Middle of Everywhere - Mary Bray Pipher [47]
There are privacy issues. Refugees are leery of revealing confidential information about family members. This makes it stressful and sometimes impossible to fill out intake forms at a mental health center, a hospital, a school, a social welfare agency, or a bank. Refugees feel alarmed when they see questions about domestic violence or mental health. These are personal matters, not to be shared with strangers on paper. Questions about education, employment, income, religion, and health problems can also seem invasive.
Many refugees come from places where written information and signatures have gotten people arrested and killed. When they arrive here, they are warned to be careful what they sign. They are leery of signing forms they do not understand, which is prudent, but this wariness makes transactions difficult.
Any procedures that involve the police, such as dealing with a minor traffic offense, reporting a robbery, or even answering questions about a barking dog next door, can frighten refugees. Many come from countries where police are corrupt or associated with repressive governments. As a Siberian woman put it, "In Russia a policeman means trouble is coming." A Kurdish woman said, "Back home if a policeman knocks at your door, it means death."
All of the problems with paperwork and bureaucracy come together in their worst form when newcomers deal with the Immigration and Naturalization Service. The INS is the great American dragon that all must slay to enter the gates of the promised land. It angers, terrifies, and discourages newcomers. Some the INS drives back home; others it drives to suicide; most it eventually grants permanent residency status.
As one lawyer told me, "The INS is the mother of all bureaucracies; compared to the INS, all other bureaucracies are rank amateurs." The INS is incredibly understaffed. For the last few years Congress has funded enforcement but hasn't funded routine service and processing of documents. A recent newspaper article reported that of the 115,000 calls made to national INS offices daily, only 500 are answered.
In Nebraska we create illegals, then arrest and deport them. The INS in Nebraska doesn't have adequate staff to help newcomers secure legal status. People wait three years for routine papers to be processed. Yet, the INS raids meatpacking plants to round up illegals. Refugees live in fear of the INS. It's a Kafkaesque situation. People must cooperate with the INS or they will be deported, but they cannot cooperate because the INS doesn't respond to their attempts.
I know of only one positive story about the INS. It demonstrates that at least some employees are better than the institution. An INS official asked a man from a camp in Saudi Arabia if he wanted to come to America. He said sorrowfully, "I have no one in America." The official held out his hand to him and said, "May I have the honor of being your first American friend?"
SADIA AND THE INS
One night Sadia, a woman from Afghanistan, brought me a letter that ordered her and her fourteen-year-old daughter to report to Hastings, Nebraska, on a certain day to be fingerprinted. She was frightened by the letter and unsure how to comply with the order. She didn't have a car and couldn't drive to Hastings. There was no bus. She asked me if she could walk there and if it was bigger than Kansas City. I said it was small but one hundred miles away. Sadia wept, certain that she would be deported. I told her I would try to make arrangements to have her fingerprinted here in Lincoln. But if necessary, I would take her and her daughter to Hastings.
As I left, I reflected on Sadia's hard life, most of it spent on the run and in prison camps. Now she worked at a factory and had barely enough money for a small apartment for herself and her daughter. Sadia's daughter was fatherless and learning her