Anabel should be more tired than she looks sitting in the former convent that houses the nonprofit Asylee Women Enterprise (AWE). She has not slept since working the night shift at a nearby fast-food restaurant, yet she is composed and pulled together, dressed in a crisp white blouse and black slacks.

She put off sleep this morning to talk about the critical help—“life changing” she has received from the organization. A trans woman in her 30s, she fled her Central American homeland for Mexico and then, in search of safety, health care, and economic opportunity, the United States. (Her legal name and country of origin have been withheld to protect her identity.)

With tías y primos (aunts and cousins) in Maryland, she made her way to Baltimore, which, she’d heard, “had a friendly culture and jobs,” and to AWE, which she’d learned about from a healthcare worker.

One of her primary needs was legal representation. Asylum applications must be submitted to court within the first year of arrival in the U.S. and typically require a lawyer and supporting evidence such as medical reports, which may indicate physical abuse or trauma, to be successful. Other immediate needs included the survival basics like food and housing. Asylum seekers are not eligible for SNAP benefits, public housing, or Medicaid. They also can’t apply for a work permit until six months after receipt of their asylum application. The Asylee Women Enterprise team helped arrange all this and more, including therapy.

“The staff helped me get the health care I needed, and professional psychological help, too,” Anabel says with a smile. “Being psychologically healthy, it’s important for a transgender woman if we are going to work and re-integrate into society.”

Her English is also coming along, with the help of twice-weekly English classes at AWE and the Google Translate app on her phone. With the help of an interpreter, she explains challenges remain, however. Like navigating the city’s disjointed public transportation system and the asylum process, which is becoming more problematic seemingly by the day.

Meanwhile, she closely follows the news around the Trump Administration’s controversial immigration policies and practices—the warrantless searches, the masked ICE street arrests, and the sudden revocations of legal status for asylum seekers like herself.

“The laws,” she says, “should be respected by immigrants, asylum seekers, and the federal government.”

Still, she is grateful for the assistance she has experienced over the past two years, and tries to take things one day at time.

“Baltimore is a welcoming city, and it has given me a life,” she says, welling up a bit while adding how much she enjoys Eastern Avenue’s restaurants and coffee shops, and the city’s parks and book kiosks. “I like to walk and to just sit in Patterson Park and read a free book. I love reading.”

As for long-term plans, those are on hold, she says. The future is too difficult to ponder, given the current level of chaos and uncertainty.

“We do bring goals and we do have big dreams when we come to this country,” Anabel says. “But thinking five years or 10 years ahead, it’s not possible to think like that anymore.”

The Asylee Women Enterprise in northeast Baltimore was founded 15 years ago to support people who have been forced to leave their countries—asylum seekers, foreign-born trafficking survivors, and other forced migrants—as they rebuild their lives in Maryland. The origin story of the nonprofit is almost biblical.

In 2011, just after Christmas, a young Afghan woman, who had been forced to flee her country, was eight months pregnant and homeless, in desperate need of a safe place to stay. Molly Corbett, then a consultant with the Benedictine Sisters of Baltimore County and later the founder of AWE, received a phone call about the situation and reached out to the sisters, who agreed to take the woman in temporarily at their Emmanuel Monastery on West Joppa Road. When she went into early labor on January 6—the traditional feast day of the Epiphany in the Catholic Church—Mercy Hospital took care of her and her baby, and the new family returned to the Benedictines, who re-welcomed the new mom and helped look after her son.

After learning there were more asylum seekers needing help, Corbett began coordinating with other religious communities to offer housing, medical resources, and support.

From that experience, AWE, which still has ties to the Catholic community but operates as a secular 501(c)3 and serves people of all faiths and genders, was born. By 2018, the nonprofit assisted 100 asylum seekers annually. In 2025, more than 325 asylum seekers and trafficking survivors from 40 different countries came through its doors and received intensive case management support.

Through AWE and its partners—including the Intercultural Counseling Connection and HEAL (the refugee health and asylum collaborative), based at Johns Hopkins University—individuals receive holistic services, including legal, medical, and mental health services, often on-site.  Many attend AWE language classes. Nearly 50 youth attend the organization’s peer support groups. AWE also provides transitional housing, a daily food bank, and hosts a Tuesday and Thursday hot lunch program with staff at the former St. Anthony’s Convent in Frankford.

Meanwhile, the organization is still in contact with the young mother and son who inspired its founding. (Note: AWE is searching for a new location. Earlier this year, the Archdiocese of Baltimore sold the former convent they lease to the Baltimore International Academy school.)

Even so, after 15 years, the need far outpaces AWE’s resources. In Maryland, tens of thousands of asylum applications are backlogged, with many Baltimore residents traversing the years-long process without legal representation—a process that has become increasingly fraught since Donald Trump returned to office.

