July 11, 2025

Analysis, Trends, & Opportunities Inside

View this email in your browser Vermont Asylum Assistance Project is a legal services and technical assistance organization that exists to mentor no-cost and low-cost immigration lawyers and legal workers; educate and serve immigrants and community members; maximize impact across sectors; and advocate to protect immigrants’ rights. Join us: www.vaapvt.org. NEWS ALERT: VICTORY! 🕊️ Heidi and Nacho are Coming Home Thanks to YOU! We're thrilled to share the joyful news that VAAP clients Heidi and Nacho, cherished colleagues and leaders within the Migrant Justice community, are finally free after nearly a month of unjust ICE detention.  Their release represents not only life-saving personal triumph, but also critical affirmation that the rule of law prevails.  This landmark victory was made possible by Heidi's and Nacho's own courage, the tireless dedication of our legal and community partners, and the unwavering solidarity of people like you! Victory Through Collective Action On June 14, Heidi and her stepfather Nacho were violently detained by U.S. Border Patrol while delivering food to farmworkers in Franklin County, Vermont. Agents pulled them over without cause, smashed their car window, and tore them from their community.  But they didn’t face this injustice alone. Thanks to the courageous legal advocacy of Migrant Justice, the Center for Justice Reform Clinic, and VAAP, Heidi and Nacho challenged the constitutionality of their detention in federal court while simultaneously contesting their deportation in immigration court. Yesterday, the team secured immigration bond and won their release. Today, Heidi and Nacho are exiting ICE custody and coming home safe, where they can continue to fight their deportation surrounded by family and community. This hard-won result is a testament to the extraordinary power of collective care: 📢 Hundreds mobilized at protests across Vermont. 📬 Thousands raised their voices, flooding ICE with messages demanding release. 📖 Dozens of volunteer attorneys and legal workers mobilized on short notice for continuing legal education on detention defense, immigration bond litigation, and habeas bail litigation.  🍉Dozens more legal workers and lay advocates mobilized on short notice for legal observer training. 💸Heroic hours of no-cost legal assistance was provided in federal judicial and administrative courts, and bond was paid by the Vermont Freedom Fund, all powered by your generous support. ⚖️ Legal and paralegal interns, volunteers, partners, and technical assistance providers gave their time, brilliance, and hearts to this groundbreaking effort, from which we plan to learn and scale. 🌱 Historic financial support from a growing ecosystem of visionary funders — ranging from independent women's groups to foundations to the Vermont Immigrant Legal Defense Fund to individual contributors to monthly donors — kept us focused on the complex legal work at hand. Why Local Access Matters At VAAP, we’re especially mindful that our swift and successful legal intervention in Heidi and Nacho’s case was only possible because they were detained locally, within driving distance. We urge our partners and policymakers to be cautious when calling for a blanket ban on ICE detention in Vermont, as it could unintentionally increase harm for detained individuals. As unjust as any detention is, local access can mean the difference between freedom and disappearance. Our clients detained in remote facilities in Louisiana and Texas are nearly impossible to reach. Barriers to contact, limited interpreter access, poor phone and video connections, delays in securing signatures and submitting filings, and hostile benches all intensify the trauma of detention and the barriers to due process of law. The Work Ripples Forward This victory is already fueling more freedom. Yesterday, AALV and VAAP-supported pro bonos used habeas corpus templates developed in Heidi and Nacho’s cases to secure a Temporary Restraining Order (TRO) for a lawful permanent resident detained by Border Patrol over the weekend. You're doing it, friends. From case law to community care, the ripple effects of your solidarity are real and growing.  ➡️ Please consider a donation to the Vermont Freedom Fund to ensure others still unjustly jailed can return home, too. ➡️ Check out local coverage of Heidi and Nacho's relaese by VT Digger, Vermont Business Magazine, NBC5, and WCAX. ⬇️ Read on for more news and updates on VAAP programming. With love, grit, and deepest gratitude, The VAAP Team Donate to VAAP LEARN WITH VAAP ⚠️ Detention Trends: Local Impact & New Tracking Tools Enforcement activity in Vermont continues to rise and appears disproportionately high for a state of its size and population—likely due to the outsized presence of Department of Homeland Security (DHS) offices and intensified border patrol operations across the region. Detention has always been a tool available at ICE's discretion when enforcing alleged removability against noncitizens, and Vermont has lagged behind similarly situated states in developing and sustaining infrastructure to hold ICE accountable for well-documented patterns of abused discretion that predate the current federal administration. For too long, ICE abuses of discretion in how it detains and summarily deports Vermonters have been insulated from meaningful accountability or review. But not anymore. Today, most detentions are stemming from a combination of ICE community patrols and collateral arrests of allegedly removable people; targeted enforcement of individuals with prior criminal arrest histories; supervision check-ins for those with prior immigration removal orders; and apprehensions at the northern border. Lack of probable cause and evidence of racial profiling are increasingly common. Detained individuals are typically transferred out of state to nearby ICE facilities within hours or days of apprehension, separating them from family, community, and legal support. Atypical is the trend of relocating people to far-flung places like Texas and Louisiana, where access to counsel or a full and fair hearing is extremely diminished. Given the acute shortage of immigration counsel in Vermont, the vast majority of detainees are unrepresented at the time of arrest. Without a detainee's name, date of birth, and "A-number"—or physically locating someone in a detention facility—it becomes nearly impossible to provide people with outcome-changing legal assistance. These representation gaps are especially severe for individuals held in southern U.S. facilities, compared to those detained in New England (as was common before 2025). Fearmongering to drive immigrants to waive their rights through self-deportation is the strategy. It's a cost-effective way of achieving mass-deportation policy goals. The administration continues to make examples out of outlier cases with ingregious injustices to sow chaos, confusion, and control. This was the case with Mohsen and Rumeysa, and continues to be the case today.  One stark example involves a VT/NH Asylum Support Network supported asylum seeker from the African continent—who has no criminal history and a pending meritorious I-589 asylum application—who ICE detained during a routine "check-in" in St. Albans for no discernable reason. He remains in ICE detention in the south while VAAP advocates challenge his removal and seek release on bond (now complicated by the recent Matter of Q. Li decision, which restricts bond eligibility for “recent arrivals”). To our knowledge, this is the only recent case in Vermont where an individual in good standing with a pending asylum application has been detained at a check-in under these circumstances. Another outlier involves a green card holder, also from the African continent, who also lacks any criminal history but who Border Patrol detained on reentry from Canada citing an alleged discrepancy relating to the Visa Bulletin data published during the person's earlier adjustment of status. Partners at AALV and pro bono co-counsel supported by VAAP have already secured a Temporary Restraining Order in federal district court to prevent ICE from unnecessarily transferring this person while counsel requests release on bond and prepares available defenses against removal. To our knowledge, this is only the second recent case in Vermont where a lawful permanent resident has been detained on non-criminal charges of removability (the other being Mohsen Mahdawi). Note how both cases align with the overarching, historical, and institutional prevalence of anti-Blackness in immigration enforcement. In response, VAAP and partners are ramping up new areas of federal and administrative litigation for populations most at risk, and advocating with Vermont Corrections to ensure ICE detainees' equitable access to counsel. We are also revitalizing the ICE Tracker, a fledgling project launched to document and respond to ICE activity across Vermont and to help us understand new enforcement norms so we can advise people to make informed decisions about their cases and lives. The Microsoft Form submission tool is now live and open to community members and VAAP promises to report vetted data at a regular cadence. We are also hosting a community organizer-coordinated public-facing Airtable dashboard, featured below, that collates anonymized DHS and VT DOC data to inform the public, media, and legal networks about likely detention rates on any given day. We welcome community contributions and ideas to help ensure this tool is accurate, sustainable, and responsive to the realities on the ground. Are you a legal worker or interpreter looking to get involved? Visit our website to learn more and sign up. Click here to review the ICE activities and custody trackers ✅ Join our community of practice at VAAP! Join our Weekly Legal & Advocacy Case Rounds—a nonjudgmental, collaborative space for immigration legal and advocacy professionals to share updates, spot trends, and strengthen collective practice across Vermont. No personally identifying client information allowed! Open to attorneys and non-attorney advocates (but not DHS/DOJ personnel), these sessions build shared knowledge without discussing client-specific details. The first hour centers legal practitioners; the second invites broader participation. AI-generated, anonymized notes help track insights on VAAP's blog. Arrive when you can and leave when you need—opt out anytime. Find themeeting links on our Calendar. Come with a question, update, or idea and stay connected! Click here to join rounds 📣 Thank you to everyone who joined our Habeas 101 CLE! On June 20, VAAP and VLGS hosted an urgent, first-of-its-kind Continuing Legal Education (CLE) session on federal habeas corpus litigation to prevent ICE transfers and prolonged detention in Vermont. Sparked by the arrests of Nacho and Heidi, this emergency training explored how habeas can serve as a rapid-response tool to keep detained Vermonters local, preserve access to counsel, and challenge unjust detention practices. We drew on lessons from recent victories in the Mohsen and Rumeysa cases and began building a coordinated defense model alongside partners including the ACLU of Vermont the the Center for Justice Reform Clinic, and technical experts at the Federal Defenders and the VT Defender General’s Office. 🛠️ Training materials and the full recording will be available soon, with follow-up emails going out to attendees and interested volunteers. 📅 Save the date for the next session! Habeas 201: Bail Hearings Late July | Online | FREE CLE Hosted by the ACLU of Vermont—stay tuned for details! Click here to learn more 🛡️Training Recap: Immigration Legal Observing & Accompaniment Last month, we also co-hosted a powerful virtual “train the trainer” session for legal advocates, organizers, and community members across Vermont focused on immigration legal observing, accompaniment, and witnessing practices. Huge thanks to the National Lawyers Guild for partnering with us! The training covered real-time skills for observing and documenting ICE check-ins, courthouse appearances, detentions, and more — with an emphasis on safe, ethical, and effective support for impacted individuals and communities. We explored: What to watch for during ICE interactions, youth “wellness checks,” airport transfers, and detention proceedings How to collect usable notes and recordings to support habeas corpus and other legal filings Best practices for ethical data sharing and combating misinformation How accompaniment and community presence can serve as powerful tools for protection and solidarity The goal? To build a broader network of trained volunteers and rapid-response allies who can increase access to reliable, verifiable information about how immigration enforcement operates in our region today. 📎 Slides from the session are now posted on our blog. Check them out along with the recording below, and share with your networks. Next steps and volunteer opportunities coming soon! Vermont Asylum Assistance Project & National Lawyer's Guild - Immigration Legal Observing Training: How to show up effectively as ICE interventions increase Click here to access the slides 💻 Don't Forget: Search Our Website for Weekly Immigration Updates  Remember that fear is the strategy and steady, concerted community response is resistence and resilience. For every outlier case in which the Federal Government takes illegal and inhumane action, there are many more quiet cases going smoothly and under the radar. Visit the VAAP blog, learning libraries, and calendar often to stay up to date on the latest best practices. Use the search bar on our website to term-search for topical information and nationally vetted resources. Searching our website is often the fatest way to access our technical assistance. Recently, we've posted about: Growing our immigration bond and habeas bail resources for attorneys. Self-assessing risk of detention when attending ICE check-ins or other DHS or DOJ appointments. Landmark decisions limiting injunction remedies and eroding due process. Condeming hateful policies that threaten to separate families, force hardworking Vermonters into unemployment, and displace youth from educational programs. Celebrating immigrant-supportive bills signed into Vermont law. Tracking local media coverage of local immigration news. Click here to search our site FROM OUR PARTNERS Click here to learn more A love letter to trans youth in Vermont! Onwards, together. https://www.acluvt.org/en/press-releases/aclu-vermont-statement-supreme-court-decision-us-v-skrmetti Join VT queer law and policy professionals From the State Refugee Office: 🏛️ Federal Budget Impacts on Refugee and Immigrant Populations The recently passed federal budget includes significant changes that will affect access to public benefits for many displaced populations, including refugees, asylees, humanitarian parolees, and others. Key highlights include: Medicaid & Medicare: Starting October 1, 2026 for Medicaid and likely January 2027 for Medicare, only U.S. citizens, lawful permanent residents (green card holders), Cuban/Haitian entrants, and COFA migrants (Micronesia, Marshall Islands, Palau) will remain eligible. Formerly eligible groups like refugees, asylees, parolees, TPS holders, and SIV holders will lose eligibility. SNAP (Food Assistance): Eligibility will mirror changes to Medicaid/Medicare. The start date is unclear, but affected groups include refugees and asylum seekers. Vermont currently has over 1,600 non-citizen SNAP recipients whose benefits may be impacted. Federal guidance is pending. Refugee Medical Assistance (RMA): May serve as a partial fallback for some newly arriving refugees, but was recently reduced to 4 months of coverage. Uncertainty remains about whether it will expand to support more individuals in the future. The state is actively assessing the full impact of these changes and will share updates on possible alternatives or supports for affected communities. 🏛️ Updates on the "Office of New Americans" equivalent (Act 29) Vermont is taking steps toward creating an Office of New Americans (ONA) equivalent, a dedicated office that could help better support foreign-born individuals and families across the state. Right now, the state is forming a study committee to explore what this office could look like and how it could best serve our communities. The Committee will bring together leaders from state agencies and six members nominated by community organizations, including one community member with lived experience. Organizations nominating members include AALV, USCRI VT, Brattleboro Development Credit Corporation, Migrant Justice, and Vermont State University. The committee will meet up to 10 times between August 2025 and September 2026 and deliver a report with recommendations on how to move forward. Nominations are underway. Once members are confirmed by the Governor’s Office, the Committee will hold its first meeting in mid-to-late August. All meetings will be open to the public, and community input is strongly encouraged!   ❓ VAAP’s Role in the ONA-equivalent study? At VAAP, we believe this is an important opportunity to shape the future of immigrant and refugee support in Vermont. We’ll be: 💌 Sharing upcoming meeting dates 💌 Encouraging our community to attend and participate 💌 Joining Committee meetings to make sure your voices are heard Huge thanks to our community partners, national technical assistance providers, lawmakers, and state government champions like the Treasurer's Federal Transition Task Force for advancing this key coordination mechanism when we need it most. VAAP will post updates on our website, social media, and through our newsletter. Stay tuned. Click here to learn more VAAP IN THE NEWS Watch director Jill Martin Diaz talk rule of law and community resilience with ACLU VT and the VT Human Rights Commission on CCTV's The Talk. Click here to watch "'There was some language around only going after folks with criminal records, only going after violent criminals. That just wasn't the case,' said Emma Matters-Wood with the Vermont Asylum Assistance Project." Click here to watch "Vermont Asylum Assistance Project said even though the ban has yet to take effect, they've already received phone calls from people wondering what's going to happen. 'We prepared immediately for what we knew was coming and for what has already happened, which is panicked calls from people who had everything in order,' said Leah Brenner, a contract staff attorney with VAAP." Click here to watch "'If we pace ourselves and we organize and we make use of everyone’s different, complementary skills and resources. And when we use the legal tools in our system of government and our rule of law, we do prevail,' said the group’s Jill Martin Diaz." Click here to watch "The training informed volunteers on how to approach detention facilities, what access lawyers have, the rights of detainees and how to screen for legal support." Click here to watch "A loose group of advocates is urging the panel that oversees operations at Patrick Leahy Burlington International Airport to issue a statement describing — and, some said, condemning — how federal immigration agents have repeatedly used Vermont’s largest air hub to transport people detained in the state and possibly facing deportation to other parts of the country." Click here to read THANKS FOR YOUR SUPPORT! 🌟 This Is Collective Power! Thank You! As we reflect on the release of Heidi and Nacho—a profound moment of hope and healing—we also step back to recognize the larger story unfolding all around us: one of rising solidarity, growing capacity, and everyday courage in the face of injustice. This summer isn't just about one legal win. It's about what becomes possible when people across roles, communities, and identities come together to defend dignity and demand accountability. Together, we moved mountains and laid the groundwork for what comes next. Onwards! Vermont Asylum Assistance Project  P.O. Box 814, Elmwood Ave, Burlington, VT 05402 802-999-5654 ‖ info@vaapvt.org ‖ www.vaapvt.org Copyright © 2025, Vermont Asylum Assistance Project, All rights reserved. Want to change how you receive these emails? You can update your preferences or unsubscribe from this list. Donate to VAAP

June 19, 2025

Attend Trainings on Habeas, Legal Ethics, and Legal Observing

View this email in your browser Vermont Asylum Assistance Project is a legal services and technical assistance organization that exists to mentor no-cost and low-cost immigration lawyers and legal workers; educate and serve immigrants and community members; maximize impact across sectors; and advocate to protect immigrants’ rights. Join us: www.vaapvt.org. Donate to VAAP EMERGENCY ACTION ALERT Please excuse us for emailing you on Juneteenth! We're doing the best we can in tough times and want to share time-sensitive information with you: 🧡 VAAP ACTION ALERT: Defend Our Communities, Build Legal Power While hundreds rallied at the State House for Nacho and Heidi, the U.S. District Court for Vermont issued temporary restraining orders stopping ICE from transferring them out of state—ensuring their access to local community and counsel. At the same time, in another case, D. Vt. also ordered ICE to release from custody an Afghan national detained unlawfully while in legal status. These dual rulings reveal what we know: ICE cannot operate outside the law. VAAP is supporting litigation and building bridges between national legal strategies and Vermont’s pro bono bar. Here's how to help: 📢 FRIDAY AM: SHOW UP FOR WUENDY Fri 6/20 at 10AM at the ICE Office, 64 Gricebrook Rd, St. Albans. Migrant Justice leader Wuendy could be detained during her scheduled ICE "check-in" despite a pending stay. Your presence matters! 📚 FRIDAY PM: Immigration Habeas CLE Fri 6/20 at 1PM, online or at VLGS Burlington, 126 College St. For attorneys and experienced legal workers interested in expanding detained immigrants' access to justice through habeas litigation. Free! 📚 TUESDAY AM: Immigration and Legal Ethics CLE Tue 6/24 at 9AM online, instead of normal Case Rounds. For attorney and nonattorney immigration legal workers to navigate ethical challenges, build professional resilience, and ensure competent, collaborative advocacy and government accountability in a high-risk and high-trauma legal landscape. 📚 TUESDAY PM: Virtual Training on Immigration Legal Observing Tue 6/24 at 6PM online. Open to all defenders of rights, especially those ready to witness, observe, or accompany during ICE enforcement in Vermont.  🏳️‍⚧️🏳️‍🌈 AND SEND SOME CARE TO TRANS & QUEER IMMIGRANT YOUTH Yesterday, the Supreme Court allowed Tennessee’s ban on gender-affirming healthcare to stand in Skrmetti v. Doe, walking back the protections it recognized in Bostock. To queer and trans immigrant youth: We see you. We hear you. We’re fighting for you. You deserve the freedom to be yourself, and you are loved. From our majority queer team to you: you are not alone. CLICK TO SIGN THE PETITION UPCOMING TRAININGS 🛑STOP ICE TRANSFERS WITH HABEAS (FREE 1.0 MCLE) Presented by VAAP, ACLU VT, and the Center for Justice Reform Clinic. THIS Friday June 20 from 1-2:30PM.  126 College Street or Online. Reigster here. In response to the recent arrests of Nacho and Heidi and the need for immediate legal action this weekend, VAAP, ACLU VT, and CJRC are convening an emergency CLE this week to mobilize the legal community around federal habeas corpus litigation as a strategic tool to prevent unnecessary ICE transfers, keep Vermont residents local, and increase their likelihood of release from detention pending removal proceedings. This training is new ground for us—we’ve never led this before and are going to learn by doing, alongisde you. We are especially eager to crowdsource expertise and welcome seasoned practitioners willing to co-create resources and shape training materials in real time. Training Overview: Explore how habeas litigation in the District of Vermont can challenge unjust ICE detention and isolation practices. Share tools to protect access to counsel and preserve local jurisdiction for detained Vermonters. Build off the successful release efforts in the cases of Mohsen and Rumeysa, and scale this model as a coordinated defense strategy. Co-presenters will include attorneys from VAAP, ACLU VT, and the Center for Justice Reform Clinic. Training materials are in active development in concert with partners from Montroll Oettinger Barquist, Federal Defenders, Vermont Afghan Alliance, and the VT Defender General’s Office Appellate Division.  Who should attend: Any Vermont attorneys or legal professionals ready to take action. No prior immigration experience required. Just bring your commitment and curiosity. Let’s build something new together—urgently, collaboratively, and with the tools we have. Register at https://forms.office.com/r/LnEFcd0em2. Contact info@vaapvt.org.  🌟 SPECIAL CASE ROUNDS SESSION – 1.0 FREE MCLE (Ethics Credit) Balancing Ethics, Competence, and Care in Immigration Law Practice NEXT Tuesday, June 24th at 9AM on Microsoft Teams VAAP is thrilled to host a special ethics edition of case rounds in collaboration with pro bono attorney Lila Shapero and Vermont Bar Counsel Mike Kennedy. This 1.0 MCLE session will blend a refresher on the Vermont Rules of Professional Conduct—including competence, confidentiality, communication, and conflicts—with real-world hypotheticals from our immigration casework. Topics on the table include ethical challenges in form disclosures, third-party consults, tech-accessible client communication, intra-family conflict, and limited scope rep. We’ll also look at risk mitigation for unauthorized practice, and best practices for empowering nonattorney legal workers at partner organizations and mutual aid groups. We’ll examine accountability pathways when bad-faith actors—particularly in immigration enforcement—violate professional norms. And we won’t shy away from recent political threats to immigration advocates, including calls to criminally prosecute or disbar attorneys who educate immigrants about their constitutional rights. How afraid should we be? Let’s discuss. Attendees are invited to bring “live” ethics questions for Mike’s signature Bar Counsel-style discussion. We’ll also discuss wellness and sustainability as ethical imperatives in trauma-heavy legal practice. Open to VT immigration legal advocates. General info only—no legal advice. No RSVP needed but prepare to introduce yourself upon arrival and (for attorneys) to share email contact if CLE credit desired. Join when you can, stay as long as you like, and please refrain from sharing personally identifying client information. As the NIPNLG reminds us: engaging in communities of practice is the #1 way to ensure ethical, high-quality advocacy and protect our clients. Thank you for helping us build a more accessible, collaborative, and resilient immigration legal ecosystem. Meeting Link: Join the meeting now Meeting ID: 299 027 927 804 Passcode: 7rM23u8L A discussion summary without attribution will be published on our blog. 📢Immigration Legal Observing, Accompaniment & Witnessing NEXT Tuesday, June 24th at 6:00 PM online Join Vermont legal advocates, organizers, and community members for a collaborative training on how to safely and effectively observe, accompany, and document immigration enforcement activity in Vermont and surrounding regions. This session will train volunteers, legal professionals, and allies in critical skills for immigration legal observing, accompaniment practices, and data collection to support impacted individuals and communities. We’ll cover: What to watch for at ICE check-ins, courthouse appearances, airport transfers, and detentions How to record usable witness statements to support habeas corpus and other legal remedies Best practices for safe and ethical data sharing to help document rights violations, combat misinformation, and track enforcement trends How accompaniment and community presence can protect rights and build solidarity This training is open to everyone committed to defending constitutional and statutory rights, especially for those who may serve as witnesses, legal observers, or supporters in immigration enforcement contexts. Register at bit.ly/VTlegalobserver EVENTS AND RESOURCES This Freedom Day, Burlington's fourth Juneteenth celebration comes to the Twilight Block Party. Join the City's Office of Racial Equity, Inclusion, & Belonging for a celebration featuring local musicians, vendors and businesses. Let's come together to celebrate Black history, joy, and community! Information at https://www.btvreib.com/juneteenth.  U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants invites you to join the celebration of World Refugee Day, June 20, 2025 in Burlington's Leddy Park. It will be an amazing day of family fun with food, sports, field games, kids' arts and crafts, information booths, and a performance by renowned world music band A2VT! Contact USCRI VT at 802-655-1963 for more information or email Field Office Director Sonali Samarasinghe at ssamarasinghe@refugees.org. Vermont Language Justice Project launched a free multilingual app. Help us get it onto the phones of our immigrant community members! THANKS FOR YOUR SUPPORT! Supporting VAAP with your partnership, volunteerism, and dollars keeps our legal staff focused on what they do best: providing direct immigration legal services to noncitizen Vermonters in need. Just like Andrea, Leah, and Cami did last week in Lamoille County's Probate Division! Working together with Migrant Justice, the legal team secured the necessary state court findings to secure a pathway to permanent status for a young survivor of gang violence. Thanks to you, our rescinded federal "Unaccompanied Youth" grant can't keep us down. Sending a warm congrats to our client & community! Vermont Asylum Assistance Project  P.O. Box 814, Elmwood Ave, Burlington, VT 05402 802-999-5654 ‖ info@vaapvt.org ‖ www.vaapvt.org Copyright © 2025, Vermont Asylum Assistance Project, All rights reserved. Want to change how you receive these emails? You can update your preferences or unsubscribe from this list. Donate to VAAP

