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C H A P T E R T W O AN INTERVIEW WITH PABLO ROJAS COPPARI OF THE MIGRANT RIGHTS CENTRE IRELAND J U L I E A N N V E R O N I C A U L I N The Migrant Rights Centre Ireland (MRCI) celebrated its tenth anniversary in 2011. The organization focuses on participation and empowerment of migrants through action groups; training migrants in leadership, media relations, and lobbying the state; and educational outreach to the community through creative projects that convey issues facing migrants. To date, the MRCI has achieved a “bridging” visa for the undocumented, €2.5 million in legal judgments and awards, protections for domestic workers, and reforms in the work permit system. Pablo Rojas Coppari is a strategic advocacy officer at MRCI, with emphasis on irregular migration and trafficking for forced labor. He has a BA in applied languages and an MA in international development and intercultural studies from the University of Lille III, France. Prior to joining the MRCI, Pablo undertook research and casework 39 for former unaccompanied minors seeking asylum with the Dutch Refugee Council, and worked on research projects on language and cultural issues of ethnic minorities across Europe in the European Centre for Minority Issues in Flensburg, Germany. This interview was conducted on March 22, 2012. Julieann Ulin: Can you give us a little background about yourself and about how you came to work with Migrant Rights Centre Ireland? Pablo Coppari: I was a master’s student in international development and intercultural studies at the University of Lille III, France. As part of my master’s, I applied to do an internship with the MRCI here in Dublin. I came four years ago to do a six-month internship with them and have been working here since, first as a caseworker and then as a project worker, always in the area of undocumented migrants and human trafficking for forced labor. JU: In 2011, you celebrated the MRCI’s tenth anniversary. How has it evolved over the last ten years? PC: The MRCI was set up in 2001 by the Missionary Society of St. Columban as a voluntary service concerned mainly with providing information for migrant workers in Ireland. It started with a focus on Filipino migrant workers, since there is a strong connection and historical tie between the Columban missionaries and the Philippines. At that time, it was a voluntary organization focused on providing information to communities that were arriving in Ireland. This was at the beginning of the Celtic Tiger, and there was a big arrival of migrant workers but little to no service at all to migrant communities. There was a need for the provision of consistent and good information to migrant workers who didn’t know about their rights and entitlements or where to get the right information. Then as time progressed, we saw there was a need for more than simple information provision. There was a need for casework to be done and for someone to advocate on behalf of those finding themselves within the system. We managed to get our first funding in 2003 to conduct our first strategic planning. That is when we employed our current director, Siobhán O’Donoghue. From there, the MRCI went 40 Julieann Veronica Ulin on to become a more professional organization, and we evolved from a voluntary organization to a nongovernmental organization with a paid, professional staff. We are now on our third strategic plan. JU: You provide services annually to over five thousand migrant workers. Can you speak about the concerns of those workers and the challenges they face in Ireland today? PC: At the core of the MRCI is the resource center. It is a dropin clinic open from Monday to Wednesday, ten  to four . That’s the time when people can just walk in and get information and get answers to their questions about immigration, employment laws, social welfare, and just talk about their problems. From that resource center, queries and concerns can be routed internally to our different projects or referred externally to other agencies . We do a lot of casework for undocumented migrants, and we also refer them to a legal panel when it comes to employment law and entitlements. We currently have a forced labor project; whenever we identify people who have been exploited or are suffering in forced labor, we refer them internally and assist them in reporting the crime or exiting the...

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