By Gloria B. Anderson and Julie Zimmer | manchesterinklink.com
Mentoring developmentally disabled youth in New Hampshire may not seem like a logical career step for a former bank manager from the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
But for Bienfait, a Congolese immigrant – he declines to use his last name for reasons of personal safety — the job is highly satisfying.
Now residing in Manchester, Bienfait, an applicant for asylum, considers himself blessed to have a job with Sevita, formerly known as the Mentor Network, a nationwide company that provides services to those with intellectual and developmental disabilities.
“I work, work, work,” he said. “It’s hard. But the kids are my fun.”
Bienfait flew from the Congo to the United States in 2018, after his son had been kidnapped and he had been threatened. He and his family are Hutu, one of several ethnic groups in Africa that sometimes war with one another.
He decided to seek asylum in Canada, unaware of a bilateral agreement that allows the asylum-seeker to apply only in the country first entered.
Detained by U.S. Customs and Border Patrol agents near the Canadian border, Bienfait was transferred to the Strafford Country Corrections facility in Dover, NH.
Latest Posts
- In Harlem’s ‘Little Senegal,’ West African migrants find community and challenges
- U.S. museum returns Ghana’s first batch of looted gold regalia
- StorsPay, a Nigerian Decentralized Retail Investing Platform, Raises $320,000 and Gets Accepted into Techstars NYC Accelerator
- Ugandans in USA Pool Funds to Support Impressive ‘Young Engineers’ Team at World Robotics Championship
- Samini headlines maiden edition of Adonko Ghana Festival Ohio
He spent 21 tense days there, unable to reach his wife in Africa and unsure of what to do.
A fellow detainee, a man from Haiti, changed Bienfait’s future.
“He knew I could speak French,” Bienfait says. And French was the only language the Haitian could speak.
“Frère peux tu m’aider à traduire?” Bienfait recalls his asking — “Brother, can you help me and translate?” The Haitian needed Bienfait’s help to communicate at a meeting with volunteers from the New Hampshire Immigrant Visitation Program and the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC).
Bienfait agreed. At the meeting, realized that the volunteers could help him, too.
Within days, the New Hampshire Conference United Church of Christ (NHCUCC) and the AFSC, along with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), had cooperated to raise the daunting $10,000 bail and arrange a host family for Bienfait.
“My angels,” as Bienfait describes them, not only helped him get out of detention and find a host home but also helped provide access to transportation, classes in English as a Second Language and basic necessities. They got him work at the Crotched Mountain School, his first experience caring for youngsters with disabilities. When Crotched Mountain School closed, he joined the team at Sevita.
His first priority now is to bring his wife and eight children to the United States, which he thinks he’ll be able to do in three or four years. Banking still holds some interest for him. So does the possibility to get a doctorate from the Carsey School of Public Policy at the University of New Hampshire.
Back in Goma, the Congolese capital, Bienfait said he managed a bank and taught economics at the local university where he’d earned a bachelor’s degree. It was a good life, he says, until his family was targeted by terrorists.
“It was not safe,” he says.
He rented a house in Kampala, the capital of the neighboring country of Uganda, for his wife and children and booked himself a flight to the United States. After arriving, he watched alarming news about the “zero tolerance” program initiated by the Trump Administration: “It was always on the television news.”
Under the policy, devised to manage an influx of refugees from Honduras, Bienfait feared he, too, could be sent home, endangering his life. Canada, he thought, might be safer.
He called his wife to share his plan and said he’d call from Canada.
It was the last time they would speak for 21 days.
U.S. Customs officials near the Canadian stopped him. They explained that he was not eligible to apply for asylum in Canada because he had landed first on U.S. soil. They assigned him to the Strafford County center.
From there, he tried to call his wife but could not get a phone connection.
“I cried for almost 20 days,” he remembers.
Then he met the ACLU attorney, who telephoned Bienfait’s wife in Uganda.
“When she heard his voice,” Bienfait says, “she was shocked and hung up.”
She couldn’t understand who the attorney was or whether it was safe to talk with him, he explains. The attorney called back and put Bienfait on the phone.
“She cried,” he says. “Me, too.”
Now they’re in touch every day on What’s App, planning for the future.
“I was coming from problems,” he says of his arrival in America. “I said to myself, ‘This is a good opportunity. A new life is going to start now.’”
Bienfait’s Advice to Immigrants and Aid Providers
- Learn the English language. People who can help often speak only English or perhaps English and Spanish. Classes in English as a Second Language are sometimes available in detention centers.
Online translation services can be unreliable. “One word can have five or six senses. It’s a big problem.”
- Make sure you and the people you meet really understand each other. “Some detainees have been traumatized where they came from.” Be tolerant.
- Take advantage of pro bono lawyers and volunteers who work with groups like the NHCUCC and AFSC. They have been checked out and trained to help.
- Think of food as a learning process. Some immigrants are unfamiliar with American food and how it’s prepared. Others are accustomed to eating a few small meals a day, not three larger ones. What’s strange at first may become welcome. “Now I love mashed potatoes.”