Miami religious communities help new exiles and migrants

Florida — Days after selling everything and fleeing Cuba, a mother and her three children were hopeful on a crowded boat and showed up at a church in suburban Miami.

Daneilis Tamayo and her children, aged 16, 8 and 3, sleep in the church’s makeshift shelter.

Over the past 18 months, some 250,000 migrants and asylum seekers have arrived in the Miami area after being granted only precarious legal status.

Often this does not include a work permit, which is necessary to build a new life in the US.

The Cubans were the first to arrive on the island during the communist revolution 60 years ago, and they are still fleeing here along with Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans.

Miami’s religious leaders remain steadfast in their mission to help new migrants. But they are sounding the alarm that the need is becoming unmanageable and could worsen without federal reforms to secure permanent legal status and work permits.

The number of arrivals by sea directly to Florida and those heading here from the US-Mexico border increased at the beginning of this winter.

For most newcomers, the best hope of settling in the US is asylum, but some say immigration courts are holding up cases, leaving migrants in limbo for years and ineligible for legal employment.

Many migrants have been left homeless by skyrocketing rents and motel costs. Religious leaders say some pay up to $800 a month for an air mattress in their living room or live in a single-family home with more than a dozen relatives.

In addition to providing food, clothing, and some housing assistance, churches help migrants inform them of their legal options.

The Catholic Church of St. Michael the Archangel organized a migration forum with the Catholic Legal Service in mid-February.

Three dozen people listened intently as lawyers explained a new humanitarian parole program that allows 30,000 Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans to enter the US every month if they have a sponsor who takes financial responsibility for them in for two years.

These efforts have created diaspora communities in Miami that are all too aware of the hardships that migration entails, and this encourages many to help.

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