“We have a client who ICE recently contacted and said, ‘We’re going to deport you to Uganda,’” says Laura Brown, AWE’s executive director since 2022. “Normally, you might receive a letter that gives you 30 days to respond [to a request or order]. But they said, ‘You have 10 days to explain why you shouldn’t be deported to Uganda, and then we’ll make a final decision.’ So, we prepared a detailed response explaining her children can’t receive the medical care they need in Uganda. That she’s a single woman. That she’s never been to Uganda, and she doesn’t know anyone in Uganda. Her deportation has since been upheld, which we’re appealing.”

“We have a client who ICE recently contacted and said, ‘We’re going to deport you to Uganda…You have 10 days to explain why you shouldn’t be deported, and then we’ll make a final decision.’

“So, we prepared a detailed response explaining her children can’t receive the medical care they need in Uganda. That she’s a single woman. That she’s never been to Uganda, and she doesn’t know anyone in Uganda. Her deportation has since been upheld, which we’re appealing.”

The aggressive expansion of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)—now the highest-funded law-enforcement agency in the U.S. after a $75-billion supplement allocation in the so-called “Big Beautiful Bill”—has been widely reported. So too has the surge in arrests, documented through cell-phone footage and nightly news coverage. Even with a recent slowdown in arrests since immigration agents shot and killed Renee Good and Alex Pretti in January, the statistics remain staggering. According to Freedom of Information Act documents obtained by the Deportation Data Project, ICE averaged roughly 7,000 arrests a week in the six weeks following Pretti’s death. Roughly 5 to 7 percent have a violent criminal record.

After witnessing the ramped up racial profiling and street arrests in Los Angeles, Chicago, Minneapolis, and other cities, the immigrant community and their supporters in Baltimore have been holding their breath in anticipation of an ICE build up here. Those concerns only grew after the Department of Homeland Security purchased an 825,000-square-foot warehouse near Hagerstown with plans to convert it into a detention facility capable of holding up to 1,500 people. It’s part of what acting ICE director Todd Lyons called an attempt to run deportations like “Amazon Prime for human beings.”

Shortly after the $102-million purchase and subsequent $113-million contract to build out and operate that facility, ICE opened a new Hunt Valley office for its attorneys. (The Hagerstown area project is currently on pause after a lawsuit brought by the ACLU of Maryland.) Even without the warehouse, the city and state have already witnessed an exponential jump in immigration arrests. Federal immigration agents made more than 4,800 arrests in Maryland in the first year of Trump’s second term—more than triple the previous year.

Meanwhile, asylum seekers, like those supported by AWE, also face an extraordinary, if quieter, crackdown. The Trump Administration’s overhaul of the immigration courts has been far less public than the deportation raids. More than 100 immigration judges, many with higher asylum approval rates, have been dismissed, an unprecendented purge. Dozens more have retired or resigned. More than 140 new judges have been appointed, many with limited or no immigration law experience and less training than their predecessors. Under a new directive, judges are increasingly denying bond hearings and dismissing cases at the federal government’s request so that defendants can be arrested. Overall, the new judges are granting asylum much more sparingly—in just 6 percent of cases, according to a New York Times report. Even prior to the recent order, asylum rejections doubled from 2024 to 2025.

In other words, immigration courts are now ending some cases before asylum seekers receive a full hearing—as in the sudden deportation threat of the AWE client to Uganda—a policy change known as “pretermission.” Additionally, extended visas and immigration is on pause from nearly 40 countries deemed “high risk,” mostly South American, Caribbean, Middle Eastern, and African nations.

Another new proposed rule would make it impossible for new asylum seekers to apply for a work permit and make work permit renewals more difficult.

“There have been a lot of changes to the asylum legal system and the deportations that go through that system in the last couple of months,” says Brown. “The increased ICE presence, what the country sees in the streets here and elsewhere, what we saw in Minneapolis, is the visible representation of what we are seeing behind the scenes, but the public doesn’t see.”

Acting ICE director Ted Lyons wants to run deportations like “Amazon Prime for human beings.”

For asylum seekers in Baltimore, the result is near-constant anxiety. Most are required to wear ankle monitors and many dread leaving their homes or missing a letter, email, or phone message from ICE, which could be recorded as noncompliance. Showing up for previously routine check-ins at the ICE field office at Hopkins Plaza has become particularly terrifying.

One AWE client, who attends college, says they carry their immigration, personal, and medical documents everywhere, fearing detention at any moment. If they are riding a bus and see someone with their face partially covered, they sometimes get off early, afraid the individual may work for ICE, and wait for the next bus.

Another AWE client describes the toll of lleaving her 5-year-old child behind when she reports to her ICE appointments. “She asks what will happen if I get detained,” the woman recently shared in an AWE blog post. “She asks if she will have to stay with her grandma and she says, ‘I don’t want that! I want to be with you, Mama!’ Five years old is too young. It is too hard for her to bear that she might lose me.”

In this volatile environment, AWE and its partners continue their work. The Intercultural Counseling Connection, for example, provides specialized mental health care to AWE and other Maryland asylum seekers—a significant number of whom have experienced sex and labor trafficking, political persecution, incarceration, torture, and gender-based violence, including genital mutilation.

