Helping Services for Immigrants

DRC After Hours Sponsor: Diana Morrow

Local community immigration activist Kathi Mitchell will be recapping her extensive international experience assisting immigrant families and will share stories about immigrant families in northeast Iowa and southeast Minnesota and the organizations available to help them.

In the mid 90s, Kathi participated in two Volunteer in Mission (VIM) trips to the border, Brownsville/Matamoros and Nuevo Laredo/Laredo-McAllen. She was active from the beginning in exploring and eventually developing an ongoing Sister Parish relationship with first, Nebaj, Guatemala, followed by an over 20 years relationship with the community of Potrerillos, El Salvador. From 2002-2008 she spearheaded the Spanish Language Academy, a once-a-month family-based learning model with a themed meal. Local immigrant families taught classes including a bilingual childcare/pre-school experience, K-6 Spanish Classes, Adolescent/Adult beginning Classes, and an Immersion Class. In 2008 the effort shifted to humanitarian assistance and transport after the controversial Federal Government raid at Agriprocessors, Inc. in Postville decimated the availability of teaching staff.

In the ensuing years a need for access to legal assistance became a focus. Out of this need, Path to Citizenship and the quarterly Justice For Our Neighbors (JFON) Legal Clinics were created. A few years ago, Iowa JFON merged with Iowa American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) which now operates as the Iowa Migrant Movement for Justice (IMMJ). With co-coordinator Ruth Palmer, client families continue to be served by IMMJ in northeast Iowa area through quarterly immigration legal clinics. Kathi's outreach includes gathering used furniture to connect with families in need; making food deliveries to food insecure families; and providing transportation to immigrants for work permit, passport, birth certificate, and country-of-origin identification processing and to immigration court hearings and attorney visits. She works with Crystal Duffy, Postville Librarian and fellow community advocate, to monitor a WhatsApp group called Muebles y Noticias – Furniture and Information, which presently serves over 240 immigrants in the local area.

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