There was also an influx of immigrants into the United States, especially along its southern border, when it was perceived that the Biden Administration would relax some immigration rules. While Texas and Florida made political theater of shipping immigrants to New York,

Massachusetts and other northern areas, the fact was immigrants were making to areas like Dane County on their own because of friends, families and other factors.

In 2022, the Immigration Affairs Office served 544 households with 775 adults and 572 children. What makes the work of immigration affairs so tedious is that the immigrants are from many places and countries including Mexico, Central America, South America, Africa, the Middle East and Asia. Recently it started serving Ukrainian refugees.  While 76 percent spoke Spanish as their first language, the world’s different languages are represented in the immigrant population that the office serves.

“We have people from all over the world that we serve,” Hamdan said. “For me, this is a hard job, but at the same time, it is really exciting to be able to serve someone whom I don’t even know how to pronounce their country’s name or the language they speak. At the same time, we are equipped with language line.”

What allows the IAO to work with the bulk of the immigrants is the diversity of its staff within the context of Latin American diversity. Hamdan is from Bolivia. Yesenia Villalpando-Torres from Mexico and Charlyn Cruz Nuñez from Puerto Rico are immigration affairs bilingual/bicultural social workers. And Jorge Salgado from Honduras and Veronica Gonzalez from Mexico are Immigration Affairs Social Service Specialists.

What also creates complexity — in addition to U.S. policy and the multitude of languages — is the status of the immigrants themselves. There are asylum-seekers, undocumented workers and families, permanent conditional residents, refugees and the occasional U.S. citizen. One size does not fit all in providing immigration services.

“We were afraid that DACA was going to be eliminated in the previous administration,” Hamdan said. “Now it is in limbo. It’s in the lower federal district courts in Texas. And we’ve been waiting to see what happens with that. So many people who qualify for DACA cannot apply. But the ones who did apply have to do renewals in two years. We have families coming to Dane County who may be undocumented. One child may be documented and the other one not. We have people who are coming seeking asylum. It’s very hard for them to obtain asylum in six years. We have families here. Dane County Human Services especially sees families that need a lot of services.”

In recent years, the IAO has been seeing an uptick in refugee-seeking immigrants. It is a long and complex process, a maze of requirements and procedures and paperwork that families new to this country find it almost impossible to navigate alone.

In order to meet the needs of this population and others, the IAO has a network of agencies like Centro Hispano and the Community Immigration Law Center, the Catholic Multicultural Center, UNIDOS and others — aided by funding from UW Health — to assist families through the complex and lengthy process.

“Last September, we started getting a lot of people seeking asylum, “Hamdan said. “Again every day, we learn something new. People were coming and we were like, ‘What is this asylum? What is this humanitarian peril?’ We have the African families airlifted and dropped in that facility. They were coming with SIVs. What is this ID? Are they special visas? Many of them have children and have medical and other basic needs. We try to help them connect with those resources. The legal resources are very important to have. Again we’re not immigration attorneys. With this increase of asylum seekers coming, we didn’t know where to send them. We have a lot of immigration attorneys in the private sector that we work with. But asylum is very expensive. Every case is different. I remember my first week back to the office in January, it was cold outside and we had a line of people waiting for us. Some were brought by MPD because they were just on the streets.”

The IAO, CILC, Centro Hispano and other partners decided to devise a system to meet the needs of the asylum seekers.

“We put our orientation together with the immigration attorneys,” Hamdan said. “Let’s say you just came here and you have one year to apply for your asylum. Here you are with your family and then they give you a stack of papers at the border and you enter with that. Many people think, ‘I have asylum.’ Well not quite right. There are steps that they need to follow. They give you that paperwork and you have to check in with the ICE office, the one that is normally used in Milwaukee, saying, ‘Hey, I’m here. I am checking in.’ They are given cell phones. They have to take a picture of themselves and then send it. There are many different ways that they need to check in with immigration. As a new arrival, we give them an orientation. We tell them what asylum is. We tell them the steps they need to take to become an asylee.”

Once the asylees are oriented, they meet with a pro bono attorney.

“People have a chance to make an individual appointment with a pro bono immigration attorney to see the case. ‘What happened? Why did you leave your country?’ Then they have the option of doing their asylum application. Asylum applications are in English and they are 10 pages. And then we have the pro se clinic the third Friday of the month with these immigration attorneys and volunteers. So now you did their orientation. You consulted with an immigration attorney. Now we can assist you in doing your application. That is not representation because we can’t represent these hundreds of people. It’s a fine line we have to walk. They do the applications and then the attorneys review the applications. ‘Okay, it’s ready to be sent.’ The first time you apply for asylum, you don’t pay anything. It’s free. We send the application.”

