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Ten Years of Representing Immigrants in Worthington

Posted on Mar 12 2020

Joyce Bennett Alvarado’s favorite part of her work as ILCM’s attorney in Worthington is “seeing my clients get their green cards, their work authorizations, etc. Especially, when they shyly ask if they can give me a hug after I hand them their approvals letters!”

Personal connections have been part of the Immigrant Law Center of Minnesota (ILCM) practice in Worthington since the beginning. In 2020, ILCM marks the 10th anniversary of our Worthington office. ILCM’s presence in this small town in southwestern Minnesota actually began four years before the office opened.

2006: The Raid

On December 12 2006, immigration agents descended on Worthington’s Swift meatpacking plant in a six-state operation that arrested 1,300 people in six meatpacking plants. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) surrounded the plant and filled buses with about immigrants brought out in handcuffs. By the time it was over, more than 200 immigrants were taken away.

Fear spread through the town, with families afraid to go home and children left alone when ICE took their parents. Many stayed at churches overnight, with pastors and teachers and social workers scrambling to find some family members left to take them.

Emergency calls went out statewide. ILCM and other immigration attorneys responded, sending staff to Worthington, where they set up temporary offices. Law schools mobilized students to assist in bond hearings.

After the immediate crisis, ILCM continued its Worthington involvement, sending attorneys to see clients there twice a month. With no office, they borrowed space in a community education building to talk with clients.

The need for legal help with immigration matters went far beyond those arrested in the raid. Other residents needed help with visas, forms, hearings, and eventually with naturalization.

City of Immigrants

Worthington is a city of immigrants, with population growing from a low of 9,977 in 1990 to more than 13,000 today. The small city’s population is about 41 percent Hispanic or Latino, ten percent Asian, and 7 percent African or African American, according to U.S. census figures.

In many small towns, vacant storefronts abound on once-thriving main streets and populations decline year after year. Not in Worthington, where immigration has boosted population over the past 30 years and keeps main street thriving. Mexican-American and Mexican workers were among the first to arrive, soon joined by a large Guatemalan immigrant population, as well as Hondurans, Salvadorans, and a few Nicaraguans. Today, Worthington’s Ethiopian community has grown large enough to begin building Tsadkane Mariam Ethiopian Orthodox Church. Other substantial immigrant groups include Karen and Karenni refugees from Burma/Myanmar and Hmong immigrants who came to the United States after the 1970s U.S. war in Southeast Asia.

ILCM Presence in Worthington

In 2009, Kathy Klos moved to Worthington to open ILCM’s first full-time office outside the Twin Cities metro area. The first order of business, she recalls, was to find office space so that she did not have to work out of her apartment. The Hedeen Hughes & Wetering law firm welcomed ILCM to Worthington and rented space in its downtown building. ILCM opened its office in March 2010.

Over the years, ILCM staff in Worthington have included Kathy Klos, Enrique Tellez, Sara Karki, Maylary Apolo, Jess Riemer, Joyce Bennett Alvarado, and Erin Schutte Wadzinski. They have represented immigrant clients in matters ranging from deportation defense to naturalization.

Today, Joyce Bennett Alvarado, originally from Honduras, staffs ILCM’s office. “Working in Worthington has taught me a lot,” she says. “Being a lawyer is so much more than having a degree, doing research, interpreting the law or filing forms. It also means being able to open people’s minds, to communicate, and helping and empowering clients.”

Andrea Duarte-Alonso works half-time in the Worthington office, thanks to a fellowship from the Southwest Initiative Foundation. A Worthington native, Andrea interned at ILCM when she was a student at the College of St. Catherine. She also created Stories From Unheard Voices, a website sharing immigrant stories from Worthington.