Regardless of any desire of returning home, it is simply not an option for most, says Caitlin Tromiczak, the program director for the nonprofit. Many clients have left families behind who may be in hiding because the government or another party that was persecuting them may still be looking for the now-asylum seeker.

“We have journalists, religious leaders, and political activists who are clients and others who may be leaving an abusive situation, which could be in their own family, due to their sexual orientation or something else,” Tromiczak says. “Some people come on a temporary visa and maybe flew in a plane and were greeted by family or friends. But other people crossed borders on foot, and there’s trauma that can happen on that journey, including getting detained. Just going through the legal process and restarting your life, that can also bring up deep trauma.”

Individual and group therapy sessions often focus on immediate struggles, such as eating, anxiety, and sleeping issues, as well as man- aging emotions, nightmares, flashbacks, and memories. Often there is difficulty in building trust after experiencing something like torture.

“We do a lot of deep trauma processing, but then with other people, they’ll say, ‘I just want to talk about how I can sleep better,’” Tromiczak says. “Or, ‘I don’t have the capacity to go through all of my traumatic memories—what I need to be able to do is sit down with my lawyer and recount my story, or I need to focus at work without getting lost in my memories.’”

HEAL, meanwhile, provides primary care, mental health, women’s health, and pro bono forensic medical evaluations to AWE clients. Such evaluations, which include physical and psychological components, can objectively document a client’s torture, persecution, or other ill treatment and corroborate their claim for legal protection. Afterward, HEAL generates a legal affidavit, which outlines the findings from the interview and examination. Forensic reports hold great weight in court and clients who submit them are more likely to be granted asylum or other types of immigration relief. HEAL also works with interpreters, who provide additional cultural understanding around basic care and health norms, notes Dr. C. Nicholas Cuneo, HEAL’s executive director.

“The last thing you want is to do is pigeonhole clients or bring bias into the interaction, he says. “The adjudication process is more adversarial across all elements of the asylum process, and we’ve encountered that,” he adds. “The affidavits we produce employ international consensus guidelines and we know that they are still having an impact even as the legal process gets more challenging.”

Rasha Elmahdi (pictured in the opening photo above) serves as the Asylee Women Enterprise’s policy, advocacy, and health specialist. One of her roles is to coordinate between AWE clients and HEAL and their JHU-based medical staff and volunteer medical students. A former asylum seeker herself, originally from Sudan, and a naturalized citizen, she arrived in the U.S. with more than 15 years of experience in international development, including leading global initiatives around population and development with a focus on peace and democracy, public health, gender inequality, and migration.

“Coming to the U.S. was a difficult situation [in terms of work]—organizations here wouldn’t accept me,” Elmahdi says. “I was not getting offered entry-level positions because I was 40, and they were not offering more senior positions because they’re not recognizing my credentials. It is preconceptions you’re up against, sometimes because of your accent. I’d been to the U.S. many times previously, but then I was here 10 years [after seeking asylum] before I got anything in my field. I was substitute teaching.”

Though her background in Sudan was in policy, she has come to appreciate her more hands-on work with asylum seekers. As a Muslim and mother of a U.S.-born teenager, her own daily  experience can still be difficult even as a U.S. citizen. She and her son are often treated as outsiders, she says. Seven years after taking the oath of citizenship, and after earning two more degrees in the U.S., she still carries her naturalization certificate in her purse.

“I do see myself in our clients,” she says, adding that AWE feels more like a community than a job. “Just yesterday, I received a text message from my first client here, a Spanish-speaking woman, about getting something to eat together. We are just friends now.”

Elmahdi notes that her role has changed since she started at AWE, when she served in a more housing-focused capacity, but not her purpose.

“Whatever your role is here, a case manager or not,” she says, “if there is a need, you do whatever you can because we are working with human beings.”

New and immaculate, the War Memorial on Gay Street was draped in sun­light for its 1931 opening, with Mayor Howard Jack­ son on the portico, facing City Hall, looking out over the crowd.

One year into the Great Depres­sion, though, Jackson’s outlook was far from sunny. “In some homes today, there is more suffering, more heartache than war ever brought,” he announced. “Our real obligation to those who died [in World War I] is to find a solution to the economic problems of the present.”

His present, of course, is now the past. Today’s banks have real money inside. The stock market is soaring. Employment is at a record high. But other problems reminiscent of the Depression linger, as problems do. There are still hobos under bridges. Still soup lines. Still factories closing. And old and forgotten, the marble War Memorial has lingered, too, darkening in city soot, weather­ ing, growing weary.

Now it sits draped in a blanket of fog and blackness on a cold March midnight. On the front portico, where a mayor once spoke of better­ment, a homeless Vietnam vet named Bill sleeps with his head pressed against a tall golden door. From here, the War Memorial seems heartbreaking: soiled and silent in the shadows of downtown. Even the front courtyard appears disheveled, muddled in low mist, that patch of land where “The Star­Spangled Banner” was first per­formed in 1814. And across the courtyard, City Hall tolls its bell: one o’clock, two o’clock, three o’clock, four. Nothing changes, save the scatter of rubbish whirling in rich, black breeze.

