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Help The Stranger

My experience volunteering with asylum-seekers for Immigration Justice Project.

with Juliet Grossman

A vision of the United States as a melting pot of immigrants and a beacon of hope to persecuted people around the world is iconic, but is it actually true? As American reeled in the aftermath of World War I followed by World War II, quotas and mislabeling of refugees persisted, and it wasn’t until 1980 that the United States adopted refugee and asylum policies in line with the United Nations. Policies exist to welcome and shelter those fleeing ethnic, religious, and political persecution, but are today’s Americans willing to HELP THE STRANGER?

As Jews and as citizens living at the southern border, we have a dual interest in this timely topic. What is the face of today’s asylum-seeker? How are we enforcing or disregarding our immigration policies, and what does the future hold for those most vulnerable among us?

Join Beth Am congregant JULIET GROSSMAN for a lively discussion about her experiences working as a pro bono attorney representing asylum-seekers held at the Otay Mesa Detention Center.

Bio on Juliet Grossman

Juliet Grossman is an attorney with longstanding roots in public interest. Her past work includes criminal defense as a public defender, where her assignments included working in a ground-breaking collaborative justice drug court. She also clerked at South-Central Los Angeles Legal Aid in the aftermath of the Rodney King Riots. She is a life member of Hadassah and in 2015 traveled to Washington, DC with a Hadassah delegation to be sworn in to the United States Supreme Court. Juliet currently works as a real estate broker specializing in probate sales of neglected and hoarder properties. The Grossmans are proud Beth Am members who live in Temecula. 

"I got involved with volunteering for asylum-seekers after their situation started getting a lot of media coverage. I had been interested in some type of volunteering helping trafficked people but was having trouble sifting through the different organizations and getting to who is actually in need, what type of assistance do they need, and what am I specifically best able to give.  Asylum-seekers are in an incredibly vulnerable situation. Also as a Jew and Californian descended from immigrants, I find the immigrants' stories very relatable. I talk to someone in 2020 and their story could have been my great-grandma in 1910."