JCIJ and the Incredible Accompaniment Program
An Interview with Dina Burstein and Dick Stein, Part 2

Riverton Park United Methodist Church

During the Biden administration, a huge number of immigrants were coming into the Seattle area to already overcrowded homeless shelters. Word got out that a church in Tukwila would accept immigrants and they would find them a place to sleep in a tent or on the floor of the social hall. Late one night, Jen, a Seattle police and community resource officer, found a couple in downtown Seattle wandering the streets with no place to go. She knew of the church, so she brought them there. People started appearing at the church seeking shelter. Some people had a scrap of paper with the church’s address scribbled on it, and they would just appear. The numbers of immigrants arriving at the Riverton Church grew and grew until there were tents set up all over the grounds and people were sleeping in every nook and cranny. There were hundreds of people on site and it developed into an unhealthy situation which was not sustainable.

The City of Tukwila was not pleased with what was happening at Riverton and began passing ordinances limiting the number of people allowed on site. These ordinances did not name the church specifically, but it was obvious what they intended. The health department also got involved but basically did nothing. Volunteers from JCIJ (Jewish Coalition for Immigrant Justice) and other groups in the private sector stepped in and began providing resources to meet the migrants’ needs and prevent the situation at Riverton from being an absolute disaster.

People in support of the church and the immigrants worked really hard and finally got money from the county and the state. Many volunteers, including Jen from the SPD, were working more than full time supporting the Riverton program, while doing their own full-time jobs. Pastor Jan Bolerjack was working day and night to make the community sustainable and healthy. JCIJ members helped pull together volunteers to enroll the children in school and help with homework. It was a massive operation.

JCIJ tried to fill in wherever they saw needs arise. They recruited legal volunteers, some of whom were immigration attorneys, to provide free legal services to the hundreds of people living at Riverton. From that came a monthly asylum clinic and a weekly Monday clinic, for help completing immigration forms, all staffed and organized by volunteers. Riverton Church, all the while, was really kicking butt organizing for the community members (CMs) living there.

Getting government support was a long and arduous process so several non-profit organizations and volunteers helped to fill the immediate needs. The makeup of the Tukwila City Council changed over time so JCIJ had some supporters there, as well as on the county council and in the state government. A massive organizing effort resulted in funding for housing so the hundreds of people living at the church could be relocated to hotel rooms and eventually apartments. It was an incredible community of people taking action to care for the immigrants and JCIJ was there through it all.

JCIJ Grows

Dick said he sometimes felt impatient at the slow pace but, “It was well-thought-out from the beginning, and we’ve been able to grow and develop as the program moves along”.

About a year and a half ago, Dina was the sole Dispatcher, there was one person doing Intakes for Spanish speakers and Dina did all of the others - Angolan, Congolese, etc. As the number of accompaniment requests grew, it became clear that more people were needed for Dispatch and many more for Intake.

“So we began defining roles,” Dina said. “We increased the number of Dispatch volunteers to five and Intake volunteers increased to five also. The number of volunteers in Intake has increased even more and our definition of each role continues to evolve as we get feedback from the volunteers and as ICE changes its strategy.”

“Today we have a paid executive director, one half-time person and another person working 80%. The half-time person is acting as the lead Dispatcher and all of them are doing an amazing job,” Dina said. “We have non-profit status and the vast majority of our funding comes from private donations.”

“We have to respond to changing ICE tactics”, Dina continued. “ICE agents used to come to court, now they don’t. They then instituted a program called pretermission which canceled asylum applications and sends immigrants to third countries like El Salvador to apply for asylum. El Salvador has no asylum program so immigrants may be sent to prison. Now DHS has stopped filing new pretermission cases, but they are prosecuting the cases already in process. DHS has also raised the fees for work permits, new asylum applications and their yearly renewal. They constantly roll out changes that we have to deal with. Fortunately, we have a dedicated team of immigration lawyers who stick with us and teach us about these changes. We then take that new information and incorporate it into how we’re preparing the CM, or how the CM could respond in court.”

“Volunteers who can roll with that kind of development stay in the program,” Dina and Dick explained. “The process is not static and we continue to tweak things here and there as needed. But what hasn’t changed since working with the Church Council are the values and principles that guide the way we interact with people, with each other, volunteers, and CMs, so that respect and love is communicated. We believe it is very important to truly listen to the CM and allow the CM to be in charge while we follow their lead, realizing and respecting the amazing pluck, courage and suffering that it took for them to get to where they are and to communicate that consistently. We spend a tremendous amount of time training new volunteers about cultural humility, allowing the voice of the CM to be first. And that will never change.”