These applications are not processed and decisions rendered overnight. And it is 150 days later, about five months, that the asylum seeker can apply for a work permit.

“Work permits are taking between 1-6 months,” Hamdan observed. “We have people who have been waiting for the work permit and it is already time for them to renew their work permit and they didn’t have it yet. It is a very lengthy process. We are guiding people in checking on that. In the meantime as an asylum seeker — you and your family — you don’t have work permits. You really don’t have any income.”

In the meantime while the bureaucratic process lumbers on in deciding people’s cases and their work permit applications, the immigrants have to live, needing the essentials without having the legal ability to provide for themselves.

“We put them in the shelter,” Hamdan said. “Sometimes we have to do an emergency hotel stay. The Dane County Sanctuary Coalition is very helpful in helping us with hotel stays. We have some people who stay with volunteers. It is a huge risk to bring someone coming from another country to live with you. The kids get sick. There are accidents that can happen. Life goes on. All of these needs are unmet. And we really have an emergency in this community and in the country about how we are going to assist. Madison/Dane County, with all of these agencies, we are connecting them with different resources. And also while they are walking their asylum way, people will need rides to go to the Milwaukee office to do the check-in, to the courts in Chicago. Sanctuary has a wonderful group of volunteers who drive them to their appointments and bring them back. Sometimes, we can’t find a volunteer to take them to Chicago, our office helps to pay a private driver to take them and bring them back. We are constantly checking to see when their appointments are. This is a small example in how we are partnering to help asylum seekers.”

But again, the IAO’s client base is not just asylum seekers. It is filled with different people with different needs. And there are those fees.

“People don’t have the extra money to pay for an application for citizenship, which is $725,” Hamdan said. “If you have two people in your family, the amount doubles. And then you have to pay an immigration attorney. With all of those expenses, it’s like thousands and thousands of dollars that families don’t have, especially with this population. So our office helps with filing fees. We do filing fees for DACA renewals, citizenship, green cards, biometrics and other fees. That’s why we have that budget. We cannot pay attorney fees. We’re government and can’t be paying private attorneys because we will be out of money in no time.”

While IAO’s staff cannot do the legal work of attorneys — there is a line there that they cannot cross — they can eliminate the barriers that might impede the processing of applications in a timely manner.

“We work with a lot of private attorneys in Dane County who do payment plans for the clients,” Hamdan said. “We help them, if it is a new visa, get the police reports. We really work very closely with the attorneys so that the attorneys don’t have to be waiting for the police reports or an application. We are like, ‘Okay when is your appointment? Do you have a ride?’ Many of them like CMC, which has a good group of immigration attorneys and they do scaling fees. We work with the attorneys and find out what their clients need and how can we help.”

Again, in addition to the immediate asylum and work permit needs of the immigrants, they also have other needs that can be provided to them if they know where to go. The IAO helps them navigate that system.

“We partner a lot with the Latino Health Council when kids are coming with toothaches and stomachaches and they don’t have health insurance,” Hamdan said. “Immediately we connect them with some medical attention. Now with mental health services, there is a huge gap, even if you have insurance. We help find culturally relevant therapists or people who understand the trauma of the immigration experience. I’m a Latina. I’ve been in this country for 35 years. I still don’t quite understand, but I can put myself in their shoes. So there is a huge gap in mental health services for this population.”

While it usually isn’t looked at in this fashion, victims of human trafficking also need immigration services, especially if they have been victims of physical abuse and can claim special asylum status.

“Just yesterday, we worked with Project Respect,” Hamdan recalled. “They have clients whom they are working with. But we are connecting them to the medical exam. The medical exam for immigration purposes here are $300-$500. People don't have that money. We work with SSM Health to pay for that. The client is at Project Recovery and I am in our office with the SSM Health provider and we try to do the appointment. It took an hour just to get one appointment because we had to do interview the patient and then the scheduling and all of that. But if you don’t do this initiative, who is going to help people who are going through this. Can you imagine being a victim of human trafficking? You are homeless. It really inspires me every day to come to work and really be able to assist in whatever way we can.”

With the national immigration picture firmly entrenched in the national political divide, a solution will not be happening anytime soon. In the meantime, the immigrants who have come to Dane County are blessed that there is no political divide that prevents them from receiving the basic services that they need to become productive members of the community from the Dane County Immigration Affairs Office.