November 16, 2023: An update on Claudine

A few years ago, about the time Covid hit us all, I got a call from the Seacoast Interfaith Sanctuary Coalition (SISC), an organization that aids immigrants in the area. They asked if Holy Trinity would like to team with Portsmouth’s Temple Israel to “companion” a Cameroonian woman named Claudine who’d just been released from Strafford County Jail. Her “crime” was that she missed a legal meeting because she didn’t understand what or when it was, completely understandable when you learn that she was still in the process of learning English, which would be her fourth language. Holy Trinity and Temple Israel both agreed, and soon Pastor Tim, Ellen (the Temple rep) and I began to meet and plan.

Claudine was living in a home in Dover with a single mom and her teenage daughter. Ellen and I began regular visits. We learned that in her home country she’d been a paralegal, but that skill didn’t transfer to the American legal community. Needing work quickly, she’d taken a week-long introduction to being a nurses’ aid as soon as she arrived in the States.

“Team Claudine” formed with a dozen Holy Trinity folks who called, texted, and visited to get to know her and discover how we could help. She found herself a job as a nurses’ assistant at a Dover nursing home. Without a car, she walked to and from her job, and when Team Claudine discovered it was a 5-mile walk each way and that her shift ended after midnight, we quickly organized a team of drivers. In addition, both HT and the Temple donated funds to help with her groceries.

Claudine’s home in Dover was only a block away from one of the Catholic churches. She attended regularly, but as the only Black person, she felt too shy to approach the altar for communion or even to talk to the priest. We started taking her our Covid communion kits and sharing them together. We went for long walks with long talks. She sewed for some of us who brought her fabric. We learned about the elderly mother she’d been forced to leave in Cameroon along with a daughter and some grandkids. A second daughter was attending school in France.

None of us knew what had happened in Cameroon that made her need to escape. We weren’t allowed to ask, and Claudine’s asylum attorney had made it very clear that she wasn’t to talk about it outside of a courtroom setting. A lot has happened between those Dover days and now, including two different jobs and two separate living arrangements, all in Dover, and then an additional move to the Dartmouth area as a traveling nurses’ aid. She was unsure where she belonged and where to find work. So when a Cameroonian woman she knew from home who lives in Las Vegas invited her to share her apartment, promising her she could easily get a nursing position in the city, she took the next plane out.

That was almost two years ago. Loving the job and finally earning enough to live on, she now has her own apartment. Last spring she was able to fly her daughter from France to join her for a visit. The best news of all is that she finally has a date scheduled for her asylum hearing.
These successes have given Claudine the faith to take the next step. Last spring she enrolled at Las Vegas College in their LPN program. It’s hard: fulltime nursing student and still parttime nurses’ aid. But she knows it’s the right path.

We communicate back and forth routinely, and in her last message she wrote, “Please please please ask the good people at Holy Trinity to pray for me.” I said yes, of course I will.

August 2023: Update on Claudine

Since its very beginnings, Holy Trinity has involved itself with welcoming immigrants and studying immigration issues. Most recently, members have worked with Ascentria Care Alliance to companion the Khyber family from Afghanistan as they become familiarized with American ways. We did this through a team effort, working with multiple congregations and organizations throughout the Seacoast. The Khybers have now obtained subsidized housing in Portsmouth and are setting out on their own.
Prior to getting acquainted with the Khybers, Holy Trinity worked in collaboration with Temple Israel in Portsmouth to companion Claudine Bertille from Cambodia. Claudine arrived in the States several years ago, eventually ending up in Rockingham County and finding temporary housing with a Dover family. In her home country, Claudine worked as a para-legal, but with English as her third (!) language and with Cambodians practicing the English legal system, finding employment here in her field was impossible. Instead, she found herself various jobs working in nursing homes throughout the area as a nursing assistant.
Several in our congregation had the opportunity to meet Claudine when she worshipped with us just after COVID was under control enough for us to meet in person for services. Before that, she joined us regularly by zoom. Holy Trinity and Temple Israel both contributed monthly to a food budget for Claudine so that she could help with finances for the generous folks who gave her housing. Another thing she needed was transportation to and from her job, and to avoid her having to rely on public transportation, a dozen folks from Holy Trinity created a schedule and drove her to and from work in Dover.
When requests went out for traveling nursing assistants in the Dartmouth area, she bravely hopped on a bus and took herself to apply for a job that paid more. She found temporary accommodation near work there.
After only a couple of months in Dartmouth, a fellow Cambodian refugee who had settled in Las Vegas promised her a good job and invited her to share her apartment. The next thing we knew, our brave Claudine flew herself out to Las Vegas to start yet another new life!
Another year has gone by already. Not only is she working full time, but she’s moved herself into her own apartment and enrolled herself in a nursing school program. I spoke with her by phone several weeks ago; she told me joyfully that her daughter in France was coming for a visit. She also has a date with a judge to begin the asylum process. We don’t know Claudine’s story before becoming an immigrant. Those of us who “companioned” her were encouraged never to ask why she made the decision to leave her home in Cambodia for a country half-way across the world to start anew, because any variances in the story might harm her chances for asylum. We know the circumstances must have been dire; she left an aging mother, an older daughter, and several grandchildren behind, fully knowing she might never see them again.
This we know: Claudine is a brave, brave woman. Those of us who are privileged to know her feel gifted. She is a woman of prayer and deep faith, and she has taught us much about what it means to be an immigrant. –Dot Kasik

