The lawyer was the “answer to the prayers” of migrant prisoners | Tech Reddy

BATTERY PARK CITY — Father Thomas Green knows Hiroko Kusuda as the provincial superior of the Jesuits’ U.S. Central and South Province in St. Louis.

In a pre-recorded video, he congratulated Kusuda on the humanitarian service award he received at the Center for Migration Studies gala at Battery View in Battery Park.

“Every day that Jesuits pray for migrants at Mass, we pray that someone will help them,” Father Green said. “So, in a very beautiful way, you are the answer to our prayers.”

In his acceptance speech, Kusuda said he once considered himself a “plain-minded” corporate lawyer in New Orleans.

But there was nothing simple about Kusuda’s personal goal, a native of Japan: He wanted to help others navigate the complicated US immigration legal system.

This opportunity is provided by Catholic Legal Immigration Network, Inc., located in Silver Spring, Maryland. (CLINIC) came by.

And so began the repeated 400-mile trips from New Orleans to the massive federal penitentiary in Oakdale, Louisiana.

At first, Kusuda worked alone, but eventually got help from other lawyers.

Kusuda testified that he faced many challenges when he began helping inmates at a federal penitentiary in Central Louisiana in the early 2000s.

“Every time I go to Oakdale Detention Center, people ask me, ‘Are you going to see your boyfriend?’ they used to ask. Or: “How old are you?” – said Kusuda. “And every time I said, ‘It’s none of your business.’ “

And he was not interested in the management of the prison.

“They made me wait in the waiting area for three hours to punish me,” he said.

Some challenges are not man-made. In 2005, the twin hurricanes of Katrina and Rita uprooted not only Kusuda’s clients, but also his family.

“I don’t know how many hundreds of miles I’ve walked,” Kusuda said. “I used a little Nissan Sentra. The car is really dead.’

But CMS Executive Director Donald Kerwin said Kusuda persevered with kindness and grace.

“The work involved not only the Oakdale penitentiary,” he continued, “but the parish prisons in New Orleans and Louisiana.”

Cusuda provided technical assistance to the Catholic Diocese’s immigration programs in the Gulf Coast states and managed CLINIC’s Louisiana Deportation and Detention Representation Project.

He also co-founded the Louisiana Immigrant Representation Task Force, comprised of private, nonprofit and public attorneys, and works to increase legal representation for immigrants in Louisiana.

Kusuda now trains future immigration lawyers as a clinical professor and director of the Department of Immigration Law at Loyola University New Orleans College of Law.

“Many people get burned out and leave this profession,” he said. “But the only reason I’ve been able to continue doing what I do is because of the friendship and support of this network of people who are committed to doing this work.”