By Katie Vasquez
The sidewalk outside District Three Youth and Adults, Inc. is empty, a different scene from a few weeks ago.
“We had lines, long lines that now they’re scared. They’re scared to come out. They don’t know what’s going to happen,” Monsignor James Kelly, an attorney at the Brooklyn organization, tells Currents News.
Responding to the panic from President Donald Trump’s recent executive orders and directives on migration, Monsignor James Kelly and the staff at his Wyckoff Avenue office are doing what they can to help the 50 to 100 people that still show up every day hoping to live and work in New York legally. Monsignor Kelly offers them a deep discount on legal assistance without any funding, because he understands their plight as a former new arrival from Ireland.
“As an immigrant myself, I appreciate the difficulties,” he explains.
The 87-year-old retired priest doesn’t go to court anymore, but he’s well known in Bushwick, where he’s been working with immigrants since before he got his law degree.
“I couldn’t do anything for them because I couldn’t go to court,” he says of that time in his life.
Once he got his degree from St. John’s University in 1980, he was inundated with requests from families looking to become U.S. citizens.
“I started off with Italian immigrants. They were easy. We made hundreds of them citizens very, very easy,” he recalls.
Richard Reinoso’s family was helped by Monsignor Kelly 20 years ago.
Now as a legal counselor at his office, Richard understands the power of having a priest in your corner.
“It’s that trust through the Catholic church that most of the Latino community, most of the immigrant community, most of the Catholic community has that really helps us file,” he tells Currents News. “Not only my family, but those around us, because people trust Father.”
Monsignor Kelly has physically slowed down over the years as he’s struggled with health issues, but mentally he’s just as strong, still coming into the office six days a week.
Richard is hoping to get his law degree so he can take over.
“We hope and pray every day that he lives until 150,” Richard says. “but he’s at least helping me in the ropes, coaching us from behind so that we may be the next generation to carry his torch for him.”
Despite all the challenges ahead, Monsignor Kelly says he will continue to fight the good fight.
“Keep our fingers crossed and hope for the best,” is what he’s doing.
For more information on their services, you can email: sheamusk@aol.com or visit their office at 265 Wyckoff Avenue in Bushwick Brooklyn, 11237.
You can also help Monsignor support migrants by mailing a check or money order to that address, making the check out to “District Three Youth and Adults, Inc.”