Bishop Jaime Soto of the Diocese of Sacramento, California, Chairman of the Board of Directors at CLINIC, offers the following reflection for the World Day of Migrants and Refugees.

On Sunday, September 25, we celebrate World Day of Migrants and Refugees. This day is an opportunity for the global Church and all people of good will to step back and examine our response to the words of Jesus in Matthew 25:35: “For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, a stranger and you welcomed me.”

For those of you who are migrants or refugees, it is a day to remember: God loves you. You are not alone or abandoned, no matter your circumstances. The Church recognizes, honors and values you. We recognize the presence of the humble Jesus in you. We hear his voice urging us to stand by you.

The theme Pope Francis has chosen for this day of prayer, reflection and celebration is “building the future together with migrants and refugees.” Pope Francis invites us to recognize that we are called to work together to build a better future drawing ever closer to the hopeful vision of God’s Kingdom of justice and peace. The sure and certain hope of God’s kingdom helps us to open the door to the migrants and refugees in our midst — not excluding them, or even merely working on their behalf, but journeying together with them. “There can be no tomorrow without this inclusion,” Pope Francis says.

In his message for World Day of Migrants and Refugees, Pope Francis reminds us of the invaluable contributions migrants and refugees make in our societies — enriching our culture, faith communities, workplaces, schools and neighborhoods, with their talents and capacities.

In the United States, we are more aware than ever of the contributions immigrants bring to our society. In the past years of the pandemic, immigrant workers, regardless of immigration status, have performed essential services in all industries — healthcare, education, agriculture, etc. This cannot be overlooked: Immigrants are talented, hard-working members of our communities. They are our neighbors and friends. Giving them the legal recognition and respect they deserve is long overdue.

In particular, let us keep in mind Dreamers and DACA recipients, those who lack permanent legal pathways to remain in this country, the only home they have ever known. Nearly 700,000 young people are reliant on DACA to remain in the U.S., and around 1.5 million are potentially eligible. Among DACA recipients, 96% are either in school or working in U.S. industries. These young people are our neighbors, friends, and family members. They are already helping us build a brighter future in the U.S. They should be allowed to continue building the future with us by giving them lasting legal protection.

Many bring up the sheer volume of people requesting asylum or seeking legal immigration status and ask, how can it be done? To this we say: Ours is a God of abundance. In the Gospel according to Luke (Lk. 9.10-17), the disciples of Jesus hesitated when Jesus told them to feed the hungry multitude with what seemed a meager number of loaves and fish. The Lord was not deterred. He began to serve with what he had. His charity produced an abundance the disciples could not foresee. The same Lord urges us today. Logistical challenges are real; we do not overlook them. Welcoming immigrants requires sacrifices of time, attention and resources. However, when we decide to do the right thing, to take up the call of hospitality and justice, time and time again a door is opened, resources follow, people open their generous hearts to help.

On this day set aside by the Church to honor our migrant brothers and sisters, let us examine our hearts and our practices. Let us recommit to the holy work of hospitality, welcome, integration and building the future together.

When they arrived in the United States many years ago, Myriam Mézadieu and Nam Loc Nguyen could hardly have imagined that decades later they would be leaders of a national program helping immigrants like themselves.

In July, Mézadieu and Nguyen were chosen by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, or USCIS, as two of the eight new USCIS Citizenship Ambassadors from around the United States, or naturalized immigrants with extensive leadership experience who will serve as liaisons to promote citizenship among their communities. They are part of the first cohort of this new initiative, which seeks to reach the approximately 9.1 million U.S. lawful permanent residents, or LPRs, who are eligible to apply for citizenship but may lack the awareness or means to apply.

Myriam Mézadieu, Chief Operating Officer at Catholic Legal Services of Miami, is originally from Haiti, and will serve as ambassador for South Florida. Loc Nguyen, former director of the immigration and refugee department at Catholic Charities Los Angeles, is a former refugee from Vietnam, and will be ambassador for Southern California. Both served as leaders at CLINIC affiliate organizations for several decades and are well-known for their leadership, passion and warmth.

Stories of immigration

Mézadieu and Nguyen each immigrated to the U.S. in their youth.

Nguyen arrived in the U.S. in 1975 after the fall of Saigon to communism. Because he was in the military, Nguyen was the only one of his family of 12 — his parents and 10 siblings — to be evacuated.