But come 5:30, light nips at the horizon. A short woman sips coffee at the corner and shivers, hawking newspapers for 25 cents. Police offi­cers hasten toward headquarters. Batches of businesspeople bustle by, ignoring the old memorial, and Bill awakens on the portico, fumbles with a handful of cigarette butts, and lights one.

At 7:30, Civic Works employees perform calisthenics in the front plaza, and at 8:05, a car pulls to the curb. A candidate for U.S. citi­zenship emerges, ready to be sworn in as part of a monthly cer­emony. She is old, feeble, with light-brown skin and long gray hair, with two tall sons in turbans helping her from the sedan to a wheelchair. And she is smiling up at the War Memorial, a smile of hope and excitement. Long ago, just after this monu­ment was built, this old woman would not have been allowed to take her citizenship oath here. State veter­ans had forbid use of the building “for other than veterans.” But that idea didn’t last—this is American, after all—and the policy was overturned on Constitutional grounds.

Eventually, the building became a museum, and was rededicated to also honor veterans of World War II and the Korean and Vietnam conflicts. The Disabled America Veterans, the American Legeion, and the Veterans of Foreign Wars took office space over the years, and in 1997, Cynthia D. Coates became the building’s first non-veteran, its first female, and its first African-American executive director.

Today, the first day of spring, Coates is in her office downstairs as 351 citizens-to-be assemble in the auditorium above. She listens as Lloyd Marcus sings “Celebrate America” and Howard German croons “America the Beautiful.” She hears 351 voices—legal alien voices—take the oath of U.S. citizenship and she hears congratulations booming from the stage, cries of “Welcome to America!”

Then she hears 351 voices—citizen voices, now—whooping on the portico, on the stairs, on Gay Street and beyond. And Cynthia Coates sits in her chair smiling at the joyous sound of her old and maybe not entirely forgotten building. A building still of patriotism, still of pride, and now, again, of hope.

Each year, an artist in the Baltimore area is recognized for his or her outstanding work by way of the Janet & Walter Sondheim Artscape Prize, which awards a $25,000 fellowship.

Those curious to learn more about the artists and see their work can catch a group exhibit at the Baltimore Museum of Art, which has been on view since June, showcasing a sampling of work by each finalist.

Mediums and styles cross the spectrum—photography, painting, fiber art, video installation, and sculpture—but one thing is certain: Work by this year’s group of Sondheim finalists addressed hard-hitting issues faced by America, such as racial and gender inequality, immigration, and slavery.

Past winners of the prestigious award have included artistic duo Wickerham and Lomax (2015) and musical instrument creator and innovator Neil Feather (2014).

A crowd gathered for the awards ceremony last night at the BMA coinciding with Artscape next weekend. Among the finalists this year were Erick Antonio Benitez, Nakeya Brown, Sutton Demlong, Nate Larson, Eunice Park, and Stephen Towns.

Erick Antonio Benitez, a Salvadorean-American artist, whose work focuses on the refugee and migrant experience, won the 2018 Janet & Walter Sondheim Artscape Prize.

“This work is very timely and important to me,” Benitez said at the ceremony. “I wanted to create something that would highlight true realities.”

The 30-year-old MICA grad said that he plans to spend the $25,000 prize to help fund more trips to the U.S.-Mexico border to collect more objects for future installations. The remaining artists received $2,500 each.

The Sondheim Artscape Prize exhibition of work by all seven finalists will remain on view at the BMA through August 5.

The latest in a series of murals by Baltimore-based street artist and MICA grad Gaia is now on view in Remington behind W.C. Harlan.

Sponsored by Greater Remington Improvement Association (GRIA) and Baltimore Office of Promotion and the Arts (BOPA), the piece depicts a pair of immigrants arriving at Ellis Island around the turn of the last century posed in the style of a Madonna and child.

In reference to the subject matter, Gaia wrote on Instagram that, “My great grandfather came to this country and started a garbage business. One hundred years and four generations later, it is important to remember that migration is a human right.”

Rendered in shades of blue and based on a period photograph by Lewis Hines, the one-story image is placed over a background of flowers arranged by local florist Steelcut Flower Co.

Gaia requested permission to use an arrangement featured on Steelcut’s Instagram, and owner Mary Ellen LaFreniere was happy to contribute her work to the project.

“We all have a different lens of perception, and I’m honored that Gaia took my image, transposed it with another through his own lens, and created something new that can assist people in emoting, thinking, feeling . . . whatever they take away from the mural,” LaFreniere says.

While the chosen arrangement was created for a bride, not as part of the mural project, LaFreniere says the blossoms featured lend themselves to the message.

