10-13-2024 W2W - Flipbook - Page 36
Ama Frimpong-Houser, right,
CASA legal director, helped
the families of the Key Bridge
victims get permission to travel
to attend funerals in the United
States. PHOTO BY KENNETH
K. LAM
Giuliana Valencia-Banks, Baltimore County’s chief
of immigrant affairs, knew she had to help when
she heard of the bridge collaspe on March 26.
BALTIMORE SUN FILE
licensed clinical social worker familiar with the
trauma and loss that can follow a disaster.
Batkis learned Spanish when she moved to
Mexico in the 1980s, where she volunteered with
children displaced by a devastating earthquake.
After she became a therapist, she counseled
parents in the aftermath of the 1999 Columbine
High School shooting and advised first responders on dealing with people experiencing mental
health crises following Hurricane Katrina.
She spent two long days with the immediate
and extended families of the missing men who
had gathered to await news from authorities.
In addition to being able to communicate with
them in Spanish, Batkis said she was attuned
to the particular cultural needs of the family
members, who originally came from Mexico,
Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador.
The lessons she’s learned helping strangers
and her own family navigate personal tragedies
kicked into gear.
“What people really need is just to be able
36 | 2024 | WOMEN TO WATCH
to come to someone that’s going to just receive
them, whether they’re crying or they’re stoic or
they’re numb or all the above, because we live
in such a ‘fix it’ community, society,” Batkis said.
“There are things that cannot be fixed and this
cannot be fixed.”
Other problems the families faced did have
solutions, some requiring navigating the
complexities of the U.S. immigration system’s
bureaucracy.
Ama Frimpong-Houser, legal director at immigrant advocacy organization CASA, worked for
months to secure the approval needed so dozens
of the workers’ relatives could travel to grieve
together in the United States or back in their
home countries.
“It was a hugely difficult and complicated
process,” she said, “because our immigration
laws are pretty stringent, right? Pretty set, and
there are very limited ways in which someone
can come into the United States of America.”
Now Frimpong-Houser is providing legal
