ROCKINGHAM — For those who consider Emma Lazarus's “The New Colossus” not a bromide but a call to action, the Community Asylum Seekers Project (CASP) offers a way to honor the Mother of Exiles' salutation to the “huddled masses yearning to breathe free.”
The organization recently received two new individuals seeking asylum, and in mid-September, CASP launched a crowdfunding campaign at startsomegood.com/shelter-asylum-seekers.
Community Asylum Seekers Project, founded in 2016 by Steve Crofter, is a nonprofit organization with a mission to “provide basic needs and a supportive community for those in the process of seeking asylum in the U.S.,” according to caspvt.org.
CASP works with about 50 groups that directly interact with asylum-seekers to find out who needs a home. “There are hundreds of incarcerated families and individuals who could be released if they had sponsors,” said CASP Board member Dempster Leech.
Since its inception, the organization has sponsored six individuals seeking asylum in the U.S. for protection from persecution or threats of death. The nonprofit has found shelter for them in the southern Vermont area, providing for basic needs, education, and medical and legal support, all through donations and the efforts of local volunteers.
A person applying to the federal government for asylum cannot legally work in the U.S. until 180 days after they file their application. CASP's guidelines state that clients must obey the law, and that includes not working until they are legally permitted. This makes the clients completely financially dependent on their hosts.
In an interview last year, Crofter told The Commons that it's usually not just one person offering all of those things to the individual. It can be a family, or a group of neighbors or church members. [“Violence, a border crossing, and then a haven in Vermont,” News, Jan. 31].
With help from volunteers, Crofter and his life-partner, Laurel Green, renovated a handyman's apartment at their farm to house Yesenia and her two young children, who fled Mexico to escape gang violence. Yesenia and her children moved to the farm in October, 2017. (At Crofter and Green's request, The Commons is withholding Yesenia and her children's surnames for safety reasons.)
This past year, CASP expanded its fundraising and community outreach efforts. “Our first priority, of course, is to support Yesenia [and her children], and that's been going very well,” Leech said.
Yesenia and her children are thriving, he said. The kids spent the summer riding bikes, swimming, and taking art classes, and are back in school.
“Yesenia took an ESL class in Greenfield this summer and is now seeing an English-language tutor to feel more comfortable with her new language. The children are both near-fluent, as children tend to be,” said Leech, who added, “We are hoping that, by year's end, Yesenia will be allowed to go to work. Meanwhile, because the courts are underfunded and backlogged, her case continues on.”
CASP was “jogging along,” said Leech, raising money to support Yesenia, her children, and the other guests. “Then, in June - wham - lightning struck,” Leech said.
“The news that [the Department of Justice] had ordered the separation of children from adults at our southern border - the smuggled sounds of weeping children forced to sleep on prison floors - galvanized those who knew about our work. Suddenly, we were awash with offers of support,” he said.
Leech admitted it was “a bit overwhelming for the handful of us who had started CASP,” but they organized three support groups in Brattleboro, Westminster, and Putney, and launched a fundraising page on the StartSomeGood.com website.
As CASP officials wrote on the fundraising page, they have received help from immigration lawyers, doctors, clinicians, and community and church groups willing to help the organization's guests.
“Now we have a chance to do more. Additional folks in our larger community have volunteered to host asylum guests. But we need your help. We've learned that roughly $10,000 per year (plus the volunteer support of our local aid organizations) can sustain an individual or small family. We hope to have at least four to six more host homes in this next year ready to take in seekers. To make this work, we must raise $40,000 to $60,000,” says CASP on their fundraising page.
The group set an initial goal of raising $3,000 in 28 days - and within the first four days took in $2,999.
The timing is good.
A recent news release from CASP announced the recent arrival of two young women seeking asylum in the U.S. “[They] came here with no U.S. contacts. Without CASP's sponsorship, they'd be in jail - perhaps for years - until their asylum claims are settled,” Crofter said.
“Unfortunately, the reasons they came here and the journey they took to get here were extremely traumatic. It's hard to overstate the agony of leaving everything you've ever known and the pain and fear that might have driven you to do it,” Leech said.
He characterized the individuals as “only two of the many hundreds currently incarcerated who have come to this country, not for economic gain, but because they're running from places ruled by gangs, fueled by corruption - places where justice is a joke. These folks, adults and children, are literally running for their lives,” he said.