June 16, 2025

Get Trained with VAAP and Rally with Migrant Justice

View this email in your browser Vermont Asylum Assistance Project is a legal services and technical assistance organization that exists to mentor no-cost and low-cost immigration lawyers and legal workers; educate and serve immigrants and community members; maximize impact across sectors; and advocate to protect immigrants’ rights. www.vaapvt.org. Donate to VAAP EMERGENCY ACTION ALERT TAKE ACTION NOW! ⚠️ As reported by the Boston Globe, two longtime VAAP colleagues and Migrant Justice leaders were detained by CBP agents in Vermont on Saturday, June 14th while delivering food to neighbors in Franklin County.  Jose Ignacio “Nacho” De La Cruz was driving with his stepdaughter Heidi Perez, recent Milton High School grad, when CBP pulled them over without cause. As Nacho and Heidi exercised their Fourth Amendment rights, CBP agents smashed their car window and violently detained the two community leaders. Both are now being held in Vermont DOC facilities and at risk of imminent deportation. Attorneys from VAAP and partner organizations mobilized over the weekend to file legal petitions to minimize their prolongued detention and prevent ICE from transferring them unnecessarily out of state. Already the District of Vermont has ruled in Nacho's and Heidi's favor by issuing Temporary Restraining Orders against ICE, and we're using this momentum to get additional attorneys trained quickly to join the cause.  We know how to respond, but WE NEED YOUR HELP: ⛑️Tell ICE to bring Heidi and Nacho home; ⛑️Rally tonight at the State House lawn in Montpelier from 6:30pm; ⛑️For attorneys, get trained on bond practice in administrative immigration court and on habeas practice in judicial district court! Scroll down or visit our calendar for training info!⬇️⬇️⬇️ Click here for tonight's rally info! Click here to sign the petition! FOR ATTORNEYS "Habeas Litigation to Prevent ICE Transfers and Prolongued Detention" Presented by VAAP, ACLU VT, and the Center for Justice Reform Clinic. THIS Friday June 20 from 1-2:30PM.  126 College Street or Online (Link with RSVP) 1.0 MCLE. In response to the recent arrests of Nacho and Heidi and the need for immediate legal action this weekend, VAAP, ACLU VT, and CJRC are convening an emergency CLE this week to mobilize the legal community around federal habeas corpus litigation as a strategic tool to prevent unnecessary ICE transfers, keep Vermont residents local, and increase their likelihood of release from detention pending removal proceedings. This training is new ground for us—we’ve never led this before and are going to learn by doing, alongisde you. We are especially eager to crowdsource expertise and welcome seasoned practitioners willing to co-create resources and shape training materials in real time. Training Overview: Explore how habeas litigation in the District of Vermont can challenge unjust ICE detention and isolation practices Share tools to protect access to counsel and preserve local jurisdiction for detained Vermonters. Build off the successful release efforts in the cases of Mohsen and Rumeysa, and scale this model as a coordinated defense strategy. Co-presenters will include attorneys from VAAP, ACLU VT, and the Center for Justice Reform Clinic. Training materials are in active development in concert with partners from Montroll Oettinger Barquist, Federal Defenders, Vermont Afghan Alliance, and the VT Defender General’s Office Appellate Division.  Who should attend: Any Vermont attorneys or legal professionals ready to take action. No prior immigration experience required. Just bring your commitment and curiosity. Let’s build something new together—urgently, collaboratively, and with the tools we have. Register at https://forms.office.com/r/LnEFcd0em2. Contact info@vaapvt.org.  Missed out Vermont Bar Association trainings this month? The recordings and materials are available on demand on vtbar.org.  Not a VBA member? A follow-up bond training is coming soon for FREE hosted at Vermont Legal Aid. Coming soon! FOR COMMUNITIES Vermont Language Justice Project launched a free multilingual app. Help us get it onto the phones of our immigrant community members! FOR EVERYONE Every Tuesday morning VAAP hosts virtual immigration case rounds for two hours, focusing the first hour on legal service providers and lay service providers. Come when you can and leave when you need. No RSVP - just come prepared to introduce yourself as well as an anonymized version of your case/project questions for judgment-free and action-oriented group discussion. We can't keep up with ad hoc consult requests, so please save your questions and come to VAAP's weekly case rounds instead! THANKS FOR YOUR SUPPORT! Vermont Asylum Assistance Project  P.O. Box 814, Elmwood Ave, Burlington, VT 05402 802-999-5654 ‖ info@vaapvt.org ‖ www.vaapvt.org Copyright © 2025, Vermont Asylum Assistance Project, All rights reserved. Want to change how you receive these emails? You can update your preferences or unsubscribe from this list. Donate to VAAP

May 23, 2025

Hundreds of Victories in as Many Days

View this email in your browser Vermont Asylum Assistance Project is a legal services and technical assistance organization that exists to mentor no-cost and low-cost immigration lawyers and legal workers; educate and serve immigrants and community members; maximize impact across sectors; and advocate to protect immigrants’ rights. www.vaapvt.org. FROM THE EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR Donate to VAAP Legal Wins. Legislative Victories. Local Momentum. This newsletter, we celebrate the ways VAAP has scaled up in every direction, from the courtroom to the community: ✅ 300+ individual donations to the new VT Immigration Legal Defense Fund. ✅ 3 Vermonters freed from ICE detention and co-counsel now on 7 more. ✅ Removal proceedings ended for a family of 4 asylum seekers. ✅ Pro bonos mentored to win asylum grants and green cards. ✅ New pro bono programs launched for bond, removal defense & VT DOC intakes. ✅ Biggest-ever summer & fall intern cohorts recruited. ✅ New contract staff hired to immediately expand direct legal services. ✅ Trained Vermont lawmakers on immigration issues impacting the State House. ✅ Dozens at imminent risk of deportation orders assisted with I-589 filings. ✅ Know-Your-Rights at Pride Center, Migrant Ed, and Bennington’s Multicultural Center. ✅Secured passage of S.56/H.375, S.44/H.298, and S.95/H.98, with key immigrant protections shaped by VAAP’s testimony and technical expertise signed into VT law. 📰VAAP in the news: AlJazeera, WaPo, CBS, CNN, WPTZ, WCAX, VT Public, VT Digger, and more cover launch of VT Immigration Legal Defense Fund to benefit VAAP. And on the litigation front: Migrant farmworker returns to Vermont after ICE release Judge orders Berkshire migrant farmworker released on bond Massachusetts judge orders release of detained Vermont migrant worker Federal immigration judge orders release of farmworker arrested in April Farmworker ordered released may return to Vermont in coming days Second detained VT farmworker released on bail 🏛️ Recognized at the Vermont Lawyers March as VT's foremost legal volunteer hub. 📰 Featured in VT Digger with Jay Diaz on immigration, free spech, and due process. 🔓 Growing accessibility and content of our multilingual, searchable self-help website. 💥 And thanks to the Legal Defense Fund’s launch, we’re building fast — new staff, new systems, same mission: keep families together, by bringing detained people home. TL;DR: We're holding the line and changing the tide. Working together, we've got this. 👉 Volunteer with us 👉 Get legal help 👉 Support the Fund Thanks for all you do! Jill Martin Diaz, Esq. Executive Director VT IMMIGRATION DEFENSE FUND This month, Mohsen Mahdawi joined State Treasurer Mike Pieciak, Senator Kesha Ram Hinsdale, and community leaders to launch the Vermont Immigration Legal Defense Fund — a bold initiative benefiting VAAP and its partners to ensure no one in Vermont faces deportation, detention, or family separation without legal representation. Since May 8, over 300 individual donors have stepped up to contribute. The campaign aims to raise $1 million to expand immigration legal defense and build lasting support infrastructure for immigrant communities across the state. “Due process does not truly exist unless one has adequate legal representation... The federal government cannot be trusted to protect our neighbors, and it is on us to stand up for the Vermont values of fairness and justice.” — Mike Pieciak, Vermont State Treasurer “We are all less safe if families are forced to fight alone. Vermont can lead the way nationally in showing that we take care of our own, regardless of immigration status.” — Senator Kesha Ram Hinsdale VAAP has already served over 300 individuals statewide since incorporating last year, and trained more than 100 Vermont attorneys to take on pro bono immigration defense. “We have the legal talent—what we lack is capacity. This fund will change that.” — Jill Martin Diaz, VAAP Executive Director With backing from the United Way of Northwest Vermont, donations to the Fund are tax-deductible and will support VAAP’s direct services and volunteer infrastructure. “United is the way we can uphold our commitment to justice and human dignity.” — Jesse Bridges, United Way of Northwest Vermont Review the international press coverage below: Student protester Mohsen Mahdawi unveils legal defence fund for immigrants (Al Jazeera) Mohsen Mahdawi, Columbia student arrested by ICE, helps launch Vermont defense fund (Washington Post) Columbia student Mohsen Mahdawi joins Vermont immigrant legal aid launch (CBS News) Mohsen Mahdawi helps launch Vermont immigration legal aid initiative (CNN) Immigrant advocates launch legal defense fund for noncitizen Vermonters (Vermont Public) With support from Mohsen Mahdawi, state leaders launch immigration legal defense fund (VTDigger) Photo snapshot: Defense Fund launch event (Rutland Herald) Vermonters launch state's first immigration legal defense fund (WPTZ NBC5) Vermont leaders seek $1M for immigration law initiative (MyChamplainValley) Released Palestinian student helps launch immigrant legal aid initiative in Vermont (WCAX)  Read the full press release here. Donate to the Fund here. Support the Fund FOR ADVOCATES Every Tuesday morning VAAP hosts virtual immigration case rounds for two hours, focusing the first hour on legal service providers and lay service providers. Come when you can and leave when you need. No RSVP - just come prepared to introduce yourself as well as an anonymized version of your case/project questions for judgment-free and action-oriented group discussion. We can't keep up with ad hoc consult requests, so please save your questions and come to VAAP's weekly case rounds instead! Three Immigration Law Programs for Attorneys Eager to Help You Help Your Clients and Community 6/6/25 @ 10-11am -- Immigration Law 101: Immigration law touches every practice area—from family law to employment, criminal defense to municipal governance—but few Vermont attorneys feel equipped to answer basic questions for their clients. Join us for an accessible overview of the U.S. immigration system, with plain-language explanations of current hot topics, common client scenarios, and practical referral guidance. This session is designed for non-immigration practitioners seeking to better understand how immigration issues intersect with their work. REGISTER HERE FOR IMMIGRATION LAW 101. Speakers: Becky Fu von Trapp and Jill Martin Diaz, co-chairs of the VBA Immigration Law Section. 6/13/25 @ 10-11am -- Employment-Based Immigration: Employment-based immigration tools aren’t just for corporate clients. In this advanced session, we will explore how employment pathways can intersect with humanitarian cases and removal defense strategies. From leveraging work-based visas for clients in removal proceedings to creative alternatives to employment authorization, this CLE will provide practical insights for expanding your advocacy toolbox. Ideal for practitioners ready to think outside the box and collaborate across immigration law subfields. REGISTER HERE FOR EMPLOYMENT-BASED IMMIGRATION. Speakers: Becky Fu von Trapp and Jill Martin Diaz, co-chairs of the VBA Immigration Law Section. 6/16/25 @ 1-2:30pm -- Immigration Bond Practice 101: Vermont lawyers showed up in force at the Vermont Lawyers March—now take the next step in helping Vermont legal services attorneys in bringing detained immigrants home. ICE routinely detains immigrants facing removal proceedings for no discernible reason and strategically isolates detainees in faraway detention centers, hoping they’ll give up on their meritorious applications and defenses and instead opt to self-deport. Vermont legal services attorneys are fighting back—filing Immigration Court motions for custody redeterminations and winning release. This 90-minute practical training will introduce you to immigration bond practice: how to challenge ICE detention and help reunite people with their families while their immigration cases move forward in court. Join this time-limited, high-impact effort! No prior immigration experience required, and no obligation to take on the full case after bond. REGISTER HERE FOR IMMIGRATION BOND PRACTICE 101. Speaker: Jill Martin Diaz, VAAP, and additional VAAP attorneys. FOR COMMUNITIES TODAY AT THE STATE HOUSE! 📣 ACT TODAY: Help Pass Fair Housing Protections Before State House Recess! We did it with S.56 (Office of New Americans), S.44 (limits on ICE contracts), and S.95/H.98 (standby guardianships). Now we need your voice to get H.169 across the finish line before the legislature adjourns. 🏡 H.169 adds immigration status as a protected class in Vermont’s Fair Housing law — ensuring all families can access safe housing without fear or discrimination. 🟢 VAAP and partners helped shape and pass the immigrant protections in S.56/H.375, S.44/H.298, and S.95/H.98. Let’s make H.169 the next victory. 📍 Show up at the Statehouse today 📞 Call your lawmakers and urge immediate action on H.169 ✊ Together, we protect the right to live with dignity — no exceptions. Learn about VAAP's legislative victories this session here.  FROM PARTNERS ⚠️ Federal Impact Report Form Now Live How are federal actions—like funding cuts, executive orders, and policy shifts—impacting your organization and the communities you serve? VAAP is partnering with Common Good Vermont and other allies to collect vital data on the impact of federal changes in Vermont. Your input will help shape coordinated statewide advocacy and response. Also join VAAP at the next Common Good Vermont membership convening to continue building a collaborative approach to nonprofit resilience! 👉 Submit your response and share your story here. 🎉 Thursday, May 29 – Pride Gala!  Calling all Vermont partners: Director Jill Martin Diaz wouldn’t be here doing immigration legal defense work without access to insurance-supported, gender-affirming care. Period. That’s why they were proud to co-sponsor a Pride Center of Vermont Gala table in honor of Vermont Queer Law & Policy Professionals and VAAP and the communities that make our work possible. Come celebrate with us and remember: queer and trans joy is an act of resistance. Special thanks to comrade Phoebe Zorn and all the amazing Pride Center staff and volunteers for uplifting LGBTQ+ Vermonters every day. 🌈 Learn more about the Gala and join us. ⚾ Friday, June 6 – VAAP at the Ballpark! Join us at Centennial Field as the Vermont Bar Foundation partners with the Vermont Lake Monsters for a night of community, fun, and fundraising! 🧢 For every ticket sold through the special link, $4 goes directly to the VBF to support legal aid and access to justice. Bring your friends, bring your family, and cheer for a good cause. 🎟️ Buy tickets here. VERMONT LAWYERS MARCH ⚖️ Vermont Lawyers Rally for Rule of Law and Grassroots Legal Defense An estimated 500 to 1,000 attorneys marched up Church Street from the Chittenden Superior Courthouse to the federal building in a powerful show of unity. The rally featured a dynamic lineup of speakers including Harry Stark, ACLU; David Silver, Criminal Defense Attorney; Charity Clark, Vermont Attorney General; Dawn Seibert, Vermont Defender General's Office; and Elizabeth Shackelford, former Foreign Service Diplomat and Columnist. A majority of speakers urged colleagues to channel their passion into direct action for our most immediately impacted neighbors by volunteering through VAAP’s pro bono mentorship program to support immigrant detainees. Without individual legal claims, there is no due process litigation, and no structural change. We’re proud that VAAP and our partners were recognized for building grassroots defense capacity across Vermont. Catch up: Vermont Lawyers Rally for the Rule of Law in the Age of Trump (Seven Days) Vermont Lawyers March for the Rule of Law (News & Citizen) WCAX Video Coverage: Vermont Lawyers Rally for the Rule of Law THANK YOU FROM OUR TEAM Donate to VAAP   Vermont Asylum Assistance Project  P.O. Box 814, Elmwood Ave, Burlington, VT 05402 802-999-5654 ‖ info@vaapvt.org ‖ www.vaapvt.org Copyright © 2025, Vermont Asylum Assistance Project, All rights reserved. Want to change how you receive these emails? You can update your preferences or unsubscribe from this list.

May 3, 2025

Join VAAP and VT Queer Legal Professionals!

