Additional Maui wildfire recovery support requested for immigrants

Sep. 2—Hawaii's congressional delegation is urging the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services to continue expanding its efforts to assist the Maui immigrant community affected by wildfires.

Hawaii's congressional delegation is urging the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services to continue expanding its efforts to assist the Maui immigrant community affected by wildfires.

With Lahaina having a large foreign-born population, U.S. Sens. Mazie Hirono and Brian Schatz, along with U.S. Reps. Ed Case and Jill Tokuda, wrote to USCIS Director Ur M. Jaddou recommending additional support in areas such as replacing lost legal and identification documents and providing fee waivers or translation resources, according to a news release.

"Many members of our immigrant communities now lack the main identification showing they are legally in the United States, and replacing the paperwork is expensive and time-consuming, " the lawmakers wrote.

Other recommendations were to offer flexible, extended or expedited processing of legal and identification documents and to provide additional guidance and support for survivors regardless of where they've been relocated to.

Recommendations regarding language services asked that public-facing information be made available in Ilocano, Tagalog, Spanish, Chuukese and Tongan, while also proactively preparing interpretation services for victims seeking help from the USCIS Contact Center.

The delegation acknowledged the steps USCIS had taken until now and asked for its continued commitment to the wildfire recovery process.------Linsey Dower covers ethnic and cultural affairs and is a corps member of Report for America, a national service organization that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues and communities.------