It was a struggle for Janet and her family to get into the United States, and now it’s a struggle to stay.
As the young mother navigates American courts, bureaucracy and culture shock, she’s getting help from Bridge to Rutland, a volunteer nonprofit organization that assists asylum-seekers while they await court hearings on whether they can stay in the United States.
If they don’t help asylum-seekers, no one will, said Ellen Green, director of the Rutland-based nonprofit.
“We try to work very hard to level the playing field so that the asylum-seekers who come to us have a say in what happens,” Green said.
The organization, launched in 2020, helps its sponsored asylum-seekers work through the long process of winning approval to stay in the United States by assisting with housing, clothing, English lessons, volunteer opportunities, lawyers, and monthly stipends for groceries and other necessities.
In legal terms, Green said, sponsorship means that Bridge to Rutland essentially takes care of all the needs of the people they’re covering. The group is assisting Janet’s family, including her husband and two children, plus four other individuals, Green said.
The organization relies on donations to do its work, and all staff members are volunteers, she said.
Janet, who is in her 30s and from Central America, spoke to VTDigger under a pseudonym. She declined to disclose her real name and home country for fear of retaliation against her relatives who remain there — or against her if she is forced to return.
She said she and her family made it to Rutland two years ago and have been living there ever since. Her older child is 2 and a half years old. Her younger child, who was born in the United States, is 2 months old.
Janet’s younger child is an American citizen, but that does not help the family’s case in seeking asylum, Green said.
About four years ago, out of fear of violence in her original country — a common motivation among asylum-seekers — Janet and her husband ventured north to the U.S.-Mexico border.
They were denied entry twice, she said, because of Title 42 — a policy the Trump administration began using in 2020, citing the Covid-19 pandemic. It gave immigration services the right to deny entry to asylum-seekers to help stop the spread of the virus.
But Bridge to Rutland argues that Title 42 violates international law.
“The whole idea of asylum depends on them being allowed to enter this country,” Bridge to Rutland board member Heather Stevenson said. “If we’re not allowing them to enter this country, we’re not only going against what I believe is the law but we are going against the moral and entire spirit of asylum.”
Janet said she lived in Mexico for two years while she and her husband tried to gain entry to the United States, moving around a lot to stay safe. The third time they tried to enter, they had their firstborn child with them and, as a result, were almost denied again.
“Their paperwork from two years before said it was just two people, and now there were three,” Green said. Janet was told she could enter, but her husband and newborn would have to remain behind. She refused to split up.
“She said that, ‘I will not come across without my family,’ and she went back,” Green said. Officials eventually allowed them to stay together and gain entry, Green said.
‘Asylum is a right’
Bridge to Rutland is part of what is known as the Asylum Support Network, a group of nonprofits in Vermont and New Hampshire that assist asylum-seekers. Green said there are six in Vermont.
The nonprofit supplies asylum-seekers with what they need to live here while they await their court hearings, Green said. And the process can be long.
Green said it can take five years to receive asylum, and the courts are backed up with asylum cases — a backlog of more than 820,000 cases, according to Anna Tadio, an immigration lawyer and Bridge to Rutland board member.
The nonprofit assists asylum-seekers because the government does not, Green said. She said it’s important to understand the vast discrepancy in resources provided to asylum-seekers and refugees.
Refugees who come to Rutland are sponsored by the U.S. State Department and have access to federal programs such as housing and food assistance, but asylum-seekers do not, Green said.
“Their travel here is paid for,” she said, speaking of refugees. “They get a work permit immediately. They get their Social Security number that goes with the work permit immediately, which means that they can open a bank account.”
Asylum-seekers, on the other hand, get no government assistance, Green said. After they apply for asylum in the United States, they have to wait 150 days before applying for a work permit, and it can take much longer than that to be granted, she said. That means they cannot afford living expenses such as housing and groceries.
Stevenson said the asylum-seeking process is muddled and difficult to understand, while refugees have a much more streamlined system.