Immigration News: Claudine

Many of us enjoyed getting to know Claudine while she was living in Dover. This is an update on where she is now and what’s happening in her life.

Claudine is an immigrant from Cameroon who was introduced to Holy Trinity through the Seacoast Interfaith Sanctuary Coalition. Cameroon is in the midst of civil war, and things became so dangerous for Claudine that she had to escape, leaving behind a daughter, grandchildren, and an aging mother. She arrived in the States about four years ago, applied for asylum, and was assigned a lawyer. Finding a way to earn a living and support herself was immediate—housing, food, and legal fees. In Cameroon she’d been a paralegal, but she wouldn’t have qualified for a similar position here without advanced education. But something she could qualify for with minimal training was to become an LNA, which she did in rapid time. With the current desperate need for medical aids in the States, she’d be able to find work wherever she ended up. Things were looking positive.

But then she hit a snag, a rather large snag. Through miscommunication with her assigned attorney, she missed a court date and was immediately arrested and put in detention.

How long she spent in jail, we’re not sure, but we know that she was moved several times with the final period of incarceration in the Stratford County Detention Center. And that’s where the Seacoast Interfaith Sanctuary Coalition (SISC) found and rescued her. Church funds were collected throughout Dover and surrounding communities, her bail money was paid, and SISC found a room for her to rent in a member’s home. She procured a job in a Dover nursing home.

Then SISC contacted Holy Trinity and asked if, along with Portsmouth Jewish Temple, we’d like to companion Claudine; we immediately agreed. We set up the “Team Claudine” and got to work. Over the next five months we helped with grocery money and provided transportation. Most of all, we each had the blessings of friendship. Things seemed to be going well, but Claudine continued to be challenged again and again. She lost her job due to a misunderstanding. Her host family moved away, and she had to seek out new housing. But enterprising Claudine found herself a temporary job and new housing.

One day a phone call came from a medical facility near Hanover. They needed help. If Claudine could be there the next day, they’d have both job and housing available. Intrepid, brave, and more than a little desperate, she boarded the next bus and became a “traveling LNA.”

Her journey continues. Today she shares an apartment with another Cameroon woman in Las Vegas, Nevada. Things may change again soon. Back in her home country on the other side of the world, her mother suffers from dementia. Claudine wants to see her one more time, hopefully before her mother no longer remembers her. With donations collected by the church she attends in Las Vegas and from Portsmouth’s United Unitarian Church, her new attorney is helping her apply for a Temporary Protected Status (TPS) travel authorization that will allow her to leave the US for a visit to Cameroon.

As her life changes, SISC will continue accompanying her. She and I often message back and forth. Every one of her notes ends with “I pray for your blessing in God every day.” Let’s continue to do likewise. ◦

"Patricia"

“Patricia” lived with her family, including her 4-year-old daughter Florencia, in Cameroon. Patricia and her husband worked and were active in their community, ministering to the poor through the work of their church congregation. The problem? They were publically and politically vocal when they saw things wrong with the government. One night, a neighbor arrived to tell Patricia that her husband, mother, and sister had all been murdered. Knowing she and her daughter’s lives were also under threat, she packed up and fled. After spending a year and a half a year in a refugee camp, she and her daughter were finally able to come to the United States. A cousin living in Pennsylvania helped get her connected to appropriate legal sources, and she obtained her work permit. Now as she awaits her asylum hearing, through the help of her cousin’s local church, she has a job and a place to live.

