Charities’ Assistance to Immigrants Follows Gospel Example

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Optimism, resilience and determination are three essential attributes for anyone striking out in a new land. Jovins Dorestan possesses them in spades.

He was fortunate to be standing in the doorway of his Port-Au-Prince home on Jan. 12, 2010, when a magnitude 7.0 earthquake struck, killing hundreds of thousands of his countrymen. Hurled from the doorway, the 26-year-old policeman was pinned under a toppled telephone pole, which crushed his left leg. A stranger carried Dorestan to the nearest hospital where his leg was amputated below the knee. When that amputation became infected, a second amputation was performed. With no place to put him and no home to take him to, doctors left him by the side of a road. That’s where American volunteer nurses found him.

They arranged for him to be flown to the United States on a 90-day tourist visa for emergency treatment. Today, he is enrolled as an engineering major at Rockland Community College. With a solid command of English acquired in just the year and a few months he’s been here, he explained that his long-term goal is to take what he is learning here to benefit his country.

“I lost a leg but not my life,” he said. “So I can continue my new life. I feel I have to do my best in order to get my degree and in the future I want to help my country.”

Like thousands of other immigrants who seek the help of Catholic Charities Immigration Services each year, Jovins Dorestan has a compelling back story.

The Department of Immigration Services assists 4,800 people directly and another 40,000 who get questions answered on a Catholic Charities hotline that provides information in 18 languages. The New York Immigration Hotline is 1-800-566-7636.

A multicultural staff of attorneys, immigration counselors, refugee resettlement caseworkers and outreach and education coordinators provide immigration advice, legal representation, refugee reception and placement, information and referral services, classes and workshops.

“Our main service is providing accurate and timely information to immigrants,” explained Msgr. Kevin Sullivan, executive director of Catholic Charities. “That is important because there is a lot of bad information provided and sometimes it’s provided by people who want to take advantage of immigrants by asking them for money for services that will not provide any benefit or eventually could cause them significant legal problems.”

When he was released from a rehabilitation center in Rockland County, Dorestan walked the two miles to reach Catholic Charities Community Services of Rockland on his new prosthetic leg. Staff there helped him find a small apartment and brought him clothing. But most urgent was his need to regularize his immigration status. Although his treatment required long-term care, when he first arrived at Catholic Charities his visa was counting down and he faced the real possibility of being obliged to return to his homeland.

Catholic Charities Immigration Services intervened. Jodi Ziesemer, a Catholic Charities Immigration representative, filed a petition with the U.S. Department of Citizenship and Immigration Service for deferred action status, a discretionary status reserved for emergency situations, and rarely granted in recent years. In April, Dorestan received word he’d been granted this status. “I cannot tell you how I felt when I received this call,” he said. “If there is a word stronger than happy, I would use it.”

“It’s very difficult to get. Only a couple of hundred cases are granted each year,” Ms. Ziesemer said. “So now we have applied for TPS (temporary protected status), which is for people who can’t return to their countries because of war or national disaster, and Jovins will almost certainly be granted TPS. He’s an exceptional human being. He learned English so well. He’s enrolled in school. He’s just been willing to do whatever he’s able to do. He’s really quite amazing.”

The economic downturn and a generally anti-immigrant climate in much of the country is driving some questionable policy. Msgr. Sullivan sited one example, the federal Secure Communities program, which he said actually makes immigrant communities less secure. In April Governor Cuomo suspended Secure Communities in New York state. Msgr. Sullivan agreed with the decision.

“The Secure Communities act had the intent of wanting to make our communities safer by making it easier to apprehend and deport immigrants who had committed very serious violent crimes,” he explained. “In fact, the way that it was implemented, thousands of those who were not part of the intent of that legislation were apprehended and deported. It would be my observation that the more you drive immigrants into the shadows and have them not want to interact with law enforcement, the worse the situation is. The more you get immigrants, whatever their status, to have confidence in the local police, you create more secure communities.”

Of course, one factor causing anti-immigrant sentiment is the flood of illegal immigrants, mostly from Mexico and Central America, into the country. Estimates put the undocumented population at approximately 12 to 14 million. But Msgr. Sullivan argues that issue has to be addressed in a logical, humane way.

“It is both unrealistic and imprudent to attempt to deport 14 million people,” he said. “Catholic Charities does not encourage illegal immigration. We believe a country does have a right to set just fair and humane (immigration) policies. At the same time, a person who is here without documents is still a human being with basic human rights.”

The face of the undocumented isn’t always what you would think. Daniel T. first fled to the United States from Mexico when he was 13 to escape a brutal, alcoholic father. He subsisted as a migrant worker until he was caught by the immigration service and deported. As soon as he was able, he fled back to the United States where he worked in Vermont as a farm laborer. Apprehended again when he was about 16 he was sent to the Children’s Village Center, a privately run shelter in Westchester County where he was placed in deportation proceedings.

A federal law allows unaccompanied children fleeing abuse to remain in the United States. All that is required is an order from a family court judge. However, in New York there was no avenue into the state family court system for a child held under federal jurisdiction. Because Children’s Village is contracted with the federal government, the Westchester County Department of Social Services refused to bring Daniel’s case before a family court.

Catholic Charities, working in collaboration with St. John’s Law School, pursued Daniel’s case and won a groundbreaking legal victory. In February 2010 Family Court Judge Kathie E. Davidson ruled that Daniel was at “imminent risk of harm” and placed him in the custody of the local department of social services. Her decision was subsequently upheld in November 2010 and a New York Appeals court sustained that decision on Feb. 22.

“At its essence what the case does is it orders that any child who is in New York and who is abused or neglected is deserving of New York’s protection,” explained Mario Russell, senior attorney for Catholic Charities Community Services who spearheaded Daniel’s case. “That’s any child, whether it’s a child from Kansas, a child from Manhattan or a child from Mexico.” Daniel is now in residential housing and working toward his GED.

As to why Catholic Charities is involved in immigration work, Msgr. Sullivan provided a simple answer: “The Gospel said we have a responsibility to deal humanely and justly with the stranger in our midst.”