Katie Ray-Jones: Violence Hotline and Immigration-Related Issues

katie ray-jones: Of these calls, 7,053 evoked immigration-related issues up nearly 30 per cent from 2015, according to Metro News. Katie Ray-Jones, the hotline's CEO, said many of the callers were not U.S. citizens and were warned by their abusers that they and their families would be deported if the abuse was reported to the police. The National Domestic Violence Hotline, established by Congress in 1996 and partly reliant on federal funding, says in its newly released annual report that it responded to 323,660 phone calls, texts and online contacts in 2016. In some cases, she said, the abusers had threatened to call federal immigration authorities. One worrisome development, Ray-Jones said, is that relatives, friends and neighbours of immigrant abuse victims who might have reported abuse in the past are now wary of doing so for fear they might be targeted for deportation. Ray-Jones said the surge in immigration-related calls became noticeable in mid-2016 at a time when Donald Trump was clinching the Republican presidential nomination and the GOP platform was echoing his calls for tough enforcement of immigration laws. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.