By Amy McCraw
May 8, 2010
Imagine living and working in the United States while your children and spouse live in another country. You want them with you, but you can't afford an attorney to help navigate the complex process required to legally bring your family to this country.
But Catholic Social Services, an agency sponsored by Catholic Charities USA, gives many immigrants in the area a chance to reunite with their loved ones.
"It is part of my faith to help people," says Lea Terrey, an immigration specialist with Catholic Social Services. "It is gratifying to see families reunited."
Catholic Social Services, a nonprofit and part of the Charlotte diocese, serves 16 counties in Western North Carolina through its main office in Asheville. Staff members also spend time each month in Burnsville, Murphy and Hendersonville. Other branches of Catholic Social Services serve the remainder of the state.
How it started
CSS began in 1948 as a ministry of the diocese of Raleigh. It became part of the Charlotte diocese in 1973.
Today, Terrey assists clients with immigration concerns through a CSS program called Asheville Legal Migration Assistance.
She spends two days each month at Immaculate Conception Catholic Church in Hendersonville meeting with clients, usually from Mexico, who want to have their family members join them.
She meets with people regardless of religious affiliation.
Not everyone gets help
For many foreign-born Hendersonville residents, such financial and bureaucratic challenges associated with legal immigration leave them separated from their families.
Those who seek her services must meet minimum financial requirements. Only those who are considered low-income are eligible for assistance. Clients typically must earn less than $30,000 a year to qualify for assistance.
Terrey must also turn away people who have issues outside the scope of her specialty. Those who need help with deportation, work visas, student visas or criminal cases are referred to other agencies or attorneys.
Catholic Social Services also can't help some clients because their circumstances don't meet immigration law requirements.
"They come to us and think because we are the Catholic Church, we can work miracles," she says.
Telling people she can't do that, and giving them an honest assessment of their cases, is important. Some clients might be taken advantage of by people who take their money while making false promises of assistance.
"I don't want you to be wasting your money or be taken for a ride," she tells those she has to turn away.
Terrey and a co-worker provide their services under the guidance of an attorney familiar with immigration issues. The immigration services program at Catholic Social Services is also accredited by the federal Board of Immigration Appeals. The program usually helps between 1,000 and 1,200 people each year.
While Pisgah Legal Services in Hendersonville assists some clients with certain specific immigration issues, the immigration program at Catholic Social Services is the only program in the area that assists low-income people with immigration concerns, Terrey says.
"We are pretty much it," she says. "The immigration process is very complicated. It is complex and detailed."
A mission to follow
Jacquie Crombie, the director of Catholic Social Services in Asheville, says the work of Terrey and others at CSS falls in line with the church's mission of trying to help people who are vulnerable and struggling on the margins of society.
"We try to not turn people away," Crombie says. "The whole mission is to provide services for people who wouldn't otherwise be able to afford an attorney."
The immigration program through CSS has helped 700 people so far this year.
In addition to assistance with immigration issues, the 10 staffers at Catholic Social Services in Asheville also help people with domestic adoption, international adoption, pregnancy support, counseling, marriage counseling and refugee resettlement, among other things.
CSS is supported through donations, the Catholic Church and grants.
Fees for immigration services through CSS are typically much less than a private attorney would charge clients, Terrey says.
Consultations cost $45, while the fee for a client to renew a resident card costs $60. Some cases that involve petitioning for the legal immigration of a family member might cost several hundred dollars.
"People come to us and know we are not going to bleed them for money," Terrey says. "They know they can trust us and they can follow up. Because we are associated with the diocese, they are not going to be taken for a ride."
Terrey says she benefits from her work by seeing the gratitude of the clients she helps. Some of those clients have baked her special desserts or given her boxes of fruit as a thank-you.
"It is interesting to see the kindness of people," she says. "If all of us were like that, this would be a great place to live."
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