America, historically a destination for those seeking freedom from persecution and a better life, is closing its doors. This summer, the Biden administration issued an executive order heavily restricting the entry of asylum seekers at the southern border. Thousands fleeing dangerous or unstable situations in their home country are in limbo, stuck at the border indefinitely.

But one local organization that has been helping refugees and asylum seekers for years is intent on keeping the welcome mat out.

It’s called the Welcoming Network and it was founded in Santa Cruz in 2019 by a group of retired educators, lawyers and other professionals.The organization has close to 80 volunteers spread out across the county and families get referred by word of mouth. They “accompany” the families, helping them obtain basic needs like food and housing, get rides to court hearings and connect with an attorney. Teams of up to 10 people come together to help just one family.

In the past year, the organization has raised its profile through fundraising drives such as Santa Cruz Gives (which was started by Good Times). However, they say that the need is even greater now and are looking for more community support from donors and volunteers.

Jawid (an assumed name to protect his identity) arrived with his family from Afghanistan and is seeking political asylum. The network quickly stepped in to help.

“I can say [the] Welcoming Network is very supportive, they help us a lot. I can say about the people of Santa Cruz [that] I like the people, they are nice and friendly,” Jawid, 42, says.

In August 2021, the longest war and occupation by the U.S. military ended in Afghanistan after 20 years. Images flooded screens across the world of the chaos that ensued during the hasty retreat of U.S. and NATO forces.

Thousands fled before the Taliban overtook the capital, Kabul, and ended the rule of the U.S.-allied government. After initially invading in order to capture Osama Bin Laden—the man behind 9/11—the military coalition remained, fighting the Taliban resistance well after the killing of Bin Laden in 2011.

On the morning of Aug. 15, 2021, Jawid was at work in the city center at the office of the High Council for National Reconciliation. Caught by surprise by the impending takeover of the capital, Jawid and his colleagues fled from the office—they knew they would be targeted.

“I was really scared and looking for a place to hide myself, [but] there was no place to hide, everyone was running in the city, here and there, when I got out of the office,” Jawid recounts.

The High Council for National Reconciliation, a body created in 2020 to negotiate peace between the government and the Taliban, was staffed by others like Jawid, who had collaborated with the U.S. military during the occupation. He previously worked at a U.S. military base and within the administration of former President Ashraf Ghani.

“I used to receive threats from the Taliban from 2010 to 2014, while I was in my hometown, and then I had to move to Kabul, to the capital, which was more safe than the place I used to live,” Jawid says.

During the Kabul airlift, an estimated 122,000 were evacuated. However, only about 3 percent of Afghans who worked for the U.S. government were taken, leaving behind 78,000 people, according to a 2022 report. Jawid and his family were among those left behind.

After finally making it home that morning in 2021, Jawid went into hiding and then fled the country, traveling to Pakistan and then Iran after securing a visa. For months he was separated from his family, but in November 2022 he reunited with them and they flew to Mexico. After a four-month wait at the border, they arrived in the United States.

Today he’s 7,500 miles away from Afghanistan on the Central Coast of California. His family was let into the U.S., and they can remain here provisionally until his case for political asylum is heard by a federal immigration judge. But unlike many asylum seekers who find themselves alone to navigate the system, Jawid has an entire network of people to support his family.

While looking to settle somewhere with a large Afghan population, Jawid says that the support he found here made him stay in the area. He recently found housing for his family of 13 and is getting assistance as he goes through the asylum process.

“They’re, by definition, fleeing because of fear-based persecution, and failing to make their case here means being deported back to the very situation they fled,” says Miram Stombler, one of the network’s founders.

According to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, as of 2022 there were 1,798,792 asylum seekers from around the world in the U.S. The same report estimated that 363,059 refugees were living in the country.

In addition to basic necessities like food and shelter, Stombler says that legal representation is crucial.

Paul Johnston, a retired sociology professor and co-founder of the network, says that the core of what they do is to help asylum seekers obtain effective legal representation as they navigate the U.S. immigration court system.

“If people don’t have access to good representation, nothing else matters because they’ll be driven out of the country or driven underground. I think the first thing we did was try to pass the hat around to help support that kind of work. I think we raised 700 or 800 bucks, maybe. But we’ve come a long way since then,” Johnston says on a Zoom call with Stombler.

“We work so beautifully together, it’s almost a little shocking, and I think it’s because we’re driven by the same passion,” Stombler adds.

To date, the Welcoming Network has accompanied 41 families and individuals, which amounts to over 100 people since 2019. The diversity of their circumstances paints a nuanced picture of who asylum seekers and refugees are. The organization also wants people to know the important difference between an asylum seeker and a refugee. Many of the families they help are seeking asylum but have yet to get a final decision from the courts. But the network also helps war refugees fleeing conflict zones such as Ukraine.

