|
 |
|
|
|
We are not working with criminals ... we are working with people without papers BY JENNIFER MENSTER EL PASO, Texas -- While politicians and immigrants battle over border issues, Lenoir-Rhyne College graduates Katie Cartwright and Sam Plonk are seeking a solution firsthand. Cartwright and Plonk are volunteers for Border Servant Corps Volunteer program. Cartwright, 25, a 2003 L-R graduate, works with a free legal service called Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy. She works with people ages 17 and younger who are caught crossing the border. Plonk, 25, a 2002 L-R graduate, is events coordinator at Cristo Rey Lutheran Church. They host groups for a week of education and relationship-building along the border. Plonk also volunteers one day a week at a shelter for undocumented immigrants. Both volunteer at an after-school enrichment program for Spanish-speaking children. They love their work. However, if the Senate approves and the president signs House Bill HR 4437, they’ll be out of jobs. What Cartwright and Plonk see as humanitarian aid, the president sees as aiding a criminal activity. “We are not working with criminals,” Cartwright said. “We are working with people without papers. They’ve never committed a crime. We are working with good people.” Plonk’s been in El Paso, Texas, for almost two years; Cartwright since August. The stories are heartbreaking, Cartwright says. Plonk knows a family. The father is a legal resident of the United States. Two of his children are because they were born in America. The man’s wife and oldest child are not documented. “Imagine if HR 4437 passed, making all undocumented people and those who aid them felons under U.S. law,” Plonk said. “The entire family would be felons overnight.” Cartwright works with teens who attempt to come to America to reunite with family or to find a job. The majority of the teens she works with are from Central America. Any Mexican children who try to enter the country are immediately sent home, she said. The majority of the other children also are sent home after a legal proceeding. The goal of the program Cartwright works with is to make sure the children have someone to explain what’s going on. “It’s scary getting arrested as a teenager in a foreign country where you don’t speak the language and don’t know what’s going on,” she said. “It’s frustrating, especially because these kids are not running away from home.” Cartwright says the teens are conflicted about leaving their home countries, but compared to making $1.50 in the fields in El Salvador, it’s worth the risk to try to come to America. Shutting down the borders will not help the immigrant problem, Cartwright says. Sending the nearly 12 million undocumented residents in the country to their homeland will not help the problem either, Plonk said. “The 10 (million) to 12 million people living undocumented in the country are living in the shadows,” he said. “It doesn’t make sense to me that we’d want to encourage people to live in the shadows. It’s not healthy for those people or society to have undocumented people.” Plonk and Cartwright say there should be more guest worker passes. They’d also like to see an easier way for immigrants to become legal. And they say a plan to send 6,000 National Guardsmen to patrol the border won’t help either. “These people are desperate,” Cartwright said. “They are going to find a way to get here.” jmenster@hickoryrecord.com | 322-4510 x5409 or 304-6916
|