TinaMaria Fernandez, founder of Hope Esperanza in North Platte, is surrounded by youth participants at the nonprofit she founded in 2021 to plug gaps in services to the area's newcomer communities. The nonprofit was thrust into a wider statewide spotlight when staff and volunteers helped detainees at the North Platte jail that housed a sudden influx of people arrested in the June 10 immigration raid in Omaha. (Courtesy of Hope Esperanza)
NORTH PLATTE, Neb. -- Founded in this west-central Nebraska railroad town in 2021, the Hope Esperanza nonprofit was thrust into a statewide spotlight this summer when more than 60 undocumented workers from a high-profile immigration raid in Omaha landed at the local jail.
The agency's bilingual team stepped up as interpreters and support links for both the Glenn Valley Foods workers swept up in President Donald Trump's mass deportation push and an understaffed Lincoln County jail unfamiliar with the detainees' languages and cultures.
Hope Esperanza quickly became known as an on-the-ground resource for families, attorneys and news updates related to Nebraska's largest immigration raid since 2018. The organization's response led to awards and recognitions from other advocacy groups.
Some of that notoriety has piqued interest in the nonprofit's origins and the North Platte native behind the group.
TinaMaria Fernandez, 43, is herself the product of a family split by U.S. immigration policy. Her dad, from Mexico, met and married her mom while he was in North Platte working at a local horse-processing plant. Despite a lengthy attempt, his visa was not renewed and the young family lived apart.
"My mother stayed here by the wishes of my father, to raise me in the United States," Fernandez said. "We'd go and visit my dad in Mexico."
At one point, Fernandez said, her parents thought they had necessary paperwork in order and her mom and family members traveled south to get him. "They wouldn't let my dad come back across."
Eventually, she said, her dad urged his wife to move on. Each began new relationships. Fernandez has siblings and relatives on both sides of the border. To this day, she said, her parents talk sometimes by phone.
"There's that love, you know, they always say that it's two countries that separated us and separated our hearts and our family."
Fernandez said her North Platte childhood was "not the greatest," and while she wonders how life might have been different had her father been closer, she chooses to believe "everything happens for a reason."
She said her own immigration-related experiences helps to better understand people she works with through Hope Esperanza, including the Glenn Valley and other federal detainees awaiting deportation at the Lincoln County facility.
"I see, I know the effects of it," said Fernandez. "My heart goes out to them."
One of the organizations that recently recognized Hope Esperanza and Fernandez noted that her education and jobs helped prepare her to run the North Platte agency, which is fueled by grants and philanthropic donors and has grown to a team of more than 20 people.
Fernandez earned a bachelor's degree in psychology from the University of Wyoming and a nursing degree from the University of Nebraska Medical Center. She worked as a social worker for the Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Correctional Services and as a counselor for Lutheran Family Services.
While in nursing school, Fernandez said she was horrified by a particular family's health care challenges she believed were exacerbated by language barriers. She saw children removed from Spanish-speaking households that likely could have stayed together had parents tapped available support services.
That spurred her to conduct a six-month needs assessment, focusing on the county's Latino community, the area's largest minority group. She contacted many of the roughly 90 nonprofits working in Lincoln County to understand why gaps existed. Hope Esperanza formed to help plug the gaps.
Then still a student, Fernandez started small, filling her SUV with food to deliver to families. Her team at one point made and sold enchiladas to help stave off a mom's eviction.
Fernandez called it "God's work" that the group's nonprofit status and structure were newly in place when North Platte learned the region would become home to a Sustainable Beef LLC processing plant, one of the largest processing facilities in the nation.
"God was sending a whole lot more needs our way," Fernandez said, referring to an incoming workforce that largely would be newcomers of different cultures whose first language is not English.
The rancher-owned plant reportedly will employ up to 850 workers and have a $1.5 billion community impact. Operations launched this spring, following years of preparation.
