Houston Immigrant Women and Children in Need

Tahirih’s work to mitigate the impacts of Hurricane Harvey has focused on three major initiatives. 

• Legal and Social Services to Clients.

o   In the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Harvey, Tahirih contacted all of its current clients to make sure they were safe and determine what additional support was needed.  Now, roughly two months out, we are initiating another round of outreach to determine if any new needs have emerged.  In total, the percentage of Tahirih’s clients affected is roughly similar to that observed in the general Houston population – about 15%-20% of clients, or about 40-80 individuals and their family members that Tahirih is currently serving.  About 20 households had severe needs, for example, their house was flooded, they lost their only car, or they couldn’t meet rent because they couldn’t get to their place of business.  Tahirih is triaging these cases, and making referrals, providing social services, and deploying direct financial assistance funds it raised in the aftermath of Harvey.

o   In addition to the elevated legal complexity created by Harvey (difficulties participating in mandatory hearings or meetings, or charging ankle monitors, for example), case management needs are also more complex.  The first wave of support involved helping clients find new places to live.  However, as they move, many need new safety plans, and many have trouble enrolling their children in school because their name isn’t on a lease or their children is undocumented.  Finally, while clients receive work authorization when their cases are finalized, in the meantime they must rely on the informal economy to meet basic needs of food, shelter and transportation. Finding and building these new relationships to meet their daily needs is a special challenge for those who have had to relocate.

• Community Mobilization. Tahirih is leading efforts to develop a Houston-wide evaluation of the all the federal, state and local disaster-relief programs available to those impacted by Harvey, and how those programs can be accessed by immigrants. Very often, immigrants face legal barriers to accessing key assistance programs, and it is critical to remove those barriers to enable the assistance to be useful to them.  For example, there is a program called SNAP that provides disaster aid, and undocumented immigrants are eligible to participate.  However, they need to enter a Social Security Number in order to apply, and many do not have an SSN.  As part of the evaluation, the SNAP program is identified as a source of support, along with critical instructions about how to enter a string of zeros in place of a Social Security Number.  Tahirih is working with a law firm in Pennsylvania on this effort, and sharing the evaluation and recommendations with critical groups working to support the immigrant community in accessing these programs.  
• Civil Liberties Advocacy.  Tahirih is working with the Department of Homeland Security to address grievances about monitoring of disaster aid efforts by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).  While immigrants were given assurances that enforcement efforts would not be exercised against those seeking assistance during and after Hurricane Harvey, ICE agents were seen patrolling shelters and other relief sites.  Even more troubling, when Tahirih set up immigration and domestic violence assistance tables in the Convention Center shelter themselves, five different individuals supporting immigrants observed and photographed ICE agents patrolling the tables inside the shelters. Tahirih has organized three conference calls with Homeland Security to share this information with the Civil Rights / Civil Liberties department, and that team is coming to Houston to discuss and evaluate its response to the disaster relief efforts.