Mission Oak Cliff: Lifeline for immigrants in Dallas
Undocumented immigrants are flooding food pantries and benevolence centers during the COVID-19 pandemic. They are desperate, afraid, distrustful of everyone and lonely. They feel they have no hope for them. They are one of the most vulnerable people in America right now.
That's Kevin Pranoto's experience in Dallas.
Pranoto is executive director of Mission Oak Cliff, a community ministry of Cliff Temple Baptist Church that provides food and clothes to the homeless. Over the past two weeks, he has witnessed a surge in the number of people seeking assistance, the majority of them immigrants.
"The immigrant community is being hit hard” by the economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic,” Pranoto said. “We've seen over 70 new families looking for assistance in this past weeks. Lots of them come saying they've lost their jobs. Most of them were working in the restaurant services industry. Some of them were servers and cooks. Others in construction."
Economic vulnerability
Most of the immigrants seeking help from Mission Oak Cliff are unemployed and have children. "They don't have any income at all,” Pranoto explained. “Twenty-five percent of them are families of five persons or more. Most of them are families of three or four members. Barely none are individuals.”
These families are exposed to exceptionally high financial risk during the pandemic. The economic stimulus bill doesn't protect tax-paying undocumented immigrants from receiving stimulus checks. Even if they have a U.S. citizen child, they don't qualify to receive the added credit per child other Americans will enjoy.
Congress decided stimulus recipients would be identified by their Social Security number and not the Individual Tax Identification Number, issued by the IRS to allow undocumented immigrants to pays taxes. Therefore, undocumented immigrants contribute money to the government, but they and their children won't get any stimulus help.
"Most of them are reporting zero income and are desperate to provide for their families in this times," Pranoto said. The surge of people in need has caused Mission Oak Cliff to be more lenient with its policies to help as many people as possible.
Emotional and psychological vulnerability
One recent story sticks in Pranoto’s mind. "There was a single mom who had three kids,” he reported. “She was recently laid off because of the coronavirus. She had never asked for help before. She was desperate and stressed out. She has kids that are not going to school, and she doesn't know if she will be able to find a job and provide for her family next week. The shock to her that she was in this position, asking for help was so shameful that she told us: 'Please help me. I promise I'll never ask again.'"
She was grateful for any kind of assistance, but what touched Pranoto’s heart was her state of vulnerability. "Her look of desperation and confusion really moved me, and also her feeling of being alone at this time. She felt like she had no other support," he said. "That's what made me realize the gravity of the situation and what our families must be experiencing right now."
Medical vulnerability
Immigrants are afraid of seeking assistance and medical "all the time,” he said. "A lot of people don't want to sign up for services, because they feel that it will affect their immigration status. We have to constantly reassure them we don't share their information with the government. But that is a big fear for them. Even before the coronavirus happened."
Pranoto told about an immigrant who would rather die than visit a hospital. "We actually had a man who had an episode in our office when the coronavirus was starting to spread around the community,” he said. “We were very concerned about his and our safety. We told him he needed to go to the hospital, but he refused for us to help him.
"Finally, we called an ambulance. Turned out, he only had pneumonia and not the coronavirus. He called us the other day and left a voicemail saying: 'Thank you so much, you all saved my life.'"
Service continues
Mission Oak Cliff has been serving the Dallas community more than 70 years, providing a model of endurance and service.
"We serve around 10,000 people a year,” he said. “We usually teach ESL (English as Second Language) classes, but they are suspended because of our shelter in place.
"Pray for God's provision at this time. We are working with a staff of four to protect our community and volunteers as much as we can."
Like Mission Oak Cliff, several Christian organizations continue to be the hands and feet of God in these troubling times. They continue to provide immigrants with access to vital services. Please support them:
Elket Rodríguez, an attorney and minister, is CBF’s immigrant and refugee specialist. He lives on the U.S.-Mexico border, in Harlingen, Texas, and works with CBF Advocacy, CBF Global Missions and Fellowship Southwest.