Day Two: All Hands on Deck

"Men anpil chay pa lou," many hands make light work.

This Haitian proverb, printed on the front of the t-shirts we wear during outreach and intake, captures the nature of our work today. With one group starting the day doing intake at Jackson Memorial Hospital and another making house calls to follow up on applications in progress, there were a variety of tasks and places we needed to be. By midday, the line of Haitians seeking assistance on the TPS application stretched outside the door of Chef Nicole, a Haitian restaurant that provides us with a place to do intake in the heart of Little Haiti. With our group split across house calls, intake at Jackson Memorial Hospital, and Chef Nicole, the clinical staff called in students from the University of Miami for extra support.

So many people, such a great need, and with the support of everyone--the work got done.

During both the intake and outreach work today, the need for more information and assistance to be provided on the fee waiver for the $470 application became readily apparent. One client, currently living with his cousin, has been out of work for six months. His family supports him as they can, which amounts to free housing and an income of about $100 a month. Even with the little he has, he sends what he can to his two children in Haiti. Our assistance in applying for a fee waiver makes it possible for him to apply at all for this relief. Likewise, during outreach, one person said, "Yes, I need TPS, but it is too expensive." Fortunately, he expressed his concern and we were able to reassure him that if he qualified, we could apply for a fee waiver for him.

While we were grateful to be of assistance today, we continue to be struck by the unmet needs in the community. We were asked multiple times during outreach whether we had a way of helping those that came after the earthquake. Unfortunately, for most of these people, the answer is no. Likewise, we felt at a loss when one woman approached us and asked whether we could help her get her children to the US. She successfully applied and received TPS, but her children are still in Haiti. We'll be consulting with the lawyers about her situation tomorrow and getting back to her, but again, we fear the answer is no.

Ed. note: Carolyn Slauson-Ali is a second year law student at Stanford Law School.

Day One: Training and Community Outreach in Little Haiti

Today was the first working day of what promises to be an incredible week in Miami, helping Haitians to apply for Temporary Protected Status.  The day began at nine in the morning at University of Miami's beautiful campus, where we met the attorneys and clinic students that will lead this week's effort to help Haitian apply for TPS.  Having spent the hours in the sun on Key Biscayne the day before, and some of us having come straight from red-eye flights, we were appreciative of the coffee and bagels that UM so kindly provided.  Our training consisted of a few hours learning about the TPS application forms and a lesson on legal ethics.  At one point in the session, we were asked to pair up with a UM student and get to know them so that we could introduce them to the group.  The purpose of the exercise, we later found, was to show us what it is like to have someone else speak for you.  The idea was to show us what it will be like for the Haitians to have someone else speak for them on such an important application form. 

After the training, we ventured over to Little Haiti to eat lunch at a place called Chef Nicole.  We enjoyed a phenomenal Creole meal and then commenced work spreading word of the TPS clinics.  UM had provided us with flyers listing the times and dates of the clinics and all the documentation that would be needed.  We basically set off in groups and told everyone we could about the effort and provided them with fliers so that they could share the news with their friends and family.  Virtually everyone that we encountered accepted our flyers and information open-mindedly and considerately, but a few people we met today will last in our memories forever.

Rachel, for instance, met an elderly and disabled homeless woman and asked her if she was aware of UM's TPS clinic.  The woman explained to Rachel that she was a U.S. citizen already, but went on to share the difficulties that she faced on a day-to-day basis.  She just had a stroke and consequently lost her vision in one eye.  She needed to go to the doctor but couldn't afford to.  Worse yet, she was afraid to go to sleep at night for fear of her few possessions being stolen and for fear of waking up without vision in her good eye.  The woman had lost a great number of her loves ones in the earthquake and she had no one to turn to for comfort.  Clearly the effects of the earthquake extend beyond what can be helped by the TPS clinic, but at least we are doing something.

