Duluth’s Hildegard House Provides a Safe Refuge for Asylum Seekers

Cover photo: The founders of Hildegard House come together to mark the opening of the house in 2015.

On a sunny Thursday at the end of June, dozens of people from the Duluth area gathered at the College of St. Scholastica to celebrate World Refugee Day. Among the lead organizers of the event was Michele Naar-Obed, co-founder of Hildegard House Catholic Worker, where migrants and asylum seekers have received long-term hospitality since 2020.

“Michele gets stuff done with community,” said Andrea Gelb, emcee for the event.

It’s true: Naar-Obed and the entire Hildegard House Catholic Worker have been advocates for social justice in the Duluth area since the community was founded in 2015.

Originally, the community was founded with a focus on serving women escaping sex trafficking. But as it became apparent that the community wasn’t fully equipped to meet the needs of those women, they began looking for new ways to serve.

In 2018, Naar-Obed traveled to the Arizona-Mexico border with the Christian Peacemaker Team (now the Community Peacemaker Team) as an unarmed accompaniment worker. 

While there, she witnessed firsthand the struggles of asylum seekers. On the way to the United States, caravans would stop at safe houses. The last one in Mexico was located one and a half miles from the port of entry at the Arizona border. From there, they would go directly to the port of entry in groups of 20 where they would wait, sometimes up to five days, to tell their credible stories of fear to an immigration officer. 

Because it is vital for asylum seekers to be present at the port of entry when their number was called, they would sleep on pallets outside the port for several days, Naar-Obed said. On these pallets, individuals were exposed to the elements and were vulnerable to being attacked by the drug cartels operating in the area. 

Naar-Obed and others would accompany these individuals to a nearby welcome center where they could get clothing, take a shower and whatever necessities they needed. If permitted to cross the border, the asylum seeker is given one year to provide documents proving that they were being persecuted in their country of origin, Naar-Obed said. Those documents must be notarized through the government of their home country. Sometimes, that’s an easy task, she said, but in other cases, it is nearly impossible–especially if it is the government that is the persecutor.

While waiting for their final determination from the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, asylum seekers are placed with sponsors, such as the Hildegard House community, which includes Naar-Obed and her partner, Greg Boertje-Obed. 

Since 2020, Hildegard House has hosted seven individuals. The current residents include an asylum seeker from Burkina Faso who has been there for two and a half years, and a Venezuelan asylum seeker who has been there more than six months. Hildegard House has created lasting connections, with former residents staying in touch and visiting when in the area.

The Hildegard House community provides support and fosters strong connections for asylum seekers, guided by the Benedictine principle to “listen with the ear of your heart,” Naar-Obed said. (The Benedictine Sisters have a monastery at St. Scholastica, and they are the community’s spiritual advisors.) Drawing inspiration from Dorothy Day, the community emphasizes the importance of changing the social order over mere charity. 

That desire to help change society’s attitudes and policies to be more welcoming to those seeking refuge in the United States was one reason Naar-Obed and Hildegard House joined the Interfaith Committee for Migrant Justice (ICMJ), the principle sponsor of the World Refugee Day event in June. 

Outside the auditorium, guests were invited to explore stands set up along the perimeter of the atrium. These stands provided information about Duluth’s partnership with its sister cities, and migration-focused courses at the University of Wisconsin, Superior. The room was adorned with artwork by immigrants, including driftwood sculptures and pencil portrait drawings, creating a welcoming and thought-provoking atmosphere. There was also a table to learn more about the Guaranteed Refugee Admissions Ceiling Enhancement (GRACE) Act, which aims to ensure the United States admits at least 95,000 refugees annually, the average goal since 1980.

Inside the auditorium, the celebration featured a Refugee Nation YouTube video and insights from Pastor Christie Manisto, who worked with St. Andrew Refugee Service. 

The event highlighted the importance of community involvement in making a difference and concluded with the playing of “The Sound of Music.” Similar to the asylum seekers of this day, this musical focused on the Von Trapp family who fled Austria as Nazi Germany invaded.

Naar-Obed also also spoke, emphasizing the collective effort needed in supporting asylum seekers. 

“It takes a village to weave a safety net,” she said.

That’s why Hildegard House is so involved in the Interfaith Committee for Migrant Justice. ICMJ is a group of faith-based communities such as Hildegard House that work together in Duluth to support asylum seekers. Created in 2019, they are guided by the words from Matthew 25:35: “I was a stranger and you welcomed me.” 

This inspiration leads to different organizations in Duluth volunteering and donating to help these newcomers become a part of their new environment. “By having people living in the community and setting up that infrastructure for them, we’re helping to break down lies,” explained Michele, referring to the stereotypes that some people in the U.S. may have about immigrants. In a day where the immigration process has become highly political, it is important to find ways to bring humanity out, she said. 

At first, ICMJ members provide all the essentials to get immigrants started in their new home. Then, as time goes on, the goal is to help individuals become more independent and help them find ways to contribute to the community, Naar-Obed said. One way that some choose to contribute to the community is through art that was shown at the World Refugee Day event. 

In an effort to expand the network, Michele is working with the ICMJ to form a partnership with Annunciation House, a welcome center run by the Catholic Church in El Paso, Texas, that helps migrants and asylum seekers. Through this partnership, ICMJ could become a satellite community to Annunciation House, offering short term hospitality to their asylum seekers, connecting them with their sponsors and family members and getting them to their final destination.

Besides working on issues concerning migration justice, Michele and Greg  keep themselves busy with other initiatives. Not far from the College of St. Scholastica, for instance, they keep a fenced-in garden. “We’ve been gardening for five or six years. We planted apple trees first,” Boertje-Obed shared. 

The garden and the ICMJ are examples of a broader vision of practicing mutual aid instead of giving traditional charity, which Naar-Obed said maintains hierarchy instead of promoting equality. Another way they hope to incorporate mutual aid practices is by starting a book study and analyzing Day’s works to be able to foster her vision better.

         Another initiative includes a sewing project started by Boertje-Obed where the group makes mittens that they donate to the Damiano Center, a soup kitchen in Duluth. After handing out these mittens, they then invite recipients to come and learn how to sew to make mittens to pay it forward. Along with mittens, Hildegard House has also been mending clothes so that they do not go to waste. They are also involved in Grandmothers for Peace and Vets for Peace which aim to bring about a world of nonviolence. Currently, Grandmothers for Peace is gathering funds to support three students who want to study peace-related topics in college.