ELIM Will Train You for Immigration Ministry
By Jesus Romero
My wife and I are blessed with the privilege of ministering to the immigrant community in Texas and beyond since 2007. We call ourselves ELIM (Educational and Legal Immigration Ministries).
We have been serving under the umbrella of Fellowship Southwest since 2023 at our two offices: ELIM at Trinity Baptist Church and ELIM at Woodland Church in San Antonio, Texas.
As of this summer, we have served more than 1,200 families. Every immigrant represents one family, and working to bring them together through the justice system is essentially what immigration ministry is all about.
Miguel De la Torre, a Baptist theologian and seminary professor, says that when the Bible is read in English, the word “righteous” or “righteousness” is used in passages where the Spanish Bible reads as justicia, or “justice”. Thus, when you read the Bible in English, passages like Psalm 23:3b read “He leads me in the path of righteousness for his name’s sake”. In Spanish, though, it reads: “He leads me in the path of justice for his name’s sake”.
That is an entirely different reading of the sacred text, as De la Torre points out. The word ‘righteousness’ casts us immediately into the realm of private, morally right, or justifiable actions. Nothing wrong with that, to be sure. But to read “justice” in Spanish is entirely different and constitutes an act of communal faith. It serves as a reminder that all Christians, in small and big ways, are called and led by God to speak, advocate, and actively work toward justice in our world.
Every Wednesday morning, I read and pray through Psalm 23 in Spanish, my mother language. Every time I encounter verse 3, I thank God for setting us at ELIM in the path of justicia for his name’s sake and for the benefit of those who are invisible, vulnerable, and much maligned in our society.
We provide legal counsel and represent immigrants in immigration court and before the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS). We do the work of immigration lawyers, but neither my wife nor I graduated from law school. How do we get away with it?
The US government created a program through the Department of Justice’s Executive Office for Immigration Review over 60 years ago to allow religious, social, and charitable non-profit organizations to provide these services. If they follow the guidelines of the DOJ’s Recognition and Accreditation Program, they can practice immigration law in the US without being an immigration attorney.
As part of our ministry mission, we encourage everyone in the Body of Christ to serve immigrants in this way. The main requirement for anyone who wishes to become accredited is to apply to the U.S. Department of Justice under the auspices of a non-profit organization and take 40 hours of training in immigration law and procedure.
We offer our Institute on Basic Immigration Law yearly to help those called to immigration ministry fulfill the basic requirements for accreditation. We make our Institute available most summers, but this year we are offering it on October 20-24.
If you are led to be involved in justice-oriented ministry to the immigrant community where you live, we will train you in the nuts and bolts of immigration law. For more information, visit our website at www.elimfsw.org.
