Transcription of Susan Roche for the show New Beginnings, #68
Lisa: In Maxwell Chikuta’s interview, he mentioned that he was helped out in great part by the immigrant legal advocacy project. We are thrilled today to be able to have across the microphone from us, Sue Roche who is the legal director of the ILAP, the Immigrant Legal Advocacy Project here in Portland. Thanks for coming in.
Susan: Yeah, thank you Lisa.
Lisa: Why is it important for us to have an organization like ILAP or the immigrant legal advocacy project here in Portland?
Susan: Sure. Well ILAP is the only organization in Maine that helps immigrants in their immigration cases and it’s really important because immigrants aren’t provided with free representation. Like in a criminal case, people can get an attorney whereas in immigration system, you are not provided an attorney. The immigration laws are very complicated and often even if somebody is very educated, they can’t understand. The laws are changing everyday and the procedures can be very complicated. It’s often really essential that they have an attorney who can help them through that process. Without having immigration status, they’re not going to be able to then work or go to school and do the other things that are really important in their lives.
Lisa: What are some of the specific legal challenges that people who are immigrants might face, that people who were born in this country already have citizenship, already have access to?
Susan: Certainly. I think the most important thing is work authorization. Somebody who doesn’t have permanent legal status isn’t authorized to work. For example, even somebody in the process sometimes, somebody might have fled Rwanda because of prosecution and they have a right in the United States to apply for asylum. There’s a long process that they have to go through for that. It often will take time for them to even find a lawyer and then once they have a lawyer, a lot of time to prepare their application, and then once they file their application with immigration, it takes another 6 months before they can even work. Between that entire time, they are not able to work, they are not able to support themselves so that can be a real challenge.
Lisa: When people come to this country, Maxwell talked about being supported by some pastor in his country and coming over here and there was a Congolese community already in place. What about people who come as individuals there’s not a community readily available for them? What is that like for them?
Susan: It’s really a challenge and people are often living homeless for a while. They, yes, it can be very challenging if they don’t have family members here. They don’t have a community. They really have to sort of start from scratch and it can be a real challenge.
Lisa: How do you deal with the language barriers that sometimes come into the situation?
Susan: Certainly. That’s a real challenge for a lot of people who come to the country who don’t speak English. It’s much more difficult for them to communicate with everyone. There is often not translation services everywhere. At ILAP we have attorneys on staff who speak Spanish, we have a Somali speaker on staff and we have interpreters for work with other clients, but in terms of, just sort of getting along in day-to-day life, it can be real challenge if you don’t speak English and also even when people are authorized to work, it can be very difficult to find jobs. They may have been a doctor back home, but here, they don’t have their English skills or the credentials to be able to do that.
Lisa: What are some of the biggest, let’s just say community and now you said Somali.
Susan: Sure.
Lisa: Some of the other communities that exist right now within Greater Portland and Maine.
Susan: Sure. Well it’s interesting. Actually I was speaking at a symposium for the BARR meeting last winter and was on a changing population in Maine which the aging and the growing immigrant population and we listed a lot of numbers in pulling out some census data from 2000 and 2010. There’s been a 20% increase in foreign born individuals during that time period. Less than 1/3rd of Maine’s foreign born population has been here for less than 10 years. It’s a real growing immigrant population and just looking at the individuals, there’s a 529% increase in African born individuals, 43% increase in Asians, and 62% increase in the Latin American population.
Then just looking back at the numbers for ILAP, in 2000 we had 2 Scott persons and it was the beginning of ILAP. That was the 1st year that I was there, so we had a smaller client base, but just looking at the changes, in 2000, our top 3 countries were Mexico, Honduras and the US with US citizens who were filing for family members. In 2010, it was Somalia, Iraq, and Sudan where Somalia was only 3% of our population in 2000 and were 23% in 2010. Other growing population, we have seen a lot of Burundians, and Rwandans, and Congolese in recent years but it’s been a real interesting shift in a while. Latin American population has been staying about the same. They’re growing a little bit but there’s been a large growth in the African populations.
Lisa: That’s an interesting challenge. Your organization has been around a little bit more than a decade and it’s little bit like shifting sands. No sooner are you kind of familiar with one group and their cultural situation, their challenges and advantages, then another group comes along and then you have an entirely different set of background. How has that felt as an attorney practicing within the system for a decade?