“I think that asylum is a right, and people should be allowed to seek asylum,” she said. “But when we are making it much easier for people who have white skin from the Ukraine to come here as a refugee than we are making it for people with brown skin who are trying to come here from South America, that’s racism, period.”
Green said the explanations are not intended to pit asylum-seekers and refugees against one another, but to educate people on why asylum-seekers need their help.
“For people to understand the difference is really important,” she said. “They’ve all been through horrible, traumatic experiences and deserve our help, but some are getting federal help and some are not.”
The process
When asylum-seekers arrive at the border, Green said, they face a couple of possibilities. They may be turned away instantly or placed in a detention center, she said. Or, if they prove they have a “credible fear” of returning to their home country, they may be allowed to stay while they pursue asylum.
People applying for asylum, according to the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, must prove to a credible level that they fear persecution or torture in the country that they are attempting to flee, or else asylum will be denied.
“The whole process is that they’ve been arrested, and they’re going to be removed,” Green said. “And the whole idea behind the court case is to prove that they should be allowed to stay.”
Bridge to Rutland pays for asylum-seekers’ transportation from the U.S.-Mexico border to Vermont, Green said. Then, they live with a volunteer for a few weeks while Bridge to Rutland finds housing for them.
“It’s a culture shock coming to Vermont,” Stevenson said. “The goal is to find an apartment or some sort of affordable living space for them and give them their privacy.”
The nonprofit affords them clothes, furniture and regular stipends for living expenses, Stevenson said. It finds lawyers for asylum-seekers and sets them up with English tutors.
“The teaching was really fun,” said board member Michelle Fountain, who has tutored asylum-seekers for Bridge to Rutland in the past. “It becomes a bit of a social function as well, which is good because they come here not speaking the language and not knowing anyone.”
A long way to go
Janet and her family have lived in Vermont for about two years. Because she came from a country with a hot climate, the Vermont winter was difficult to get used to, Janet said — but her elder child loved the snow.
They arrived in Vermont during the pandemic, with little to no understanding of English, which made it difficult to interact with the community, she said.
Two years later, Janet said she’s improved her English and is more familiar with her surroundings. She said Bridge to Rutland has provided a lot of help to her family — lessons, lawyers, housing and more — and they’ve gained a sense of community and friendship, so they no longer feel alone.
Janet recently received a work permit and a Social Security number, but she’s not currently employed because she needs to take care of her two children, she said.
Green said Janet can now open a bank account but still lacks access to any federal programs. She said Bridge to Rutland had thought that getting a Social Security number would allow Janet access to 3SquaresVT, Reach Up, fuel assistance, Dr. Dynasaur and Medicaid but learned last week that Janet is still ineligible for those programs.
“That was a huge disappointment because we were hoping that then, if she could be covered by things like that, we could move on and bring more people here,” Green said. “But we’re still going to have to support them almost to the level we’ve been supporting them.”
Janet’s husband does not have a work permit yet, but he has volunteered with multiple community organizations, including Meals on Wheels and Habitat for Humanity, Green said.
Rebekah Stephens, executive director of Habitat for Humanity in Rutland County, said two of the eight Bridge to Rutland asylum-seekers, including Janet’s husband, helped to build a Habitat home.
“They just want to work,” Stephens said. “And for someone to show up every day and not even get paid for it? That’s a work ethic, and our community will only benefit from that.”
Once Janet is able to work, she said, she hopes to pursue a career in nursing, specializing in care for older adults. Right now, she works with her older son as a mother and a teacher, Green said.
“They do books together in English and in Spanish. He can put together a puzzle of all the letters of the alphabet, so he’s learning,” she said. Janet hopes to get her older son into school soon, so he can interact with other children.
But Janet expects her family is only halfway through the asylum-seeking process. She is waiting on what is known as a calendar hearing — the first step in the courts, which will decide when future hearings take place, Green said. The calendar hearing is not scheduled until March 2024, and Green said it’s already been pushed back twice.
Despite the arduous process and lack of resources provided to asylum-seekers, Janet said she always has hope that she and her family can stay here.