“The white bloom on the bottom left is a tuberose, the one on the top left is a Mexican sunflower, both flowers that have origins in Mexico, both uniquely beautiful,” she says. “Also, many of the flowers shown in this bouquet were grown by Hillen Homestead, a Baltimore City farmer who grows on abandoned lots, and her farms are just a few minutes away from the site of the mural. I think you all can probably infer your own metaphors about Mexican flower varieties and flowers grown on abandoned lots and how that overlaps with Hines’ image.”

The Hines-inspired mural is the third and final wall to be painted by Gaia as part of his Transformative Art Prize collaboration with GRIA and BOPA. His other works from the project can be seen at Wyman Park Drive and Remington Avenue and at 26th Street and Hampden Avenue.

Over the past few weeks, the Trump administration has been under fire from opponents and allies following the images and sounds of more than 2,000 young children who were separated from their parents and being kept in cages in a detention center in Texas. Yesterday, President Trump signed an executive order that ends the policy of separating migrant children from their parents who are detained.

“So, we’re going to have strong—very strong borders,” Trump said. “But we’re going to keep the families together. I didn’t like the sight, or the feeling of families being separated.”

These comments come after he earlier argued that “you can’t do it by executive order.” The President is now ordering that family separation will be replaced with the detention of entire families. It’s not immediately clear what will happen to the detained children or when they will be reunited with their parents.

Since May 24, when the “zero-tolerance” policy was enforced, there have been dozens of immigrant children from Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras in Maryland that were separated from their families after crossing the border into America illegally. While the President’s order will stop the future separation of child and parent, local organizations are concerned about the well-being of the children already separated. The Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service (LIRS) that works with refugees and migrants openly opposes the practice of family detention.

“While children will no longer be ripped from the arms of their parents for the sole purpose of deterring immigration, they will go to jail with their parents,” said Kay Bellor, VP for programs at LIRS, in a statement. “Jail is never an appropriate place for a child.”

For the past two years, the Catholic Charities of Maryland’s Esperanza Center has been running a family reunification program that helps minors reunite with their families. The center has helped 243 unaccompanied minors who have crossed the border—including eight who were forcibly separated from their parents—so far this year.

“We haven’t received any guidance from the [Trump] administration for how they are going to handle the children who have already been separated,” said Helany Sinkler, who runs the reunification program. “Although the children are being cared for and looked after in the shelter, there’s nothing better than reuniting a child with their family.”

Sinkler says that the reunification process is not an easy one and predicting how long it takes is tougher. Locating and approving a sponsor is a tedious process including finger printing, background checks, and myriad communication across borders given that most children arrive with nothing but a name and phone number for a relative. During that time, the child is placed in either a shelter or foster care, depending on the age, until a legal sponsor is appointed.

The American Academy of Pediatrics, the American College of Physicians, and the American Psychiatric Association have all issued statements warning against the traumatic effects of separating families—representing more than 250,000 doctors in the United States.

“To pretend that separated children do not grow up with the shrapnel of this traumatic experience embedded in their minds is to disregard everything we know about child development, the brain, and trauma,” the doctors wrote in a statement to President Trump.

In addition to the reunification process, director of the Esperanza Center Val Twanmoh says that they are working with children have suffered traumatic experiences both in the home country and once crossing into the U.S. She stressed a need for increased counseling and mental health workers to assist with the transition of the children.

“Finding bilingual mental health providers is extremely difficult,” she said. “We normally have to refer them out because we don’t have the workers to accommodate it. It’s extremely difficult.”

Sinkler is still planning to do all she can for as many children as she can with the current resources she has but is still in disbelief that something so “unbelievable and incomprehensible” is happening in this country.

“When you’re talking about family separation, there’s now this added layer on top of everything they’ve already suffered in home country,” she said. “We are essentially re-traumatizing the children that came seeking protection and fleeing already horrible conditions. It’s unreal that this is America that is doing this. This isn’t another country that’s notorious for not being sympathetic. This is not what we do.”

After months of negotiations, lawmakers are no closer to a deal on the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. In a game of tug of war, the White House and some Republicans are insistent on adding new immigration restrictions as a contingency in order to continue the Obama-era program that allows hundreds of thousands of children brought to the U.S. illegally to live and work without punishment.

Last week, President Trump’s administration proposed a deal that included a path to citizenship for more than one million undocumented immigrants, but also included a push for enhanced enforcement powers. If Congress can’t reach a deal by the March 5 expiration date, 800,000 people nationwide—including 8,000 in Maryland—will lose their status, making them an easy target for deportation.

“It’s a tradeoff in a sense,” said University of Maryland professor Christina Getrich. “On the one hand, it’s helping people like Dreamers while at the same time hurting their parents and family members that weren’t eligible.”

In order to qualify for DACA, applicants are required to be fingerprinted, have passports, and update their address with each move, making it easier for Immigration and Custom Enforcement (ICE) to locate them. 

“Most of the Dreamers’ parents are undocumented or some of them have temporary protective status, which is also ending,” Getrich said. “So it’s not only scary for the DACA individual that the government has all this information on, it can really endanger the whole family.” 