Susan: Well, it’s actually really nice. I mean, the all, interestingly even if people come from different cultures, different countries, and different backgrounds, they’ll have the same issues. They all want to be together with their families. They want to be safe. They want to be working. They want to be productive members in the community and being able to meet people from lots of different countries is really a great benefit, and I think it’s a great benefit to our community. People come in and bring new thoughts and new cultures, and they start businesses. A lot of immigrants are likely to sort of stay around their families so I think it really adds to our community to have people who are staying in Maine instead of moving out of state for jobs, I think it really adds a lot.
Lisa: You mentioned people coming from other countries who might be a doctor in their country. We talk about the bringing drain, people leaving our state, being educated leaving, or growing up and leaving but we are bringing in very educated people from sometimes other parts of the world.
Susan: Yes.
Lisa: How is this influence sort of the fabric of our culture do you think?
Susan: Well, I think it’s a great thing. One of the unfortunate things is that they’re often not able to find jobs in their fields and they’re often very overqualified for the jobs that they have but they do really bring a lot of, lot to our communities and they’re starting lots of businesses. Maxwell is a great example, who even if they don’t come here with a lot of education, they come here with this real enthusiasm and desire to live the American dream and they go to school, they work hard. They really want to make sure that their families are doing well and Maxwell is a great example. He came here. He got his high school diploma. He got his college degree and his master’s and now he is going on to get a Ph.D. and I think that really has so much to offer to our community here.
Lisa: Now ILAP is relatively young as an organization. You described you didn’t, you had I guess 2 or 3 attorneys early on and how many attorneys do you now have? How many staff?
Susan: We have 11 staff now.
Lisa: This must be an organization, don’t sound like this, doesn’t sound like you can do this for free.
Susan: No.
Lisa: How do you do with fundraising and where does the money come from.
Susan: Actually we have a mix of funders from recurring grants through the Maine BARR foundation in united way to private foundations and our annual fund of individual donors. We don’t receive any government fundings. They were dependent grants and individual donations. We also have an annual event at Celesoiree that happens every spring.
Lisa: If people wanted to come to Celesoiree or if they wanted to donate to your organization how would they find you?
Susan: They kind find us on Internet at www.ilapmaine.org.
Lisa: Is it easy enough for people who are out in the community who need your services to find you as well?
Susan: Yes. They can. People who don’t have Internet access can call us. We do have kind of intake every Friday where we take new clients between 9 and 1. People can either call our office at 207-780-1593 or they can come into our office if they’re in the Portland area. During intake, we sort of assess what people’s needs are and then we determine whether they need a consultation with an attorney and then we set up for appointment with an attorney.
Sometimes they are ready to fill out a form and just need assistance for that so we schedule an appointment for them to fill out a green card or citizenship application. Then some people have legal complications, into our consultation, we may determine that that they actually need an attorney and then might end up representing them.
Lisa: What are some lessons that you have taken away from doing the job that you’ve done? What are some of the things that have really hit you the hardest of that last decade of working in this field?
Susan: Well, I think one of the most difficult things is realizing that you can’t help everyone. Being the only organization in the state, the difficult thing for us if we turn anyone away, there’s nowhere else for them to go and that’s something we’ve really struggled with. Since I’ve been there, it is sort of learning how to say no to people and it’s very difficult. We still haven’t learned how to but trying to find that balance of making sure that we do the very best job in the cases that we have and not sacrificing the quality and then also trying to help as many people as we can and we’re constantly working on that balance.
Lisa: How about you as an individual person?
Susan: I’ve learnt that the amazing journeys that people have to come to the United States, the things that they give up. It’s really kind of bracing to be able to leave everything you know, your language, your culture, your job, your property and to come to a new place where you have no idea. You’re going to find often people leave family members behind and just really seeing the human spirit and how strong people are and how resilient and then watching them flourish once they get here is really a wonderful thing to see and I think Maxwell is a great example of that.
Lisa: Well Sue, I appreciate your stunning time talking with me today. I would encourage people who are interested in finding it more about ILAP to go to ilapmaine.org which we will also put up on the Dr. Lisa website. Thank you for taking the time to well, really dedicating your legal career thus far to helping people come to this country and set up new and healthy vibrant community and much to live. This means a lot I’m sure to the people that you help but also the people around the people that you help. I appreciate your talking with me about this today. I’ve been speaking with Sue Roche from who is the Legal Director of the Immigrant Legal Advocacy Project here in the Portland area.
Susan: Great Lisa, thank you for having me.