“I was on the last plane out [of Saigon],” Nguyen told the Orange County Register. “That’s why I cried when I saw the last plane out of Afghanistan.” Many years later, Nguyen was reunited with his family after searching for them for a long time.

While living in a U.S. military camp after arriving in the United States as a refugee, Nguyen began volunteering with the refugee resettlement organizations and was eventually hired as an employee with the U.S. Catholic Conference, which led to his job at Catholic Charities, where he worked for 40 years.

“Throughout my work and career, I have always supported and promoted pursuing U.S. Citizenship because it provides many benefits for immigrants who come to this country, including the right to vote and choose the right person to represent them,” Nguyen shared with CLINIC. “To me, receiving citizenship is a gift from the free world to refugees without basic human rights in the homeland they have left. Also, however, I feel that it is our duty to inform refugees of potential opportunities and resources and to speak up on behalf of the speechless.”

When Mézadieu arrived from Haiti, she did not plan to stay in the U.S. longer than five years. She began working for CLINIC by running the daily operations for the Catholic Emergency Legal Aid project for Haitians after the 1991 coup d’état which sent Haitians fleeing to the Guantanamo Naval Base. In 1994, she co-founded an organization which would become Catholic Legal Services, Archdiocese of Miami, with her colleague, Randy McGrorty.

While helping many Haitians and other immigrants get legal residence in the United States, Myriam told the Miami Herald that she “felt compelled to help newcomers and encourage them to apply for citizenship as soon as they became eligible.”

But she herself did not apply for citizenship until 2001 — over 14 years after she arrived in the U.S. She says the events of September 11, 2001, made her realize that her home was in the United States. “I was so moved [by the tragedy] that [submitting my application for citizenship] was the only way to show my support for this unique country,” she explained.

New opportunities

Becoming USCIS ambassadors will help Mézadieu and Nguyen expand their outreach to their respective immigrant communities. They will be asked to speak about citizenship and their personal stories at USCIS events, as well as municipal gatherings, religious services, community education opportunities and more. It will give them a platform and tools to reach larger numbers of immigrants to share about the benefits of naturalizing.

“There are close to 1 million people eligible to naturalize in the state of Florida and over 600,000 in the Miami-Fort Dade area alone,” Mézadieu told CLINIC. She says a meaningful part of her new role will be “reaching out to isolated communities to explain the benefits of U.S. citizenship for applicants and their children, how U.S. citizenship can help strengthen and reunite families.”

Nguyen says he has long promoted the benefits of citizenship during his work at Catholic Charities, but the new role comes with added visibility. “When I was appointed to the role of Citizenship Ambassador by USCIS, it made my appeals more valuable and noticed by my listeners,” he explained. He says he will value the opportunity to share accurate and official USCIS information to possible beneficiaries, as well as to convey the concerns of his community with the agency.

Connection to faith and personal values

Both Nguyen and Mézadieu connect their new work with USCIS to their deepest personal values, which also motivated their life’s work at CLINIC affiliate agencies.

Nguyen, who is a Buddhist, commented on the unspeakable tragedy that continues all around the world prompting people to migrate, which he personally relates to having been a refugee fleeing the communist oppression in Vietnam. He says, “I believe that while God still grants me good health, I must speak up and fight for those in circumstances similar to what I previously experienced. The most effective and practical way to advocate for them is to vote. To do so, one must first have U.S. Citizenship. It is just that simple.”

Outside of this role, Nguyen uses his other talents to uplift the refugee and immigrant communities. In fact, Nguyen is a minor celebrity among the Vietnamese diaspora community, having written a song about his experience of a refugee fleeing Saigon that went viral after a popular singer made a recording of it. “It was a gift to my people,” said Nguyen.

Mézadieu cited a Scripture passage to explain why she is committed to the work she does: “If a house is divided against itself, that house will not be able to stand (Mark 3:25).” “The same is true if a family is torn apart, it cannot survive,” says Mézadieu. “My lifelong goal is to uphold what I view as critical to my Catholic values, by reuniting and keeping families together.” She calls family reunification a “moral value that strengthens our communities and our economy.”

“Being a USCIS Citizenship Ambassador and living out my faith and believing in the nuclear family reinforces what has been instilled in me,” Mézadieu concluded. “[In becoming a USCIS ambassador, I am] taking this great opportunity to reach out to eligible LPR families, not only in my little circle, but broader, anywhere that I can go.”