Just last week, it was announced that ICE has now gained access to a nationwide license plate tracking database. This will provide access to billions of license plate records and provide real time location tracking to assist with ongoing investigations. The agency also made the decision to expand deportations beyond criminal offenders, further igniting rumors of politically motivated enforcement. 

At a rally in Highlandtown last February following an onslaught of ICE raids nationwide, DACA recipient and Ecuadoran immigrant Lourdes Ortega spoke with Baltimore about the fear in her community.

“Families have been scared to leave their homes,” she said. “They don’t want to go outside and they’re afraid to send their children to school.”

The heavily Latino population of Southeast Baltimore is especially nervous about the DACA program being in jeopardy and the latest announcements from ICE.

“It’s also an attack on our economy,” said Catalina Rodriguez-Lima, director of the Mayor’s Office of Immigrant and Multicultural Affairs. “A lot of these people have bought homes, go to schools, are business owners, and create jobs.” 

At President Trump’s first State of the Union address last night, he spoke about immigration and family-based migration saying that programs like DACA and the diversity visa are the reasons for increased terror attacks in the U.S. The president used those statements as leverage to garner support for his proposed plan to allow 1.8 million undocumented immigrants to gain legal status in exchange for increased border security. In fact, he never mentioned the future of DACA or the Dreamers in his speech aside from proclaiming, “Americans are dreamers, too.”

“Tonight, I am extending an open hand to work with members of both parties—Democrats and Republicans—to protect our citizens of every background, color, religion, and creed,” Trump said. “My duty, and the sacred duty of every elected official in this chamber, is to defend Americans—to protect their safety, their families, their communities, and their right to the American dream, because Americans are dreamers, too.”

Local Democratic lawmakers were not pleased by Trump’s rhetoric regarding the future of immigration policy and took to Twitter to express their disdain. Senator Chris Van Hollen commented that the only part he enjoyed about the address was, “My fellow Americans.” When it came to increased border security, he had more to say about that.

“The administration’s unrelenting efforts to tear immigrant families apart and waste taxpayers’ money on an ineffective wall has put thousands of families in crisis,” he tweeted. “And in both word and deed, Trump has diminished our stature around the world and undermined our national security.”

Senator Ben Cardin was also not shy about criticizing the president’s remarks.

“Our union endures,” he said on Twitter. “But America’s standing is diminished in the eyes of the world because of [President Trump]’s brazen attempts to shut our doors and marginalize the compassion and opportunity that America has symbolized for generations.”

Maryland’s only Republican congressional delegate Andy Harris has not yet commented on the State of the Union address, however, last week he spoke about his thoughts on DACA and the government shutdown.

“Senate Dems want to shut down the federal government and deny health insurance to children across America over an arbitrary DACA deadline,” he tweeted.

With both sides opposing the administration’s plan, it seems the only option being thrown around is a deal that requires a trade of sorts—aggressive immigration measures, like a $25 million wall, in exchange for DACA—making citizens feel like pieces in a larger political game.   

“To be a political pawn in the way that they’ve become is just really disheartening,” Getrich said. “I think for a while it was empowering being a DACA recipient, it felt like people actually cared—it sort of validated who they were. But I think that people started feeling like no one actually care and it’s just for political reasons.”

On the one-year anniversary of her release from prison, Chelsea Manning wants the world to know that she means business. After spending seven years in prison for passing sensitive government documents to Wikileaks, Manning is seeking to run for the U.S. Senate in Maryland. Originally sentenced to 35 years, her sentence was commuted by President Barack Obama to time served and she was released in May 2017.

While in prison, Manning came out as transgender, though she’s not the first (even in Maryland) to challenge a sitting member of Congress. Retired Navy SEAL Kristen Beck attempted to unseat U.S. Rep. Steny Hoyer in 2016, but only got 12 percent of the vote. 

Manning, who officially filed on January 11, will be challenging two-term Democrat Senator Ben Cardin, who is up for reelection in November. (Cardin’s spokesperson told Baltimore that the Senator “is looking forward to a vigorous discussion of the issues and a robust conversation with Maryland voters.”) We got a chance to talk with Manning about her time in prison, her political platform, and what she thinks of her critics.

You’re originally from Oklahoma. Why did you choose to run in Maryland?
I’ve been a resident of Maryland since 2006. I moved here after living homeless in Chicago for several months. I went to Montgomery College and I lived here for a few years before I enlisted in the military. Even when I was in the military, I was always coming back home to Maryland. My aunt lives here—I have roots here.

What inspired you to get into politics?
This time last year, I was still in prison. When I was released, I had this notion that I’m going to go home, retire, and live this quiet, comfortable life. And I get outside and the world is such a very strange and different place. Being out and about made me recognize just how important it is for us to combat the forces of political repression and oppression that many people all over the country—not just in Maryland or Baltimore—face every day.

It’s been getting progressively worse. I’ve said this enough times, but I came outside and it seemed like a dystopian novel, like the world that I just entered into is just the most boring dystopian novel I’ve ever read.

