Accredited by the Bureau of Immigrant Affairs, Kate works with the Immigration Law Project in St. Louis, Missouri. She is certified to be a legal representative for the needy who cannot afford to engage an immigration lawyer. In two and a half years of advocacy, her favorite cases are political asylum cases, which she assumes under the auspices of the Catholic Immigration Law Project. In her first case, Kate helped a Muslim professional woman from Algeria stay in the United States to escape the oppression of fundamentalism in her homeland. In another case, she assisted a Mexican national woman who was abused by her American-citizen spouse.
Refugees face special needs and a special type of poverty.
They are the poorest of the poor, according to Kate who noted that refugees usually leave behind all of their possessions in their homelands and are without rights in the lands where they try to resettle. They are very vulnerable, and helping this vulnerable population really is a traditional ASC ministry. Early in the U.S. presence, Adorers helped mainstream immigrants by staffing schools in parishes organized by immigrant groups. Today, ASCs reach out to immigrants in need in various ways. Kate draws on her varied experiences as a teacher, pastoral minister, campus minister, and provincial councillor in her current outreach as an advocate for needy immigrants.