Why We Say Yes to Helping Families Reunite
By Michelle Swearingen, RILA Legal Advocate
The reinstatement and expansion of the Central American Minors (CAM) program has been an unexpected gift to our clients. It was actually a client of mine, Ernesto* that alerted me to the revival of the program. He came here from El Salvador over a year ago with his oldest daughter, the only daughter he could afford to bring with him. Under duress, he left his other four children in the care of his wife in El Salvador. Every time I spoke with him in the past year or so preparing for his case, he brought up his children, asking if there is anything we can do to get them here, to keep them safe.
In April 2021 Ernesto began sending me texts with links to information about the CAM program. Several months passed before the program was back up and operational, and even longer before it was open to new applications. Once our RILA staff was able to build a partnership with a local resettlement agency and prepare for processing CAM applications, I reached out to Ernesto to invite him to come in to complete the application. He came ready with every piece of information about his family, every document he could find, everything we could possibly need in order to bring his family here to safety. He even faced his fear of needles and got vaccinated just for our meeting, demonstrating once again his willingness to do anything to keep his family safe.
Ernesto was grinning ear to ear throughout our whole meeting in anticipation of bringing his family here. He proudly showed me the pictures of his kids’ sweet smiles in the photos he had arranged to have professionally taken in his home country. And what a joy it is, having walked with Ernesto through the hard parts of his story, to now be able to join with him to bring his family here to safety.
Everything about the asylum process is long and cumbersome. The past few years have been full of bad news for our clients as immigration policies have become more and more hostile, but CAM is a straightforward process that gives asylum seekers and victims of crimes the gift of family unity. As I engage with my clients, I am understanding more and more the depth of grief so many of them have been carrying for the children left behind. That is why we say yes, despite our already full caseload. We say yes because building family is near to the heart of God and because our clients - our RILA family - are asking for help and advocating for their loved ones. We have welcomed these clients into the RILA family and have committed to walk with them from start to finish, and this is a beautiful part of that journey.
My prayer is that God would keep the loved ones of our RILA clients safe as their applications are processed and that He would bless these families as they prepare to be reunited after a long separation. We know that distance is hard on families, families just like ours, who now carry grief and pain over their time apart: little children who don’t understand why a parent hasn’t been present; a teen who might feel resentful and abandoned. I pray that God would turn mourning into dancing as relationships and hearts are restored and realigned. I pray extraordinary grace would cover mothers, fathers, sons and daughters as they reenter life together, and that God would sow seeds of redemption into these families that would bless the larger community in Northern Virginia. I pray that God would restore what has been broken and give new life and new hope to our RILA families as together, they begin writing a new story.
* - Name has been changed to protect client’s privacy.