View this email in your browser Vermont Asylum Assistance Project is a legal services and technical assistance organization that exists to mentor no-cost and low-cost immigration lawyers and legal workers; educate and serve immigrants and community members; maximize impact across sectors; and advocate to protect immigrants’ rights. www.vaapvt.org. TODAY 5/3 - VT LAWYERS MARCH TODAY, MAY 3RD Lawyers, legal workers, policy professionals, community advocates, and everyone in between are warmly welcome to join Vermont Asylum Assistance Project (VAAP) & the Vermont Queer Law and Policy Professionals (VTQLP) today at the VT Lawyers March for Rule of Law.   GATHER FROM 11:30AM  Meet outside Chittenden Superior Court for face paint and streamers show out for immigrant and LGBTQ+ Vermonters. We'll be selling merch to benefit Migrant Justice until the march launches at noon.   FROM ORGANIZERS 300+ Vermont Lawyers are marching to demonstrate their commitment to protecting the Rule of Law. Lawyers attending are encouraged to wear black or dark blue “courthouse” attire, comfortable walking shoes, and to bring signs related to the Rule of Law. March at noon from Chittenden Superior Court. 175 Main Street, Burlington. Lawyers and protestors will march north along Church Street to the Federal Courthouse on Elmwood Avenue, to a rally with speakers on the green at the First Unitarian Universalist Church, directly across from the Federal  Court. Speakers include Attorney Leslie Black, Emcee; Harry Stark, ACLU VT; David Silver, Criminal Defense Attorney; Honorable Charity Clark, Vermont Attorney General; Dawn Seibert, Immigration Attorney; Elizabeth Shackelford, Columnist and former Foreign Service Career Diplomat.   FROM VAAP As the Trump administration's efforts to centralize executive power surpass the 100-day mark, Vermont legal advocates are mobilizing to defend constitutional rights and marginalized communities. The Vermont Asylum Assistance Project (VAAP) and Vermont Queer Law and Policy Professionals (VTQLP) are uniting to highlight the experiences of immigrant and queer Vermonters. The event will feature the sale of Migrant Justice merchandise to support rapid response initiatives, along with face painting and streamers to visibly demonstrate solidarity. This activism coincides with International Workers' Day, May Day, and the Vermont federal court's release lof Mohsen Mahdawi, a Palestinian Columbia University student and Vermont resident who was detained by ICE during his citizenship interview in Colchester. Mahdawi's case has garnered widespread support from Vermont lawmakers and civil rights groups amid escalating retaliatory immigration enforcement infringing upon First Amendment rights. Advocates stress that immigration law's insulation from judicial review has made it a testing ground for authoritarian policies, threatening fundamental rights such as due process and free speech for all. We will never have more power or opportunity than this very moment to stand up and fight back, so join us at the VT Lawyers March today. THANKS FOR YOUR SUPPORT! Behind the scenes, our direct immigration legal services continue. Thanks to our staff, board, pro bonos, partners, and generous financial supporters, we have filed dozens of new asylum cases this calendar year on top of all of the education and advocacy work profiled above. We are winning clients' work permits and green cards and bond motions, and getting removal proceedings terminated. We are meeting community members where they are at - from Northwest State Correctional Facility ICE custody to the Bennington County Multicultural Community Center - to make sure they have all the information needed to make the best decisions for themselves about their cases. Our legal work is helping Vermont immigrants to access initial asylum-based employment authorization documents, orders of release on bond, venue and address change motions, and more. They tried to bury us, but they didn't know we were seeds. Donate to VAAP   Vermont Asylum Assistance Project  P.O. Box 814, Elmwood Ave, Burlington, VT 05402 802-999-5654 ‖ info@vaapvt.org ‖ www.vaapvt.org Copyright © 2025, Vermont Asylum Assistance Project, All rights reserved. Want to change how you receive these emails? You can update your preferences or unsubscribe from this list.

April 28, 2025

Building Stamina for the Long Road

View this email in your browser Vermont Asylum Assistance Project is a legal services and technical assistance organization that exists to mentor no-cost and low-cost immigration lawyers and legal workers; educate and serve immigrants and community members; maximize impact across sectors; and advocate to protect immigrants’ rights. www.vaapvt.org. VAAP'S TOP FIVE Catch up on VAAP's Top 5 updates for the week of 4/28/25 here! TAKE ACTION THIS WEEK   This week brings marches, hearings, and legal coordination work for Vermont's immigrant communities. Here’s what’s happening and how you can plug in: 🗓️ TOMORROW: Tuesday Mornings with VAAP. New, Simplified Case Rounds! Thanks to your feedback, we’ve simplified our case rounds schedule — no more alternating weeks or confusing changes! Starting now, every Tuesday on Microsoft Teams from 9-11AM: 🕘 9AM — Legal practitioners focus (attorneys, accredited reps, law students) 🕙 10AM — Lay advocates, volunteers, and community supporters focus All are welcome at either or both sessions. General information only, not legal advice. Intros on arrival and no personally identifying information for clients, please. Come when you can, stay as long as you can, and no RSVP needed! ➡️ Join the VAAP Tuesday Teams Meeting. 💬 As the National Lawyers Guild National Immigration Project (NIPNLG) remind us, building and engaging with communities of practice is the #1 way to ensure ethical, high-quality advocacy and to protect clients during this time. Thank you for helping us make immigration legal work more accessible, collaborative, and resilient! 📢 May 1: All Day Rally for Immigrant Rights with Migrant Justice Join workers and allies at the Migrant Justice May Day Action for dignity and human rights. 📍 Williston, Hannaford | 🕛 Picket 7AM-11PM, March at 5PM, Rally at 7PM ➡️ Rally details here ⚖️ May 3: VAAP Joins Vermont Lawyers March for the Rule of Law Calling ALL current and prospective VAAP attorneys and advocates! Join us for the Vermont Lawyers March on Burlington calling for fair and independent courts and immigration justice. 📍 Burlington, Chittenden Superior Court | 🕛 12PM ➡️ Vermont Bar Association details here and Vermont Lawyers March details here 🏛️ April 30: Statehouse Vote on Office of New Americans The Vermont House Committee on Government Operations is scheduled to vote on S.56 — to create an "Office of New Americans" equivalent to better coordinate immigration services statewide. 📍 Montpelier, Statehouse | 🕛 9AM ➡️ Committee schedule and info ⚖️ April 30: Federal Hearing for Mohsen Mahdawi A key hearing challenging Mohsen Mahdawi’s prolonged ICE detention will take place this Wednesday at the federal courthouse in Burlington. 📍 Burlington, Federal Building | 🕛 9AM ➡️ ACLU press release here 📚 Know Your Rights: Detention and Asylum Evidence Resources Thanks to VAAP's incredible UVM Social Work Department's Working With Refugees service learning students, there are many exciting updates to our multilingual education website for your review. Coming soon is a page dedicated to orienting people to what to expect during and after an ICE detention, such as: TRAC Immigration Quick Facts — Understand key detention statistics. IDP Know Your Rights with ICE — How to respond if detained. NIJC Bond Quick-Start Guide — What "bond" is and how to request it. Thanks also to VAAP board member Professor Sarah Osten and her UVM History Department Country Conditions Research Seminar students, VAAP is preparing standard evidence packets and other guidance to help people substantiate their claims on Form I-589 and get ready for the many asylum interviews and hearings getting scheduled statewide. We will publish the resources soon to assist both our clients and others navigating the process without a lawyer. New to "country conditions" evidence? See: ➡️ Villanova–UVM Country Conditions Research Database ➡️ National Immigration Project: Understanding Country Conditions Evidence. 📺Finally, watch VAAP's Top 5 video for this week here or above! Staying informed, showing up, and sharing resources has never been more important. Thank you for being part of this movement. With care, Jill Martin Diaz, Esq.  Executive Director 🔄 PS—Quick Recap: What You May Have Missed Last Week Staying in the Fight, Together: Recent weeks brought a wave of ICE arrests, confusing USCIS changes, and litigation whiplash. Our reminder: Pause, breathe, respond — don’t react. There are more immigration advocates than ICE attorneys — if we pace ourselves and work collectively, we can win.  New Resources Now Online: ▶️ Immigration 101 + Parole/TPS Termination Videos 🧠 FAQ Webinar on USCIS Registration Changes Multilingual legal education materials on our searchable website ➡️ vaapvt.org Non-detained Immigration Legal Help Access Streamlined: 📞 Call 1-800-889-2047 for routine (non-detained) requests for immigration legal assistance (LSV statewide legal intake line) or 📲 submit a partner referral at vtlawhelp.org/partners. 🏢 Alterantively, visit community legal help locations listed on our Get Legal Help page. More guidance soon on DETAINED immigration legal help requests as we align intake priorities across Vermont to meet growing needs equitably. Donate to VAAP DON'T WAIT. EDUCATE! Every Tuesday morning VAAP hosts virtual immigration case rounds for two hours, focusing the first hour on legal service providers and lay service providers. Come when you can and leave when you need. No RSVP - just come prepared to introduce yourself as well as an anonymized version of your case/project questions for judgment-free and action-oriented group discussion. We can't keep up with ad hoc consult requests, so please save your questions and come to VAAP's weekly case rounds instead! Join rounds REGISTER NOW. VAAP will join Migrant Justice and Pride Center Vermont for a FREE virtual bilingual Spanish/English Know Your Rights webinar on May 6th from 6:30-8:30PM focused on the rights and needs of queer immigrants. Register below! Register here Are you new to immigration law and unsure where to begin? Tune into a recent conversation between UVM social work department colleagues Cassie Gillispie, LICSW and Jill Martin Diaz, Esq. Social Work Lens podcast. Listen here And don't forget to check out another Immigration 101 podcast! VAAP's Jill Martin Diaz recently sat down with Vermont Public Interest Research Group (VPIRG) on VT's Voice. Watch now In search of more personalized Know Your Rights (KYR) training in person, online, or something in between? VAAP is available to bring our educational resources to you on a fee-for-service basis. Contact info@vaapvt.org.  Request training STATE HOUSE UPDATES Time is running short so let's keep up our efforts in the State House! Follow VAAP's advocacy work here and contact your representatives TODAY to support H.169 for fairer housing, S.44 for stricter VT-DHS contract limits, S.95/H.98 for queer and immigrant family planning, and S.56 for an Office of New Americans in state government. Catch up on VAAP's call to State House action in VT Digger here, and hear from partners about opportunities to think globally while acting locally on VPIRG's VT's Voice podcast here. Get involved THANK YOU FOR YOUR SUPPORT! Behind the scenes, our direct immigration legal services continue. Thanks to our pro bono volunteers and generous financial supporters, we have filed dozens of new asylum cases this calendar year on top of all of the education and advocacy work profiled above. We are winning clients' work permits and green cards and bond motions, and getting removal proceedings terminated. We are meeting community members where they are at to make sure they have all the information needed to make the best decisions for themselves about their cases. Our legal work is helping Vermont immigrants to access initial asylum-based employment authorization documents, orders of release on bond, venue and address change motions, and more. They tried to bury us, but they didn't know we were seeds. Donate to VAAP   Vermont Asylum Assistance Project  P.O. Box 814, Elmwood Ave, Burlington, VT 05402 802-999-5654 ‖ info@vaapvt.org ‖ www.vaapvt.org Copyright © 2025, Vermont Asylum Assistance Project, All rights reserved. Want to change how you receive these emails? You can update your preferences or unsubscribe from this list.

April 24, 2025

Contact Your Legislators Today

View this email in your browser Vermont Asylum Assistance Project is a legal services and technical assistance organization that exists to mentor no-cost and low-cost immigration lawyers and legal workers; educate and serve immigrants and community members; maximize impact across sectors; and advocate to protect immigrants’ rights. www.vaapvt.org. ACTION ALERT!   ✊ Take Action Today: Protect Immigrant Rights in Vermont! Feeling overwhelmed? Unsure what to do? Want to make a difference right now? Two powerful, community-backed immigrant support bills are on deck in the Vermont Statehouse—and they need your voice today.   ✅ Take 5 minutes and tell lawmakers to pass H.169 – to stop housing discrimination based on immigration status and ban landlords from collecting unnecessary Social Security numbers. ✅ Take 5 more minutes and tell lawmakers to pass S.56/H.375 – to create a statewide Office of New Americans, ensuring coordinated services and combating disinformation. 📨 Contact your legislators and urge them to vote YES: Find your rep here » 🎥 Watch pr attend the hearings live today: House General & Housing Committee (H.169) House Gov Ops Committee (S.56) 📚 Get informed and spread the word: Rachel Batterson, Vermont Legal Aid's Fair Housing Expert, on her support for H.169 → Coalition letter for Office of New Americans → Full background → and the national bipartisan Office of New Americans State Network background →  🌍 Think global, act local. These community-driven bills are about dignity, safety, and justice for our neighbors. Let’s bring Vermont policy in line with our values—and the best practices from around the country. IN CASE YOU MISSED IT Executive Director updates from Monday, April 21, 2025  🛣️Sharing strength and stamina for the long road ahead Greetings, friends of VAAP. We hope you're hanging in there. Recent weeks have brought a wave of high-profile detentions, misleading USCIS notices, litigation whiplash, and reports of legally unnecessary self-deportations. Our practice? Pause, breathe, and respond—don’t react. This is a marathon, not a sprint. Unjust detentions and deportations aren’t new to Vermont—and the government is counting on our exhaustion. But as the National Immigration Litigation Alliance reminded VAAP in a training last week, there are more of us—around 15,000 immigration advocates—than there are ICE attorneys—fewer than 2,000. If we pace ourselves, we can outlast them. With mindful resource-sharing, service coordination, and collective care, we can stay in this fight together for the long haul, and we can win. 🔍 Don't Wait, Self-Educate: Visit vaapvt.org. Now searchable! Get clear, community-oriented updates on what’s changing and how it impacts Vermont. Our latest posts include: ▶️ Video primers on immigration 101 and parole and TPS terminations. 🧠 FAQ webinar on the new USCIS registration requirement. 📅 Event announcements and legal education in multiple languages. 🔎 Get the Fastest Answers Online Got a specific question? Our newly searchable website is often the fastest way to get up-to-date, reliable info — even faster than we can offer 1:1 consults. If VAAP hasn't posted yet on a new or rumored change, it likely means experts are still working behind the scenes to build consensus on the best response grounded in law and policy. If you see a post by a national partner whose work VAAP frequently cites, know you can trust it! Review other sources with caution. 📅 Tue 4/22: Common Good VT's Nonprofit Legislative Day Join VAAP at the State House or online tomorrow, Tuesday April 22 for a day of nonprofit advocacy hosted by Common Good Vermont. VAAP will be: Testifying before the House Committee on Economic Development. Presenting on a panel with Senator Kesha Ram Hinsdale and People's Health and Wellness Clinic director Dan Barlow on federal shifts & nonprofit response. 🆕 Need Immigration Legal Help? Contact this "Cold Line" We’re coordinating with state partners to streamline who to call for immigration legal assistance. Follow along on our website here. What we know so far: 📞 Call 1-800-889-2047, the statewide civil legal services intake line managed by Legal Services Vermont (LSV). Leave a message in any language and expect a call back with interpretation assistance available in any language.   📲Submit a quick referral webform to LSV if you are a fellow advocate or other community partner: https://vtlawhelp.org/partners.  🏢 Call or walk-in to a community-based organization with embedded immigration attorneys, listed on our "Get Legal Help" webpage.  ⚠️ What to Expect When Seeking Help We know the need is growing — and we’re growing with it. VAAP is training volunteer lawyers and building new systems to meet shifting legal needs, especially around detention defense, parole terminations, and complex filings. While our capacity is limited, we’re working hard to make sure our time and energy are used where they’ll have the greatest impact. With our partners, we’re setting clear intake priorities to promote equitable access to legally urgent, high-impact assistance. These guidelines are being coordinated with statewide civil Intake "cold line" coordinator Legal Services Vermont and immigration legal service partners — and will be published soon on our Get Legal Help page. Stay tuned, and thank you for your patience as we adapt to meet this moment. 🏛️ Legislative Advocacy: Evolving With the Moment As Vermont’s legislative session nears the finish line, VAAP is adapting our State House strategy in response to last week’s shifts in federal enforcement and judicial review—guided by national and local partners. We remain firmly committed to the community-driven priorities we brought into the State House: ✅ S.56 – Establish a Vermont Office of New Americans ✅ H.169 – Expand fair housing protections for immigrants ✅ S.95 – Clarify standby guardianship for immigrant families ✅ S.123– Reduce barriers to IDs and driver’s licenses ✅ S.44 – Heighten scrutiny of any VT-ICE contracts At the same time, we urge caution. In the wake of high-profile ICE arrests in Vermont, there’s growing momentum to act fast—but moving too quickly risks unintended harm. VAAP now advises measured support for efforts to limit VT DOC’s collaboration with ICE—only if they don’t restrict access to legal counsel or federal court review for detainees. We continue to back nationally significant litigation pending in D-VT thanks to partners like ACLU of Vermont. As a legal services provider taking part in a broader immigration justice movement, VAAP’s approach is to balance long-term system change with immediate harm reduction—keeping clients at the center, always. ✨ Coming soon: Diversifying pro bono opportunities to include training and technical assistance for motions for bond, reopening, stays, and habeas corpus. Evolving Know Your Rights presentations on a fee-for-service basis. Special Immigrant Juvenile Status (SIJS) family and probate court mentorship for eligible abused, neglected, or abandoned immigrant youth. Follow along between newsletters at ➡️https://www.vaapvt.org/blog Thank you for staying with us in this work, and for trusting that sometimes slowing down is what lets us move forward wisely. Scroll down for events, resources, and more. In solidarity, Jill Martin Diaz, Esq. Executive Director Donate to VAAP PAROLE AND TPS TERMINATIONS  🛑 What to Know About Parole and TPS Terminations Federal courts are currently reviewing efforts to block the termination of humanitarian parole for people who entered the U.S. under the CHNV program or through a CBP One appointment. They are also weighing legal challenges to TPS terminations for countries including Afghanistan, Cameroon, and Venezuela. These lawsuits could protect thousands of people nationwide—including hundreds here in Vermont—but they underscore the fragility of temporary protections like parole and TPS are. Whenever possible, individuals with parolee or TPS should always explore pathways to permanence without delay. This month’s news about two Nicaraguan teens at Champlain Valley Union High School, who announced plans to self-deport after receiving parole termination notices, struck a nerve—and rightfully so. Their story illustrates the profound emotional toll of rapidly shifting federal policies and the precariousness of temporary protections arising under federal policy rather than federal law. While the fear is real, it’s important to understand that the parole termination notices' "deport yourself now or else" warning created a felt emergency—not a legal one. Parole and TPS are temporary permissions to be present, meant to bridge an under-documented person until they can apply for any legally available longer-term status. Options like asylum are always available to and remain available even after temporary protection ends. Remember there is no wrong way to seek asylum, and being under-documented is neither a crime nor does it prejudice your asylum claim. Unfortunately, the government’s use of frightening and misleading parole termination notices seems calculated to sow panic and discourage people from asserting their asylum seeking and other immigration rights. We’re grateful that the CVU story sparked awareness and action—and we want to help communities build long-term resilience in the face of these federal scare tactics. Knowing your rights and having access to trusted legal information can make all the difference when the next wave of policy whiplash arrives. 🗞️ Catch local coverage featuring VAAP’s legal perspective: Vermont Public WCAX VTDigger 🎥 Stay informed: Watch our Top 5 Parole Policy Changes video, also above. Watch our Deep Dive into USCIS Registration video, also below. 👉 Know your rights and share widely. Courts are listening—and so are we.  USCIS REGISTRATION 📝 USCIS Launches Form G-325R Registration Requirement 📝 Beginning this month, USCIS is requiring certain noncitizens to register using Form G325R, a major change rooted in archaic provisions of immigration law. While the government claims it's about "data collection," advocates warn it’s a backdoor surveillance tool with no clear benefit to registrants. 📚 Get the breakdown: USCIS Official Page American Immigration Council Analysis AILA Think Immigration Blog 🖥️ We covered answers to frequently asked questions in our latest USCIS registration webinar. Watch the recording linked above and share widely! 📢 Bottom line: This new process is confusing, fast-moving, and high-stakes, and courts might stop the government from implementing it. If you’re unsure whether to register, consult a trusted legal resource like the video linked above. 🕰️ Some are waiting until later in the 30-day registration period to decide on whether register, in case the courts stay the program in the mean time. UNACCOMPANIED CHILDREN On March 21, 2025, the Trump administration abruptly shut down nearly all legal services for unaccompanied immigrant children, cutting off federally funded representation for over 26,000 children navigating the deportation system without a parent or guardian, including dozens of VAAP-represented youth. 🦾 There are no rights without remedies—so we sued. In response, a coalition of 11 nonprofit legal orgs—including VAAP—filed suit in CLESPA v. HHS, challenging the administration’s illegal move. On April 1, a federal judge issued a Temporary Restraining Order (TRO), requiring the immediate restoration of services. 📌 They lag on TRO compliance—but the court isn't letting it slide. The TRO has now been extended through April 30, with hearings scheduled as we pursue a Preliminary Injunction and challenge the Administration's noncompliance. The Court has made clear: the Executive Branch cannot unilaterally strip children of their right to representation. ⚖️ VAAP stands proudly with our fellow plaintiffs. Thanks to your support, VAAP’s two IJC Fellows have returned from furlough despite losing 75% of their funding. We remain committed to fighting for Vermont’s immigrant youth in and beyond the courtroom. 📰 Read more: VT Digger Vermont Public WCAX NBC5 📄 Read VAAP’s filings: Affidavit in Support of TRO Supplemental Affidavit 💸Whatever happens, thanks to you, our staff are securely funded... for now! Donate today to sustain Vermont immigrant youth's legal defense. Every dollar helps! COMMUNITY EDUCATION Are you new to immigration law and unsure where to begin? Tune into a recent conversation between UVM social work department colleagues Cassie Gillispie, LICSW and Jill Martin Diaz, Esq. Social Work Lens podcast. Here's the teaser: "Are you wondering what is actually going on with Immigration in the U.S. right now? Are you curious about what these executive orders mean and how the system is ‘supposed’ to work? We are too! Join us as we speak with Jill Martin Diaz about immigration, and what social workers and helping professionals need to know." Listen here NOTE THE SCHEDULE CHANGE. Every Tuesday from 9-10:30am, VAAP hosts virtual immigration case rounds alternating focus between legal and lay service providers. Come when you can and leave when you need. No RSVP - just come prepared to introduce yourself as well as an anonymized version of your case/project questions for judgment-free and action-oriented group discussion. We can't keep up with ad hoc consult requests, so please save your questions and come to VAAP's weekly case rounds instead! Join rounds REGISTER NOW. VAAP will join Migrant Justice and Pride Center Vermont for a FREE virtual bilingual Spanish/English Know Your Rights webinar on May 6th focused on the rights and needs of queer immigrants. Register below! Register here REGISTER NOW. VAAP will join Migrant Justice and Pride Center Vermont for a FREE virtual bilingual Spanish/English Know Your Rights webinar on May 6th focused on the rights and needs of queer immigrants. Register below! Request training And don't forget to check out another Immigration 101 podcast! VAAP's Jill Martin Diaz recently sat down with Vermont Public Interest Research Group (VPIRG) on VT's Voice. Watch now STATE HOUSE UPDATES Time is running short so let's keep up our efforts in the State House! Follow VAAP's advocacy work here and contact your representatives TODAY to support H.169 for fairer housing, S.44 for stricter VT-DHS contract limits, S.95/H.98 for queer and immigrant family planning, and S.56 for an Office of New Americans in state government. Catch up on VAAP's call to State House action in VT Digger here, and hear from partners about opportunities to think globally while acting locally on VPIRG's VT's Voice podcast here. Get involved THANK YOU FOR YOUR SUPPORT Behind the scenes, our direct immigration legal services continue. Thanks to our pro bono volunteers and generous financial supporters, we have filed dozens of new asylum cases this calendar year on top of all of the education and advocacy work profiled above. Our legal work is helping Vermont immigrants to access initial asylum-based employment authorization documents, orders of release on bond, venue and address change motions, and more. They tried to bury us, but they didn't know we were seeds. Donate to VAAP   Vermont Asylum Assistance Project  P.O. Box 814, Elmwood Ave, Burlington, VT 05402 802-999-5654 ‖ info@vaapvt.org ‖ www.vaapvt.org Copyright © 2025, Vermont Asylum Assistance Project, All rights reserved. Want to change how you receive these emails? You can update your preferences or unsubscribe from this list.

