Rev. Seth Kaper-Dale: Typical day . . . in the age of Trump II. Be Like Rev. Seth!
This is what yesterday held. It was a typical day as a pastor at the Reformed Church of Highland Park in the age of Trump II. Remember, the church is deeply tied to DIRE and to CAN! and to many other programs that support refugees and immigrants.
Please understand, I do not share this as any sort of a boast. I share this to expose the horror of daily life for immigrants in NJ right now. Ethnic cleansing is happening right here, right now. Please help in any way you can to support our frightened and breaking families. Please help. Feel free to reach me at seth.kaperdale@gmail.com if you want to know more details about specific forms of help. Honestly, money is desperately needed, but so too transportation, and food and high levels of outrage expressed in every corner of this state.
-I wrote a letter of support to an Immigration Judge for a man who is currently detained in Texas. His U.S. citizen wife is 7 months pregnant with a very high risk pregnancy. He was detained while doing his usual 6 month check-in at the Immigration Building in Newark. He has an open, pending I-130 marriage petition. I then requested a check for $8,000 from the DIRE program to pay an attorney to work on getting him released.
-I met with a family of 5 (now 4–Dad was deported) from Perth Amboy. Dad has been here 30 years, mom 23, and they have three U.S. children–ages 21,19 and 12. They were locked out of their apartment in Perth Amboy, on Tuesday, due to non-payment of rent after years in that unit. Dad was detained a few months ago. He was the only one with a full-time job. The car was in his name. Now the family has no home, no car and we housed them in Code Blue–because they got locked out during this storm. Today RCHP-AHC will move them into a new apartment that we have available, but the 7th grader–an honor’s student–now has to figure out how to get to Perth Amboy every morning from Iselin. Dad was detained just long enough for them to put all they had for resources into legal fees–but he was deported to Mexico anyway.
-I wrote another letter to an Immigration Judge for a family we’ve already committed to financially. I wanted the judge to know that if this man was released we would help him, and his wife, to start rebuilding their life with their 1 year old after these months of trauma. We would help with rent, transportation, appointments, food…This was requested through the CAN! program (communidades para americanos nuevos). It’s part of RCHP-AHC.
Friends, this should not be a typical day. Pray for all the people in this country who are traumatized right now. Give generously to non-profits that are saying ‘yes’ to $8,000 requests for legal help when the bucket is almost empty.
We are heading toward another “Dad-less” community. Not unlike the “war on drugs” that emptied communities of black men, and destabilized neighborhoods for generations, we are heading toward a “Dad-less” latino community and refugee community.
It’s all by cruel design.
peace, seth
