MIAMI — On a recent day, migrants from all over the world rush in and out of a small reception room in a small suite of offices in downtown Miami.
One woman brings her nephew, who arrived from Nicaragua in December, to ask a lawyer questions about his monthlong parole. A couple from Cuba — a pizza-maker and a hairstylist — whose passports were soaked when they crossed the Rio Grande in Texas with their 13-year-old son have come for their work permit applications. Another couple who want to marry — a Peruvian woman who came as a tourist five months ago and a longtime Miami resident from Cuba who fell head over heels — seek advice about their case.
The people walking through the doors of Catholic Legal Services on any given day are a microcosm of Miami’s immigrant fabric and the challenges facing new arrivals and those who help them: Cubans who arrived on makeshift boats as conditions on the island deteriorate, Haitians fleeing kidnapping gangs, Venezuelans seeking better economic conditions, and Nicaraguans escaping government repression.