You are going up against two-term Senator Ben Cardin. What do you plan to do differently?
I voted for him twice. What makes me different is I’m trying to present issues that are important. It’s not about him—it’s more about the establishment, regardless if they are left or right. We have a lot of these nameless, faceless career politicians who are not dealing with the issues in our communities that we’re worried about. We live in this domestic population where the criminal justice system, our police system, our surveillance state have taken over our entire lives. Many of us now live in fear.

What current issues are you passionate about?
We need to roll back a lot of those federal bureau prisons. It’s become a very militarized force. We have police and we have these massive prisons and instead of defending these systems, we have to start rolling it back, releasing prisoners, start sending people home, and we need to end this. We have the largest incarcerated population in the world and that should give us thought.

What about healthcare and immigration? Those are hot topics right now.
I believe that every single person that needs healthcare should be given access to healthcare that is free, that is unconditional, and that is private. The Affordable Care Act was a handout to insurance companies and a Band-Aid to a much deeper problem in our healthcare system—it didn’t go far enough. I support a single-payer healthcare system, how that gets implemented is up for debate. I certainly believe that the end result should be free.

I also believe that people have an absolute right to come into this country. The immigration system is being used today to go after minority groups. The immigration systems have been weaponized against minority communities in our country and we need to roll back on that and we need to stop.

Tell me about your campaign slogan, #WeGotThis.
It’s a personal mantra of mine. Whenever things looked hopeless [in prison] and we had no evidence that we were going to get through this, I would say “we got this,” and I would repeat this to myself and the people around me. Even when we could see the light at the end of the tunnel, it was important to remember that doesn’t mean the end of the tunnel isn’t there. “We got this” is an embodiment of that. I started saying it on Twitter without even realizing it and it morphed into a hashtag over the last several months.

What do you have to say, if anything, to the critics who say you shouldn’t be trusted and think that your past deems you unfit for the job?
My team is going to have a chance to show ourselves, we’re going to have a chance to make this campaign work and we are going to be able to address these things. The haters are going to hate no matter what, we’re going to face criticism, and deal with conspiracy theories. The pundits are often wrong, they’ll give their two cents, but pundits don’t make policies and they don’t determine how the country is run. So we’ll see what happens. We got this.

Mayor Catherine Pugh announced last week that the City of Baltimore would increase its support to provide legal representation to immigrants facing deportation. This effort is just one part of the Safe City Baltimore Fund launched in April with Open Society Institute (OSI) Baltimore to protect the city as a whole. 

“Providing legal representation to those facing deportation maintains trust in law enforcement and our local institutions and keeps us all safe,” Mayor Pugh said in a statement. “If our residents don’t feel safe, all of us are at more risk.”

Baltimore is now one of 11 locations around the country that are a part of the SAFE (Safety and Fairness for Everyone) Cities Network, a group that is funded by the Vera Institute of Justice and devoted to protecting immigrants. Prince George’s County was the only other Maryland jurisdiction chosen for the initiative.

Under the program, the city is required to invest public dollars that are then matched by the SAFE Cities Network to provide legal counsel to detained Baltimore City residents facing deportation. Catalina Rodriguez-Lima, director of the Mayor’s Office of Immigrant and Multicultural Affairs (MIMA), said the city plans to invest $100,000 that will be supplemented by the catalyst fund from the Vera Institute, which combined will be enough to help 40 residents attain legal assistance.

“The great thing about partnering with Vera is that they will be providing technical assistance to our offices,” Rodriguez-Lima said. “Also, as part of the project, they’ll be collecting data on the cases—everything from the impact on the families to the impact of the city’s economy.”

The catalyst fund from the Vera Institute will be dedicated solely to residents who have been detained. But now, under the Safe City Baltimore initiative with OSI, there is additional funding to help those individuals seeking an attorney who have not yet been arrested. Tracy Brown of OSI Baltimore said that more than $500,000 was raised to address the growing need for training and coordination of pro bono attorneys, as well as education on basic rights.

“The risks of deportation are so huge,” Brown said. “When you think about how difficult it is for an immigrant to assert legal rights in that kind of high stakes position without an attorney, it’s really an insurmountable burden.”

On Wednesday, Rodriguez-Lima announced that four nonprofit organizations in Maryland would receive funding from the combined fund: the Catholic Charities Esperanza Center, the Pro Bono Resource Center of Maryland, the University of Maryland Carey School of Law, and the Capital Area Immigrants’ Rights (CAIR) Coalition, which will handle the defense for detained residents facing deportation.

“They all have a separate service that we believe combined can really have an impact in the City of Baltimore,” Rodriguez-Lima said. “So having the multi-prong approach, that can target populations at various levels in the immigration process, we can help approximately 900 people.” 

All services will be free to Baltimore City residents who meet the income requirements. Rodriguez-Lima says the typical deportation defense is challenging and requires a lot of money and effort to yield positive results. She believes that MIMA’s partnership with OSI Baltimore and the Vera Institute is a step in the right direction. 

