Running For The American Dream

THE AMERICAN DREAM is something that still resonates with people around the world. For many, it fuels their desire to flee their countries -- leaving behind their homes and lives, and the fear that plagued them there -- to come to America to try to start anew, and provide a better, safer life for their families.

But America has not always been a welcoming place for migrants. The Immigration Act of 1917 flat out banned “undesirable” people from coming into the country. The physically and mentally handicapped were barred from entering the country, as well as people with “radical” political beliefs. Immigrants had to pass a literacy test to be admitted into the country. The law also barred people from a large swath of Asia from being allowed to immigrate to the U.S. And there were many other anti-immigration laws.

Today, the country’s focus is on the southern border. President Donald Trump has vowed to build a wall along the border with Mexico, stop “bad hombres” from entering the country and deport millions of immigrants who are here illegally. The plans have caused celebrations among Trump’s supporters, rebukes from Democrats and fear among the immigrant population.

It’s a fear that is even felt on Long Island.

“I UNDERSTAND AND agree that we want to be safe, and we don’t want criminals and terrorists to be in our country, but to make a blanket statement and act or treat everyone like they’re criminals and terrorists is very bad,” said the Rev. Marjorie Nunes, pastor of the Hicksville United Methodist Church. “It’s brought a lot of fear into the hearts of people in the community. Our phone doesn’t stop ringing now. People are scared. They’re very scared.”

Nunes has been the pastor at Hicksville United Methodist since 2013 when she was transferred from her previous ministry in Connecticut. When she arrived, she founded the Long Island chapter of the Methodist Church’s outreach program, Justice For Our Neighbors (JFON). The ministry helps undocumented immigrants in the United States to get legal status, stay with their family members, provides free counseling for legal cases and much more.

“There are good, hard-working folks that come here to work the farms and clean houses,” Nunes said. “Even though everyone wants them to leave, no one wants to do that work.”

It’s a sentiment that many immigrant advocates echoed: Who’s going to do the work that undocumented workers are doing? Who’s going to take the jobs that pay below minimum wage?

“You’re not going to eat for $25. Everything is going to cost more,” said Margarita Grasing, the head of the Hispanic Brotherhood of Rockville Centre. “Vegetables are not that expensive [because of undocumented workers]. But if they have to start paying minimum wage, everything is going to go up.”

Grasing is an immigrant herself. She came to America decades ago, when she was 18, fleeing oppression and danger in Cuba. She’s been a citizen for 55 years but understands what immigrants go through.

“[Trump] has been pounding the Hispanic community like we’re the only undocumented aliens in the United States,” she said. “Right from the beginning, it’s been Mexicans and the drug wars. Nothing good for the Hispanic community.”

The Hispanic Brotherhood helps the Hispanic community of Nassau County by providing counseling services, help applying for government aid and housing assistance, helping family members immigrate to the U.S., after-school programs and more.

All the help the Hispanic Brotherhood provides is for legal residents. Unlike JFON, it doesn't provide help for people facing possible deportation. It provides food and clothing, but not legal aid. But Grasing said the organization still gets many requests from undocumented immigrants from towns like Freeport and Oceanside. She also said that the fear that undocumented immigrants are stealing benefits from Americans is unfounded.

“None of them are eligible for food stamps or Medicaid,” she said. “They can’t get benefits.

“The undocumented are here paying rent, buying food — they’re spending money,” she added. “They’re not getting money from the government.”

The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act, passed in 1996, specifically bars illegal migrants from receiving government benefits like Medicaid, Social Security or food stamps. However, some federal programs, like the National School Breakfast and Lunch Program, and others aimed at getting meals to low-income children, are available to anyone, regardless of their immigration status.

But what the Hispanic Brotherhood does encourage undocumented immigrants to do is pay taxes.

“They can get an IRS tax number, and pay their taxes every year,” said Grasing. “And they do that in the hope that, if one day they pass an immigration law, they can show they paid taxes.”

WHETHER OR NOT that immigration law is ever going to come is, at best, unclear. And until then, immigrants all over are scared.

T.J. Mills is the head attorney for JFON. He has spent the past 17 years working with undocumented immigrants to try to get them legal status, among many other things. Since Trump took office, he has seen the number of people calling for aid skyrocket, and JFON can’t keep up.

“Many times we’ll see clients and do advice and counsel, and I’ll keep their cases open because they weren’t responding,” Mills explained. “A lot of those clients that were dormant are suddenly responding and want to complete their cases. Others that have no remedy, that are completely undocumented with no way to fix their status, are panicked.”

Mills has taken cases from people who have come from all over the world. The common perception is that “illegal immigrants” are all Hispanic, but it’s not the case. As Grasing pointed out, “The majority of the undocumented people in this country didn’t jump a wall. They had a visa.” Data backs up her claim. According to the Journal on Migration and Human Security, in 2012 (the last year for which data was available), nearly 60 percent of illegal migrants were "overstays" -- people who entered the country legally and overstayed their visas.

And the people Mills works with aren’t hardened criminals or “bad hombres.” In many cases, they’re people who were trying to get away from a terrible situation and thought they might be able to live better lives in America.

“Many of them came because of fear of criminal or political threats in their home country,” said Mills. “Others came for economic opportunity. Others came to reunite with family they haven’t seen in a long time. We have lots of clients who have grown up with their kids on Skype. They left El Salvador, say, when their kids were 2, 3 or 4 years old, and now they’re 14 and seeing them for the first time.”

With the number of people he works with every year, Mills sees a lot of different stories. Some of the undocumented immigrants he works with do have criminal records but not in the way they are sometimes portrayed. “I don’t see arrests or detentions that I don’t see in my own friends and family,” he said.

THERE'S NO EASY answer to the question of how to deal with illegal immigration. But Mills, who has spent a lifetime working in the field, doesn’t think that mass deportations are the answer.

“Unless they’re willing to enlist 100,000 National Guard troops and triple the number of immigration officers, I don’t know how they could possibly do [mass deportations],” he said. "Part of me is hoping that this is just some fear campaign to satisfy the base of supporters that [Trump] made promises to.”

Grasing, who works with immigrants every day, hopes to see Congress pass an immigration bill, and one that provides a path to citizenship for many of the people already here.

“If you’ve been in this country and raised your family, and have no problems with the law, and all you’ve done is work and actually paid taxes, give them a resident card,” she said. “Not a citizenship. But if you say five more years, and you can be a citizen of this country, why not? This is what they know, and this is where they’re going to die.”

Many immigration advocates say that deporting millions of people — and throwing them back into the hands of the murderers, rapists and thieves they were fleeing in the first place — is not the answer.

“A lot of them are people who came for better lives, but a lot of them came to escape persecution,” said Nunes. “We forget that when folks came from Europe, they came many years ago because of religious persecution. The Irish came in droves because of the potato famine. They were called all kinds of names, and people forget these stories.

“People have been migrating for generations,” she added. “It’s not like the people from Mexico invented it. They’re running for the American Dream. It’s still that great dream and possibility for many in the world.”

Photo: Drew Angerer/Getty Images News/Getty Images