By David Gordon, associate editor
Current efforts to help resettle refugees from Afghanistan in the Chippewa Valley have brought together volunteers from a wide range of religious backgrounds.
Nowhere is this illustrated more strikingly than in the three-person group that’s helping the new arrivals prepare applications for asylum and wrestling with the complexities of U.S. immigration law in the process.
One of those three, Rev. Dave Anderson, noted in an email to the CVPost that he is a retired Lutheran pastor who is working with Laurie Osberg, a retired public defender and a member of St. James Catholic parish, and with Sahar Taman, a Muslim whose father was a founder of the Altoona Masjid (Mosque) and a long-time leader in the local Muslim community.
Taman, a recent law school graduate, was the lead attorney at the Ft. McCoy legal clinic, which served the Afghan evacuees who were sent there – a population of almost 13,000 at its highest point, she said.
“The legal clinic provided over 10,000 services in the five months Ft. McCoy was a temporary residence for the Afghan guests,” Taman told the CVPost in an email. “The services included presentations, workshops and consultations on many immigration issues.”
For more information about Sahar Taman’s work at the Fort McCoy legal clinic, click here to listen to her interview on the Spirit in Action podcast.
Umbrella Group
Anderson said the trio assisting with asylum applications is part of an umbrella group, Welcoming New Neighbors (WNN), that “grew rapidly from a few concerned residents, including folks from western Wisconsin.
“Our email list now has over 200 supporters,” he wrote. “More than 70 of these have taken the Lutheran Social Services of WI-Upper Michigan (LSS) course in refugee sponsorship and have gone through background checks to work with our new neighbors.
“LSS is one of a few recognized Wisconsin resettlement agencies,” he added.
Adding to the interfaith aspect of this effort, Taman noted that the Ft. McCoy legal clinic was sponsored by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. She started her involvement as a volunteer there but quickly realized “that a full-time attorney was needed to develop the clinic” and contracted with the sponsoring organization to take on that role.
Arrivals at Ft. McCoy
Most of the Afghan evacuees arrived at Ft. McCoy in late August through mid-September but some got there as late as last December, Taman said. All have now been resettled around the United States and none remain at any of the eight military bases that housed them on a temporary basis.
“All Afghans are very worried about family and friends at home,” Taman said. “Many family members are in hiding from the Taliban and/or have serious survival issues with limited food and money.”
Asylum is a complex part of immigration law, according to Taman. It differs from “refugee” status, which is available to people who have completed the required paperwork and vetting of their personal background before reaching the United States.
To apply for Asylum, Afghanis must be physically present in the United States and must demonstrate that they were persecuted in their home country or that there is justifiable fear of they will be persecute if forced to return to Afghanistan.
Trio met at JONAH
Anderson wrote that he met Taman and Osberg through his volunteer work with JONAH (Joining Our Neighbors Advancing Hope), which focused on “welcoming and advocating for our Latina/o immigrant neighbors.”
He said that his experience with immigration through JONAH led him “to take immigration law courses with CLINIC (Catholic Legal Immigration Network, Inc.) which I can also use in our current legal project.”
Anderson said that WNN’s members come from a wide variety of religious backgrounds and the group itself isn’t affiliated with any religious organization. “We are simply community members who share the value of welcoming the stranger,” he said. “We work together to provide welcome, resettlement assistance, housing, jobs, medical and transportation assistance.”
The home page image on this story was created by Simrin, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.