Hope Esperanza, meanwhile, has been expanding services (Esperanza means hope in Spanish). The operation offers food, clothing and furniture aid; transportation and employment coordination, health and youth programs, safety and cultural events. Integration and language access classes are geared toward newcomers to the city of about 23,000 people.
The group's statewide notoriety grew after Lincoln County Sheriff Jerome Kramer got the call in June asking if his North Platte-based county jail could accept detainees that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement had arrested in the Omaha raid, four hours away.
Lincoln County had an established contract with the feds to house ICE detainees. But the 63 Glenn Valley workers increased the jail population by about 50%, the sheriff said, at a time when the facility was short-staffed. He said Hope Esperanza was a lifeline.
Kramer already had worked with Fernandez, and participated in bridge-building meetings the nonprofit holds with city and law enforcement officials.
Douglas County Board Chair Roger Garcia, an outspoken critic of the ICE action, said he had never heard about Hope Esperanza before the June 10 Omaha raid. Last week, the annual Hispanic Heritage Awards organized by Garcia and his wife Yanira recognized the group for its response and outreach to the migrant detainees.
"What really impressed us was they were not only providing basic interpretation and translation services, but they were a moral support and a human heart caring for the women going through that difficulty and separation from their families," Garcia said.
He was told that on one visit to the jail, Hope Esperanza representatives played Selena music and the women inmates danced.
"They had a human moment together to lift up their spirits ... in a very difficult moment when they were detained, separated from their families," Garcia said. "The fact we had Hope Esperanza there was a blessing for those women and for us as a community."
Garcia and some other immigrant advocates reacted much differently to a recent proposal by the Douglas County sheriff and the then-state director of the League of United Latino American Citizens (LULAC).
Sheriff Aaron Hanson had sought to lease space in the Omaha-based county jail to the feds for ICE detention, framing the idea as both a profitable and humanitarian venture, partly because it would keep Omaha detainees closer to their families.
The prospect was shot down by a majority of the County Board. Garcia has said the increased ICE presence would lead to more fear and local arrests.
"There is a difference between being in favor of detention versus people on the ground helping individuals in these unfortunate circumstances," Garcia said.
Nebraska Appleseed earlier this month also recognized Fernandez. The Lincoln-based group selected her for its "Roots of Justice Award" even before the raid, and cited ongoing efforts to connect young Latinos to their culture and new workers to community resources.
"She brings a group of diverse community members together on a regular basis to problem solve and plan for the community," said Appleseed senior welcoming coordinator Christa Yoakum.
Ruby Méndez López said she was impressed by Fernandez's varied roles, including as a mom and wife. "She's heading this organization but also is a full-time nurse and does a million other things around North Platte."
Though the number of detainees from Omaha's Glenn Valley raid has dwindled to a couple, the Hope Esperanza team said it still meets with other migrants held by ICE in the Lincoln County jail.
Staff and volunteers also see an influx of newcomers due to the meatpacking plant and are providing language access and other services. The nonprofit is trying to launch a health clinic for underserved populations.
Fernandez continues to work on a book that delves into her journey and identity shaped by immigration and separation. She already authored a children's book about belonging, illustrated by her son Micah and titled "Nico's New Home."
She said she has yet to fully process events of the past year related to ramped up immigration enforcement but sometimes feels the weight of an "elephant" on her chest.
"I don't see politics," Fernandez said. "I see displaced families. I see separated families, kiddos going to bed at night without their parents. It's a lot."
Winners were selected by a panel of Omaha-area Latino community members after a public nomination process. They were announced during an Oct. 15 Hispanic Heritage Month dinner organized and hosted by Yanira Garcia, an elected member of the Regional Metropolitan Transit Board, and her husband, Douglas County Board Chair Roger Garcia. It was held at the Hispanic Art Center in Omaha.
Nonprofit of the year recognition was shared by five groups: Hope Esperanza, ACLU Nebraska, Completely KIDS, Heartland Workers Center and Center for Immigrant and Refugee Empowerment.