarity and advocacy with refugees and immigrants, and seek justice for farm workers. RIM’s office is located inside National City Christian Church, and works closely with more than 50 national and interfaith partners through the Interfaith Immigration Coalition.

A nationally trained faith-based community organizer through the PICO (now “Faith in Action”) national network, Sharon serves as the Chair of the DC Cluster of Congregationss for the DVM Sanctuary Congregations Network.  Prior to joining DHM, she lived nearly two decades in a low-income Southeast Asian refugee community in California nicknamed after a refugee camp in Thailand.  She likewise served thousands of refugees annually as Founder and Executive Director for 19 years of the multi-cultural and ecumenical service and justice organization, Fresno Interdenominational Refugee Ministries, in California’s Central Valley.

Sharon has previously pastored in North Carolina and California, and served in mission in Seoul and Pusan, South Korea.  She was ordained in the Presbyterian Church, and holds clergy standing in the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). She holds a Doctor of Ministry degree from Columbia Theological Seminary, and earned a Masters of Divinity degree (Summa Cum Laude) from San Francisco Theological Seminary. She is the wife of Disciples pastor Rev. Dr. Woodie Rea, Senior Pastor at The Inter-faith Chapel at Leisure World in Silver Spring, Maryland, and is the sister, daughter, granddaughter, sister-in-law, and niece of pastors.