The White House is giving non-documented Haitian immigrants an opportunity to work legally in the U.S. following January’s devastating earthquake — but relatively few are taking advantage.

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One by one, the 10 oldest mothers in Ozone Park’s Shri Trimurti Bhavan were adorned with sparkling silver crowns and garlands of fuchsia-colored orchids in celebration of Mother’s Day – Hindu style.

Sitting on plush, red-velvet loveseats with silver lion-headed armrests, the moms were revered like queens by at least 500 congregants sitting knee-to-knee inside the cramped 97th Avenue temple.

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Every week, a group of mostly native-born Americans travel from a church in Manhattan to a detention facility in New Jersey.

They call themselves the Sojourners and their mission is to change the immigration detention experience, largely through friendship.

Through the clear security barriers that separate them, the Sojourners, part of the social justice mission at Riverside Church, develop relationships with detainees via simple conversations about life. It’s the group’s simple response to the complex political issue of immigration reform.

The late U.S. Sen. Jesse Helms, a North Carolina conservative known for opposing civil rights, was the subject of repeated threats during his tenure on Capitol Hill, according to newly released FBI files.

More than 90 percent of the pages in the files detail threats – from a student discussion overheard in a physics lab to a fully loaded .357 Magnum smuggled into a Senate hearing.

The 1,587 pages of documents also demonstrate the close relationship Helms developed with J. Edgar Hoover’s FBI. While working as a media executive before he joined Congress, Helms was deemed a “special correspondent” with increased access to the nation’s leading law enforcement agency. The file includes an appreciative note from a subsequent FBI director for Helms’ role in quashing an indictment against one of its agents.
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