“It’s really about basic fairness—it’s a due process issue,” she said. “I think as a city, that’s the minimum we can do. By doing that, we can protect children and keep families together.”

When Liliane Makole came to America from Cameroon, she made a dream board on the bedroom wall of her Little Italy home. One of her aspirations was to open her own restaurant.

Today, her dream is more attainable than ever. Makole and five other women founded Mera Kitchen Collective, a worker-owned co-op focused on empowering refugees and immigrants and tapping into their culinary heritage by hosting pop-up events throughout the city. 

“When there’s so much movement in people’s lives, cooking is an anchor,” says member and translator Aishah Alfadhalah. “This is something familiar when everything else feels new.”

Inspired by women’s empowerment groups she had seen in the Democratic Republic of Congo, co-founder Emily Lerman connected with Makole, Meg Murray, and Brittany DeNovellis, who all had similar ideas of giving women the platform to cook. 

“With the current political climate, there’s a heightened interest in the immigrant experience,” Murray says.

Mera co-founder Iman Alshehab, a Syrian refugee who has been in America for seven months was the executive chef of the Four Seasons back in Damascus. 

“When I first got here, I wanted to go back home,” says Alshehab through translation. “But starting this project has brought love back into my life.” 

That love was on full display in June, when she cooked for a sold-out event at Hersh’s in South Baltimore. Instead of pizza and pasta coming out of the kitchen, it was Alshehab’s grape leaves and kibbeh dishes. In September, Makole hosted her own chicken cooking class at R. House. Next month, Mera is hosting a pop-up at Clavel. The eventual goal is for the co-op to open its own brick-and-mortar cafe. 

“The idea is to amplify the voices, skills, and stories of these women—and, so far, everyone has said yes,” says Lerman. “You always hear that Baltimore is this great, supportive place. But it’s nice to actually experience it and realize it’s true.”

With all the news buzzing around immigration laws and the recent suspension of DACA, local journalist and aspiring genealogist Jennifer Mendelsohn (and occasional contributor to Baltimore) has been tracing the lineage of prominent ultra-conservative and anti-immigration personalities in a project she’s dubbed #ResistanceGenealogy.

How did you get into genealogy?
It was just sort of by accident. About four years ago, somebody mentioned on Facebook a company on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, on Rivington Street. I remembered we had cousins that lived on that street, and I Googled their names and a listing for the census popped up. It was so cool; I didn’t know you could search the census. One thing led to another, I got an Ancestry subscription and became hopelessly obsessed.

What about it drew you in?
It turned out to be a very natural fit for my skills as a reporter. I already knew how to follow an information trail, and look for clues, and solve puzzles. As a kid, I used to love those logic grid puzzles—and that’s exactly what genealogy is. You’re trying to make pieces fit and solve a mystery—I love it, it’s so satisfying.

Tell me about #ResistanceGenealogy.
I spent a lot of free time doing genealogy research—a huge part of what I do is because of my own background—Eastern European Jewish immigrant. My identity is very strongly connected to ‘hyphenated Americans.’ My understanding of what it means to be American is very closely tied to being an immigrant. So when I hear all these politicians slamming immigrants, I just know that unless you came on the Mayflower, you’re Native American, or your ancestors came in slave ships—you are an immigrant.

I think a lot of people who think of themselves as quintessential Americans are really just assimilated immigrants looking down on the next wave and not liking what they see. When I see these people spouting off how terrible these immigrants are and how we need to close our borders, I just thought it might be fun to start looking at their trees and point out the hypocrisy.

So, this is what led you to research conservative commentator Tomi Lahren?
After I saw her post about immigrants coming here legally, I found that Tomi Lahren’s great-great-grandfather was indicted by a federal grand jury for naturalization fraud. I put that on Twitter and Wonkette asked me to write it up as a piece. It went sort of quasi-viral and got picked up a million other places, and was tweeted by people with large followings—it became this big funny thing.

He was actually acquitted by the trial jury, but it’s pretty ridiculous that she’s talking about everybody who doesn’t come here legally should be thrown out, but by the grace of God, her own family is still here.

Have you looked into anybody else?
I think the first person I ever searched outside of my family might have been Congressman Steve King from Iowa because he made that statement, ‘We can’t restore our civilization with somebody else’s babies.’ And sure enough, I found out that his own grandmother came as a child from Germany. And I thought, ‘It wasn’t that long ago, Congressman King, that your family would have been looked at as someone else’s babies.’

I’ve also looked into [Fox News’] Tucker Carlson, and Stephen Miller—President [Donald] Trump’s senior advisor who made the comment about how American policies shouldn’t favor immigrants who don’t speak English, when his own great-grandmother didn’t speak English [laughs].

What is your hope in uncovering this information?
It’s not to shame people, or make them feel guilty about what their ancestors did. It’s just to prove that the desire to be American has been so overwhelming and universal for centuries. Americans come from all places. We shouldn’t be pulling up the ladder behind us—we should be sending a hand continually because that’s what America is all about.