Workshops guide isle migrants on path to citizenship

About 50 Hawaii residents with green cards began the first step toward U.S. citizenship Saturday at St. Joseph Catholic Church in Waipahu with the help of lawyers, unionized hotel workers and a group of current and newly graduated University of Hawaii law school students and their professor.

With President Donald Trump threatening immigration roundups and regularly expressing anti-immigrant sentiment, immigrants who have been in Hawaii for as many as 30 years suddenly feel “there is a big sense of urgency,” said Paola Rodelas of Unite Here Local 5, the hotel workers union. “They’re hearing a lot of anti-immigrant rhetoric in the news.”

Saturday’s workshop was the third since March 2018 that Local 5 has organized mostly for Filipino immigrants with legal permanent status but who are not U.S. citizens.

The first two workshops helped 162 Hawaii immigrants — mostly Local 5 members — embark on the path to citizenship.

Rodelas said it generally takes about 10 months to gain U.S. citizenship. She has not heard of anyone who participated in the first two workshops who had their applications denied.

Saturday’s event was held at Hawaii’s largest Roman Catholic parish, which regularly sees 4,000 to 5,000 congregants per week, most of them Filipino, said the Rev. Efren Tomas, the parish priest.

It was aimed at people not necessarily affiliated with the hotel union.

“We want them to feel safe,” Tomas said. “We’re here to help because they don’t know who to approach.”

Ernesto Antolin, 47, of Waipahu, showed up with the green card he’s had since 1996, his passport, Social Security card, marriage certificate and driver’s license, prepared to fill out the 20-page application toward becoming a U.S. citizen.

Antolin was born in the Luzon area of the Philippines, is married to a U.S. citizen, and each of his four children — ages 15 to 23 — were born U.S. citizens.

“They’ve been telling me to get my citizenship,” Antolin said. “It’s about time.”

Emmanuel Galario, 55, a custodian at Ewa Beach Elementary School, and his wife, Perpetua Galario, 53, an education assistant at the school, also showed up at the church with their documents.

They’ve wanted to become U.S. citizens after emigrating from the Philippines but did not know where to turn for assistance.

“Before, nobody could help us,” Perpetua Galario said.

Her husband added, “We’ve been looking for someone to help us.”

They found approximately 50 volunteers on Saturday ready to offer advice, including UH law students armed with thick books titled “Immigration Law Sourcebook” and “Immigration &Nationality Act.”

Other volunteers came from Catholic Charities Hawai‘i, Pacific Gateway Center and a new nonprofit organization called The Legal Clinic, which assists low- and moderate-income immigrants.

Corey Park specialized in commercial litigation during his law career. Now that he’s retired, Park, 72, is working with The Legal Clinic to help immigrants in Hawaii.

He called the work “very rewarding.”

Like the other volunteers, Park wore a red T-shirt emblazoned with a blue butterfly and the slogan, “migration is beautiful.”

“There is a lack of information in the community about what it takes to become a U.S. citizen,” Park said.

With Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids underway across the country, “there should be a sense of urgency,” Park said. “That’s what’s creating anxiety. Unfortunately there’s increasing demand for these kinds of services.”

John Robert Egan, a professor at UH’s William S. Richardson School of Law, created a new Refugee and Immigration Law Clinic at the school.

Egan said the 20-page questionnaire is designed to find out if an applicant for U.S. citizenship is “of good moral character.”

It asks a wide range of questions, such as name changes, places of employment and any criminal conduct.

“Serious crimes” are likely to raise red flags for immigration officials reviewing a person’s application, Egan said. But traffic tickets should not be a problem “unless there’s a lot of them,” because multiple infractions show disregard for the law, he said.

Even nonviolent misdemeanor crimes should not automatically disqualify an applicant, Egan said.

By coming to Saturday’s workshop, Egan said, applicants for U.S. citizenship received detailed advice about any problem areas on their paperwork.

“People are nervous,” Egan said. “The trend seems to be to make it harder and harder to get citizenship.”

The Legal Clinic provides free and affordable immigration legal services to low- and moderate-income immigrants. Visit thelegalclinichawaii.org or call 777-7071.