Rachel also had an interesting experience with James.  They were passing a community center and stopped to tell a woman about the TPS clinic  The woman explained  that the president of the center was speaking that day, making a special appearance, and invited them inside to hear him talk.  Rachel and James went inside and were quickly invited to come up front and to tell the group about the TPS clinic.  The audience received the information warmly and promised to tell their friends and family about the it.  Like most of our group, Rachel and James realized that triggering community chatter about the clinic would be key to its success.

Others of us had more casually amazing moments.  For instance, I ventured into a school at one point told a school administrator about the TPS clinic.  I asked if I could leave a few flyers for the parents and she gladly agreed to spread around the word, and the flyers.  When I turned to leave, she said, "You all are doing a great thing; God will bless you. Receiving such praise from a woman who devotes her life to supporting her community was one of the most humbling highlights of my day.

There were also more challenging moments.  For instance, Gab encountered a gathering of men playing dominos and seized on the opportunity to get the word out about the TPS clinic.  His efforts were virtually ignored by the group, but Gab continued to feed them information.  Evidently Gab's persistence worked because the entire group ended up accepting fliers and telling Gab that they would inform their friends.

One of the most vivid memories in my mind from the day was walking past a group of young women in the midst of their being question by a few police officers.  I initially passed by the women, but one of the officers asked, "Hey, what are you advocating? When I told him, he said, "And why did you pass these girls up?" I felt slightly embarrassed, but I had just assumed that I should not interfere.  I gave the women flyers and told them about the clinic.  They received the information with more genuine interest than most people I had spoken with and the police officer asked for additional flyers to spread around.

Throughout the day, each of us realized that TPS is not as widely known among the Haitian community as we originally believed.  However, at the end of the day a man actually sought us out to seek help with a TPS application.  It was immeasurably rewarding to see that at least one man, in one community, will get a chance to apply for TPS as a result of our efforts.  I can only hope that the rest of the week will affirm that one group of students truly can change lives.

Ed. note: Katie Plichta is a first year law student at Stanford Law School.

The Nuts & Bolts of TPS

We had a nice quiet morning to ourselves today; since we didn’t have to be at the Law School until almost 1pm, we all spent the morning relaxing in different ways. Some of our team explored the shops around South Beach, some caught up on some sleep, and some of us caught up on some ever-present homework.

Once we arrived on campus, we met with the supervising attorneys for the Health and Elder Law Clinic and had a “firm meeting,” where we discussed all the applications we received at intake yesterday, and made game plans for following up with clients, completing paperwork, and researching questions that may have come up during interviews. Even when it seemed like we had complete case files yesterday during our time with the client photos, the attorneys came up with all kinds of things for us to follow up on today – verifying Alien Registration Numbers (or “A numbers”), doing criminal background checks, trying to put together timelines for each client, and translating all of those facts into a coherent, easy-to-understand story. It took us a couple of hours to go through all the applications we got yesterday, but by the end, we all had plenty of work to get through tomorrow.

After we finished up our meeting, we headed back out to the streets to do more recruiting for the legal clinics, and to do intake at a couple of restaurants in some predominately Haitian neighborhoods. Though the intake was slow, one of the restaurants had at least 5 people come through tonight, which is great for a Wednesday night!

Tomorrow, we are looking forward to more case review and office time to get our completed applications off to Immigration by Friday!

We had a nice quiet morning to ourselves today; since we didn’t have to be at the Law School until almost 1pm, we all spent the morning relaxing in different ways. Some of our team explored the shops around South Beach, some caught up on some sleep, and some of us caught up on some ever-present homework.

Once we arrived on campus, we met with the supervising attorneys for the Health and Elder Law Clinic and had a “firm meeting,” where we discussed all the applications we received at intake yesterday, and made game plans for following up with clients, completing paperwork, and researching questions that may have come up during interviews. Even when it seemed like we had complete case files yesterday during our time with the client photos, the attorneys came up with all kinds of things for us to follow up on today – verifying Alien Registration Numbers (or “A numbers”), doing criminal background checks, trying to put together timelines for each client, and translating all of those facts into a coherent, easy-to-understand story. It took us a couple of hours to go through all the applications we got yesterday, but by the end, we all had plenty of work to get through tomorrow.

