Thread: "Millions of immigrant stories later..." meet CLI

Millions of immigrant stories later, CLINIC celebrates 20 years
By Patricia Zapor

At least as far back as the 1930s, the U.S. Catholic Church has been helping immigrants wade through the legal quagmires of immigration law. But it wasn't until the 1988 creation of the Catholic Legal Immigration Network, known as CLINIC, that the church's role in providing legal services to immigrants was formalized and expanded nationwide.

As CLINIC marks its 20th anniversary this August, people who've been a part of its history marvel at how far the network has come.

From 17 church-sponsored immigration service agencies around the country in 1988, CLINIC has grown to 173 diocesan and other affiliated programs with 260 field offices in 48 states. (In Los Angeles, CLINIC operates from Catholic Charities of Los Angeles' office at 1530 James M. wood Blvd.)

Its affiliates employ about 1,200 attorneys and paralegals and serve an estimated 600,000 people each year, said Don Kerwin CLINIC executive director since 1993. Kerwin has been with CLINIC since 1992, when he ran its political asylum program for Haitians. He became director in 1993.

He rattled off more statistics that define CLINIC's success: more than 1,000 training sessions run for attorneys and staff members, and more than 100,000 people who have been helped to become naturalized citizens.

Operating in various dioceses under local auspices such as Catholic Charities or Catholic Community Services --- typically with huge caseloads in every office --- CLINIC's work usually goes on quietly.

The decentralized network means the affiliates tend to receive little attention for their efforts locally. Even less heralded is their cumulative record of having aided millions of immigrants from around the world with applications for asylum, work permits, family reunification visas, religious worker visas and other types of immigration-related legal cases.

CLINIC's files are filled with joyful outcomes for immigrants with heart-wrenching stories of difficult lives, separated families and legal nightmares.

For instance, take the case of Father Cathal Gallagher, a Columban missionary from Ireland facing deportation. His case was being handled by CLINIC attorneys and championed by hundreds of South Dakotans. He learned July 18 that he had been granted a permanent residency visa and would be allowed to stay in the United States.

However, the files also describe cases that don't seem headed toward happy resolutions, like the family of Texas-born Terry Lopez and her husband, Juan Solis, a Mexican citizen. They are struggling to get by in a remote small town in Mexico, after their CLINIC legal adviser in Idaho worked unsuccessfully for more than a year to sort out their problems.

The Lopez-Solis family, with three U.S.-citizen children, opted to move to Mexico where jobs are scarce rather than remain separated or risk Solis' deportation while they pursue a legal residency card for him.

CLINIC was created at a time when the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 was being implemented. Based upon the church's success in resettling thousands of Vietnamese refugees, the U.S. Catholic Conference, as it was known then, was designated a national coordinator for the law's legalization provisions, explained Carlos Ortiz Miranda, then and now an attorney on the general counsel's staff of the bishops' conference.

Ortiz said that at the time there were a handful of dioceses, such as Brooklyn, N.Y., which ran very sophisticated immigration service agencies. But they were the exception.

"One purpose for CLINIC was to professionalize immigration services," Ortiz told CNS. That's been true not only for diocesan service agencies but for the wide range of law firms, private and public legal service agencies that now employ former CLINIC personnel.

Some former CLINIC staffers and advisers have gone on to be federal immigration judges, including Juan Osuna, the current head of the Board of Immigration Appeals, Ortiz and Kerwin noted. The program for the July 28-31 National Migration Conference in Washington included CLINIC alumni such as Ken Tota, chief of operations for the federal Office of Refugee Resettlement, and Wendy Young, counsel to the Senate subcommittee on immigration.

CLINIC has provided a template for other organizations that model themselves after the network, Kerwin said. And it's given birth to several related entities: the Detention Watch Network, the Capital Area Immigrants' Rights Coalition and the Immigration Advocates Network.

The founder of CLINIC, Brooklyn Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio, said at a July 29 reception marking its anniversary that "CLINIC is important because it has brought the church to the people who are becoming the church."

As director of Migration and Refugee Services in 1988, then-Msgr. DiMarzio was responsible for creating CLINIC. He has continued to be a board member or adviser to CLINIC over the years.

In a July 31 interview, Bishop DiMarzio told CNS that one of CLINIC's best achievements is the nationwide network of diocesan services that function under its umbrella.

"As you know, the church is not great at collaborative effort at any level," he joked.

Bishop DiMarzio also gave credit to the U.S. bishops for their ongoing support of CLINIC, particularly their financial assistance.

Kerwin said a combination of grants, member dues, fees for training programs and some client fees covers two-thirds to three-quarters of CLINIC expenses. In the beginning, the bishops' conference paid 100 percent of its costs.

Kerwin said he's proud of how CLINIC has responded to the changing needs for immigration services --- from those legalization applications in the late 1980s and early 1990s to the immigrants displaced by Hurricane Katrina and its recent work with victims of human trafficking and families separated by immigration raids.

He also takes particular pride in how CLINIC's work represents Catholic teaching: "making sure not to forget the most vulnerable immigrants."

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Can anyone help in combating this? We need to get serious input on violations of non-profit status, which can include: partisan activity, excessive lobbying and promoting illegal or terrorist activity. With a hands-off defacto policy on religious sanctuary movements from ICE the other alternative would be pursuing the same allegations to the IRS, instead. Also partisan activity could refer to foreign political parties, also, couldn't it? This group does lobby quite a lot---has it crossed over the line? I'm continuing my inquiry, but need some serious minds to commit to this. Stop talking and do something! all of this, to be a successful complaint needs adequate documentation. BTW, conservative churches frequently get gagged by the IRS. (Thanks to Americans United.)

ARE CHURCHES STILL NON-PROFIT?

They get a LOT of taxpayer money to fund their so-called charties and immigrant programs.

guess we know now why Uncle Teddy is Catholic

Originally Posted by gofer

They get a LOT of taxpayer money to fund their so-called charties and immigrant programs.

Yeah, just think with the Charitable Choice Act (Faith Based Initiatives) we probably funded much of their National Migration Conference.

I DON'T give to the Catholic Church ANYMORE because I DON'T want MY money to go helping ILLEGALS! Instead, I give to FELLOW Catholic and American patriot Mr. Joe Loya so that he can help his daughter Monica and her sons while their father, Border Patrol agent Ignacio Ramos remains UNJUSTLY imprisoned!