HIGH HOPES

Anna Minakova’s life was blown up one morning in February 2022. She and her family were rattled awake by the shockwaves from bombs landing near their home in Kharkiv, Ukraine, shaking it to its foundation. The explosions announced the opening strikes of the Russo-Ukrainian War, as Russian troops attacked Ukraine from the eastern Donbas region.

Minakova’s family fled for their lives.

“We just drove west, we didn’t even get any clothes or anything. We just woke up, put on the first clothes that we saw, and just left without anything,” recounts the 27-year-old.

For months, they were on the run, making their way west. The influx of refugees from eastern Ukraine drove up food and hotel prices, draining the family’s savings. That’s when they decided to leave Ukraine for the European Union, which in 2022 opened its borders to refugees.

Once in the EU, the family separated; her parents went to Budapest; her grandmother and younger brother left for the US after obtaining visas; and Minakova and her boyfriend went to Germany.

Before the war, Minakova worked as a language interpreter in Ukraine, while also working abroad as an aerial gymnast. After the conflict erupted, that life ended.

In April 2022 the Biden administration announced the Uniting for Ukraine initiative, which provides Ukrainian refugees a fast track into the U.S. The program allows refugees and their immediate family to reside in the country for a parole period of two years as long as they have a financial sponsor.

Through the program, Minakova’s uncle, who lives in the Santa Cruz area, sponsored the rest of her family and they arrived in mid-2022. After a year of living with relatives, in May of 2023 Minakova was referred to the Welcoming Network when her family was urgently looking for a new home.

“We were waiting for work permits for about six months. We couldn’t work for six months, and of course we couldn’t find jobs and save money for [a] house; we didn’t have a credit score or anything. And it was almost [impossible] to find a place to live,” Minakova says.

After connecting with the Welcoming Network, they were able to secure housing.

Ellen Murtha, one of the volunteers accompanying Minakova’s family, is struck by what they had to endure.

“When we found them a place to live […] we were looking at the place and Anna said, ‘Oh, we stayed in a place like this in Poland,’” Murtha says. But what Minakova was pointing to was a hallway. The six of them were forced to sleep in one when they ran out of money after leaving Ukraine.

“The resilience and […] cheerfulness, and just the determination to work and to make a living, to take care of themselves and to be independent, is really stunning for me,” Murtha says.

Minakova now works at a gym in Capitola and has even been able to do aerial gymnastics again as a guest performer for the Flynn Creek Circus.

“I was happy to be back on stage because I missed the stage so much,” she says of the experience. “I was finally feeling that I was doing something that I can really do.”

When asked what her plans for the future are, Minakova tries not to think too far ahead.

“I wish no one can know what war is, because it’s the most horrible thing ever. And when your house is destroyed by someone, you don’t have any choice, and you need to leave […]. I’m very grateful that I can be in this country right now.”

Like Minakova, many asylum seekers and refugees forced to leave their lives behind are seeking to rebuild a semblance of what they lost. For one family, their goal is to build themselves back, share their culture and help others.

‘WE WANT TO HAVE A LIFE HERE’

On a rainy Saturday afternoon, a small apartment off Laurel Street in Santa Cruz becomes a clandestine eatery for Colombian immigrants in the area. A knock on the door announces the next lunch patron and once he settles in, he’s brought a heaping plate of arroz con pollo, a side salad and tostones.

The homemade meals are sold by Sthefania Matias and Cristian Diaz, a young Colombian couple who were restaurateurs back home. They fled Colombia in 2022 after Diaz’s brother was murdered. The killer uploaded a video of his torture and death to social media, threatening to come after Diaz and his family.

The 33-year-old Matias was seven months pregnant with her second child when they escaped with their 3-year-old son, flying into Mexico hoping to be granted entry at the U.S. border. They were eventually let into the U.S. on a provisional parole and headed to California. A brief stay with friends in the South Bay fell apart and they were soon forced to live in their car with two young children in tow.

“The baby was just five days old and we had to sleep in the car,” Diaz, 33, says in Spanish. “Imagine, as a man, what it feels like to have your wife and children sleeping in a car. It was tough.”

“We didn’t know anyone else in this country. The U.S. is a complete shock physically, mentally,” Matias adds.

Arriving in Santa Cruz in February 2023, the small family was taken in by Housing Matters’ emergency shelter. Thanks to the Welcoming Network, they were able to find an apartment and leave the shelter. Now, they are making ends meet by selling Colombian food staples. Diaz and Matias want to show the community that, despite the violence that they experienced first-hand, Colombia is more than that.

