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.

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.

TPS and Community Outreach: A Crash Course

Today begins our weeklong adventure into the world of TPS clinics.

Information overload!

We met this morning at 8:15 in the lobby of our hotel, and headed over to the beautiful University of Miami campus. The law school is situated in a corner of campus and the common area is known as “The Bricks”. It's lovely – lots of trees and plants, and full of students studying and socializing.

Training began at 9am with the supervising attorneys and student mentors who have gone through this process a number of times already. Training consisted of an extensive overview of what TPS (Temporary Protected Status) means, who is currently eligible for it, and how we help Haitian nationals understand what the status means for them. We also went over the forms that we will be helping the applicants fill out, and learned about all the possible ways that what seems like a straightforward question can present a whole host of complicated answers. To wrap up the morning training sessions, the trainers did a skit of an interview that gave us an idea of questions that applicants might ask, and creative solutions we can use to help them overcome apprehension.

After the training wrapped up, our team headed to Little Haiti where we ate lunch at a Haitian restaurant – fried chicken, goat, pork, and spinach plates. Even the vegetarians in our group found delicious food to nosh on!

Our team split up into separate groups this afternoon and headed out to neighborhoods around the city where we distributed flyers at local schools and organizations, letting people know about the upcoming free clinics. Overall, the response from the community was extremely positive – people were glad to learn about the opportunities for Haitian nationals and their families. One of the high schools we stopped at even let us make a presentation to a class of students!

Tomorrow we begin our intake at the local community hospital. Though there is no doubt some apprehension about what our first experience helping this client group will be like, we are all excited to take everything we learned today and put it into action!

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