Welcome to the second post in our Spotlight Series, where we share resettlement stories from refugees and immigrants. To protect their privacy, we keep names and personal details anonymous. Our hope is that these stories offer a glimpse into what it means to start over in a new country.
Imagine being a single mother in a country that isn’t your own, with a son who needs cranial surgery. No work permit, no steady income, and no certainty about what comes next. For the woman at the center of this story, it’s not hypothetical. It’s her daily life.
Back home in Latin America, she worked as a cook and was barely getting by. In 2021, she came to the US on a tourist visa, hoping to find the opportunity and stability that always felt out of reach. For the next few years, she traveled back and forth between her home country and the US, searching for a way to make a life work here.
In 2024, everything changed for her. She became pregnant and gave birth to her son in the US. She could not go back to her home country, as her son was born with extreme medical complications. Though her son’s father lives in America, the two have since separated, leaving her to face housing, unemployment, and her child’s medical needs on her own.
She has not yet received a work permit or humanitarian parole status, and that gap closes off nearly every path to self-sufficiency. She has hired a lawyer to pursue parole, but the process is slow and exhausting.
In the meantime, because her son was born in the US, the family receives EBT and TANF benefits. That support is a lifeline, but it isn’t enough to cover everything a child with serious medical needs requires.
Then, just today, some good news. After tireless efforts from our case managers, an outside organization approved funding to cover her apartment rent after she had missed some payments. It’s a huge relief, and a reminder of what’s possible when a community steps in.
The political climate has left her uncertain about the future, though. But uncertainty hasn’t slowed her down. She is diligent, responsible, and fiercely protective of her son, and she is working every angle to build a stable life for him. Right now, she is applying to become her son’s paid caregiver, seeking a permit to work from home so she can care for him while earning an income, and searching for an apartment she can sustain on her own.
In America, we love to talk about “pulling yourself up by your bootstraps.” This mother is the embodiment of that idea, and then some. Yet for many newcomers, the path forward is marked by roadblocks that can last years, even when they are trying to access essential services and earn the right to work.
Her story is one of many. Stay tuned for the next post in our Spotlight Series.
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