OP-ED
Stop playing politics with New
York’s immigrant families
COURIER LIFE, AUG. 28-SEPT. 3, 2020 13
BY MARIA
Editor’s note: The author’s
last name has been withheld.
She is affi liated with the New
York Immigration Coalition,
which provided this op-ed.
Sixteen years ago, I came
to New York City to meet my
husband and start our life together.
We built a home here
and are raising our two children
in a community that
we feel deeply connected to
through our church, school,
friends, and neighbors.
We thought we had done
everything the government
wanted immigrants like us to
do, including paying taxes, but
when the COVID-19 pandemic
hit, the government turned its
back on us.
Like so many other New
Yorkers, my husband and I
both lost our jobs. Before the
outbreak, I worked at a cleaning
service but once the pandemic
hit our clients canceled.
At fi rst, the cleaning service
claimed that when the self-isolation
orders ended, I would
return to work. As the weeks
turned into months, the cleaning
service’s revenues dried up
and then it shut down.
My husband took great
pride in his job at a deli in midtown
Manhattan. He loved that
he was our family’s breadwinner.
When the deli furloughed
him, he felt powerless as we
struggled to feed our kids and
keep a roof over our heads.
Recently, he returned to work
but with fewer hours and the
months spent jobless means
that our bills piled up.
Our two young boys, 6 and
8 years old, are both American
citizens. They love running,
playing soccer, playing
hide and seek. We all adored
our outings to the park, where
we would play dominos, Loteria,
and draw with the boys.
But what help did they receive
after their parents lost their
jobs? Nothing. We received no
stimulus check, no unemployment
benefi ts. We aren’t alone.
The exclusion of hard-working
families like ours, with
American citizen children
or spouses, in all of the Federal
COVID-19 relief packages
meant not only that 15.4 million
people received no help
during a historic economic
recession, but many like us
struggled to pay the bills that
keep mounting
Like many parents, we
hoped to build a brighter future
for our children. As I
read about the early COVID-19
outbreak, my fi rst thoughts
were; What will happen to my
children? I worried the fear
and anxiety gripping the city
would overwhelm them. Surprisingly,
my kids weathered
the crisis well.
Instead, I was the one who
struggled constantly with the
stress of how we would continue
to feed our children,
house our family, and pay our
bills. As the little savings we
had ran out, I wondered if the
government would ever consider
putting families fi rst.
As each stimulus relief package
was passed, I began to lose
faith. The government has let
me down three times, already.
Fortunately, the community
stepped in to help.
Thanks to my membership in
ImmSchools, a local nonprofi t
supporting immigrant families
and their children, I was
able to fi nd some support to
help me better handle my anxiety.
They also helped my family
secure some temporary cash
assistance via the ImmSchools
Family First Fund and the
New York Immigration Coalition’s
NY United Emergency
Cash Assistance Program, to
help us get through another
month of bill payments and
groceries. I will be forever
grateful for this assistance, but
I know that so many other immigrant
families did not have
these resources. They need
and deserve help too.
It’s frustrating to see immigrant
families like ours
continually marginalized
and treated like political footballs.
We are human beings
with dreams and lives. We are
the same people who make up
more than half of New York
City’s essential workers. We
are your neighbors, friends,
and loved ones. And like many
other American families, we
need some help to weather
these challenging times.
We need a relief package
that includes all of us.
New York is our home. It’s
where my children were born,
where my husband and I have
built a life, and the place we
will live after the pandemic. It
will take all of us to rebuild this
nation after the pandemic and
we can only do it if our government
also invests in every family
to ensure that we can collectively
beat back COVID-19.
The virus doesn’t play politics
or discriminate and neither
should the government.
We can only win this fi ght
against the pandemic together.
Anything short of that will
hurt the nation’s recovery.
It’s time for Washington to
make sure that every family
has a chance to recover from
the hardships by passing a
stimulus package that includes
all of America’s families.
Maria is a proud parent
and a member of ImmSchools.
More New Yorkers should step
up for teens in foster care
BY SARAH DEME
My husband and I have
been blessed with over 30 kids.
And we are looking forward
to more. That’s because it’s a
blessing to be a foster parent,
especially to a teenager. Older
children in foster care need
more New Yorkers to step up
to fi ll the role. As a foster parent
22 times over, I highly recommend
it.
We became foster parents
when our biological daughter
left for college over 15 years
ago. Being empty nesters did
not suit us; we loved the energy
of having kids in the
house and being able to offer
guidance to someone who’s on
the precipice of adulthood.
New York City has made
big strides in reducing the
number of kids entering foster
care by instituting interventions
to keep families together.
In 2006 over 7,000 kids entered
care; in 2016 it was a little over
3,000. But that still means that
thousands of children need a
safe, stable, and loving home.
And because teenagers tend to
get a bad rap, foster care agencies
often struggle to fi nd parents
willing to take them in.
It’s true that fostering kids
of any age isn’t always easy, especially
at fi rst. Children have
different experiences, struggles,
and personalities. You
have to work to get to know
each other, fi gure out how to
communicate, and give children
the time and space they
need to build trust with a new
adult while dealing with the
anxieties of separation.
But we didn’t need to go it
alone. Organizations like the
foster care agency we work
with, The Children’s Village,
provide extensive support, including
foster parent support
groups (now all virtual) and
24/7 on-call service to help
with everything from crisis
de-escalation to settling misunderstandings.
And the rewards of fostering
a teen far outweigh the
work. As a foster parent, you
provide a child with the thing
a child needs the most: a stable,
loving adult in their lives.
In my experience, there is no
greater reward than being
that person.
The other day my son, Justin,
who joined our home fi ve
years ago, told me, “Ma (yes,
he calls me that), someday I’m
going to get a tattoo with the
date that I moved here because
that’s the fi rst time I truly had
a home.”
Thousands of kids in New
York City deserve that same
experience. I’m calling on my
fellow New Yorkers who can,
to step up and be a foster parent.
Sarah Deme is a foster parent.
She lives in Harlem.