After we finished up our meeting, we headed back out to the streets to do more recruiting for the legal clinics, and to do intake at a couple of restaurants in some predominately Haitian neighborhoods. Though the intake was slow, one of the restaurants had at least 5 people come through tonight, which is great for a Wednesday night!

Tomorrow, we are looking forward to more case review and office time to get our completed applications off to Immigration by Friday!

Ed. note - Anna Rudman-Santos is a first year law student at the University of Memphis.

In the Heart of Little Haiti - Take 3...

Today was a very, very, long day. We met at the school to debrief and go over our cases from the day before, started filling out the paperwork to file with USCIS and then went back to Little Haiti for the night clinic. While it feels like we have spent all of our time in Little Haiti the past three days, the night clinic was a good reminder of how important outreach is: it really paid off and at the end of the night we had 11 new TPS clients.

What was just as exciting was that clients from the day before returned with the paperwork we needed them to bring, recognized our faces, and even brought new friends and relatives to the clinic. At the end of the day we keep coming back to the importance of making those connections in the community and putting yourself out there to establish credibility. Zahra's client from the day before returned with a relative, and Aman's client went to get more of his family members to get more info.

We have also seen a lot of parents coming in to file applications for their kids, something that Melissa and JoNel had said that they were trying to get more of. Overall, tonight's clinic felt like the result of lots and lots of outreach. Those connections really matter!

As we are getting more and more familiar with the TPS application and during our time researching today, we have all been struck by the fundamental unfairness of the intersection between criminal law and immigration law. Christine got on the phone and started doing massive amounts of research to determine what exactly counted as a misdemeanor, and was shocked to see that driving without a licence could be a misdemeanor. It seems unbelievable to not allow someone to work legally in the United States because they drove a car without a license.

Some of the clients that we had today also had a criminal past. It seems ridiculous for crimes such as theft to disqualify someone from TPS; if you are unable to work, how are you going to support yourself? Even though that seems to be a threshold matter for TPS eligibility, we are hopefully gonna do some research tomorrow to see if there is ANY way around it.

All in all a very long but fulfilling day!

Ed. note: Dana Isaac is a second-year law student at the University of San Francisco.

Out and About in Little Haiti

One of the things that we have come to realize throughout our work these past two days is how important outreach is. As Aman said "anyone can fill out forms, but it takes more to make a connection and gain someone's trust."

Our morning on Tuesday was largely spent wandering around little Haiti in community centers, churches and residential areas near Nicoles in order to talk to people about what TPS is, why we are there, and why we want to do this. One of the things that we think that people forget is that we are strangers showing up in someone's community and telling them to trust us. I think by the end of Tuesday we felt good about what we had done there because it felt like we had started to make some connections in the area. We had made enough of a connection that people were sending their friends over to the clinic, people were coming back to the clinic when they said that they would, and Aman even made a connection that could allow him to make an announcement on pirate radio. One thing that we felt might make it easier would be a deeper connection and liaison within the community.

In the morning Nicole, Christine and I went to Notre Dame Church, and we felt that having someone there who was already a presence in the area would have made it easier to talk to the people there, and might have made us a more credible presence. Overall I think that outreach will continue to be important, even if the clinic is flooded with people: making a connection in Little Haiti will continue to be important for future work in the area.

That being said, intake went really well. We had 8 clients who came in, and it seems that now that they have met us and trust us a bit, there may be more people who will come to the night clinics, or the clinics in the next week. One woman mentioned that she knew of a lot of people who had received deportation notices (but had never left the country) and were therefore extremely nervous to file any kind of paperwork at all. Hopefully now that we have established some credibility more people will come in!

Ed. note: Dana Isaac is a second-year law student at the University of San Francisco.