Immigration advocate Rachel Barber, left, and immigration attorneys Chima Ekeh, center, and Scott Hicks held a panel discussion on immigration Tuesday at Lima’s Center for Peace and Reconciliation.
Craig Kelly | The Lima News
LIMA — With immigration being a key talking point in the days and weeks leading up to the November general election, the Center for Peace and Reconciliation held an immigration panel discussion Tuesday evening to help both immigrants and natural-born residents get a better understanding of how the American immigration system currently operates and how to best navigate it.
Lima immigration attorney Chima Ekeh and fellow immigration attorney Scott Hicks, of Lebanon, Ohio, joined Rachel Barber, the lead for the Community Connections Subcommittee of the Lima Newcomers Coalition, in discussing their immigration work while providing historical context for how the system itself has come to its current state.
After the meeting, Hicks was encouraged by the interaction from the crowd of around 50 people.
“I think it shows an engaged group of people who care about the system and care about the people either that they’re directly related to and wondering about or just people in general,” he said. “How do we help, and how do we understand what’s going on?”
Both attorneys went into the legal immigration and asylum processes while offering firsthand accounts of cases they worked with and the pitfalls they faced. They also talked about some of the key terms frequently used in this election cycle, including Temporary Protective Status, which is the legal basis for the influx of Haitian migrants into the region.
“It is a temporary condition where, basically, the attorney general has to make a decision,” Hicks said. “For the country designated, is there an ongoing armed conflict that would put people in danger? Has there been some kind of natural disaster like an earthquake, a flood, a drought or something environmental that makes it unsafe to be there? Can the country going through this disaster handle it if people come back? The third possible designation is that there is something extraordinary but temporary happening where it’s just not safe for people to be sent back there.”
Ekeh also outlined the differences between different means of legal status, such as visas and green cards.
“You can have visas for immigrants and for non-immigrants. Non-immigrant visas would be for when you come to the United States for business or pleasure,” he said. “You can’t work or seek any benefits. There are tons of different types of visas.”
Hicks added, “Your green card is your permission to permanently live in the country.”
Hicks also discussed the history of immigration policies in the U.S., saying many restrictions go back to the 1923 Quota Act that created categories of who could immigrate into the country, with those rules favoring white Europeans over people from other parts of the world.
“I think the biggest misconception is that people don’t understand that this is a highly regulated process that is built on a law that excludes most of the world,” he said. “So when people say, ‘I’m not against immigration, but I just want it to be legal,’ they think they’re saying something reasonable and generous. What they don’t understand is that our system has no path for them to legally come the way they think they can.”
For those who are here now, Barber has been working with numerous faith groups in the region to help meet the needs of those in the Haitian community who are now in the Lima area.
“There are so many churches involved across the board,” she said. “A lot of the work is related to the study of English. They can take classes a couple of times a week, and then we have conversation circles to help them practice.”
Anyone wishing to help with those efforts can reach out to the St. Rose and St. John Catholic Church office at 419-222-5521.
