Page 5 - IAV Digital Magazine #422

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Hamilton Church Volunteers Denied Entry To U.S. So They Wouldn't "Steal American Jobs"
A group of church volunteers from Hamilton heading south to do relief work were denied entry to the U.S. for fear they would take American construc- tion jobs, said a spokesperson for the church.
The 12-person con- tingent from Hamilton's Rehoboth United Reformed Church was travel- ling by road on the morning of Saturday, March 11, to New Jersey.
Erik Hoeksema, the church's outreach director who was travelling with the group, said they intended to spend March break clean- ing up and rehabili- tating neighbour- hoods affected by Hurricane Sandy.
U.S. border law says Canadians do not require a visa to enter the country for volunteer work, as long as they can provide proof that their work will not be compensated.
Hoeksema says the
group was told they had failed to have a letter sent from the host church "parol- ing" them into the country.
"So what ends up happening is the organization that you're going to work with sends a letter to border patrol saying this is what they're going to be doing. What our group did not do, is we did not send that ahead of time," he admitted.
Hoeksema said the border patrol officer, who treated them cordially, told the group he would grant an exception and let them through if the host church managed to fax or email a letter right away.
Hoeksema says he contacted Rev. Seth Kaper- Dale, the pastor at the Reformed Church of Highland Park in central New Jersey, which would be hosting the group, so he could fax a letter to border patrol explaining their intended pur-
pose.
When the first letter was deemed "not specific enough" by a border patrol offi- cer, Hoeksema said he texted Kaper- Dale to send anoth- er, being careful not to make any specific reference to con- struction.
"In general, mission teams do team- building, tour mercy ministries of the church (food pantries, re-entry programs, thrift shops, etc) and assist with neigh- bourhood cleanup projects," said the
second letter.
It was this last part that was inter- preted as "work for hire," says Hoeksema. Officers denied them entry after they had been stopped for more than two hours.
"It's not a new thing that groups are going down there and helping out," said Hoeksema. "In the past, our groups would go down and help in impoverished neighbourhoods and maybe they would even do some light construction."
"I think everybody
knows that's what groups are doing down there when they're volunteering. Common sense has it that we're not going down there to steal American
jobs. We're helping people."
Hoeksema says this was not the church's first relief work trip headed south of the border. Many individuals from the congrega- tion have, in previ- ous years, travelled to volunteer on their own or with a group down to other states such as Kentucky or Pennsylvania.
On this occasion, however, the group was told that, as for- eigners, they would be taking American jobs, and that there was no pressing need for relief work anyway this long after Hurricane Sandy hit the region in 2012.
"Hurricane Sandy happened five years ago ... but the unfor- tunate thing for peo- ple who live in poverty is that they don't get over these things as quickly as others," he explained.
"They obviously can't afford to remove the barriers that are in front of them on their own, so they rely on vol- unteers coming. And that's all we were trying to do, go help others."
Kaper-Dale agreed, saying it takes an average of seven years to get an impoverished family back on its feet.
"We still have peo- ple living in their yards and in trailers
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