“When people think of Colombia they think cocaine and Pablo Escobar,” Diaz says. “What about our gastronomy? On the news they always talk about the bad but never about the good of a country.”

Now they want to make the U.S. their home and work hard for a new life.

“We can’t just let ourselves live off of what the government can give us. We want the government to give us the opportunity to work,” Diaz says.

“We were doing that in our country,” Matias explains. “But now that we’re here—if we’re given the opportunity to stay—it’s our duty to contribute to this country because our family is here and we want to have a life here.”

Paula Leroy is one of the network volunteers on their accompanying team. On this day, she is visiting the couple at their new apartment.

“These guys are amazing because they’re making rent and everything because they’re working so hard,” says Leroy. “I just adore this family.”

Diaz and Matias have begun the Family Reunification Parole process through the Department of Homeland Security in order to retrieve their three teenage children who are in hiding back in Colombia. Diaz hopes that the parole is granted and that his kids can travel safely to the U.S.

OUR NEIGHBORS

When Heather Rogers became Santa Cruz County’s first Public Defender in 2021, she made immigration defense a priority for her office. As part of a “holistic” approach to legal representation, Roger says deportation removal defense is key for keeping families together.

“These are people who are already a part of our community. And are friends, neighbors, brothers, sisters, the fathers and mothers of the children that our kids play with. This isn’t an ‘Us or Them’ situation. We’re talking about people who are already a part of us, they are already us,” she says. “There’s an ocean of need and what we’re able to do right now is really a drop in the bucket of that need.”

For many refugees and asylum seekers, Rogers says, a deportation order can mean a death sentence. In our current political climate—especially during an election year—the lives of immigrants get reduced to talking points. What is often left out of the conversation is the role belligerent U.S. foreign policy has played in destabilizing Afghanistan, Colombia and even Ukraine.

“Our ability to understand and respond to big policy issues is hampered by these biases that are based in misinformation, racism and stereotypes—things that we really have to work to break down and understand so that we can become more responsible global citizens. And the Welcoming Network is leading that charge here in Santa Cruz County,” Rogers says.

The organization also enjoys support from California 17th District State Senator John Laird, who has deep ties to the Santa Cruz community.

“As a state senator, I hear stories of immigrants fleeing from violence,” he says. “I know that it is not just having resources, it is the ability to connect refugees in an unfamiliar land to those resources.

“Decades ago, when tens of thousands of Cubans came to the US in boats, I sponsored one. He lived with me until he learned English and made his way. I recall those first days, when a supermarket was a foreign experience, where language was a barrier, where the opportunities for help could not have been known to him on his own.

“For these reasons, I support the efforts of Santa Cruz Welcoming Network. I hope you will find a way that you can support the volunteers who give their time and resources—to make Santa Cruz a welcoming environment.”

WELCOMING TIDE

California politics reached a pitch of anti-immigrant sentiment in the 1990s under Gov. Pete Wilson, who sought to cut off immigrants from essential services and criminalize them with Propositions 187 and 227.

Back then a local artist—an immigrant himself—sought to battle harmful stereotypes about immigrants and used his art to give the Santa Cruz community a monument honoring all refugees.

At the entrance to Cowell’s Beach next to the Santa Cruz Municipal Wharf, three Kilkenny limestone pillars form a portal to Monterey Bay. The pillars are part of a work titled “In the Tides of Time,” installed nearly 30 years ago by Irish stone sculptor Alan Counihan. Counihan dedicated the work to those seeking refuge and prosperity in America—much like the Statue of Liberty does—and the henge-like pillars represent a gateway welcoming them. He worked alongside Mexican immigrant laborers when he first arrived in the U.S. and understood their struggle.

“I have always hoped that the work would be experienced as more than a mere spatial ornament. The poem inscribed on the inside surface of the portal is as relevant today as in 1995, when it was composed in response to Proposition 187 and its exclusionary motives. Indeed, it may well be more so, for the animosity towards those who seek shelter on our shores grows ever more vicious and inflamed,” Counihan says in an email.

On the inside of each of the monument’s two upright pillars, a poem is inscribed, one in English and on the other a Spanish translation.

“In the tides of time/ we have sought/ safe harbor/ here/ on the western shore/ where the waves ebb and flow restlessly/ and the seasons/ in their old harvesting hulls/ have borne us/ ripe cargoes of plenty/ with enough fruit for all.” —Alan Counihan

Editor’s note: Sthefania Matias was previously referred to as Sthefanny Pardo. That has been corrected.

For more information on how to help go to santacruzwelcomingnetwork.com