The Muslim Ban: What You Need To Know

Senate Briefing, Feb. 14, 2-3 PM, Senate Dirksen: Room SD-G50
Sponsored by Amnesty International USA, Church World Service, and Human Rights
First
For more information, please contact Naureen Shah, nshah@aiusa.org

WRITTEN STATEMENT OF COLUMBIA LAW STUDENT KATE BERRY

Provided to Senate Briefing on the Muslim Ban

February 14, 2017

My name is Kate Berry. I am a second-year JD student at Columbia Law School. I

grew up in Seattle, Washington.

At a law school, when the government releases a new policy or executive order, it is
often treated as an opportunity to impart a lesson: new decrees offer ready-made
illustrations of administrative law principles, the infamous law classroom hypo
come to life, ripe for discussion and dissection in an unemotional, apolitical manner,
focused on the skills law school imparts: argument, analysis, logic.

This executive order was different. Yes, our lecture halls buzzed with detailed legal
analysis in the days after the order was published. But for many of us, it was
impossible to separate the personal from the political. This order inspired a different
reactionemotions of disbelief, fear, angershared among students at colleges and
universities around the country. This executive order was an attack on refugees. It
was an attack on families from those seven suspended countries. It was an attack
on students and professors across the country who have come here to learn and to
teach. And it was an attack on scholarship, on learning, on collaboration.

At Columbia Law, I am a student in our Human Rights Clinic, a year-long class that
prepares students for lifelong careers in social justice advocacy. We take classes on
how to be human rights advocates, and we work on human rights projects with
partners around the world.

My Clinic colleagues are a diverse group of students and supervisors, from six
continents, all united in our commitment to human rights and social justice. The
Clinic illustrates the value of classrooms and workspaces that include voices from
around the world. My knowledge is deeper, my advocacy stronger because of the
input, critique, and support of my colleagues. The hyper-nationalism and fear of the
Other embodied in the recent executive order makes me fear that my colleagues
fierce human rights advocates and talented lawyerseven if not currently banned
from the U.S., could be next to be excluded from this country, or could be more
likely to experience discrimination while they study and work here.

This fall, my Clinic colleagues and I embarked on a collaboration with Sanaa Center
for Strategic Studies, a think tank based in the capital city of Yemen. Our partners at
Sanaa Center are tireless experts, committed to improving security and rights in
Yemen. When Sanaa Center came to us with an urgent concern about their country,
we felt incredibly lucky to have the opportunity to collaborate with them.

The average 25-year-old in Yemen has lived through 15 conflicts in his or her
lifetime. Sanaa Center explained to us how they had seen serious mental health
consequences for their friends, colleagues, and families. And they raised critical
research questions: How are these conflicts harming the mental health of Yemenis
across the country? What measures could improve health services? What does
international human rights law say about mental health? Is there a right to mental
health? If so, what must governments do, and how can they be held to this
obligation?

We were excited to deepen our collaboration, and for the past five months we have
been planning a workshop with our colleagues from Yemen. Then the immigration
ban was announced. Overnight, our research was halted. Our partners are no longer
able to travel to the United States for our necessary meetings, methodology
workshops with international experts, and to plan a much-needed survey on mental
health in Yemen. Since the order, instead of focusing our energies on completing our
legal analyses, our resources have been diverted to the difficult logistics of trying to
move the workshop to another country. We have been arbitrarily cut off from our
colleagues and friends, people we have worked with all year, with whom we have
shared meals, learned from, debated with about foreign policy, law, culture, and
interdisciplinary research methods.

Our broader law school and university community also no longer has access to our
colleagues from Yemen, who are crucial voices from Yemeni civil society, working in
the places that we study in our classes. Does the Administration really think that
cutting off people from sharing experiences, knowledge, and ideas is the way to
ensure global security? What is the benefit to our communities, universities,
businesses, and policymakers from being distanced from new ideas, different
voices, or, indeed, human rights advocates who are working to improve security in
countries experiencing armed conflict?

There is an urgent need for a study of mental health in Yemen, as the recent conflict
has affected an alarming number of individuals, placed millions on the verge of
famine, and dismantled the remaining institutional structures. This study would
support efforts for a more sustainable peace. Without health services and
protection, the suffering of families and communities is exacerbated and they are
further divided.

Put simply: this is research which will be used to improve mental health care in a
country suffering one of the worst humanitarian crises in the world today. The
executive order significantly and concretely inhibits this research. The executive
order thus harms efforts to improve health. This executive order harms work to
promote lasting peace and security.

This story of my teams research is just one small example among many of critical
research and advocacy harmed by the recent executive order. At this briefing and in
the media, others have shared poignantly of families separated, education
interrupted, and research obstructed.

By allowing this executive order to stand, we are preventing ourselves from hearing
about the nature and causes of some of the worst humanitarian crises of our times,
and from learning from experienced professionals with ideas for how to improve
rights and security. Not only are we ignoring those suffering, but we handicap
ourselves and our own national security efforts. In refusing to welcome their
viewpoints, we undercut our own education, our ability as a nation to contribute to
global order and peace.

Engagement with experts, like those from Sanaa Centerfrom places suffering
from instability, famine, and conflictis an essential tool our country can use to
advance security abroad and at home. In our quest to protect our country, we must
not block out the voices beyond our borders. We cannot suspend our way to
peace and security.