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Barbarians at the Gate: How Immigration Detention Effects Refugee and Ethnic Communities in New York - A Panel Discussion with Will Coley, Jesuit Refugee Service

New York, N.Y. - The Barnard Forum on Migration opens its fall 2000 season with a panel discussion lead by Will Coley, Project Director, Jesuit Refugee Service (JRS), titled Barbarians at the Gate: How Immigration Detention Effects Refugee and Ethnic Communities in New York, Thursday, October 5, 2000, at 5:30 p.m., 304 Barnard Hall, Broadway and 117th Street.

Will Coley has studied refugee assistance at the University of Zimbabwe and at the Refugee Studies Programme, University of Oxford, and earned a Master's in Public Policy from the School of International and Public Affairs of Columbia University. Coley has worked with refugee resettlement in North Carolina, taught English for urban refugees in Harare, Zimbabwe and participated in community support to asylum seekers in immigration detention in the United Kingdom.

Since 1997, Coley has served as Project Director for JRS - Detainee and Asylee Assistance Project in New Jersey. He has been developing pastoral and social services for people in the Elizabeth Detention Center. After the United States Immigration Service in New Jersey suspended JRS English classes and a volunteer-led Bible study last year, claiming that JRS should not discuss detention issues with detainees, Coley has continued the volunteer visitor project and plans to expand post-release social services for formerly detained asylees in both New Jersey and New York.

Coley also serves as co-chair of the Detention Committee of the New Jersey Immigration Policy Network and works closely with several pro-bono legal service agencies. He was awarded the first Outstanding Detention Work Award at the 1999 national Detention Watch Network conference.

Jesuit Refugee Service is an international humanitarian non-governmental organization formed under the auspices of the Catholic religious order, the Society of Jesus. Since 1981, JRS has accompanied, served and advocated for refugees and asylum seekers in over 40 countries. In New York and New Jersey, JRS provides pastoral, educational and social services for detained asylum seekers in the Elizabeth and Wackenhut Detention Centers and formerly detained asylees.

This lecture is part of the Barnard Forum on Migration, which sponsors special events including lectures, readings, and films exploring issues connected to the movement of people from one part of the world to another. Each year, the Forum hosts distinguished writers and academics that address a broad range of issues relating to questions of migration and social order.

The Barnard Forum on Migration is supported by a bequest establishing the Weiss International Fellowship Fund to bring distinguished scholars in literature and the arts to Barnard. The forum is organized by Caryl Phillips, a prize-winning novelist and the Henry R. Luce Professor of Migration and Social Order. Phillips is the author of six novels, many of them exploring the issues of migration. His latest non-fiction work, The Atlantic Sound, explores the complex notion of what constitutes "home", due to be published in October.

The next Barnard Forum on Migration presentation will be at 7:00 p.m., November 16, 2000, McIntosh Student Center, titled Citizen of the World or Migrant? The Writer Relocates, a writer's symposium including Peter Carey, Edmund White and others, and moderated by Leonard Lopate.

Contact: Petra Tuomi, Associate Director of Public Affairs, 212-854-7907 or Sari Globerman, The Forum on Migration, 212-854-9011