Highland Park church helps illegal immigrants avoid deportation (The Star-Ledger)

Highland Park church helps illegal immigrants avoid deportation
By Karen Keller/The Star-Ledger
March 02, 2010, 5:05AM

HIGHLAND PARK — A year ago, the pastor and a member of a Highland Park church went to extraordinary lengths to help an Indonesian church member avoid deportation.
The Rev. Seth Kaper-Dale and Linda Lachesnez, of the Reformed Church of Highland Park, pleaded with federal immigration officials on behalf of Henry Pangemanan. They frequently visited Pangemanan — who was being deported because his tourist visa had expired more than a decade ago — in the Elizabeth detention center.
And when it appeared their appeals were going nowhere, Kaper-Dale boarded a plane for the West Coast in a last-ditch effort to help Pangemanan, a 39-year-old father of two U.S.-born children.
The detention center in Tacoma, Wash., was to be the last stop for Pangemanan before the deportation flight to Asia.
Months later, a federal official said, the deportation order was reversed, thanks to the Highland Park activists, and Pangemanan was back in Middlesex County.
That was the start.
Since Pangemanan’s release in April, Kaper-Dale and Lachesnez have helped obtain low-level "orders of supervision" from the federal government for more than 50 Indonesians living in New Jersey. An order of supervision reduces the chance of deportation and allows the immigrant to apply for a driver’s license and a work permit and remain living at home.
The feats have inspired immigration activists and clergy nationwide at a time when deportations are up and movement toward national immigration reform has been minimal.
"People were happy to hear what happened in New Jersey. You don’t hear about that scale happening," said Tara Tidwell, spokeswoman for the National Immigrant Justice Center in Chicago.
Now Kaper-Dale, a 34-year-old Vermont native, and Lachesnez, a 63-year-old Woodbridge native who was homeless for four years, are expanding efforts to the Filipino community and beyond.
An Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokesman for New Jersey, Harold Ort, said 380,000 people were deported nationwide last year, 244,000 of them with no criminal record.
In the Highland Park case, Ort said, federal agents were impressed with Kaper-Dale and Lachesnez’s doggedness, and the strong family and community ties of the immigrants for whom they were vouching.
While ICE agents routinely use discretion in deciding who to detain and deport, it’s uncommon for community leaders to intervene in the cases of dozens, he said.

‘BIG IMPROVEMENT’
The Highland Park story has already created ripples thousands of miles away.
Four Indonesian-born illegal immigrants in Tacoma have averted deportation, as have two in Philadelphia, with the help of clergy who had learned of the New Jersey success, Kaper-Dale said.
Still, Kaper-Dale and other activists said they believe ICE in New Jersey has been more receptive to appeals than in other states.
"It feels like a real effort by ICE to listen to the concerns of advocate groups and faith-based groups," Kaper-Dale said. "There’s just a real different feel now. ICE would rather have less people in detention. It’s an attitude."
As a signal of more changes to come, ICE officials plan to meet today in Newark with New Jersey clergy members to discuss issues concerning illegal immigrants, he said.
Rex Chen, the supervising lawyer at Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of Newark, which offers legal advice to illegal immigrants, said ICE has been granting parole more frequently to immigration detainees.
"In the past six months to a year, we’ve seen them being more thoughtful," Chen said.
Ort said the agency has been detaining fewer non-criminals in recent months. Of 57 cases involving illegal immigrants in New Jersey between Nov. 10 and Jan. 31, ICE put three people in detention, said Ort.
"With respect to detention ... we are committed to working on these types of matters in a humane and thoughtful manner," he said.
As of Feb. 24, New Jersey detention centers housed 828 illegal immigrants, Ort said.
Kaper-Dale and Lachesnez, meanwhile, hope to start working with other ethnic enclaves.
Four Filipinos have already been released from the Elizabeth detention center in the past month, he said.
Like the Indonesians who were helped, the Filipino immigrants still aren’t in the clear. To get legal status they must work with an immigration lawyer and make a successful plea to a federal judge.