It was pure emotion that led my husband and me to donate money to the Immigrant and Refugee Law Center early last year. It was a sort of general outrage over policies that seem unnecessarily cruel, like family separation, a desire to line up on the side of the long-standing American tradition of welcoming new residents. But when looking over our donations at the beginning of this year, my husband realized we didn’t know in detail what the IRLC actually does. So my husband emailed the Center for more information to share with us. And the executive director, Mayra Jackson, invited us to meet up for coffee.
That’s not the kind of response we would expect given our modest monthly contributions. But the IRLC has a lot to do, they need support and allies. They are a local nonprofit that offers pro bono legal services and other aid to low-income immigrants. They use legal channels to help immigrants legally stay in the United States, largely through asylum claims. They need support, both monetary and moral. Jackson wants to spread their message about the rights of immigrants as widely as possible.
They have three attorneys and two paralegals on staff. When we talked, they were in the process of hiring another. That made me wonder – who would want to be a pro bono immigration attorney right now? What draws people to this work instead of something emotionally easier for higher pay?
“All of our attorneys have always worked in the nonprofit sector,” Jackson said. “They do this to serve justice, to protect human rights.” Much of their work is helping victims of trafficking and children who’ve come here alone. They are experts in the extremely complicated and overloaded immigration legal system, which is only getting more so. Lately, rules change, fees change.
We’ve all seen the chaos and fear-based tactics, not just in Minneapolis and Portland, but everywhere, in immigration courts and detention centers around the country. People being picked up at their court hearings, others being held in detention until they’re pressured to give up and go home.
And behind it, the emotional anti-immigrant rhetoric and policy that’s based on arguments easily disproved: that immigrants are taking our jobs and somehow are also here for welfare, that they’re more criminal than the native-born, that they eat cats and dogs, a particularly egregious one that’s older than the insult to German immigrants to Cincinnati that they ground up cats and dogs into sausage.
It all looks so completely different to Jackson and her colleagues.
“We love this work because it truly changes people’s lives. We help families stay together.” she said. “It’s incredible to witness what immigrants can accomplish when they’re allowed to work and live here.”
It is inspiring what immigrants will do to leave behind corruption, persecution and violence, for a chance to make something of their lives and their children’s lives. Many make journeys of thousands of miles, through jungle and desert, to get here. Then they get to work.
“You just don’t see immigrants begging for money,” Jackson said. “Once they get work permits, they’ll often be self-sufficient within three to six months, with jobs and an apartment and a car. We’ve witnessed that over and over. This is emotional work. We try not to, but we get very emotionally attached to our clients.”
Jackson knows that not everyone cares about human rights or success stories. But, she said, “Perhaps they can care about it as an economic issue.”
In other words, look at what immigrants bring to the community: Immigrants pay taxes and contribute to Medicare and Social Security. But they are not eligible to receive those benefits or Medicaid or Section 8. This imbalance resulted in a reduction in the U.S. deficit of $15.4 trillion in the years 1994-2023, according to the National Academy of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine.
The construction industry cannot operate solely on U.S.-born labor. Farming relies on immigrants, as does the restaurant industry. Deporting them means increases in the price of building and repairing houses, eating out, buying food.
The Center has been distributing “Know your rights” materials, and making sure every immigrant with children has applied for passports for them and powers of attorney given to someone they trust in case the family is separated. Because they could be taken, without their kids, at any time. “I tell them, don’t think that just because you’ve done everything right, and you’re a good person, that you won’t be arrested,” Jackson said.
Meanwhile, the IRLC has been getting hateful messages and death threats. “We do not publish our physical address, you can come to our office only by application,” Jackson said. They have to turn down people who want to volunteer, because they can’t vet them all for bad intentions.
There is pull and strength to that ancient emotional fear of the other. But that’s why we have governments and law. The IRLC attorneys believe that the rule of law can keep working. Maybe we’ll come up with good immigration policies sometime. But with all the heat and noise, a rational plan seems impossible.
The IRLC will have to keep fighting one case at a time.
Polly Campbell covered restaurants and food for the Cincinnati Enquirer from 1996 until 2020. She writes monthly on a variety of topics, and she welcomes your feedback and column suggestions at editor (at) moversmakers.org
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