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More than 400 advocates for immigrants gathered to discuss ways to better serve immigrants and immigrant families in the New York area amid new challenges and evolving responses to immigration. The daylong forum took place March 25 at the Sheen Center in Lower Manhattan.
The event featured four panel sessions exploring the challenges facing immigrants and immigrant families in the New York area, and the legal and resettlement response of public, private and nonprofit entities. Panelists sought to place the challenges immigrants face in a broader policy, moral and demographic context—immigrants who have fled violence and lack of basic needs in Central America and Mexico; many are unaccompanied migrant teens and children.
The event’s lead sponsor was archdiocesan Catholic Charities.
“What has impressed me here today is the passion—the passion in this room,” Auxiliary Bishop Nelson J. Perez of the Diocese of Rockville Centre, said during the fourth session, in speaking about the dedication of attendees to help immigrants despite obstacles that make it more difficult.
The fourth session focused on the crucial role of non-legal institutions, with particular focus on Catholic parishes, in ensuring the implementation of programs that benefit immigrants, including presidential executive action initiatives that have been stalled by a federal lawsuit. The executive actions were related to DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) and DAPA (Deferred Action for Parental Accountability).
Bishop Perez and other speakers spoke about the need to focus more on improving communication and collaboration among groups advocating for immigrants, and less on vying for funding programs. “What they need is a voice,” he said, noting the importance of speaking out on behalf of immigrants, and teaching them that despite their lack of resident status they have certain rights—such as asking a lawyer for proof that he or she is a lawyer.
“They belong as part of a living body, of humanity,” Father Eric Cruz, regional coordinator for Catholic Charities in the Bronx, said during the same session, adding that people should keep in mind “the dignity and the respect that this brings.”
Father Cruz, who is also administrator of St. John Chrysostom parish in the Bronx, talked about the significance of embracing immigrants, and noted the gifts and talents they share in their churches, their job sites and throughout their communities.
Shannon Kelly, associate director of the Hudson Valley Services of Catholic Charities Community Services, was also part of the panel. “We see the fruits of our labor,” Ms. Kelly said in talking about staff and volunteers engaging in street outreach to inform immigrants about social and immigration programs available to them.
“We have to be diligent—we have to train volunteers to do exactly what we want them to do,” Ms. Kelly said. She and other panelists spoke of the importance of volunteers not delving into giving certain detailed instructions to immigrants—instructions that legally should come only from attorneys.
Other speakers included Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio of the Diocese of Brooklyn; Bishop William Murphy of the Diocese of Rockville Centre; and Msgr. Kevin Sullivan, executive director of archdiocesan Catholic Charities.
The many moments of applause and positive reaction were evidence that attendees heard the call to action. “They (the event discussions) were very informative, very interesting,” Charlotte Sohr, a volunteer Spanish-language interpreter with Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of Newark, N.J., said in an interview.
