Thank You Peggy Thompson

-- by Carole Fisher

Peggy Thompson is a member of our League and has been working as an advocate for immigrants for many years. Here are some of her own words so that everyone can understand what it is like to do this kind of service for others.

“I help immigrants who are struggling with various governmental/bureaucratic issues.  It’s mainly immigration court, but also things like DMV, health insurance, signing up for classes, etc.

My involvement started with visiting immigrants in detention.  Once I would get to know someone, they often asked for various kinds of help.  Frequently, they asked if I could accompany them to their court hearings.  That led to helping them to find legal resources, and to helping them to raise funds to pay a bond.  Once folks were released, I started helping with things like transportation, clothing, cell phones, temporary housing, etc.  Then ICE check-ins, and follow-up court appearances, applications for work permits, green cards, citizenship, etc.

Once I had started helping the first few folks, I began to receive calls asking if I could help a friend, a cousin, a neighbor, etc.  That still happens all of the time!

Back in 2014, when I first started visiting, there was a detention facility in Santa Ana that contained dedicated pods for LGBTQ and specifically transgender immigrants.  That demographic remains today to be the core of those I serve.  I unofficially “adopted” a young transgender woman from Honduras, and from that beginning, I have accumulated a large extended, chosen family of LGBTQ young people, mainly from Latin America, but from other countries as well.

 So, that’s more or less the history.  Today, I continue to work in conjunction with various organizations.  I do some court observation with CLUE (Clergy and Laity United for Economic justice).  I also work with the Immigration Clinic at Western State College of Law, Immigrant Defenders Law Center, and the LGBT Center OC.  Mainly, I respond to requests I receive.  If there is a “lull” and I have capacity to take on more (which doesn’t happen often), I go back to court observations.

Spanish is helpful, but not mandatory, as long as you can use Google translate.  My Spanish is pretty good.  No one would ever mistake me for a native speaker, but I can communicate.  But there are a lot of folks needing help who are not Spanish speakers. 

Lots of Mandarin, Farsi, Hindi, etc.  CLUE doesn’t have much in the way of translation support.  They are always looking for help with that as well.  Our Court system is transacted 100% in English, so no translation needed for observation.  It is sometimes very hard to hear.  I know volunteers who are hard of hearing can find it very frustrating.

 CLUE does the training and coordination of the observer program.  There are no “clients” per se for that program.  For accompaniment, I receive requests from many different orgs and individuals.  When CLUE receives a request for accompaniment, they put it out to their observer corps and folks step up according to their availability.”

I would like to thank Peggy for taking the time and energy to share with us all what she does on a regular basis. Please don't think that every moment of her life is consumed with this but the commitment is there and we would like to thank her for everything she does!