April 21, 2025

And Call Your Legislators To Support S.56 Today

View this email in your browser Vermont Asylum Assistance Project is a legal services and technical assistance organization that exists to mentor no-cost and low-cost immigration lawyers and legal workers; educate and serve immigrants and community members; maximize impact across sectors; and advocate to protect immigrants’ rights. www.vaapvt.org. FROM THE EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR   🛣️Sharing strength and stamina for the long road ahead Greetings, friends of VAAP. We hope you're hanging in there. Recent weeks have brought a wave of high-profile detentions, misleading USCIS notices, litigation whiplash, and reports of legally unnecessary self-deportations. Our practice? Pause, breathe, and respond—don’t react. This is a marathon, not a sprint. Unjust detentions and deportations aren’t new to Vermont—and the government is counting on our exhaustion. But as the National Immigration Litigation Alliance reminded VAAP in a training last week, there are more of us—around 15,000 immigration advocates—than there are ICE attorneys—fewer than 2,000. If we pace ourselves, we can outlast them. With mindful resource-sharing, service coordination, and collective care, we can stay in this fight together for the long haul, and we can win. 🔍 Don't Wait, Self-Educate: Visit vaapvt.org. Now searchable! Get clear, community-oriented updates on what’s changing and how it impacts Vermont. Our latest posts include: ▶️ Video primers on immigration 101 and parole and TPS terminations. 🧠 FAQ webinar on the new USCIS registration requirement. 📅 Event announcements and legal education in multiple languages. 🔎 Get the Fastest Answers Online Got a specific question? Our newly searchable website is often the fastest way to get up-to-date, reliable info — even faster than we can offer 1:1 consults. If VAAP hasn't posted yet on a new or rumored change, it likely means experts are still working behind the scenes to build consensus on the best response grounded in law and policy. If you see a post by a national partner whose work VAAP frequently cites, know you can trust it! Review other sources with caution. 📅 Tue 4/22: Common Good VT's Nonprofit Legislative Day Join VAAP at the State House or online tomorrow, Tuesday April 22 for a day of nonprofit advocacy hosted by Common Good Vermont. VAAP will be: Testifying before the House Committee on Economic Development. Presenting on a panel with Senator Kesha Ram Hinsdale and People's Health and Wellness Clinic director Dan Barlow on federal shifts & nonprofit response. 🆕 Need Immigration Legal Help? Contact this "Cold Line" We’re coordinating with state partners to streamline who to call for immigration legal assistance. Follow along on our website here. What we know so far: 📞 Call 1-800-889-2047, the statewide civil legal services intake line managed by Legal Services Vermont (LSV). Leave a message in any language and expect a call back with interpretation assistance available in any language.   📲Submit a quick referral webform to LSV if you are a fellow advocate or other community partner: https://vtlawhelp.org/partners.  🏢 Call or walk-in to a community-based organization with embedded immigration attorneys, listed on our "Get Legal Help" webpage.  ⚠️ What to Expect When Seeking Help We know the need is growing — and we’re growing with it. VAAP is training volunteer lawyers and building new systems to meet shifting legal needs, especially around detention defense, parole terminations, and complex filings. While our capacity is limited, we’re working hard to make sure our time and energy are used where they’ll have the greatest impact. With our partners, we’re setting clear intake priorities to promote equitable access to legally urgent, high-impact assistance. These guidelines are being coordinated with statewide civil Intake "cold line" coordinator Legal Services Vermont and immigration legal service partners — and will be published soon on our Get Legal Help page. Stay tuned, and thank you for your patience as we adapt to meet this moment. 🏛️ Legislative Advocacy: Evolving With the Moment As Vermont’s legislative session nears the finish line, VAAP is adapting our State House strategy in response to last week’s shifts in federal enforcement and judicial review—guided by national and local partners. We remain firmly committed to the community-driven priorities we brought into the State House: ✅ S.56 – Establish a Vermont Office of New Americans ✅ H.169 – Expand fair housing protections for immigrants ✅ S.95 – Clarify standby guardianship for immigrant families ✅ S.123– Reduce barriers to IDs and driver’s licenses ✅ S.44 – Heighten scrutiny of any VT-ICE contracts At the same time, we urge caution. In the wake of high-profile ICE arrests in Vermont, there’s growing momentum to act fast—but moving too quickly risks unintended harm. VAAP now advises measured support for efforts to limit VT DOC’s collaboration with ICE—only if they don’t restrict access to legal counsel or federal court review for detainees. We continue to back nationally significant litigation pending in D-VT thanks to partners like ACLU of Vermont. As a legal services provider taking part in a broader immigration justice movement, VAAP’s approach is to balance long-term system change with immediate harm reduction—keeping clients at the center, always. ✨ Coming soon: Diversifying pro bono opportunities to include training and technical assistance for motions for bond, reopening, stays, and habeas corpus. Evolving Know Your Rights presentations on a fee-for-service basis. Special Immigrant Juvenile Status (SIJS) family and probate court mentorship for eligible abused, neglected, or abandoned immigrant youth. Follow along between newsletters at ➡️https://www.vaapvt.org/blog Thank you for staying with us in this work, and for trusting that sometimes slowing down is what lets us move forward wisely. Scroll down for events, resources, and more. In solidarity, Jill Martin Diaz, Esq. Executive Director Donate to VAAP PAROLE AND TPS TERMINATIONS  🛑 What to Know About Parole and TPS Terminations Federal courts are currently reviewing efforts to block the termination of humanitarian parole for people who entered the U.S. under the CHNV program or through a CBP One appointment. They are also weighing legal challenges to TPS terminations for countries including Afghanistan, Cameroon, and Venezuela. These lawsuits could protect thousands of people nationwide—including hundreds here in Vermont—but they underscore the fragility of temporary protections like parole and TPS are. Whenever possible, individuals with parolee or TPS should always explore pathways to permanence without delay. This month’s news about two Nicaraguan teens at Champlain Valley Union High School, who announced plans to self-deport after receiving parole termination notices, struck a nerve—and rightfully so. Their story illustrates the profound emotional toll of rapidly shifting federal policies and the precariousness of temporary protections arising under federal policy rather than federal law. While the fear is real, it’s important to understand that the parole termination notices' "deport yourself now or else" warning created a felt emergency—not a legal one. Parole and TPS are temporary permissions to be present, meant to bridge an under-documented person until they can apply for any legally available longer-term status. Options like asylum are always available to and remain available even after temporary protection ends. Remember there is no wrong way to seek asylum, and being under-documented is neither a crime nor does it prejudice your asylum claim. Unfortunately, the government’s use of frightening and misleading parole termination notices seems calculated to sow panic and discourage people from asserting their asylum seeking and other immigration rights. We’re grateful that the CVU story sparked awareness and action—and we want to help communities build long-term resilience in the face of these federal scare tactics. Knowing your rights and having access to trusted legal information can make all the difference when the next wave of policy whiplash arrives. 🗞️ Catch local coverage featuring VAAP’s legal perspective: Vermont Public WCAX VTDigger 🎥 Stay informed: Watch our Top 5 Parole Policy Changes video, also above. Watch our Deep Dive into USCIS Registration video, also below. 👉 Know your rights and share widely. Courts are listening—and so are we.  USCIS REGISTRATION 📝 USCIS Launches Form G-325R Registration Requirement 📝 Beginning this month, USCIS is requiring certain noncitizens to register using Form G325R, a major change rooted in archaic provisions of immigration law. While the government claims it's about "data collection," advocates warn it’s a backdoor surveillance tool with no clear benefit to registrants. 📚 Get the breakdown: USCIS Official Page American Immigration Council Analysis AILA Think Immigration Blog 🖥️ We covered answers to frequently asked questions in our latest USCIS registration webinar. Watch the recording linked above and share widely! 📢 Bottom line: This new process is confusing, fast-moving, and high-stakes, and courts might stop the government from implementing it. If you’re unsure whether to register, consult a trusted legal resource like the video linked above. 🕰️ Some are waiting until later in the 30-day registration period to decide on whether register, in case the courts stay the program in the mean time. UNACCOMPANIED CHILDREN On March 21, 2025, the Trump administration abruptly shut down nearly all legal services for unaccompanied immigrant children, cutting off federally funded representation for over 26,000 children navigating the deportation system without a parent or guardian, including dozens of VAAP-represented youth. 🦾 There are no rights without remedies—so we sued. In response, a coalition of 11 nonprofit legal orgs—including VAAP—filed suit in CLESPA v. HHS, challenging the administration’s illegal move. On April 1, a federal judge issued a Temporary Restraining Order (TRO), requiring the immediate restoration of services. 📌 They lag on TRO compliance—but the court isn't letting it slide. The TRO has now been extended through April 30, with hearings scheduled as we pursue a Preliminary Injunction and challenge the Administration's noncompliance. The Court has made clear: the Executive Branch cannot unilaterally strip children of their right to representation. ⚖️ VAAP stands proudly with our fellow plaintiffs. Thanks to your support, VAAP’s two IJC Fellows have returned from furlough despite losing 75% of their funding. We remain committed to fighting for Vermont’s immigrant youth in and beyond the courtroom. 📰 Read more: VT Digger Vermont Public WCAX NBC5 📄 Read VAAP’s filings: Affidavit in Support of TRO Supplemental Affidavit 💸Whatever happens, thanks to you, our staff are securely funded... for now! Donate today to sustain Vermont immigrant youth's legal defense. Every dollar helps! COMMUNITY EDUCATION Are you new to immigration law and unsure where to begin? Tune into a recent conversation between UVM social work department colleagues Cassie Gillispie, LICSW and Jill Martin Diaz, Esq. Social Work Lens podcast. Here's the teaser: "Are you wondering what is actually going on with Immigration in the U.S. right now? Are you curious about what these executive orders mean and how the system is ‘supposed’ to work? We are too! Join us as we speak with Jill Martin Diaz about immigration, and what social workers and helping professionals need to know." Listen here NOTE THE SCHEDULE CHANGE. Every Tuesday from 9-10:30am, VAAP hosts virtual immigration case rounds alternating focus between legal and lay service providers. Come when you can and leave when you need. No RSVP - just come prepared to introduce yourself as well as an anonymized version of your case/project questions for judgment-free and action-oriented group discussion. We can't keep up with ad hoc consult requests, so please save your questions and come to VAAP's weekly case rounds instead! Join rounds REGISTER NOW. VAAP will join Migrant Justice and Pride Center Vermont for a FREE virtual bilingual Spanish/English Know Your Rights webinar on May 6th focused on the rights and needs of queer immigrants. Register below! Register here REGISTER NOW. VAAP will join Migrant Justice and Pride Center Vermont for a FREE virtual bilingual Spanish/English Know Your Rights webinar on May 6th focused on the rights and needs of queer immigrants. Register below! Request training And don't forget to check out another Immigration 101 podcast! VAAP's Jill Martin Diaz recently sat down with Vermont Public Interest Research Group (VPIRG) on VT's Voice. Watch now STATE HOUSE UPDATES Time is running short so let's keep up our efforts in the State House! Follow VAAP's advocacy work here and contact your representatives TODAY to support H.169 for fairer housing, S.44 for stricter VT-DHS contract limits, S.95/H.98 for queer and immigrant family planning, and S.56 for an Office of New Americans in state government. Catch up on VAAP's call to State House action in VT Digger here, and hear from partners about opportunities to think globally while acting locally on VPIRG's VT's Voice podcast here. Get involved THANK YOU FOR YOUR SUPPORT Behind the scenes, our direct immigration legal services continue. Thanks to our pro bono volunteers and generous financial supporters, we have filed dozens of new asylum cases this calendar year on top of all of the education and advocacy work profiled above. Our legal work is helping Vermont immigrants to access initial asylum-based employment authorization documents, orders of release on bond, venue and address change motions, and more. They tried to bury us, but they didn't know we were seeds. Donate to VAAP   Vermont Asylum Assistance Project  P.O. Box 814, Elmwood Ave, Burlington, VT 05402 802-999-5654 ‖ info@vaapvt.org ‖ www.vaapvt.org Copyright © 2025, Vermont Asylum Assistance Project, All rights reserved. Want to change how you receive these emails? You can update your preferences or unsubscribe from this list.

April 11, 2025

What We Know So Far

View this email in your browser Vermont Asylum Assistance Project is a legal services and technical assistance organization that exists to mentor no-cost and low-cost immigration lawyers and legal workers; educate and serve immigrants and community members; maximize impact across sectors; and advocate to protect immigrants’ rights. www.vaapvt.org. FROM THE EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR   ⚠️ Immigration Policy Whiplash:  Here's What You Need to Know ⚠️ Federal immigration changes are doing exactly what they’re designed to do: sow fear, confusion, and chaos. But here in Vermont, VAAP is fighting back — in court, in detention centers, and in partnership with our communities. Today, we’re breaking down two major changes now under legal challenge: The termination of key Parole programs. The launch of a new USCIS Registration period. Changes are fast-moving, but so are we. Our legal interventions are bringing Vermonters home from ICE detention and keeping families together. Our advocacy is helping shape the record in federal litigation. We’ve got the tools, and we’ve got your back. More multilingual resources coming soon. In solidarity, Jill Martin Diaz, Esq. Executive Director, VAAP Donate to VAAP PAROLE TERMINATIONS 🛑 BREAKING: Parole Terminations Likely to Pause 🛑 A federal judge is expected to issue a stay in Svitlana Doe v. Noem — a major development that could temporarily block the termination of humanitarian parole programs for Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans. This legal intervention could protect hundreds of thousands of people...for now. But here in Vermont, the damage is already being done: 📣 This week, two Nicaraguan teens at Champlain Valley Union High School publicly announced plans to self-deport rather than face deportation after receiving notice that their parole protections were terminating. These students could seek asylum, but the climate of fear and confusion created by tumultuous policy shifts is making that feel impossible for some. 🗞️ Catch the coverage featuring local immigration legal expertise: Vermont Public WCAX VTDigger 📺 Also review VAAP's Top 5 updates on parole policy changes, featured in the video above, and keep scrolling to watch us talk through parole-related FAQs in our webinar on the new USCIS registration rule, featured in the video below. 👉 Stay informed. Know your rights. Watch and share our updates. Communities are organizing and advocating, and the courts are listening. USCIS REGISTRATION 📝 NEW: USCIS Launches Form G-325A Registration Requirement 📝 Starting today, USCIS is requiring certain noncitizens to register using Form G325R, a major change that could affect future immigration benefit eligibility and tracking. While the government claims it's about "data collection," advocates warn it’s a backdoor surveillance tool with no clear benefit to registrants. 📚 Get the breakdown: USCIS Official Page American Immigration Council Analysis AILA Think Immigration Blog 🖥️ We covered key FAQs in our latest USCIS registration webinar. Watch the recording above and share widely! 📢 Bottom line: This new form is confusing, fast-moving, and high-stakes, and courts might stop the government from implementing it. If you’re unsure whether to register, talk to a trusted legal resource, starting with VAAP's April 11, 2025 conversation with Community Asylum Seekers Project (CASP) linked in the video above. Some are choosing to wait until later in the 30-day registration period running from today to decide on whether register, in case the courts stay the program in the mean time. FEDERAL ADVOCACY 🚨 EMERGENCY MOBILIZATION: Free Rumeysa Ozturk 🚨 📅 Monday, April 14 🕣 8:30 AM 📍 U.S. District Court, 11 Elmwood Ave, Burlington Join partners outside federal court this Monday to demand freedom for Rumeysa Ozturk, a student journalist and political prisoner targeted for exercising her First Amendment rights. Read VAAP's testimony submitted in support of Ms. Ozturk's litigation here. Ozturk co-authored a campus op-ed at Tufts University criticizing Israel’s war on Gaza and calling for divestment. In response, the Trump administration revoked her visa, arrested her, and transferred her to improper ICE custody in St. Albans, Vermont where she now faces detention and deportation. 📣 On Monday, April 14th, Vermont District Judge Sessions will hear arguments on whether Vermont courts — not Louisiana — will take up her case. Your presence matters. Show up. Speak out. VAAP stands proudly with our fellow organizational plaintiffs and counsel as we build momentum on our Temporary Restraining Order and file for an Preliminary Injunction in our impact litigation CLESPA v. HHS. The litigation aims to restore the national immigrant youth removal defense fund which the Executive Branch suspended and then cancelled last month. Thanks to your generous support, March saw VAAP return our two IJC Fellows to work from furlough despite losing 75% of their funding. Missed the furlough news?  Read the VT Digger coverage here Read Vermont Public coverage here Watch WCAX coverage here Watch NBC5 coverage here Read VAAP's affidavit in support of the TRO here.  Read VAAP's supplemental affidavit in support of TRO enforcement here. EVERY dollar helps! Donate today to sustain our removal defense services. COMMUNITY EDUCATION NOTE THE SCHEDULE CHANGE. Every Tuesday from 9-10:30am, VAAP hosts virtual immigration case rounds alternating focus between legal and lay service providers. Come when you can and leave when you need. No RSVP - just come prepared to introduce yourself as well as an anonymized version of your case/project questions for judgment-free and action-oriented group discussion. We can't keep up with ad hoc consult requests, so please save your questions and come to VAAP's weekly case rounds instead! Join rounds SAVE THE DATE! May 6th VAAP will join forced with Migrant Justice and Pride Center Vermont for a bilingual Spanish/English Know Your Rights webinar for queer immigrants. Spanish-language flyer coming soon! Click below to register. Register here STATE HOUSE UPDATES Our pressure is working, Vermont! Let's keep up our efforts in the State House! Follow VAAP's work here and contact your reps this week to support H.169 for fairer housing, S.44/H.298 for to end or at least limit VT-DHS contracts, S.95/H.98 for family unity, and S.56 for an Office of New Americans in state government. Catch up on VAAP's call to action in VT Digger here.  Get involved THANK YOU FOR YOUR SUPPORT Donate to VAAP   Vermont Asylum Assistance Project  P.O. Box 814, Elmwood Ave, Burlington, VT 05402 802-999-5654 ‖ info@vaapvt.org ‖ www.vaapvt.org Copyright © 2025, Vermont Asylum Assistance Project, All rights reserved. Want to change how you receive these emails? You can update your preferences or unsubscribe from this list.

