Faculty Friday: Sarah R. Sherman-Stokes
Faculty Friday is a series highlighting members of the Initiative on Cities (IOC) Faculty Advisory Board, by exploring their work on campus and in the city. This week, we are highlighting Sarah R. Sherman-Stokes, Clinical Associate Professor of Law and the Associate Director of the Immigrant’s Rights and Human Trafficking Clinic at BU School of Law.
Diya Ashtakala: Tell me about yourself and what you are currently working on.
Sarah R. Sherman-Stokes: I teach immigration law. I represent immigration detainees, children and adults who are seeking protection. I also represent clients in and around Boston who are facing deportation. In addition to client representation, I also work with organizations at the border to ensure the rights of asylum seekers. In my classes, my students represent refugees, asylum seekers, and unaccompanied children — and they take these cases to trials.
What do you think are the challenges that cities face and what does the future look like?
I think the challenges are many. From my own perspective and based on my own work with immigrants and refugees, I think that, here in Boston, we have a very diverse and vibrant community with folks from all over the world. I think a challenge is how to make them feel fully included, that they are full participants, that they have a stake in what happens here, and that they have a voice in what happens here in the city of Boston. We have an incredible, dynamic, and smart new mayor and I am excited to see what she will do in terms of making sure that this is a city that welcomes refugees and makes them feel included and heard and seen because immigrants and refugees have a lot to contribute to our community.
What can cities do to support immigrants and refugees?
I think there are a number of things on different levels. On one hand, we know that other cities and towns have afforded voting to non-citizens in local elections like city council. So that’s definitely something to do so that it encourages civic participation because we know that they work where we work, shop where we do so they should have a voice and be able to participate. So, this would be one concrete measure. I think there are other ways is to make sure that they feel safe, so that means taking a strong stand against local police participation with ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) and making clear that it is not within the purview of the local police — and that includes police that are stationed in schools — to communicate with ICE and to bring folks to ICE detention. People feel safe in the community when people are commuting to work or going to school or home with their families. They need to know that they can seek help from the police without risking deportation; they need to know that they can go to school safely without risking deportation. Those are really things that we can do on a city level. We can also make choices about public safety that actually prioritize public safety rather than add to the carceral system that increases community contact with the police. We can also make choices that prioritize safety and community over expanding the folks that are in the criminal legal system. I think we can also support immigrant and refugee owned businesses in a big way. So, I think there’s a lot that we can do and I’m excited to see how Mayor Wu is able to deal with it.
How can students become more engaged with cities and play a role in addressing these issues?
Part of it is that we need to get students out of BU and into the cities. It’s really important that we get out of our ivory towers, that we go into the community, that we speak to people about where they are at in their communities, we spend time in the school systems, and in the libraries. The way that we hear and see what the community has to offer and the challenges that the community has, that helps us work with people inside the communities to help solve those problems. We’re not going to be successful as changemakers, as advocates if we’re up in our ivory towers and preaching from above. The more that we can be with the community, the better.
If you were the Mayor of Boston and had unlimited resources, what program or project would you pursue and why?
I would focus on immigration and refugee issues. I think there’s a lot that cities can do. We need to make sure that the culture in cities is more welcoming and inclusive. This includes full participation by all members of the community regardless of immigration status. I think that cities can make available photo identification to folks regardless of immigration status. It’s very hard to access immigration services if you don’t have photo identification, which is a small step. Cities could help people access these services by giving them photo id regardless of immigration status and invest in immigration and refugee owned businesses and enterprises. By supporting them, we can provide voting rights to folks irrespective of their immigration status and we can take a stand against collaborating and cooperating with ICE so that refugees feel safe in our community to go to work, to go to school and live their lives.
What do you love about Boston?
I’ve now lived in Boston for over a decade and what I love is that I keep learning things about Boston. I’ve met some of my closest friends in Boston, and I met my partner in Boston. I’ve had the joy of getting to know different communities in Boston and working with residents of the city at all levels. It’s just a vibrant and diverse community, and I am really grateful for that.
I didn’t grow up in Boston, but I’m excited to be here. I’m excited about the work that’s being done here in Boston, and I’m really excited about the new leadership and presently we have an incredible leadership composed of women of color. I feel very fortunate to be learning from these women and to be seeing the way that they take on leadership roles and the kind of exciting choices that they are making for the future of Boston. We are very lucky to have them at the helm. I have really grown to love Boston.
What is your favorite city and why?
I love so many cities for different reasons. I spent time living in Managua in Nicaragua. I fell in love with that city for all of its quirks and I found an incredible community there. Washington D.C is where I was born, and I have love and affection for Washington D.C and a feeling of nostalgia.