Thousands are in Patricia’s situation, thousands more even less secure. Claudine, for instance, is still in the process. We read stories like theirs and we ask ourselves, “What can I do?” Here’s a suggestion: Go to your church/synagogue/mosque denomination’s national website and type “immigration” in the search bar.

Below are some of the things you can find.

• The United Church of Christ: You can become an active immigration “accompanier.”
• The Roman Catholic Church: Their Immigrant Integration Project tutors immigrants in language, civil education, skills for job hunting, etc.
• Evangelical Lutheran Church in America: Lutheran World Relief will distribute your handmade quilt, and the Lutheran Immigrant and Refugee Services will send your cards and letters to folks in detention.
• Jesuit Refugee Services: You can join a Youth Refugee Support team.
• American Friends Service Committee: Learn how your congregation can offer sanctuary.
• American Methodist Church: You can advocate for the comprehensive reform of the US immigration system.
• Presbyterian Church USA: Join the Mid Counsel Work Group on Immigration.
• WMO International Ministries—American Baptist Church: Join the White Cross Project.
• Muslims for Progressive Values: Donate through the Muslim Legal Funds for Immigration.

Each site offers ideas for service, conversations to join, and ways to donate both time and talents. Each is informative. Most include true stories about immigrant experience. The more you read, the more you’ll be inspired. You’ll want to get involved; you’ll want to ask others to join you!

Companioning News

Those of us who’ve had the pleasure of getting to know Claudine are enjoying her immensely. Here’s what’s happened so far. Her work authorization card arrived early this month, and she’s applying for jobs. In May she’ll complete a final college course for a degree in Paralegal Studies, the field in which she worked in Cameroon. She’s joined an ESL class at the Dover Adult Learning Center. Her English is already quite good, but she feels she needs more fluency for a paralegal job.

One of the Holy Trinity volunteers is helping her in writing two resumes, one for work as a CNA (which is what she did in Massachusetts when she first arrived in the US), and a second to eventually apply for a paralegal position. Volunteers from Portsmouth’s Temple Israel are researching how to transfer her Massachusetts CNA license to New Hampshire and are getting her connected to medical care and health insurance.

Claudine lives in a “safe home” with a family in Dover. Safe homes are provided by volunteers at no cost until the person being companioned qualifies for work and has an income. During January, February, and March members at Temple Israel contributed $200.00 a month to help with Claudine’s food costs. Holy Trinity would like to do the same for April, May, and June. If you’d like to contribute, give whatever amount through an extra offering, making sure we know it’s for Claudine.

How do we get involved?

Immigration, Detention, Refugees, Children-in-Captivity, Incarceration. The words encompass so much fear. Each word connects to a human story, a story of suffering and deprivation and distress. Their stories make us shutter. We want to do something. We want to help, and yet we feel helpless. What can we do? How do we get involved? Asking those questions puts us in the path to action. Before we can act we have to understand something about what we’re dealing with. Let’s explore just how scary those beginning words are:

• Over 50,000 children and adults currently languish in immigrant jails and prisons in the United States.
• Immigrants in incarceration lack access to court-appointed attorneys, phone calls, and speedy trials.
• Incarcerated immigrants are subject to medical neglect, sexual and physical assault, and human rights abuse.
• Private prisons, county or jails all profit off their misery. (freedomforimmigrants.org)

We want change. We want healing. We want to make a difference. One person might not feel she can accomplish much, but many persons banded together can. So for those of us looking for information, looking for a group conversation to join, looking to get to work, the four organizations listed below are a great beginning.

Freedom for Immigrants (freedomforimmigrants.org) works across borders to end immigration detention completely. Theirs is a world-wide effort. Until immigrant detention is abolished, they work to end the isolation with visits, friendships, and connections. Fundraising is an important part of this work. Detained immigrants sometimes have the opportunity to be released on a cash bond — which is like bail — while fighting their cases. Once bonded out, they are eight times more likely to win their immigration cases. But without the ability to pay a bond, many individuals are forced to languish in detention, away from their loved ones and communities. You’ll find a link on their website where you can contribute.