April 7, 2025

CLE tomorrow, plus litigation and legal service news

View this email in your browser Vermont Asylum Assistance Project is a legal services and technical assistance organization that exists to mentor no-cost and low-cost immigration lawyers and legal workers; educate and serve immigrants and community members; maximize impact across sectors; and advocate to protect immigrants’ rights. www.vaapvt.org. FROM THE EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR   🚨 Big News, Big Moves — Don’t Miss This VAAP Update! 🚨 We’ve got a lot to share, and it's all worth your time. From urgent policy updates to today's immigration-employment CLE — here’s what’s inside: 🧠 CLE TODAY (4/7 @ 10AM ONLINE) — don’t sleep on this! 📌 Service coordination & education updates ⚖️ Litigation updates — from CLSEPA v. HHS to Ozturk v. Trump 📣 Bills we’re tracking + advocacy we're backing ✍🏽 Report out from National Day of Action in D.C. In solidarity, Jill Martin Diaz, Esq.  Executive Director Donate to VAAP LEGAL EDUCATION TODAY April 7th at 10am. Join VAAP on Zoom for continuing legal education (CLE) co-presented with union and employee-side attorney Tim Belcher, Paul Frank + Collins labor and employment practice director Kerin Stackpole, and Attorney General's Office civil rights division co-director Julio Thompson. This Vermont Bar Association event will cover employee issues including work authorization and work visas; employer issues like I-9 reporting requirements; and practical advice on the latest federal actions impacting immigrant workers. This is Jill's first VBA presentation since being appointed Immigration Section co-chair alongside business and family immigration attorney, Becky Fu von Trapp. Register here. Can't make it? Access NILC's workplace raids training recordings here.  Read VAAP's FAQs about immigration and work here. Read VAAP's Act 105 (2024) testimony here.  Watch VAAP and partners' February ICE & workplaces webinar here. Register here NOTE THE SCHEDULE CHANGE. Every Tuesday from 9-10:30am, VAAP hosts virtual immigration case rounds alternating focus between legal and lay service providers. Come when you can and leave when you need. No RSVP - just come prepared to introduce yourself as well as an anonymized version of your case/project questions for judgment-free and action-oriented group discussion. We can't keep up with ad hoc consult requests, so please save your questions and come to VAAP's weekly case rounds instead! Join rounds COMMUNITY EDUCATION SAVE THE DATE! May 6th VAAP will join forced with Migrant Justice and Pride Center Vermont for a bilingual Spanish/English Know Your Rights webinar for queer immigrants. Spanish-language flyer coming soon! Click below to register. Register here LEGAL SERVICE UPDATES This week, VAAP meets legal service partners AALV, USCRI, WISE, and CJRC along with state and federal reps and local litigators to strategize on unmet needs. With parole programs ending, USCIS registration launching, and defensive AND affirmative asylum starting to move, we need a concerted effort for equitable access to legal info and services statewide. NOBODY has to self-deport, including expiring parolees. Stay tuned for guidance! Gratitude to VAAP's Emma Matters-Wood, Immigrant Justice Corps Fellow, whose exceptional legal advocacy stopped a VT asylum seeker's illegal deportation and won their freedom from ICE detention. Immigrants should know that detention is NOT deportation. Immigrants HAVE rights to speak to a lawyer and be heard on any fear of returning. If detained by ICE, call Legal Services Vermont's hotline for help: 1-800-889-2047. We've presented tailored know your rights (KYRs) to impacted people at AALV and Spectrum Youth, and to providers of gender violence services, shelter services, education services, child and family services, and chambers of commerce. Next, we present to impacted queer immigrants and families supported by UVM Ext. Request a KYR at info@vaapvt.org. Watch an example KYR recording here. FEDERAL ADVOCACY VAAP stands proudly with our fellow organizational plaintiffs and counsel as we build momentum on our Temporary Restraining Order and file for an Preliminary Injunction in our impact litigation CLESPA v. HHS. The litigation aims to restore the national immigrant youth removal defense fund which the Executive Branch suspended and then cancelled last month. Thanks to your generous support, March saw VAAP return our two IJC Fellows to work from furlough despite losing 75% of their funding. Missed the furlough news?  Read the VT Digger coverage here Read Vermont Public coverage here Watch WCAX coverage here Watch NBC5 coverage here Read VAAP's affidavit in support of the TRO here.  Read VAAP's supplemental affidavit in support of TRO enforcement here. EVERY dollar helps! Donate today to sustain our removal defense services. Donate to VAAP Last week, VAAP joined family and business immigration lawyer Sidney Collier to represent the American Immigration Lawyers Association New England Chapter for an advocacy day with Vermont congressional delegates on Capitol Hill. We urged their continued support for common sense legislation in Congress, greater oversight of immigration processing and enforcement back home, and increased immigrant services leadership at the local level to combat harmful misinformation and champion the spread of reliable information. Learn more about Senators Sanders and Welch and Representative Balint and contact them directly here. Watch Rep. Balint feature VAAP in her February press conference on immigrant rights here.  Donate to VAAP VAAP joined regional partners in testifying in support of the ACLU MA's litigation Ozturk v. Trump. We Were grateful to share local context for DHS's failed attempt to isolate Ms. Ozturk from access to counsel and subvert her civil and constitutional rights. Vermont must not be used as a black box for illegal DHS activities. Follow VAAP's ICE tracker reports here and read VAAP's affidavit in support of Ms. Ozturk's habeas petition here. Support local measures to prevent DHS from coopting Vermont resources here.  STATE HOUSE UPDATES Our pressure is working, Vermont! Let's keep up our efforts in the State House! Follow VAAP's work here and contact your reps this week to support H.169 for fairer housing, S.44/H.298 for to end or at least limit VT-DHS contracts, S.95/H.98 for family unity, and S.56 for an Office of New Americans in state government. Catch up on VAAP's call to action in VT Digger here.  Get involved THANK YOU FOR YOUR SUPPORT Donate to VAAP   Vermont Asylum Assistance Project  P.O. Box 814, Elmwood Ave, Burlington, VT 05402 802-999-5654 ‖ info@vaapvt.org ‖ www.vaapvt.org Copyright © 2025, Vermont Asylum Assistance Project, All rights reserved. Want to change how you receive these emails? You can update your preferences or unsubscribe from this list.

March 28, 2025

Plus, VAAP Joins National Lawsuit!

View this email in your browser Vermont Asylum Assistance Project is a legal services and technical assistance organization that exists to mentor no-cost and low-cost immigration lawyers and legal workers; educate and serve immigrants and community members; maximize impact across sectors; and advocate to protect immigrants’ rights. www.vaapvt.org. ACTION ALERT: JOIN US TUESDAY APRIL 1ST  Come to the VT Statehouse next week and support: Fair housing for immigrants (H.169) in the Cedar Creek Room at 11! Family unity for queer, immigrant families (S.95/H.98) in Room 1 at 2:30! But also, our lawsuit to restore immigration legal services at 1! You read that last point right: this week VAAP joined national nonprofit partners in suing the Department of Health & Human Services to restore legal services for unaccompanied immigrant children. The federal lawsuit challenges the government's most brazen attack on immigrant children since family separation. VAAP and partners are represented in this matter by the Amica Center for Immigrant Rights, Immigrant Defenders Law Center, and Justice Action Center.  The lawsuit, filed against the Department of Health & Human Services (HHS) and other defendants, challenges the termination of services on Friday, March 21, 2025, for immigrant children who enter the United States without a parent or guardian, often fleeing persecution, trafficking, and physical or sexual abuse in their home countries. Pursuant to these programs, nonprofit legal service providers across the country, including VAAP, meet with unaccompanied children within days of their arrival in the U.S. to provide Know Your Rights presentations and legal screenings. They use puppets and cartoons to help children as young as toddlers understand what it means to be in immigration removal proceedings. They further represent them in immigration court and applications for affirmative relief and advocate for the children on aspects like their well-being and care. This termination means that 26,000 children risk losing their attorneys nationwide, and tens of thousands of others will not get any legal assistance. These programs have had bipartisan support for over two decades, as Congress has expressly recognized the unique vulnerability of unaccompanied children. Without these programs, immigrant children and babies will lose legal representation, leading to deportations and denials of relief without due process, on top of causing chaos and delays in the immigration system. The lawsuit aims to restore immediate access to these essential programs cancelled by the government, ensuring that unaccompanied immigrant children receive the legal representation and support that is their right. Organizational plaintiffs in the suit include Amica Center for Immigrant Rights, Estrella del Paso, Community Legal Services in East Palo Alto (CLSEPA), Florence Immigrant & Refugee Rights Project, Galveston-Houston Immigrant Representation Project, Immigrant Defenders Law Center, National Immigrant Justice Center, Northwest Immigrant Rights Project, Rocky Mountain Immigrant Advocacy Network, Social Justice Collaborative, and Vermont Asylum Assistance Project. Complaint for Declaratory and Injunctive Relief Plaintiffs’ TRO/PI Motion and Memo Zoom Link: https://cand-uscourts.zoomgov.com/j/1603329440?pwd=OW1ZZWlZcklySHBMcStTVDZvZDJoUT09 Webinar ID:  160 332 9440 Password:  426303 AND please don't forget to email or call the House Government Operations Committee to support the Office of New Americans bill (S.56/H.375), being heard next week after passing almost unanimously through the Senate! They are trying to bury us but they forget that we are seeds.  In solidarity, Jill Martin Diaz, Esq.  Executive Director  Donate to VAAP   Vermont Asylum Assistance Project  P.O. Box 814, Elmwood Ave, Burlington, VT 05402 802-999-5654 ‖ info@vaapvt.org ‖ www.vaapvt.org Copyright © 2025, Vermont Asylum Assistance Project, All rights reserved. Want to change how you receive these emails? You can update your preferences or unsubscribe from this list.

March 26, 2025

Rethinking Our Role in a Collapsing Direct Services System

View this email in your browser Vermont Asylum Assistance Project is a legal services and technical assistance organization that exists to mentor no-cost and low-cost immigration lawyers and legal workers; educate and serve immigrants and community members; maximize impact across sectors; and advocate to protect immigrants’ rights. www.vaapvt.org. FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE When the Tools No Longer Work: Rethinking Direct Legal Services in a Broken Immigration System Disclaimer: Legal Information Only – Not Legal Advice. March 26, 2025 in  Burlington, VT — The Vermont Asylum Assistance Project (VAAP) is urging legal professionals, state leaders, and community organizations across Vermont to join us in rethinking how we respond to the changing landscape of humanitarian immigration law. Protections are still available, and rights still exist—but accessing them is becoming more complex, resource-intensive, and time-sensitive. To meet this moment, Vermont must shift our collective strategy while extending grace to the noncitizens navigating these broken systems and the service providers working within them. In recent weeks, we’ve seen significant disruptions in how immigration law is being implemented for noncitizens in Vermont: Agencies and administrative courts are rejecting filings on pretextual grounds, causing us to refile or abandon filing, undermining due process and delaying access to relief. Numerous parolees from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela living in Vermont are losing discretionary forms of temporary status wholesale without the legal support to explore alternative protections. Others' applications for family reunification and permanent residence are stalling indefinitely in the name of heightened security vetting. Agencies like IRS are threatening to share personally identifying information with ICE for immigration enforcement purposes.  ICE is exercising broad discretion to detain more people for the pendency of their removal proceedings in facilities nationwide and to stop Immigration Judges from releasing people back to Vermont on bond. Decades-old immigration laws are being resurrected from obscurity to facilitate enforcement of removals and to sidestep due process, including a renewed USCIS registration requirement due April 11th that carries serious civil and criminal penalties for noncompliance, and/or for any alleged fraud or willful misrepresentation in attempted semi-compliance. There were already too few immigration lawyers and legal workers serving Vermonters, and now we are facing federal divestment and being threatened with federal prosecution for providing legal orientation and zealous representation as professional responsibility compels us. Some immigration lawyers and legal workers need to pivot from focusing on direct services to appeals and affirmative lawsuits if Vermont is going to help immigrant communities hold the line but also redraw the map.  "We are not giving up - we are just getting real. The reality is that it now takes much more time, energy, and coordinated expertise for immigrants to access the protections they are still guaranteed under the law,” said Jill Martin Diaz, Executive Director of VAAP. “We’re not just filing to win—we’re preparing people to appeal, to wait, and to persevere through legal uncertainty and possibly ICE detention. There’s still a path forward, but we want to prepare people for the arduous journey.” VAAP’s legal fellows echoed this shift. "This is a long game," said Emma Matters-Wood, Immigrant Justice Corps (IJC) attorney-fellow. “We’re preparing cases knowing they may be denied at the outset and that litigation may be necessary to get a fair outcome.”  IJC attorney-fellow Cameron Briggs Ramos added, “Extended processing delays may mean policies change by the time a case is decided—maybe for the better, even—but delays may also mean long family separations, restricted freedom of movement, and discretionary ICE detentions in the meantime." Despite these challenges, VAAP is not standing still. Since November, we’ve worked nonstop to continue delivering zealous direct immigration legal services to dozens of low-income Vermont noncitizens statewide. We have also enjoyed early success in our efforts to diversify fundings sources, evolve our practices in step with national partners, provide evolving public education, and advocate for new state-level protections. Progress is being made, but the need for coordination and compassion is greater than ever.  We emphasize: applying for immigration benefits remains an important and viable step for immigrants at risk of removal—but it is no longer the final one. Delays and denials are likely. Appeals and federal litigation are becoming more common. Discretionary ICE Detention is possible. Some noncitizens may decide that delaying engagement with federal agencies wholesale is their safest choice while systems remain unstable. In the face of these changes, VAAP is committed to delivering Know Your Rights programming, pursuing strategic litigation, and representing those most at risk, but we ask the public and our partners for your continued understanding: our response times may be slower, our capacity stretched thinner, and our decisions more difficult as we balance legal ethics with practical realities. We are currently operating without dedicated paralegal, administrative, communications, IT, HR, or accounting support. We unfortunately lack the capacity to onboard new volunteers or staff at this time. We remain accountable to our current clients, our mission, and our profession—but we must prioritize risk management, harm reduction, and service equity above all else. To that end, we ask community members to help amplify our message that VAAP will continue to communicate all available updates to our current clients as quickly and clearly as we can pursuant to the Vermont Rules of Professional Conduct. For everyone else, including former and prospective clients, we will continue to publish accurate public-facing information with a goal of reducing the most harm for the most people as soon as we are able to vet and distribute it. The VAAP website remains the best source of information on what services we can offer at any given time and how to access them, www.vaapvt.org.  While we anxiously await state action on bills to create an Office of New Americans in Vermont (S.56 and H.375), we urge our partners to join us in shaping a coordinated statewide response rooted in risk assessment, harm reduction, and empowerment through education. That includes transparent messaging, coordinated litigation strategy, trauma-informed pro bono support, and deepened solidarity with Vermont’s immigrant communities rather than abdication. We believe Vermont can rise to meet this moment—and we remain hopeful that by working together, we can protect both the rights and the humanity of those who call this state home. Contact: Jill Martin Diaz (they/them, elle/ella), Executive Director Email: info@vaapvt.org Web: www.vaapvt.org Socials: @vtasylum ### Donate to VAAP   Vermont Asylum Assistance Project  P.O. Box 814, Elmwood Ave, Burlington, VT 05402 802-999-5654 ‖ info@vaapvt.org ‖ www.vaapvt.org Copyright © 2025, Vermont Asylum Assistance Project, All rights reserved. Want to change how you receive these emails? You can update your preferences or unsubscribe from this list.

March 20, 2025

ONA Bill Sails through Senate!

View this email in your browser Vermont Asylum Assistance Project is a legal services and technical assistance organization that exists to mentor no-cost and low-cost immigration lawyers and legal workers; educate and serve immigrants and community members; maximize impact across sectors; and advocate to protect immigrants’ rights. www.vaapvt.org. VICTORY & VIGILENCE: A Win for VT's Immigrants—But "Registration" Looms They said we couldn’t do it. We did it anyway. Vermont’s Office of New Americans bill is advancing!!! 🎉 But we’re not done yet. Read on for today's opportunity to show up at RISPNET for more inclusive immigrant services coordination. Keep reading to preview USCIS's upcoming "registration" that risks criminal sanctions for noncompliance. More information coming from us soon. VICTORY: ONA BILL ADVANCES! 🚨 Action Alert: Let’s Keep Up the Pressure! 🚨 This is a huge win, but Vermont needs your voice to make sure this new state office truly serves all of Vermont’s immigrant communities equitably, humbly, and meaningfully, regardless of geography or language or arrival circumstances or status. Here’s how you can take action: 1️⃣ Keep the pressure on lawmakers. The bill still needs to pass! Tell your reps and committee members that this office matters. 2️⃣ Shape the future. While the legislature pushed for a smaller committee structure (VAAP isn’t on it!), the real power is in who gets consulted. We need broad input across employment sectors, immigrant service providers, and impacted communities. The State Refugee Office will convene the ONA Study consultation process. Now's a great time to let them know what matters to YOU! 📢 Next chance to make your voice heard? TODAY at the Refugee and Immigrant Service Providers Network (RISPNET) meeting! This statewide refugee providers’ forum is our chance to put immigrant community needs on the record. The State Refugee Office has played a pivotal role in seeing this bill advance by sharing compelling testimony about the gaps in services—let’s back that up with real stories and data. 📅 Join the RISPNET meeting at 9:30am! 🔗 Request the meeting link here Note that the ONA bill calls for a study and consultation process to make sure the new office works for YOU. The study period alone will benefit our organizations and communities through new connections and collaborations. Let’s make sure we widen the conversation and shape Vermont’s immigrant future together. 🔥 Let’s keep pushing! 🔥 Learn more. Sign on.  Catch up: Watch VAAP's interview with the VT Public Interest Research Group here Read the VT Digger coverage here Read Vermont Public coverage here Watch WCAX coverage here Watch NBC5 coverage here ⏭️Our next focus: support H.169's fair housing protections for immigrants!⏭️ 🏆Keep it up: a revised version of S.44's checks and balances on VT contracts with DHS sailing through to the House!🏆 The people united can never be defeated. In community, Jill Martin Diaz, Esq. VIGILENCE: USCIS "REGISTRATION" 📢 Upcoming USCIS Registration Requirement: What VT Needs to Know A major policy shift is on the horizon: USCIS is implementing a registration requirement for all immigrants who did not enter with a visa, and a requirement to carry proof of registration in public, at risk of criminal sanctions which could trigger immigration sanctions. While legal challenges are ongoing, experts believe the rule is likely to go into effect on April 11 as scheduled (American Immigration Council).  There are serious risks to registering, or not, that individual immigrants will want to understand before taking action (National Immigration Law Center). This change could dramatically impact Vermont’s immigrant communities - exacerbating fear, misinformation, predatory Notario consumer fraud, and strain on legal service providers, making it even harder for individuals to access protection. Review the USCIS materials on this new requirement here.  We recognize that: ✅ There are too few legal service providers to offer one-on-one consultations to every affected person about whether and how they register. ✅ Getting legal help for registration itself will be nearly impossible given our system’s existing capacity crisis. ✅ The stakes are high—and fear IS the strategy. Inspiring "self-deportation" is their goal, and nothing in this new policy abridges immigrant communities' rights to seek asylum or other relief! What VAAP is doing: 🔹 Working with partners, the state, and congressional leaders to ensure Vermont immigrants get accurate, timely information on what to do next. 🔹 Developing tools and Know Your Rights (KYR) resources so people can support each other in making informed decisions. We honor the fear and confusion this policy is creating. But we also want to reassure our communities: we are not powerless. By working together, we can prepare, share knowledge, and protect as many people as possible. 📢 Stay tuned for more guidance soon. In the meantime, spread the word and keep asking questions! THANK YOU! FINAL PLEA: Donate to VAAP   Vermont Asylum Assistance Project  P.O. Box 814, Elmwood Ave, Burlington, VT 05402 802-999-5654 ‖ info@vaapvt.org ‖ www.vaapvt.org Copyright © 2025, Vermont Asylum Assistance Project, All rights reserved. Want to change how you receive these emails? You can update your preferences or unsubscribe from this list.

March 10, 2025

Support immigrants during VT Senate Hearings!

