Posted on 11/08/2001 3:27:18 PM PST by manumission
WASHINGTON, DC -- National Legal and Policy Center today blasted the United Way of New York and its September 11 Fund for making a grant of $171,000 to the Legal Aid Society, a group that is apparently providing legal assistance to eight individuals detained as a result of the investigation into the September 11 terrorist attacks.
In a letter faxed to Joshua Gotbaum, executive director of the United Way of New York, NLPC demanded that the United Way immediately seek to recover the funds, seek an accounting of resources expended on behalf of the detainees, and require that future grants only go to groups whose agendas are "not inconsistent with the interests of actual or potential terror victims."
The letter read, in part, "Americans generously donated to the September 11 Fund to help the victims of the terrorist attacks. They did not contribute to help the terrorists, their supporters or people arrested or detained because they violated immigration laws."
The September 11 Fund had received $334 million in contributions and pledges as of October 26, according to its website. On November 1, the Fund announced the grant to LAS to "provide emergency civil legal assistance to low-income attack victims."
On November 1, the Wall Street Journal reported in an article ("Detainees on INS Breaches Held in Solitary Status") that the LAS was providing civil legal assistance to eight detainees in the Special Housing Unit of the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn.
The article quoted Janet Sabel, identified as the head of the immigration division of LAS, as saying that the detainees "are being held in isolation, treated as security risks and interviewed by the FBI with almost no opportunity to first get counsel."
Through its Legal Services Accountability Project, NLPC has monitored abuses by legal services programs since 1993. NLPC Chairman Ken Boehm said, "After exposing and documenting hundreds of instances of waste, fraud, and abuse over the years, this would seem to be the most troubling betrayal of the public trust we have ever come across."
NLPC President Peter Flaherty said, "With all the questions about the fund raising on behalf of victims, this has to be the most shocking development yet."
Mr. Joshua Gotbaum
Executive Director
The September 11th Fund
United Way of New York City
2 Park Avenue
New York, NY 10016
Dear Mr. Gotbaum:
Americans generously donated to the September 11th Fund to help the victims of the terrorist attacks.
They did not contribute to help the terrorists, their supporters, or people arrested or detained because they violated immigration laws.
On October 3, the September 11th Fund announced a $171,000 grant to the Legal Aid Society (LAS). Your group's own press release stated the purpose of the LAS grant was to "provide emergency civil legal assistance to low-income attack victims."
On November 1, the Wall Street Journal reported in an article ("Detainees on INS Breaches Held in Solitary Status") that the Legal Aid Society was providing civil legal assistance to eight detainees in the Special Housing Unit of the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn.
The article quoted Janet Sabel, identified as the head of the immigration division of New York's Legal Aid Society, as saying that the detainees "are being held in isolation, treated as security risks and interviewed by the FBI with almost no opportunity to first get counsel."
The article further identified the eight detainees as clients of Ms. Sabel and stated that "Unlike people charged criminally, Immigration and Naturalization Services detainees aren't entitled to government-appointed lawyers."
At a time when the public is questioning why so few of the victims have received aid they desperately need from groups that have raised hundreds of millions of dollars, it is disturbing that LAS so quickly rushed to provide free civil legal help to the detainees.
On November 6, Congress held a hearing regarding whether funds donated by the public for September 11th victims could be ethically reprogrammed for other charitable purposes such as blood bank support.
We believe the public will be outraged - and justifiably so - to learn that funds from the September 11th Fund are going to support a group which is apparently providing civil legal help to those jailed on violations of immigration law in the wake of the September 11 terrorist attacks.
If the September 11th Fund is to have any integrity whatsoever to the public and those who have so generously donated to it, it should:
We ask that you address this situation, as we have specified, without delay.
Sincerely,
Kenneth Boehm, Chairman, and Peter Flaherty, President
I thought the Methodist Church would Greg Craig to do the job.
the legal-aid society isn't gonna use the united way $$$ for the terrorist defense......
they're gonna use "$$$" from a different fund.....
when are "you people" gonna learn?
this is just like the "national endowment for the arts"... see? now, isn't that easy?
you just have to know what the "definition" of "IS" is........
In liberal-think, perpetrators and suspects are victims, donja know?
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