Refugees Find Little Refuge in U.S.

Poverty, civil war, and political persecution are sufficient reasons for thousands of Central Americans to leave their countries and come to the United States. But not all are sufficient reasons for the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) to let them stay. And while they await their fate, churches are trying to help them.

In order to receive political asylum, refugees must demonstrate well-founded fear of persecution or life danger facing them upon their return. Desire for a job and a better life are not sufficient grounds for asylum.

More than 50,000 Central Americans immigrated to the United States last year, mostly from Nicaragua, El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala. They continue to come at a rate of at least 200 each day, exhausted and nearly penniless after bribing Mexican officials and paying the “coyotes” who guide them to the United States. Some tell stories of beatings and rapes.

Most enter the United States through Brownsville, Texas. This city on the Mexican border is the focus of a new detention policy on the part of the ins. Previously, once newcomers filed political asylum papers at INS border centers, they could attend their court hearings in the cities of their final destination. Most newcomers traveled to Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York, Miami, or Houston. Miami remains the most popular destination, especially among the recent wave of Nicaraguan refugees.

The new policy calls for a one-day, while-you-wait adjudication for asylum applicants. But shabby paperwork and a shortage of legal counsel limit refugees’ chances of proving political persecution.

Since the new policy went into effect last December 16, more than 90 percent of the asylum applicants have been turned down. The result: a shortage of immigration judges to hear months of backlogged appeals.

“The current detention policy in Brownsville is inappropriate,” explained Don Hammond, World Relief’s director of refugee resettlement in the United States. “There needs to be a proper adjudication of these people’s cases. Now everything is being done quickly, and they are just not getting a fair hearing. I don’t think everyone who comes across the border should be allowed to stay, but there has to be a good faith effort made for these people.”

The biggest headache: those denied asylum as well as those awaiting an appeal are not eligible for work permits under the new policy. While some Salvadorians are being deported, thus far Nicaraguans, for political reasons, are not.

“This is not the humanitarian way to deal with this issue,” continued Hammond. “Because they can’t work, there are people in Miami and Brownsville who are basically being starved out of our country unless voluntary agencies, churches, and humanitarian agencies get involved in paying their rent, getting them fed, and clothing them.”

Help From Churches

When a temporary restraining order suspended the detention policy for five weeks in January and February, thousands of immigrants left south Texas for their final destination. For most, that destination was Miami, and churches in the Miami area did their part to help.

For six weeks, the city of Miami opened Bobby Madura Stadium to 250 refugees. Church volunteers brought food and shared their faith. When the Baltimore Orioles arrived for training, churches provided vans and buses to transport refugees.

“This was a very small number of the thousands of Nicaraguans that we have in the community, but it dramatized the situation and brought it out into the open,” recounted Tom Willey, director of World Relief’s Miami office.

When Bill Iverson, pastor of the Shenandoah Presbyterian Church, learned that the stadium had to be vacated, he offered temporary accommodations for some refugees at his church. Since the session had not yet met to give permission to use the church, all 53 guests spent the first night at the Iverson home, where furniture was crowded into the corners to make room for cots. In the course of the next two weeks, other churches helped Shenandoah Presbyterian with meals and provided odd jobs for the visitors.

As a result of cooperative efforts in moving people from the stadium, area church leaders formed an evangelical task force. Coordinated by World Relief, churches and community agencies are sharing information and extra resources where possible.

But extra resources are rare. “There is no funding,” lamented World Relief’s Willey. He explained that due to a drop-off in the numbers of Cuban refugees, they are able to handle the current situation. “But the number of Cubans is beginning to pick up again.” He said the Southern Baptists and Nazarenes are especially involved in assisting refugees.

For many the situation remains tenuous. Willey recounted a phone call from a pastor who came upon a newly arrived family with only $200 among them. “The pastor went to the Baptist Home Mission board; they gave him another $300, and they were able to get them into an apartment. The church provided food and furniture and clothing. They have the first month’s rent paid; but how is this family going to pay the second month’s rent if they can’t work?”

By Dan Maul.

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