CLINIC is proud to have several members of its staff who are naturalized citizens or the children of naturalized citizens. They bring to CLINIC a valuable diversity of experience, perspective and culture that helps shape our work and mission.

Naturalization is the process by which foreign-born legal U.S. residents become U.S. citizens, conferring on them the same rights and duties as citizens born in the U.S. Eligible lawful permanent residents must go through a multi-step process which includes an English language and civics exam and an oath of allegiance to the United States. Naturalization represents participation in the full civic life in the United States, including through voting and ability to sponsor relatives to immigrate as well.

Several CLINIC staff members agreed to share their stories of naturalization in honor of Citizenship Week. We are honored to share them here.

Fleeing to the U.S.

One CLINIC employee, who asked to remain anonymous, shared that she naturalized with her parents when she was a child, eight years after her family had fled to the United States from Nicaragua in the 1980’s due to political persecution during the civil war.

Her father had been an attorney in Nicaragua and had had a few high-profile cases that turned the government against him. He and his family had to flee for safety. While her father was able to get a visa to come to the U.S., the CLINIC employee and her mother had to come to the border as asylum seekers. “We crossed the river in the middle of the night,” she explained. She was then just four years old.

Her parents worked hard to support the family and to integrate into the United States, taking English classes in their spare time. They got work permits and eventually were eligible for citizenship.

“I was only 12 when my parents were naturalized,” she recounts. “I remember my parents studying [for the citizenship exam] and trying to memorize the names of our senators, congressmen, previous president’s names, etc. It was so hard for them to study everything, yet my parents had no idea what [the officials] would actually ask them in the interview.”

She recalled the day of the naturalization ceremony: “I remember being at the courthouse in Baltimore with my parents that day. There were a lot of people who were being sworn in that day, with their families there watching and supporting them. It was amazing to hear them recite the pledge all together.”

Receiving and giving back

Another CLINIC employee, who also asked to remain anonymous, recounted that while the process of naturalization was fairly challenging and stressful, he would “strongly encourage it” for others considering becoming naturalized. He encouraged those who have been naturalized to “teach others what you have learned in your naturalization process so that hopefully it is easier for them. Encourage friends, family, and your community to vote and to voice their concerns at every level of government.”

This employee noted that one way he is glad to give back to his community is through Spanish-English interpretation for those going through the citizenship process. “I started helping interpret as a young kid and I think helping other immigrants in small and big ways will be a life journey for me,” he said. He noted that such commitment to helping other immigrants is part of what led him to work at CLINIC.

A life-changing experience

State and Local Advocacy Attorney Viviana Westbrook interviewed her mother, Susana, about her naturalization experience. Susana, who is from Mexico, decided to become a citizen after many years of living in the U.S. with her late husband, James, who was a citizen. James encouraged Susana to apply and helped her with the preparation, as she was very nervous. Susana had never completed past an eighth-grade education, and she feared she wasn’t up to the challenge, but James insisted she was. “He was my constant cheerleader,” Susana said.

Susana recalled the day of the citizenship exam. It was “a beautiful, sunny day. When I was taking part of my exam, I saw JFK’s famous quote about ‘ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.’ It is one of my favorite quotes. It spoke to me and my desire to participate in elections. When I saw it on the exam, I felt it was a good sign.”

Susana remembers the day of naturalization fondly. “I hadn’t thought I would be emotional [when taking the oath of allegiance] but my skin became covered in goosebumps, my throat was a knot — I could barely get the words out. I kept crying tears of joy. It all meant so much to me. It was one of the biggest accomplishments of my life.”

Susana looks back with great relief at her decision to naturalize, because it has paid off enormously. Although she says the process was challenging, she explains that after James’ death, she was only able to collect his social security to support herself because she was a citizen; she would have been ineligible as merely a green-card holder. As she has a disability and is in a wheelchair, this support is critical. “You never know the impact becoming a U.S. citizen will have on your life. If you are eligible, you should go for it,” she says.

She also says she has relished being able to cast her vote in elections as a citizen. She takes great pride in feeling like her voice and opinions are heard.

Reflecting on her mother’s experience, Westbrook says after she naturalized, her mother “felt like she could now make a difference [effecting change in our country]. I loved seeing that fire in her…In the years since, I have gotten to see many clients experience that liberation, excitement, and pride of becoming a citizen. It is something I wish for all those who call this country home.”