Every. Last. One. (everylastone.org) particularly caters to the plight of children caught up in migration and immigration problems. They work to connect children to their families, get them released from detention, and legally sponsored. Family advocation, research, and education about current and past U.S. immigration policy are their goals. They partner with research centers, universities, and community and national civil rights organizations.

Never Again Action—N.H. (neveragainaction.nh.org) has a website and Facebook page where you can read stories and keep informed. They connect you to your politicians. Want to go to work? They give you the tools for signing petitions, writing postcards, joining letter-writing campaigns, and joining local car rallies.

Action Network (actionnetwork.org) offers petitions to sign and letter-writing campaigns as well, plus they give information on both local and wider conversation groups to join and activities. So now let’s get to work!

Companioning an Immigrant

When Kurt and I joined HT, we found a church that enthusiastically supported immigrants. When the Viet Nam War ended, many of its citizens, as well as folks from Thailand, came to the States to find new lives. Holy Trinity helped in finding housing, lending financial support, collecting food and warm clothing, etc. Some of you will remember when Warren Galle led a program to aid seamen arriving in Portsmouth on the salt and oil carriers. If you walk into the BGLibrary and look up, you’ll see a statue of a lion-like creature wood-sculpted by an immigrant from Croatia who used to worship with us. And for the last twenty years we’ve enjoyed partnering with Imanuel Indonesians.

We now have another opportunity. We’ve been invited by the Seacoast Interfaith Sanctuary Coalition (SISC) to “companion” a woman from Cameroon who’ll be moving to Dover late December. Companioning an immigrant includes offering friendship and support through phone calls, rides to appointments, occasional food help, etc.

Companionship in this case will be two-fold as we’ll be sharing the responsibility with Portsmouth’s Temple Israel.

Let me tell you about our companion. Claudine arrived in the States five years ago and applied for asylum under international law. She had worked in a law office in her home country, and she was able to secure a work permit quite soon after arriving here. An immigration attorney was appointed for her, and the asylum process began. Things looked promising for her until she missed a scheduled hearing. She was arrested and spent the next four years being transferred, jail to jail, until finally ending up in the Stafford County facility. She just recently secured bond and is living temporarily in Nashua in a “safe home,” that is, with a private volunteer who’s opened her home to folks like Claudine. While in Nashua she’s been taking classes to be certified as a legal assistant so that she can go back to work as soon as she’s allowed to do so. (An immigrant on bond awaiting asylum hearing must wait a full year from bond before being granted work papers.)

When Claudine moves into her new home in Dover she’ll be assigned a new attorney and once again begin the process of asylum. That’s when we’ll be given her full name, address, and contact information. And we can begin active companioning!

Interested? Contact Dot Kasik

On Immigration, Detention, and Asylum-Seeking

On Immigration, Detention, and Asylum-Seeking Thanks to all who attended the Wednesday evening Forum on October 21: “Detention 101” with Peggy Keischnick. Detention 101 is a program sponsored by Seacoast Interfaith Sanctuary Coalition (SISC), an organization concerned with issues of immigration and—most especially—getting just and fair treatment for people seeking asylum in the States. As a follow-up to that presentation, week by week I’ll submit a fact on the present situation of immigration, detention, and asylum-seeking in the Seacoast area. Holy Trinity has an outstanding reputation for supporting immigration, from hosting Vietnamese and Thai folks after that war to supporting an immigrant family from Croatia to sharing its physical facility with a group of Indonesian friends. If you want to keep these kinds of effort alive, SISC is a wonderful way to help. For more information, call Dot Kasik.

This week’s Bite Size Information on Immigrant Detention: “Did you know that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is currently detaining over 50,000 people on any given day? This is a big jump from 1994 when we detained an average of 6,800 people. Policy changes across both Democratic and Republican administrations have impacted these numbers. In 1996 two policies introduced had a particularly large impact: The Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penality Act (AEDPA) and the Illegal Immigrant Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act. “

Immigrant Detention - Presentation and Discussion

Did you know that people are currently being detained at the Strafford County Jail right here in the Seacoast for issues related to their immigration status? Why are people being detained here and across the country? Where are they from? How long are they being detained? What is it like to be in detention? What can we do to help? Seacoast Interfaith Sanctuary Coalition will be here to share information and answer questions.