Asylum Seekers Find Hope In Bergen Co. Activist

TEANECK, NJ — J.T. fled from religious persecution in his native India. He sought asylum in the United States in December 2015, but was held at a federal immigration detention center in Elizabeth until May 2016. He was eventually released and is now working full-time.

J.T. is just one of the asylum seekers the Northern New Jersey Sanctuary Coalition has helped live and work in the United States. The Ethical Culture Society of Bergen County in Teaneck founded the coalition, which now consists of several religious nonprofits in Bergen, Passaic, and Essex counties.

"People who come here seeking political asylum often find themselves in a detention center, some of them for up to four years," said Joe Chuman, who co-founded the coalition 14 years ago and leads the Ethical Culture Society of Bergen County. The group works with First Friends of New Jersey and New York, a nonprofit that helps out detainees and asylum seekers.

The coalition pairs asylum seekers with local families for at least six months. They help them get medical care and schooling. Those who cannot speak English are enrolled in English As A Second Language courses.

They include a 17-year-old girl from Sierra Leone who sought asylum here and now attends Bergen Community College.

Some of the people Chuman has helped rescue were traumatized in their native countries. Some through religious persecution, others by rape. Being held in a detention center can re-traumatize them, Chuman said.

"These people are not criminals," Chuman said. "Many are torture survivors."

A torture victim was deported from his native Ethiopia in 1999 and fled to Africa and South America. He crossed into Texas from Mexico and wound up in the Elizabeth detention center. The coalition found him there in 2014. He was freed and has been living on his own since 2016.

Of the 285,800 foreign born residents of Bergen County, 177,800 are naturalized United States citizens. Another 108,000 are not citizens. Asia has the largest number of naturalized citizens, with slightly less than 74,000, and non-citizens at 53,600. Latin America ranks next in both categories.

Chuman is also a professor of human rights at Columbia University and Hunter College. He said he has never seen immigrants and asylum seekers mistreated and vilified the way they have been since President Donald Trump took office.

"I've never seen anything like this, this is unprecedented in my lifetime," Chuman said. "I've never seen as much backlash and xenophobia from an American administration. I think it is very un-American and it is also illegal."

There are laws that govern the process by which someone applies for and is granted political asylum, like the thousands of people who walked thousands of miles from South America and into Mexico to try to enter the United States.

President Trump is expected to speak tonight at 9 p.m. about his ongoing efforts to build a wall on the U.S.-Mexican border as a response to a perceived threat of drug trafficking and increasing crossings there, CNN reported.

"You have the right to seek political asylum if you are being persecuted in your home country," Chuman said. "You have the right to step over the border, speak to a border agent, and request political asylum."

For more information about the Northern New Jersey Sanctuary Coalition, click here. For more information about The Ethical Culture Society of Bergen County, click here.

Editor's note: To protect their identities, the full names of some people included in this article were not used.

Email: daniel.hubbard@patch.com

Photo: Joe Chuman (Courtesy of Joe Chuman)