View this email in your browser Vermont Asylum Assistance Project is a legal services and technical assistance organization that exists to mentor no-cost and low-cost immigration lawyers and legal workers; educate and serve immigrants and community members; maximize impact across sectors; and advocate to protect immigrants’ rights. VAAP NEEDS YOU ON MARCH 11TH Even if federal immigration laws change for the worse, there is a lot Vermont can do at the state level to protect immigrant communities long term. Vermont Senate committees have scheduled testimony about three pivotal immigrant-impacting bills on March 11th: 10:00AM in State House Room 1: SB44 to create oversight of state contracts with federal immigration authorities. 11:15AM in State House Room 27: SB25-0841 provisions to protect immigrant families from discrimination in housing. 1:30PM in State House Room 4: SB56 to create state authority to coordinate immigrant services for ALL foreign-born populations, in addition to refugees, to maximize workforce integration outcomes. We need as many people as possible to show up for immigrant communities. There are many ways to show up: JOIN US at the State House to make our presence felt. No RSVP needed.  TESTIFY in support by emailing committee assistants and urging committees to pass the suite of bills:  nbiscotti@leg.state.vt.us for DHS contract oversight (S.44); hparker@leg.state.vt.us for fair housing (S25-0841); and gdacierno@leg.state.vt.us for state coordination (S.56). SHARE on social media and distribute this email to your networks! Want to learn more? Visit https://www.vaapvt.org/advocacy-state  Want sign on? Visit https://forms.office.com/r/cMwM4QhBsy Want to learn about the hidden costs to VT of our the status quo? Check out: Watch VAAP's interview with the VT Public Interest Research Group here Read the VT Digger coverage here Read Vermont Public coverage here Watch WCAX coverage here Watch NBC5 coverage here More anti-immigrant federal funding cuts are coming. Let's make sure the state has authority to bring service providers and businesses together to weather the uncertainty ahead. We've got this! See you tomorrow at the State House! Jill Martin Diaz, Esq. Support VT Immigrants Learn more how the national, bipartisan ONA State Network of 22 states benefit from Offices of New Americans equivalents with VAAP.  https://www.vaapvt.org/advocacy-state Learn more about the need for fair housing protections for immigrant Vermonters with Migrant Justice and with VAAP! Learn more about how VT contracts out corrections beds to DHS enforcement with Migrant Justice and with VAAP! THANK YOU FROM OUR TEAM Donate to VAAP   Vermont Asylum Assistance Project  P.O. Box 814, Elmwood Ave, Burlington, VT 05402 802-999-5654 ‖ info@vaapvt.org ‖ www.vaapvt.org Copyright © 2025, Vermont Asylum Assistance Project, All rights reserved. Want to change how you receive these emails? You can update your preferences or unsubscribe from this list.

March 7, 2025

First SB56 Hearing on Tuesday March 11!

View this email in your browser Vermont Asylum Assistance Project (VAAP) is a legal services and technical assistance organization that exists to mentor no-cost and low-cost immigration lawyers and legal workers; educate and serve VT immigrants and community members; coordinate maximal impact across sectors and governments; and advocate to protect immigrants’ rights. Call to Action! Support SB56 & HB375 Join over 25 Vermont organizations and leaders in voicing support to create an "Office of New Americans" equivalent in state government!  Support the ONA Bills   Today, the following partners submitted a joint advocacy letter to lawmakers conveying the urgency of Vermont immigrants' unmet needs and the State House's low-barrier opportunity to help by passing the "ONA Bills" this session: ACLU VT Bridge to Rutland Central Vermont Refugee Action Network Champlain Valley Office of Economic Opportunity Chittenden Asylum Seekers Assistance Network Community Asylum Seekers Project Connecting Cultures Haptic Pictures Migrant Justice VT/Justicia Migrante VT Northeast Kingdom Asylum Assistance Network Pride Center of Vermont Richmond Food Shelf & Thrift Store RoundTable Resolution Supporting and Helping Asylum Seekers and Refugees The Janet S. Munt Family Room Vermont Afghan Alliance Vermont Asylum Assistance Project Vermont Language Justice Project Vermont Queer Legal Professionals VLGS Latin American and Caribbean Law Students Association Winooski Working Communities Our voices are rising and lawmakers are hearing us. The Senate Committee on Government Operations has scheduled S.56 for a first reading and testimony on Tuesday, March 11 in the afternoon. Come celebrate with us! EVERYONE is invited to make a sign and join us at the State House on Tuesday afternoon in celebration of our incredible immigrant communities. Let's show up and make our support for more state leadership on immigrant services known! Contact interns@vaavpt.org, or see you there! Can't make it? Write the committee members and your representatives today: A legislated ONA-equivalent mandate would empower the state to better coordinate services and advocate for systemic solutions to the challenges our communities already faced. If we want to ensure that state-level work continues for refugees AND grows to include support for ALL immigrant communities in VT, let's support S.56 and H.375! Review our blog to get up to speed on how we got here (and some partners' early suggestions for more inclusive names for this office than "ONA," once the bill passes!). Our aim here is to get the state invested in facilitating sector-wide consultation as a first step toward greater equity across subpopulations. Want to learn more? Visit https://www.vaapvt.org/advocacy-state  Want your organization to sign on? It's not too late! https://forms.office.com/r/cMwM4QhBsy Want to learn about the hidden costs to Vermont of our current, uncoordinated landscape? Check out: Watch VAAP's interview with the VT Public Interest Research Group here Read the VT Digger coverage here Read Vermont Public coverage here Watch WCAX coverage here Watch NBC5 coverage here More anti-immigrant federal funding cuts are coming. Let's make sure the state has a mechanism for bringing us together to share in the work ahead! We've got this! See you Tuesday, Jill Martin Diaz, Esq. Support the ONA Bills FROM OUR TEAM Donate to VAAP   Vermont Asylum Assistance Project  P.O. Box 814, Elmwood Ave, Burlington, VT 05402 802-999-5654 ‖ info@vaapvt.org ‖ www.vaapvt.org Copyright © 2023, Vermont Asylum Assistance Project, All rights reserved. Want to change how you receive these emails? You can update your preferences or unsubscribe from this list.

February 25, 2025

Creating Local Solutions to National Problems

View this email in your browser VAAP NEWSLETTER February 2025 Vermont Asylum Assistance Project (VAAP) is a legal services and technical assistance organization that exists to mentor no-cost and low-cost immigration lawyers and legal workers; educate and serve VT immigrants and community members; coordinate maximal impact across sectors and governments; and advocate to protect immigrants’ rights. FROM THE EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR Click here to watch a January 21 video message from VAAP. Watch the update Greetings, friends of VAAP. We hope you are hanging in there, and we thank you for your continuing partnership. To our client communities: We recognize how grossly insufficient Vermont's current supply of legal services is compared with communities' ever-growing needs. For that reason, we are balancing direct services with systems advocacy, so we can generate more local resources and legal protections for the benefit of ALL Vermont immigrants, not just the lucky few we can represent directly.  To our volunteers and financial contributors: We are overwhelmed with gratitude for your outpouring of support and explosive interest to get involved. VAAP will resume coordinating volunteer direct services this month, in balance with our critical efforts to diversify funding sources and survive federal divestment.  To our community partners: We are so grateful for your collaboration during this overwhelming time. Our sectors are navigating this period on "hard mode" given Vermont's lack of a nonprofit coordinating body, like Upstate NY's Immigrant Advocates Response Collaborative (I-ARC) or the Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy Coalition (MIRA). The challenges we are facing coordinating statewide across subpopulations is exacerbated by Vermont's lack of a state-based clearinghouse office enjoyed by about half the states, like MA's State Office for Refugees and Immigrants and NY's and ME's State Offices for New Americans. We are eager to work with you to establish statewide coordinating mechanisms that foster solidarity across subpopulations. To our leaders: We echo national partners' advice to exercise caution and verify information before sharing it forward. We also urge you to refrain from prematurely complying with evolving policy directives until agencies have established clear implementation plans. Many emerging policies are blatantly unlawful and likely to be overturned in court, or at least to face prolonged legal challenges. We need your leadership in centering rule of law and minimizing harm to communities. We pack a LOT of information into this newsletter, including self-help resources, recordings, FAQs, legislative analysis, events of interest, and more. We encourage everyone to continue familiarizing yourselves with VAAP's multilingual, multimedia resources and spread the word so impacted community members can do the same. Remember: we've been here before and we know how to fight, and we'll get through this. Read on! Thanks for all you do, Jill Martin Diaz, Esq. SUPPORT OUR WORK Every contribution, of any amount, keeps us focused on immigration lawyering at this pivotal moment in Vermont's history. We're a small staff of direct legal service providers working to meet ever-increasing demands without the help of administrative support. Join the fight against anti-immigrant censorship and austerity and donate to VAAP today. Donate to VAAP Besides donating, learn about VAAP's online resources and events so you can help others to help themselves. Check your sources before sharing information, and say no to doom-scrolling. Trust us to share reliable information as it becomes available. Volunteer with patience for slow response times and openness to new technology and workflows. Report an ICE Arrest Finally, help VAAP fight the harmful effects of misinformation. Yes, ICE activities are up in VT, but let's be clear about what they are so people aren't excessively discouraged from taking their kids to school, accessing healthcare, and generally participating in public life. We work to verify reported events before disclosing them on our website and with the media. Report what you see here and review our data analysis here.  FROM OUR WEBSITE Absent a state-based Office of New Americans equivalent to serve as Vermont's legal information clearinghouse, VAAP is growing the scope, content, and accessibility of our educational website, available in English, Spanish, French, Pashto, Haitian Creole, and Portuguese. Please join us in encouraging folks to visit our website as a first step for the best available immigration legal information at any given time: www.vaapvt.org. Get oriented This month, VAAP partnered with Community Asylum Seekers Project to present Know Your Rights to 150+ in Brattleboro. VAAP joined Congressperson Balint, Vermont Afghan Alliance, the Vermont State Refugee Office, and the Vermont Attorney General's Office for a Know Your Immigration Rights press conference. VAAP also joined Treasurer Pieciak, the Vermont Chamber of Commerce, Vermont Businesses for Social Responsibility, and partners for an immigration rights and obligations webinar to a live audience of 1000 and an additional 800 YouTube viewers. VAAP delivered Continuing Legal Education (CLE) to 150+ at Vermont Bar Association's Mid-Winter Thaw Conference in Montreal. VAAP a launched service learning Working With Refugees course with 28 Bachelor of Social Work students at the UVM College of Education and Social Sciences. Read our blog In the State House, VAAP joined Vermont Judiciary Access to Justice Coalition colleagues in testifying before Senate Judiciary on the unmet civil legal assistance needs of low-income Vermonters. VAAP also joined partners in supporting a draft Senate Bill (long form forthcoming) to study the need for and create an Office of New Americans equivalent for Vermont. VAAP also signed on to Migrant Justice's draft House Bill (long form forthcoming) to expand fair housing protections for Vermont immigrants. VAAP also joined Vermont Queer Legal Professionals in presenting immigration legal orientation to Burlington's Worth Fighting For community organizers.  VAAP also joined Association of Africans Living in VT at Vermont Afghan Alliance to present Know Your Immigration Rights to VAA's client community. Follow VT bills VAAP continued collating local reporting on immigration issues from January and February. VAAP's work was featured in several local stories: Northeast Public Radio featured VAAP's remarks during Balint's immigration press conference. So did Burlington Free Press. Vermont Public featured VAAP on Vermont's safe schools movement. New England Public Media, VT Digger, and WCAX all featured VAAP's ICE Tracker. NBC5 covered Winooski's leadership in sanctuary school policymaking with support from Education Justice Coalition of Vermont partners including VAAP NBC5 also interviewed VAAP to clarify immigrant tenants' Fourth Amendment rights with ICE in and around their rental homes. VAAP also continued collate immigration law and policy updates and share analysis on key developments, including:  Local advocacy opportunities State advocacy opportunities Federal advocacy opportunities Family emergency planning Protecting immigrant youth Sanctuary schools Immigration and Work Temporary status What happens after applying for asylum Know Your Responsibilities in VT Expanded educational programming for lawyers and service providers Ethics and nonprofit compliance in uncertain times Myth-busting misinformation and disinformation STATE HOUSE 2025 Last week, VAAP had the pleasure of sharing subject matter expertise with lawmakers alongside Vermont Human Rights Commission executive director Big Hartmann. Vermont is fortunate to be represented by leaders who are open to exploring creative local solutions to intractable federal problems. VAAP is following the progress of several initiatives this legislative session: Senate Judiciary Committee's access to justice working group Draft Office of New Americans (ONA) equivalent study bill Draft fair housing for immigrants bill Draft State Grant Reform bill H.34 expanding state workforce development H.38 increasing Vermont Human Rights Commission staffing H.53 mandating inclusive schools policies S.44 and H.81 creating legislative oversight of Vermont agreements with immigration agencies S.1 expanding Medicaid to all residents S.2 establishing a Vermont Office of Health Equity S.8 expanding Dr. Dynasaur Medicaid for pregnant people up to 26 Anyone can contact your representatives to express support for these initiatives or offer testimony. Even a one sentence email does the trick! Contact your rep REQUEST OUR HELP We are now offering attorney-for-a-day legal help clinics in your communities statewide. To make these clinics successful, we kindly ask partners with preexisting relationships with potential clients to share the clinic workload. We hope partners will coordinate client attendance and meeting space, while VAAP handles legal and language access volunteers and supervision. Learn more. We are introducing a fee-for-service limitation around our community education work. VAAP Know Your Rights (KYR) now costs a $500 flat fee. This way, we can continue meeting VT's growing legal information needs, especially rurally, while balancing the ethical and fiscal demands responsibilities of delivering nonprofit legal services. Learn more. Get in touch ACCESS MENTORSHIP Fellow service providers: please hold your questions and join VAAP and a community of practitioners at our recurring virtual meetings for legal advocates and lay service providers. This month's legal case rounds are on 2/20 at noon and 2/25 at 9am. This month's community Q&A discussions are on 2/18 at 9am and 2/27 at noon. The National Immigration Project cites engagement with communities of practice as the number one way we can best support our clients and each other in the uncertainty ahead! Events calendar Community partners interested in mobilizing Rapid Response teams: The National Immigration Law Center (NILC) and the Tennessee Immigration and Refugee Rights Coalition (TIRRC) have launched a seven-part webinar training series on workplace raids resistance and response. Trainings are covering all facets of raids response from a power-building perspective and will be led by speakers with on-the-ground experience responding to workplace raids, including our experience responding to the 2018 raid at TN's Southeastern Provision meatpacking plant. FROM OUR TEAM Despite the unprecedented times we find ourselves working in, the VAAP staff and board have many milestones to celebrate this month: Staff secured initial employment authorization documents (EADs) or "work permit" cards to several VAAP clients. Staff also secured two clients with VAAP's first "green cards" or lawful permanent residence (LPR) documents! Staff also helped several youth in removal proceedings to get their next immigration hearings vacated pending resolution of their Special Immigrant Juvenile petitions in Vermont courts. Staff welcomed spring intern Eliza Gebb UVM '25 and spring volunteers Maggie Otto UVM '25 and Jacob Griffin UVM '25 to our team.  Staff also welcomed 14 history students and 28 social work students from UVM's spring service learning courses to help us expand our website and prepare country conditions evidence packets for VAAP asylum seekers. Staff also congratulated summer intern Phebe Lowry UVM '27 who was accepted into the VT Folklife Center's Community Fellows Program 2025, where she will be trained to conduct ethnographic research with VAAP's client communities in service of VAAP's public education and resource generation work.  The Board also interviewed five incredible candidates for our current vacancies.  We also continued to deepen our partnership with the Immigrant Justice Corps (IJC). IJC awarded VAAP its first ever Katzman Fellow in Catalino Londono VLGS '25 who joins the VAAP team for two years this fall. IJC is also featuring VAAP director Jill Martin Diaz as a panelist for its inaugural National Alumni Convening to which a national network of eleven classes of fellows are invited "to reconnect and feel the power of our community in defending immigrants." Remember: we've been here before and we know how to fight, and we'll get through this. Sending so much care and gratitude to all our client communities, partners, and allies.  Donate to VAAP   Vermont Asylum Assistance Project  P.O. Box 814, Elmwood Ave, Burlington, VT 05402 802-999-5654 ‖ info@vaapvt.org ‖ www.vaapvt.org Copyright © 2023, Vermont Asylum Assistance Project, All rights reserved. Want to change how you receive these emails? You can update your preferences or unsubscribe from this list.

