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