February 10, 2025

Creating Local Solutions to National Problems

View this email in your browser VAAP NEWSLETTER February 2025 Vermont Asylum Assistance Project (VAAP) is a legal services and technical assistance organization that exists to mentor no-cost and low-cost immigration lawyers and legal workers; educate and serve VT immigrants and community members; coordinate maximal impact across sectors and governments; and advocate to protect immigrants’ rights. FROM THE EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR Click here to watch a January 21 video message from VAAP. Watch the update Greetings, friends of VAAP. We hope you are hanging in there, and we thank you for your continuing partnership. To our client communities: We recognize how grossly insufficient Vermont's current supply of legal services is compared with communities' ever-growing needs. For that reason, we are balancing direct services with systems advocacy, so we can generate more local resources and legal protections for the benefit of ALL Vermont immigrants, not just the lucky few we can represent directly.  To our volunteers and financial contributors: We are overwhelmed with gratitude for your outpouring of support and explosive interest to get involved. VAAP will resume coordinating volunteer direct services this month, in balance with our critical efforts to diversify funding sources and survive federal divestment.  To our community partners: We are so grateful for your collaboration during this overwhelming time. Our sectors are navigating this period on "hard mode" given Vermont's lack of a nonprofit coordinating body, like Upstate NY's Immigrant Advocates Response Collaborative (I-ARC) or the Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy Coalition (MIRA). The challenges we are facing coordinating statewide across subpopulations is exacerbated by Vermont's lack of a state-based clearinghouse office enjoyed by about half the states, like MA's State Office for Refugees and Immigrants and NY's and ME's State Offices for New Americans. We are eager to work with you to establish statewide coordinating mechanisms that foster solidarity across subpopulations. To our leaders: We echo national partners' advice to exercise caution and verify information before sharing it forward. We also urge you to refrain from prematurely complying with evolving policy directives until agencies have established clear implementation plans. Many emerging policies are blatantly unlawful and likely to be overturned in court, or at least to face prolonged legal challenges. We need your leadership in centering rule of law and minimizing harm to communities. We pack a LOT of information into this newsletter, including self-help resources, recordings, FAQs, legislative analysis, events of interest, and more. We encourage everyone to continue familiarizing yourselves with VAAP's multilingual, multimedia resources and spread the word so impacted community members can do the same. Remember: we've been here before and we know how to fight, and we'll get through this. Read on! Thanks for all you do, Jill Martin Diaz, Esq. SUPPORT OUR WORK Every contribution, of any amount, keeps us focused on immigration lawyering at this pivotal moment in Vermont's history. We're a small staff of direct legal service providers working to meet ever-increasing demands without the help of administrative support. Join the fight against anti-immigrant censorship and austerity and donate to VAAP today. Donate to VAAP Besides donating, learn about VAAP's online resources and events so you can help others to help themselves. Check your sources before sharing information, and say no to doom-scrolling. Trust us to share reliable information as it becomes available. Volunteer with patience for slow response times and openness to new technology and workflows. Report an ICE Arrest Finally, help VAAP fight the harmful effects of misinformation. Yes, ICE activities are up in VT, but let's be clear about what they are so people aren't excessively discouraged from taking their kids to school, accessing healthcare, and generally participating in public life. We work to verify reported events before disclosing them on our website and with the media. Report what you see here and review our data analysis here.  FROM OUR WEBSITE Absent a state-based Office of New Americans equivalent to serve as Vermont's legal information clearinghouse, VAAP is growing the scope, content, and accessibility of our educational website, available in English, Spanish, French, Pashto, Haitian Creole, and Portuguese. Please join us in encouraging folks to visit our website as a first step for the best available immigration legal information at any given time: www.vaapvt.org. Get oriented This month, VAAP partnered with Community Asylum Seekers Project to present Know Your Rights to 150+ in Brattleboro. VAAP joined Congressperson Balint, Vermont Afghan Alliance, the Vermont State Refugee Office, and the Vermont Attorney General's Office for a Know Your Immigration Rights press conference. VAAP also joined Treasurer Pieciak, the Vermont Chamber of Commerce, Vermont Businesses for Social Responsibility, and partners for an immigration rights and obligations webinar to a live audience of 1000 and an additional 800 YouTube viewers. VAAP delivered Continuing Legal Education (CLE) to 150+ at Vermont Bar Association's Mid-Winter Thaw Conference in Montreal. VAAP a launched service learning Working With Refugees course with 28 Bachelor of Social Work students at the UVM College of Education and Social Sciences. Read our blog In the State House, VAAP joined Vermont Judiciary Access to Justice Coalition colleagues in testifying before Senate Judiciary on the unmet civil legal assistance needs of low-income Vermonters. VAAP also joined partners in supporting a draft Senate Bill (long form forthcoming) to study the need for and create an Office of New Americans equivalent for Vermont. VAAP also signed on to Migrant Justice's draft House Bill (long form forthcoming) to expand fair housing protections for Vermont immigrants. VAAP also joined Vermont Queer Legal Professionals in presenting immigration legal orientation to Burlington's Worth Fighting For community organizers.  VAAP also joined Association of Africans Living in VT at Vermont Afghan Alliance to present Know Your Immigration Rights to VAA's client community. Follow VT bills VAAP continued collating local reporting on immigration issues from January and February. VAAP's work was featured in several local stories: Northeast Public Radio featured VAAP's remarks during Balint's immigration press conference. So did Burlington Free Press. Vermont Public featured VAAP on Vermont's safe schools movement. New England Public Media, VT Digger, and WCAX all featured VAAP's ICE Tracker. NBC5 covered Winooski's leadership in sanctuary school policymaking with support from Education Justice Coalition of Vermont partners including VAAP NBC5 also interviewed VAAP to clarify immigrant tenants' Fourth Amendment rights with ICE in and around their rental homes. VAAP also continued collate immigration law and policy updates and share analysis on key developments, including:  Local advocacy opportunities State advocacy opportunities Federal advocacy opportunities Family emergency planning Protecting immigrant youth Sanctuary schools Immigration and Work Temporary status What happens after applying for asylum Know Your Responsibilities in VT Expanded educational programming for lawyers and service providers Ethics and nonprofit compliance in uncertain times Myth-busting misinformation and disinformation STATE HOUSE 2025 Last week, VAAP had the pleasure of sharing subject matter expertise with lawmakers alongside Vermont Human Rights Commission executive director Big Hartmann. Vermont is fortunate to be represented by leaders who are open to exploring creative local solutions to intractable federal problems. VAAP is following the progress of several initiatives this legislative session: Senate Judiciary Committee's access to justice working group Draft Office of New Americans (ONA) equivalent study bill Draft fair housing for immigrants bill Draft State Grant Reform bill H.34 expanding state workforce development H.38 increasing Vermont Human Rights Commission staffing H.53 mandating inclusive schools policies S.44 and H.81 creating legislative oversight of Vermont agreements with immigration agencies S.1 expanding Medicaid to all residents S.2 establishing a Vermont Office of Health Equity S.8 expanding Dr. Dynasaur Medicaid for pregnant people up to 26 Anyone can contact your representatives to express support for these initiatives or offer testimony. Even a one sentence email does the trick! Contact your rep REQUEST OUR HELP We are now offering attorney-for-a-day legal help clinics in your communities statewide. To make these clinics successful, we kindly ask partners with preexisting relationships with potential clients to share the clinic workload. We hope partners will coordinate client attendance and meeting space, while VAAP handles legal and language access volunteers and supervision. Learn more. We are introducing a fee-for-service limitation around our community education work. VAAP Know Your Rights (KYR) now costs a $500 flat fee. This way, we can continue meeting VT's growing legal information needs, especially rurally, while balancing the ethical and fiscal demands responsibilities of delivering nonprofit legal services. Learn more. Get in touch ACCESS MENTORSHIP Fellow service providers: please hold your questions and join VAAP and a community of practitioners at our recurring virtual meetings for legal advocates and lay service providers. This month's legal case rounds are on 2/20 at noon and 2/25 at 9am. This month's community Q&A discussions are on 2/18 at 9am and 2/27 at noon. The National Immigration Project cites engagement with communities of practice as the number one way we can best support our clients and each other in the uncertainty ahead! Events calendar Community partners interested in mobilizing Rapid Response teams: The National Immigration Law Center (NILC) and the Tennessee Immigration and Refugee Rights Coalition (TIRRC) have launched a seven-part webinar training series on workplace raids resistance and response. Trainings are covering all facets of raids response from a power-building perspective and will be led by speakers with on-the-ground experience responding to workplace raids, including our experience responding to the 2018 raid at TN's Southeastern Provision meatpacking plant. FROM OUR TEAM Despite the unprecedented times we find ourselves working in, the VAAP staff and board have many milestones to celebrate this month: Staff secured initial employment authorization documents (EADs) or "work permit" cards to several VAAP clients. Staff also secured two clients with VAAP's first "green cards" or lawful permanent residence (LPR) documents! Staff also helped several youth in removal proceedings to get their next immigration hearings vacated pending resolution of their Special Immigrant Juvenile petitions in Vermont courts. Staff welcomed spring intern Eliza Gebb UVM '25 and spring volunteers Maggie Otto UVM '25 and Jacob Griffin UVM '25 to our team.  Staff also welcomed 14 history students and 28 social work students from UVM's spring service learning courses to help us expand our website and prepare country conditions evidence packets for VAAP asylum seekers. Staff also congratulated summer intern Phebe Lowry UVM '27 who was accepted into the VT Folklife Center's Community Fellows Program 2025, where she will be trained to conduct ethnographic research with VAAP's client communities in service of VAAP's public education and resource generation work.  The Board also interviewed five incredible candidates for our current vacancies.  We also continued to deepen our partnership with the Immigrant Justice Corps (IJC). IJC awarded VAAP its first ever Katzman Fellow in Catalino Londono VLGS '25 who joins the VAAP team for two years this fall. IJC is also featuring VAAP director Jill Martin Diaz as a panelist for its inaugural National Alumni Convening to which a national network of eleven classes of fellows are invited "to reconnect and feel the power of our community in defending immigrants." Remember: we've been here before and we know how to fight, and we'll get through this. Sending so much care and gratitude to all our client communities, partners, and allies.  Donate to VAAP   Vermont Asylum Assistance Project  P.O. Box 814, Elmwood Ave, Burlington, VT 05402 802-999-5654 ‖ info@vaapvt.org ‖ www.vaapvt.org Copyright © 2023, Vermont Asylum Assistance Project, All rights reserved. Want to change how you receive these emails? You can update your preferences or unsubscribe from this list.

January 2025

How we're working and how you can help

View this email in your browser VAAP NEWSLETTER January 2025 CONTINUED OOPS! FORGOT A FEW THINGS TOMORROW! Join Migrant Justice/Justicia Migrante this Saturday for a Spanish-language Know Your Rights and base-building event at 60 Lake Street in Burlington from 6:30pm to 9pm. All are welcome for this Spanish-language gathering focused on how immigrant communities can defend and expand their rights in Vermont. Delicious food and childcare available! ALSO, they are accepting calls for immigration support on their teleayuda/helpline at 802-881-7229. Spread the word! ALSO! Winooski Superintendent Wilmer Chavarria and groups like the Education Justice Coalition, Migrant Justice, and VAAP are preparing for promised anti-immigrant policies under the new federal administration, including the promise to revoke policies that make schools “sensitive zones” safe from ICE raids. Learn more about how to support Winooski's efforts and how to bring the model safe schools policy to your community! And while we're here: reminder to view Vermont Language Justice Project's recordings of two Know Your Rights sessions VAAP co-delivered with Association of Africans Living in VT attorney Nathan Virag. We delivered the sessions in Spanish, French, Haitian Creole, and English last month and are gathering resources to deliver future presentations in other languages and in other parts of the state. Meanwhile, please help us share these videos widely! And stay tuned for an upcoming limited-scope legal assistance clinic VAAP is planning to deliver in partnership with AALV.  Thanks for reading and for all you do! VAAP NEWSLETTER January 2025 (circulated earlier) Vermont Asylum Assistance Project (VAAP) is a legal services and technical assistance organization that exists to mentor no-cost and low-cost immigration lawyers and legal workers; educate and serve VT immigrants and community members; coordinate maximal impact across sectors and governments; and advocate to protect immigrants’ rights. FROM THE EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR To our subscribers and partners: thank you. Our few-but-fierce VAAP team was blown away by your outpouring of collaboration and care these last weeks. We are so fortunate to be in community with such incredible clients, partners, and leaders as we share in the work of mitigating harm into 2025. This week VAAP completed Continuing Legal Education on minding ethical practice in times of great uncertainty. National Immigration Project director and instructor Vickie Nielson (who offered me my first law job back in 2015!) called on us to not back down from the highly complex and admittedly risky legal work ahead. She reminded participants how strong we are to be staring down this defining civil rights issue of our time. We left the training feeling confident that, with your continued support and partnership, VAAP is prepared to meet this moment and more. Below, you'll learn we're working with regional and national communities of practice to ensure Vermont's seamless access to vetted self-help resources and subject matter expertise. We're expanding the format and scope of educational materials on our growing multilingual website, and sharing technical assistance with clients, volunteers, leaders, and beyond. Our flexibility is keeping us responsive to emerging community needs, and our focus on accountability will help us foster equitable access to quality services and information. But we need your help! We need allies to familiarize yourselves with VAAP's self-help resources and programming and help us spread the word, so impacted community members can do the same. We need legal and language access volunteers to stay patient with our start-up learning curve and stay open to emerging technology, so we can continue mobilizing legal resources when and where they are needed most. Speaking of resources, we need partners who can contribute financially to help us replace the tenuous federal funding on which our program currently relies. Remember: we have been here before and we know how to fight, and we'll get through this. Read on for practice updates, advisories and opinions, answers to frequently asked questions, save the dates, and more.   Thanks for all you do! Jill Martin Diaz, Esq.  SUPPORT OUR WORK Every contribution, of any amount, keeps us focused on immigration lawyering at this pivotal moment in Vermont's immigration history. We're a small advocacy staff working to meet ever-increasing demands without the help of support staff. Join the fight against anti-immigrant censorship and austerity and donate to VAAP today. Donate to VAAP WEBSITE UPDATES Absent a state-based Office of New Americans equivalent to serve as Vermont's legal information clearinghouse, VAAP is growing the scope and content of our multilingual educational website for easier reference by immigrant communities, service providers, and legal advocates alike. Visit our website at www.vaapvt.org. So far, we've bolstered our community- and attorney-facing virtual libraries and launched click-through references to the different legal and social sectors supporting VT's immigrant communities. We will continue to grow and reorganize both resources in the time to come. Any omissions or errors were made in good faith, and we always welcome corrections or opt-outs from anyone at anytime. Our request is that you please join us in encouraging folks to visit our website as a first step for the best available information at any given time, to reduce VAAP's large call/email volume and to minimize the risk of exacerbating misinformation by circulating handouts that will quickly become stale. Our website content is available in English, Spanish, French, Dari, Haitian Creole, and Portuguese. Site visitors can adjust the language of any page using the translator widget at the top right corner. We recommend new visitors review the brief English-language video tour of the website on our landing page. Access the library Between monthly newsletters, don't forget to visit our blog for the latest law, policy, and practice updates from VAAP. This month's posts included December and January roundup of local immigration news and an invitation to VAAP's and AALV's Know Your Rights presentations on 12/4 in English, Spanish, French, and Haitian Creole, which Vermont Language Justice Project recorded and published here.  This month's celebrations and publications included: VAAP featured in Seven Days and published in Seven Days and VT Digger IJC awards VAAP our third IJC Fellow VAAP to teach service learning to 30 at the UVM Department of Social Work VAAP partners with UVM's History Department to prepare country conditions evidence for Vermont's most common asylum seeker fact patterns VAAP's virtual clinics serve over 35 asylum seekers in December VAAP appointed to VT Treasurer Mike Pieciak's Federal Transition Task Force VAAP and CASP present to 150+ at Brattleboro community forum Practice alerts and evolving answers to frequently asked questions included: January 20th Prep Practice Alert  December talking points on 2025 prep State-based interventions VT can consider Know Your Responsibilities in VT Family planning Protecting immigrant youth Sanctuary schools Temporary status What happens after applying for asylum Expanded educational programming for lawyers and service providers Immigration and Work Ethics and nonprofit compliance in uncertain times Myth-busting misinformation and disinformation This was in addition to the numerous multimedia and multilingual resources we curated on our community- and attorney-facing resource libraries.  Read the blog REQUESTING LEGAL HELP VAAP is facing a surge in urgent cases; difficulty balancing intake communications with existing attorney-client duties; and unexpectedly time-intensive post-clinic legal work. To address these challenges, we’ve paused new intakes to catch up on existing professional duties EXCEPT for Unaccompanied Children in removal proceedings and Afghan nationals, for whom we have restricted funding to serve. Unfortunately, this means we are no longer maintaining a general intake waitlist or responding directly to new requests for legal help. If folks call or email us to request help this month, we are unlikely to be able to respond. If you submitted an intake request in 2024, we are working to contact you as resources allow, but we cannot guarantee a response or assistance due to the high volume of cases. We publish our referral list of trusted no-cost and free-for-service immigration providers on our website (scroll down for referrals).  That said, we remain committed to serving new immigrant clients this winter and spring. For potential clients seeking new humanitarian immigration legal help from VAAP, we request that you let your social service providers know (or that you get in touch with them for the first time) so they can connect you with upcoming VAAP services.  In turn, social service providers can can request a virtual or onsite legal help clinic from VAAP by emailing info@vaapvt.org. Social service providers can also contact us to get added to our click-through referral page! Clinics are designed to provide limited-scope, harm-reducing immigration legal assistance to noncitizen Vermonters at risk of removal. We are working hard to increase our capacity and share your frustration with the growing access-to-justice gap facing low-income Vermonters! Make your unmet immigration legal needs known to Vermont: report unmet needs to the State Refugee Office at Tracy.Dolan@vermont.gov and the Office of Racial Equity at AOA.ORE@vermont.gov, who report to the Governor; as well as to Legal Services Vermont's partner referral portal, who reports intake requests and responses to the Vermont Judiciary. Report an ICE Arrest We're already seeing an uptick in ICE enforcement in VT this week. If you witness ICE or CBP arrest activity in Vermont, please complete this form so VAAP can track practices and incorporate patterns into our education and advocacy work. Note reporting enforcement activity using this form is NOT a request for legal help but will help us gather data to support our resource generation! LEARNING OPPORTUNITIES TODAY! Join VAAP staff at the Vermont Bar Association Mid-Winter Thaw Conference for a 90-minute 1.5MCLE-DEI session exploring actionable strategies for creating legal work environments that honor and uplift individuals of all races, ethnicities, religions, national origins, genders, sexual orientations, and abilities. Participants will learn from VAAP’s approach to integrating and supporting diverse team members to navigate bringing their whole selves to representing diverse clients, while addressing the unique challenges of immigration lawyering in 2025. Together, we’ll discuss practical steps to eliminate bias, expand accessibility, and build legal workplaces where everyone—not just clients but colleagues, too—can thrive. See you there! Unless it's not your vibe! VT providers of legal and social services: please hold your questions and join VAAP and a community of practitioners at our recurring rounds meetings! Open to all VT legal and lay providers from the public, private, or volunteer sectors. Upcoming legal meetings are January 23 & 28 and February 20 & 12. Upcoming lay meetings are January 21 & 30 and February 18 & 27. The National Immigration Project cites engagement with communities of practice as the number one way we can best support our clients and each other in the uncertainty ahead! Starting in January 2025, the National Immigration Law Center (NILC) and the Tennessee Immigration and Refugee Rights Coalition (TIRRC) will be launching a seven-part webinar training series on workplace raids resistance and response.  The trainings will cover all facets of raids response from a power-building perspective and will be led by speakers with on-the-ground experience responding to workplace raids, including our experience responding to the 2018 raid at TN's Southeastern Provision meatpacking plant. Events calendar VOLUNTEERING OPPORTUNITIES Huge THANKS to VAAP Language Access Volunteer Sara Stowell of Proctorsville for joining executive director Jill Martin Diaz and legal fellow Emma Matters-Wood in co-publishing VT Digger commentary calling for more responsible reporting on immigrant workforce and housing issues! Read the full piece here and accompanying Seven Days Letter to the Editor here. We're getting great engagement from the publishers themselves and connecting Princeton University's Eviction Lab with VT housing advocates to mount a systematic response for what we expect will be a growing eviction pattern as ICE worksite raids leave families behind without income.   "If Vermont is to address its economic challenges, it must first tackle the systemic barriers that hinder workers’ ability to live here and thrive. This includes ensuring access to affordable housing, fair wages and pathways to regularized work authorization and immigration status. Additionally, robust protections for all workers, regardless of status or manner of arrival, are essential to creating a just and sustainable workforce." As you can see, donating money is not the only way to support VAAP's mission; the success of our legal work also relies on people generously donating their time! In particular, we seek lawyers and legal workers interested in helping an asylum seeker to file their initial application, or fielding questions at a local Know Your Rights forum. We also seek fluent multilingual language access volunteers interested in interpreting between lawyers and clients during their case meetings (Spanish is in highest demand followed by French). No experience necessary! Whatever your background, we'll provide you with resources to guide your work. Stay tuned for volunteer sign up forms on this page of our website which should facilitate our ability to respond to offers and inquires more timely! In the kind words of returning VAAP volunteer attorney, Don Woodworth, of Central Vermont:    "In a nutshell, I wish to share my privilege - privilege that has allowed me to study and work to become an attorney who speaks fluent Spanish, to assist people to avoid a sealed fate in their own countries by gaining asylum to live here, contributing to Vermont culturally and, lest we forget, economically. I think that most residents in the United States are here by virtue of immigration, perhaps motivated by some of the same reasons that drives people to seek asylum here today (albeit perhaps under a very different context)."   Volunteer FAQs CONNECTING CULTURES' CORNER We are excited to continue sharing VAAP newsletter and blog space with our multidisciplinary partners at Connecting Cultures, with whom VAAP collaborates closely to provide culturally relevant and trauma-informed welcoming and resettlement services. This round of Connecting Cultures' Corner, we feature a country profile on Somalia; a clinician spotlight; upcoming events from partner organizations; and more. We thank Connecting Cultures (formally known as New England Survivors of Torture and Trauma or NESTT) for paving the way for VAAP to exist and supporting us with funding to deliver legal services and community education. Check out our blog to learn more! Connecting Cultures THANK YOU FROM OUR TEAM Please join us in extending a warm welcome to our newest board member and incoming Treasurer Juan Mejias! Juan works as Mascoma Bank's Community Relationship Banker and previously managed the M&T South Burlington Branch. Juan is no stranger to the experience of accessing humanitarian immigration pathways and building a new life and enterprise in Vermont. In Juan's words, after thoroughly reviewing VAAP's website, newsletters, and social media, he described feeling called to our mission given his own recent immigration experience. He says he’s eager to pay forward the resettlement supports he received along the immigration journey that brought him to New England and, ultimately, to Vermont. He expresses feeling eager to inspire other newly arrived, English learning immigrants to dream big for their futures, given all that he has achieved in VT in few short three years. Thank you for joining us, Juan!  Endless thanks to our outgoing Treasurer Caitlin Jenness who was absolutely instrumental to VAAP's survival and success during our first year of incorporation. Caitlin works as the Director of Finance at Evernorth and previously worked as C.F.O. for several prominent mission-driven local businesses. During her tenure as VAAP Treasurer, Caitlin went above and beyond to help ensure the smooth and sustainable development of VAAP operations and fiscal management. Thanks to Caitlin's dedication to VAAP, we are entering our second year a bigger, stronger, and more sustainable organization. We wish you well, Caitlin, and we are eternally grateful for all your contributions!    Interested in joining our incredible board? See our vacancies on Common Good VT and apply now!  Donate to VAAP   Vermont Asylum Assistance Project  P.O. Box 814, Elmwood Ave, Burlington, VT 05402 802-999-5654 ‖ info@vaapvt.org ‖ www.vaapvt.org Copyright © 2023, Vermont Asylum Assistance Project, All rights reserved. Want to change how you receive these emails? You can update your preferences or unsubscribe from this list.

December 2024

Help us share good info and sustain our work by donating!

View this email in your browser VAAP NEWSLETTER December 2024 Vermont Asylum Assistance Project (VAAP) is a legal services organization that exists to provide VT immigrants and community members with access to legal knowledge and direct services; coordinate between VT service sectors, policymakers, status-seekers, and legal workers to maximize service impact; advocate for VT policies that protect immigrants’ rights at local levels; and educate and share technical assistance with VT practitioners informed by national best practices. FROM THE EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR This month, Vermont Asylum Assistance Project (VAAP) joins our partners in grieving the harms of the election cycle but also in mobilizing to mitigate promised future harms as much as possible. As you'll learn below, we're curating nationally vetted resources, coordinating volunteers to meet immigrant community needs, and advocating with leaders and lawmakers for local protections. We're also educating the public to combat the spread of dangerous misinformation, and providing direct services and technical assistance to as many Vermont noncitizens as possible. Our goal is to help make sure every Vermont immigrant in need, regardless of status or manner of entry, is aware of and has equitable access to their legal rights. Please help us make this goal a reality by donating whatever money you can to our first-ever annual appeal. Every contribution, no matter the amount, alleviates our fundraising burden and keeps us focused on immigration lawyering at this pivotal moment in Vermont's immigration history. We're a small staff of four lawyers working to meet an ever-increasing demand for our immigration legal expertise, and we're doing so with no administrative, media, IT, or fundraising support. Join the fight against anti-immigrant censorship and austerity and donate to VAAP today. Remember: we have been here before and we know how to fight. Read on to learn about our expanded website, upcoming education and legal service events, and more.  Thanks for all you do, Jill Martin Diaz Donate to VAAP REQUEST LEGAL HELP In addition to our education, advocacy, and technical assistance work, VAAP offers no-cost direct legal help to Vermont immigrants who cannot afford an attorney and who are either: (1) unaccompanied children in removal proceedings; or (2) asylum seekers and others filing their initial applications for humanitarian protection; or (3) self-represented immigration applicants seeking brief advice; or (4) Afghan nationals securing or preserving immigration status. Click here to learn more and request help.    Request help WEBSITE EXPANSIONS! Absent a state-based Office of New Americans equivalent to serve as Vermont's legal information clearinghouse, VAAP is growing the scope and content of our educational website for easier reference by immigrant communities, service providers, and legal advocates alike. Visit our website at www.vaapvt.org. So far, we've bolstered our community- and attorney-facing virtual libraries and launched click-through references to the different legal and social sectors supporting VT's immigrant communities. We will continue to grow and, if needed, reorganize both resources in the time to come. Any omissions or errors were made in good faith, and we always welcome corrections or opt-outs from anyone at anytime. Our request is that you please join us in encouraging folks to visit our website as a first step for the best available information at any given time, to reduce VAAP's large call/email volume and to minimize the risk of exacerbating misinformation by circulating handouts that will quickly become stale. Our website content is available in English, Spanish, French, and Dari. Site visitors can adjust the language of any page using the translator widget at the top right corner. We aim to post a brief video tour of the website on our social media soon. Stay tuned! Access the library Between monthly newsletters, don't forget to visit our blog for the latest law, policy, and practice updates from VAAP. This month's posts included: November local immigration news roundup.  Our VT Digger commentary and our conversation with Vermont Public. November 2024 frequently asked questions (FAQs) about: temporary immigration status. immigration status and work. November 2024 talking points regarding: myth-busting misinformation and disinformation. what we know about the state of immigration today. Celebrating our November 20th virtual clinic which served 33 asylum seekers.  Our initial feedback to lawmakers regarding a proposed Office of New Americans equivalent for Vermont.  Read the blog LEARNING OPPORTUNITIES DECEMBER 2ND (TONIGHT!): Join the National Immigration Project for FREE community defender training in English and Spanish via Zoom. They'll cover what to expect from the Trump administration; knowing your rights with law enforcement including ICE; and tips for preparing your families and communities in case of arrest. Register here.  DECEMBER 14TH: Encourage noncitizen Vermonters to visit the O.N.E. Community Center for FREE legal education co-presented with the Association of Africans Living in VT and the State Refugee Office. We'll present in Spanish at 10am, and in French & Creole at 1pm. Vermont Language Justice Project will record. More in-person and virtual events in other languages coming soon. Join us!   DECEMBER 17TH: Join VAAP for judgement-free group learning in this month's rendition of our recurring Partner Q&A series. VT service providers can drop-in with general immigration-related questions for general discussion (no client-specific data, please). A great place to bring your burning questions. See you there! DECEMBER 31ST: Lawyers and legal workers representing Vermont noncitizens in immigration matters are similarly welcome to join VAAP for more judgement-free group learning at this month's Case Rounds. This is a great place to bring anonymized versions of your burning questions and build community with other advocates. Welcome! Events calendar VOLUNTEERING OPPORTUNITIES Donating money is not the only way to support VAAP's mission; the success of our legal work also relies on people generously donating their time! In particular, we seek lawyers and legal workers interested in helping an asylum seeker to file their initial application, or fielding questions at a local Know Your Rights forum. We also seek multilingual language access volunteers interested in interpreting between lawyers and clients during their case meetings. No experience necessary! Whatever your background, we'll provide you with resources to guide your work. Join our no-obligation shortlist today to keep track of upcoming volunteer opportunities and needs. In the kind words of VAAP volunteer attorney, Glennis Gold, pictured below:    "I recently retired and can’t think of a better way to use my skills and experience as an attorney than by volunteering with the intelligent, organized and energetic staff at VAAP, assisting immigrants gain legal status in the US. I heartily recommend working under the auspices of VAAP as a pro bono attorney."                              Volunteer FAQs CONNECTING CULTURES' CORNER We are excited to continue sharing VAAP newsletter and blog space with our multidisciplinary partners at Connecting Cultures, with whom VAAP collaborates closely to provide culturally relevant and trauma-informed welcoming and resettlement services. This round of Connecting Cultures' Corner, we feature a country profile on Somalia; a clinician spotlight; upcoming events from partner organizations; and more. We thank Connecting Cultures (formally known as New England Survivors of Torture and Trauma or NESTT) for paving the way for VAAP to exist and supporting us with funding to deliver legal services and community education. Check out our blog to learn more! THANK YOU FROM OUR TEAM         Board member Gertrude "Trudy" Namubiru welcomed us to share this 2022 photo of her and executive director Jill Martin Diaz, her attorney at the time, moments after Trudy  won her asylum case. In Trudy's words, "With the help of law student clinicians at Vermont Law and Graduate School, the Chittenden Asylum Seekers Assistance Network, and the community, my case was approved by a Boston Immigration Court Judge in 2022 amidst so many challenges. I love Vermont and to me, this is a home away from home." Now well on her way to permanent status, Trudy is celebrating this holiday season by reuniting with family in a third country for the first time since 2018. The impact of immigration legal interventions cannot be overstated. Thank you for making VAAP's mission a reality. Donate to VAAP   Vermont Asylum Assistance Project  P.O. Box 814, Elmwood Ave, Burlington, VT 05402 802-999-5654 ‖ info@vaapvt.org ‖ www.vaapvt.org Copyright © 2023, Vermont Asylum Assistance Project, All rights reserved. Want to change how you receive these emails? You can update your preferences or unsubscribe from this list.

October/November 2024

We need your help filing asylum cases and raising funds to sustain our work!

View this email in your browser VAAP NEWSLETTER October 2024 FROM THE EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR "We've been here before. We know how to fight. I love you." Erin Jacobsen, my longtime collaborator and fellow dirty immigration lawyer, always knows just what to say. Not me. I spent yesterday swinging between being totally lost for words and finding words in such excess that I had to place them elsewhere. Rereading Erin's text kept me vertical as VAAP confronted the three explicitly anti-immigrant federal branches that would begin governing our work in January. Lola Rodriguez as Valeria Vargas, casually foreshadowing the rest of my life in Atresmedia's Veneno. The day brought a messy mix of solving problems and processing grief. It started with ugly-crying my way through a yoga class's "corpse pose" remembering the late, great Robert Ostermeyer's advice that the only "client" I would ever really have is the system. I called a team meeting so VAAP staff could discuss how best to show kindness to each other this week and help each other, let alone our clients, distinguish legal from felt emergency. I joined our bimonthly virtual asylum clinic to orient superstar volunteer attorneys Glennis Gold and Judith Massis-Sanchez, and volunteer interpreter Maja Klosterman, to their assigned case for the day. Afterward, I found myself rage-quitting a committee position mid-meeting with a flourish that still makes me cringe.  Elvira Minguez's advice as Professor Blanca Villanueva lives in my mind rent free. I wondered what I could write in this newsletter to sound Brave™ and marveled at the timely leadership being exercised by incredible partners, many of whose messages, resources, and action opportunities I collate below. Then I remembered Veneno's Professor Blanca Villanueva counseling a fictionalized Valeria Vegas, iconic transfemme writer, on where to even begin.    Period. Of course. We start at the beginning, all over again, and take things one step at a time. Read on for this month's roundup of resources, volunteer needs, and opportunities to support VAAP's work—including by donating, so our tiny team can relax about fundraising and focus on lawyering!  We've been here before and we know how to fight. I love you.  -Jill Donate to VAAP FROM OUR PARTNERS From Tracy Dolan, Vermont State Refugee Office: "This is the time to listen to one another and support one another, even through the stress and the very real pressures of limited housing, high costs and changing political climates. Like we often do when we are at our best, we need to show up for one another and have patience with each other, especially now when people may be feeling uncertain about what the future holds....Words matter, and that goes for positive words too. So please take the time to make someone feel welcome and supported this week in any small way that you can...While there will be time to pull up our sleeves and figure out how we can best respond to any upcoming changes in the coming months, there is also time right now to listen to and validate people’s fears and concerns as we continue to help refugees, asylum seekers or other immigrants from all walks of life navigate the process of building their homes in Vermont." The SRO's next statewide Refugee and Immigrant Service Providers Network (RISPNET) meeting is Thursday November 21 and you can email Allison.Perline@Vermont.gov to RSVP.  From Karen Fondacaro, Connecting Cultures: "This is a time when it is especially important to reach out to one another for support. Please remember that you are not alone; feel free to contact me, your supervisor, or others on our team if you need someone to talk to. Taking care of yourself is crucial right now, so please make self-care a priority and take extra time if you need it. Our clients have consistently shown great strength and resilience, and we can draw inspiration from them. Let’s support each other with resilience and hope as best as we can." Connecting Cultures circulated this resource to staff which I found helpful, so I hope you do, too.                                                                             From Jenn McIntyre, Canada-US Border Rights Clinic: "To our American colleagues—we are with you as you absorb and mourn this moment. And we will be with you tomorrow, whatever happens. In solidarity." The Clinic has generously offered to deliver a workshop to VAAP, so stay tuned for details. From Yael Schacher, Refugees International: "Please join us for a webinar on the implications of U.S. election on migration policy in the Americas on November 14 at noon ET. Details and registration are here. The webinar will be in English with Spanish and Kreyol translation." See you there, or stay tuned for VAAP's report out.  From the National Lawyers Guild National Immigration Project (circulated last week): "We know these are especially challenging times. With the election just days away, we are doing our best to prepare and ensure that our community is supported -- not only its work, but in its spirit and morale as well. We hope you'll consider joining us for our post-election member debrief on Friday, November 22nd, where we'll hold an informal conversation to debrief, reflect, and strategize about the path forward." See you there, or stay tuned for VAAP's report out.                  GET LEGAL HELP Click here to request VAAP services & learn who else can help.  LEARNING OPPORTUNITIES For everyone Bookmark and share VAAP's growing library of resources. Learn about VAAP's community based organization partners. Read our answers to evolving Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) by volunteers and communities. Click here to earn about the legal help we offer and how to request it. Monitor our calendar for programming announcements, including those highlighted below. For providers and volunteers On Tuesday, November 19, join VAAP for our next monthly virtual service providers' Q&A with supervising attorney, Jill Martin Diaz. All service providers seeking general information about the immigration legal system and how it interacts with your clients’ access to benefits and services are welcome to participate. We will facilitate this series “clinic style,” meaning we will focus our time on fostering supportive, confidential, judgement-free, reflective, and ultimately action-oriented discussion. No RSVP necessary, come when you can, and no need to stay for the whole meeting. Just come prepared to introduce yourself as well as an anonymized version of your questions for engaging group discussion! Please note that VAAP is unable to provide any individualized legal advice nor accept requests for intake during these meetings. Access the meeting link here.    For lawyers and legal workers   On Monday, November 18th, join the American Immigration Lawyers Association New England Chapter for a lunchtime virtual panel featuring VAAP Executive Director Jill Martin Diaz reflecting on local lawmaking solutions to combat adversarial federal leadership. "The AILA New England Chapter draws on members from across the region. Each New England state is rich with their own history, has different populations, and each state has varying local immigration needs. While federal law will dictate and govern our immigration system, many states have embraced their immigration populations with laws easing access to driver’s license or expanding healthcare access. Please join colleagues from across New England in an open forum discussion on local immigration issues in Massachusetts, Vermont, Maine, New Hampshire, and Rhode Island. We will discuss advocacy resources, pending bills, and dissect the current political climate post-election. Register here." On Tuesday, November 26, join VAAP for our next monthly virtual legal advocates' case rounds with supervising attorney, Jill Martin Diaz. All attorneys and accredited representatives interested or currently representing humanitarian immigration status seekers in VT are welcome to participate! We facilitate this series “clinic style,” meaning we focus our time on fostering supportive, confidential, judgement-free, reflective, and ultimately action-oriented discussion of whatever case/project questions participants bring to the group. No RSVP necessary, come when you can, and no need to stay for the whole meeting. Just come prepared to introduce yourself as well as an anonymized version of your case/project questions for engaging group discussion!. Access the meeting link here.  Save January 17th-18th for the Vermont Bar Association's Mid-Winter Thaw Conference at the Hotel Omni in Montreal, where VAAP staff will deliver a CLE focused on fostering workplace accessibility for a diversifying bar and in times of change. Register here.   We encourage you to check our calendar regularly for additional programming announcements VOLUNTEERING OPPORTUNITIES For multilingual speakers of Spanish and/or French   Language access is an essential element of our legal work and also a severely under-funded mandate. The prohibitive cost of legal interpretation and translation support is the single most limiting factor on our ability to provide services to everyone who needs it. For example, one I-589 asylum application filing clinic serving 10 primary applicants over 4-5 hours costs VAAP upwards of $4,000 in telephonic interpreter fees. VAAP's staff of four advocates lack access to any administrative or operations support and we are struggling to balance fundraising for language access with direct legal service delivery. If you have multilingual language skills and are willing to get trained to provide virtual interpreter services at one or more asylum legal help clinic, WE NEED YOU! Contact us today to express your no-obligation interest and learn more.  For lawyers and legal workers For legal advocates who are interested in volunteering, the need has never been more urgent! Following suit with national best practice, we will continue assisting clients to assert their asylum claims and pursue work authorization as much as is practicable before immigration law and policy begins to shift next year. We need attorney and paralegal volunteers to help with the expeditious preparation and filing of preliminary or "skeletal" asylum applications on USCIS Form I-589. Any legal professionals, not just lawyers, are welcome to assist. We will ask you to review and sign our mentorship and confidentiality agreements, complete about 1.5 hours of virtual training, and then sign up for at least one half-day application assistance clinic. These discreet virtual clinics are a great opportunity to learn or fine-tune asylum law and practice skills and to help us advance VAAP’s mission. We’ll coordinate all logistics and provide you with training, resources, interpreters, supervision, and practice insurance. No experience or multilingual language skills necessary - just a willingness to learn and meet potential clients where they are at! Contact us to express your no-obligation interest. Whether you're completing your first-year attorney mentorship licensing requirements, planning your retirement projects, interested in skilling up, or interested in giving back, VAAP is here for you! Speaking of which, VAAP extends a heartfelt congratulations to attorney Monica Allard of Downs Rachlin Martin for joining Vermont Business Magazine's Rising Star Class of 2024! VAAP was thrilled to help celebrate Monica's recognition for her tremendous work, not only with VAAP but also with Vermont Queer Legal Professionals, Pride Center VT, and beyond. Monica, thank you for supporting VAAP clients to seek asylum and for encouraging your colleagues to join in.                          "I volunteer with VAAP because, through their critical advocacy and direct services work, they are providing desperately needed legal access to members of our community during a time when their futures are more uncertain than ever. Through VAAP, a few hours of my day can change a neighbor's legal ability to live, work, access support, and connect with family. VAAP brings the necessary expertise and guidance to the table, but they can't do it alone. I encourage everyone to seize this opportunity to make a profound and immediate impact in our community."   FACT CHECK https://www.americanimmigrationcouncil.org/state-local-initiatives/ona-state-network Why VAAP Supports a VT "Office of New Americans"      The Trump Administration promises immigration reform that could topple our service sector if we don't address existing problems now: 2025 will exacerbate our collective struggles to address the crises of Vermont’s immigrant populations' urgent unmet psychosocial, legal, health, and material needs. 2025 will also distract from our efforts to foster an accessible, equitable, inclusive environment where immigrant populations cannot only arrive but also THRIVE - a non-negotiable for Vermont's future economic and social viability. As a direct legal services provider working statewide on high stakes immigration matters, VAAP feels the impact of our state's impressive but uncoordinated model of community based service delivery and its lack of a centralized clearinghouse for information sharing, referral making, and issues resolution. We observe direct service providers like us scrambling to redress individual injustices using individual solutions, but also systemic injustices with individual solutions.  Potential immigration legal clients and their supporters are self-referring to every office all at once, triggering confusing and duplicative intake responses. Offices are cross-referring to one another, furthering duplicated intake. Despite the intake duplications, a person might make it through everyone's screening systems only to learn no organization has the resources or expertise to assist. Systemic lack of intake capacity is distracting from actual service provision. Lay advocates are filling in service gaps with good intentions but at the risk of harmful unauthorized or unsupervised practice of complex, high stakes law.        The good news is that over 20 states have already begun addressing these problems, and not just for the legal services sector, by creating a state-supported Office of New Americans (ONA) equivalent. It's like the State Refugee Office, but with the much broader mandate of championing the needs and rights of ALL immigrants in the state regardless of status or circumstances of arrival. As New York, California, Illinois, Michigan, Virginia, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Maine, and Washington have found, ONA equivalents eliminate duplicative intake systems across providers, reduce service gaps as organizations cross-refer, allow for more meaningful demographic data collection, and position service sectors to access outside resources more effectively. In sum, expanding state partners' internal coordination with each other, as well as their external collaboration with the national Office of New Americans State Network, allows robust community sectors like ours to better address the complex needs of its growing immigrant communities. This is why VAAP supports the establishment of an ONA equivalent for Vermont. This fall, we gathered with diverse community partners across disciplines and regions to explore opportunities to collaborate on establishing an ONA equivalent for Vermont. You can review a history of those gatherings here. As VAAP has learned over the course of these gatherings, the mandate of an ONA equivalent can include charging a cabinet-level director with ensuring government accountability for the rights and obligations owed to immigrant populations. It can include empowering the director to help communities solve systemic injustices with systemic solutions. It can include improved service coordination, equitable grantmaking, or improved demographic study. It can position states to more easily access available resources to address intersecting public policy issues like disaster preparedness and workforce development.                        Focusing on the legal services sector that VAAP champions, coordinated intake would conserve attorney resources so we can do what we do best: assist noncitizens to invoke immigration legal claims and defenses that enable their full and safe participation in the regulated economy; protect noncitizens from harmful and wasteful enforcement and removal proceedings; and ensures an inclusive and prosperous future Vermont for all not withstanding Vermont's critical workforce and working age taxpayer shortages. Recall that a work authorized social security number is the necessary precursor to proving your identity with public institutions, working, opening a bank account, obtaining a REAL ID needed to travel safely between states, securing financing to own a home, run a business, or access public financial aid, and more. Work authorization is not an independent immigration benefit one can apply for and is only available incident to some other claim or defense you have filed, normally with the assistance of an attorney. An ONA equivalent for Vermont would not be a panacea, but at least a means for evidence-based progress toward more coordinated, equitable, and impactful service delivery. Feeling impassioned? Get in touch to join our growing coalition. We are stronger together! SAVE THESE DATES Thursday, November 14: Refugee International hosts a U.S. election debrief webinar.  Monday, November 18: VAAP presents on AILA New England virtual panel.  Tuesday, November 19: VAAP hosts virtual immigration Q&A for VT immigrant non-legal service providers.  Thursday, November 21: State Refugee Office hosts next Refugee and Immigrant Service Providers Network (RISPNET) meeting. Friday, November 22: NLG NIP hosts a U.S. election debrief webinar.  Tuesday, November 26: VAAP hosts virtual immigration case rounds for VT lawyers and legal workers.  Tuesday, December 17: VAAP hosts virtual immigration Q&A for VT immigrant non-legal service providers.  Tuesday, December 31: VAAP hosts virtual immigration case rounds for VT lawyers and legal workers.  Friday, January 17: VAAP presents at the VBA Mid-Winter Thaw Conference in Montreal. We'll share rolling updates through our blog, calendar, newsletters, and social media. Please contact VAAP to  have your events, programming, and resources reflected here, too! CONNECTING CULTURES' CORNER Updates from our partners at Connecting Cultures   As we announced this fall, we’re excited to begin sharing VAAP newsletter and blog space with our multidisciplinary partners at Connecting Cultures, with whom VAAP collaborates closely to provide culturally relevant and trauma-informed welcoming and resettlement services. This round of Connecting Cultures' Corner, we spotlight: A country profile on Bosnia-Herzegovina; A social work spotlight on Desirea Swick; Upcoming events; and more! We are grateful to Connecting Cultures (formally known as New England Survivors of Torture and Trauma or NESTT) for paving the way for VAAP to exist and supporting us with funding to deliver legal services and community education. Check out our blog to learn more! THANK YOU FROM OUR TEAM   From our humble beginnings as a volunteer-led effort to today's staff of four, the VAAP staff and board extend our heartfelt thanks for making our mission a reality! Donate to VAAP   Vermont Asylum Assistance Project  P.O. Box 814, Elmwood Ave, Burlington, VT 05402 802-999-5654 ‖ info@vaapvt.org ‖ www.vaapvt.org Copyright © 2023, Vermont Asylum Assistance Project, All rights reserved. Want to change how you receive these emails? You can update your preferences or unsubscribe from this list.