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 VT immigrants and community members; maximize impact across sectors; and advocate to protect immigrants’ rights. Join us: www.vaapvt.org.
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FROM THE EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
Dear friends,
As we close out a year marked by fear, resilience, and hard-won progress, I want to begin by lifting up a milestone that belongs to our staff, partners, and clients alike. Just before the holidays, a federal judge ordered the release on bond of an ICE detainee directly from U.S. District Court in Vermont—after more than 100 days of his unnecessary detention. As reported by VTDigger and featured above, your support brought Wali home by the weekend.
Several additional VAAP-assisted habeas petitions have since been granted since Wali walked free, affirming that even in this moment of vitriolic enforcement, due process still matters and still works when people have access to counsel.
This final newsletter of 2025 shares updates on how VAAP is building capacity, welcoming new staff, and preparing to reopen intake in the new year. Further below, I reflect in a recent VTDigger op-ed on how federal overreach and state nonresponse collide to compound harm—and why proactive coordination and legal access are essential to protecting Vermont families and the rule of law.
As always, we hold deep gratitude for our partners and community, and send condolences to families with empty seats at their tables because of this year’s enforcement harms. Wishing you rest, restoration, and solidarity as we turn toward 2026.
👁️Demanding Action, Not Just Data. As VT Dept. of Corrections (DOC) finally launches its ICE dashboard, remember you can already review the VAAP ICE Tracker—built from data communities collected this year while DOC stalled. We told VT Digger in July: “The time now isn’t just for data. It’s about action." Review the VAAP ICE Tracker here.
🗽American Immigration Council (AIC) analysis: Check out AIC's latest blog posts breaking down Trump’s expanded travel ban; how ICE is expanding AI-driven surveillance; allegations USCIS is evading a court order on timely records access; and a practical roadmap for state-level immigrant protections in 2026. Read it here.
🏛️ AILA New England Virtual Brown Bag Series. Join a free, open-to-all Zoom session with our local American Immigration Lawyers Association chapter on Maine immigration legislative updates on Thu Jan 29 at 1PM ET. It’s a great chance to cross-pollinate—Vermont and Maine often look to each other on state policy. Register here.
FROM THE FRONTLINES
In this VTDigger op-ed, Jill reflects on a year of hard-won due process victories, and on the gaps that still let chaos harden into harm across Vermont. The piece invites us to celebrate what we’ve protected together in 2025 while naming what Vermont must build in 2026 to truly walk the talk of our values: reliable legal access, proactive information-sharing, and coordinated first response that reduces fear instead of multiplying it. Read the op-ed here.
🛟 Key takeaways from case rounds: This week’s case rounds looked at when (and whether) to request Special Immigrant Juvenile (SIJ)-based Deferred Action, given fast-changing federal policy.
SIJ approval is a threshold step toward a green card for vulnerable noncitizen youth, but the SIJ visa category is routinely over capacity under congressional limits. This means many young people with approved SIJ petitions must wait years before they can actually apply for a green card or become lawful permanent residents. Deferred Action can be a stopgap during that wait, offering some protection from deportation and a pathway to work authorization.
This year, noncitizen youth not already at the attention of DHS have hesitated to file new SIJ petitions given the increased threat of violent detention and diminishing confidence in the fundamental fairness of adjudication processes. Historically, Deferred Action ameliorated SIJ petitioners' very reasonable fears and lowered barriers to regularizing status as Congress intended. This month, a federal court has ordered USCIS to restart processing SIJ-based Deferred Action under a 2022 policy, but the Trump Administration has publicly said it disagrees with the ruling. More litigation is likely, and the order could be paused.
The main takeaway for attorneys: SIJ-based Deferred Action can be helpful, but it is always temporary and discretionary at best and it does not guarantee protection from detention or removal proceedings. When advising youth on whether or not to initiate SIJ proceedings, practitioners should weigh the likely green card wait times, the client’s strengths and risk factors, and current enforcement concerns, and help clients plan for “what if” scenarios, including rapid response if detention occurs. Visit ABA CILA to learn more.
LEARN WITH VAAP
🧮 Monday Feb. 2nd: VAAP is launching our inaugural Immigration Academy—a hybrid, day-long training (in person at the VAAP office + online via Microsoft Teams). It will orient Vermont attorneys (and those pending admission) to immigration law, policy, and practice, with registration and agenda details coming on the VAAP Calendar.
📅 Tuesdays 9-10am: VAAP attorney case rounds continue every Tuesday from 9–10am. Community case rounds continue on the first Tuesday of each month, the next being January 6 from 10–11am. Rounds will run as usual through hte holiday period except forJan. 13, when the staff will be offline for a winter retreat. Key takeaways summarized at "Frontlines" above.
🧭 "Recognition & Accreditation" Training: This free webinar on Jan. 12 introduces the basics of integrating immigration legal services into a community-based organization through practitioner Recognition & Accreditation. Hear from organizations sharing proven approaches to launching high-quality, low-cost, and federally compliant immigration legal services and responding sustainably to rising community need. Register here.
📝 VAAP highly recommends the National Immigration Project's online Removal Defense Course(Jan. 20–Feb. 26) for newer defense attorneys, accredited reps, and new supervisors. Includes live webinars, recordings, and 18 CLE. Register hereby Jan. 12.
🏢 Know-Your-Rights: Join the Nat'l Immigration Law Center on Jan. 26 at 1PM for a free, live webinar on noncitizen workers' workplace and reverification rights. English/Spanish interpretation; no recording but slides shared. Register here.
👟Immigration and Work: Missed our recent VT Businesses for Social Responsibility (VBSR) panel? Stream the recording now and learn how values-led employers and business owners can best support noncitizen workers and neighbors into 2026. Watch here.
WORK WITH VAAP
🎒Intern with VAAP: Big thanks again to our outgoing fall interns from UVM, Sarah Schweikert and Ramona Ross, for their contributions at VAAP this fall as credit-bearing undergraduate interns through the College for Social Innovation—the photos of Sarah and “Mona” above highlight the semester projects they showcased as they wrapped up. Reminder that VAAP welcomes internship inquiries from undergrads, grad students, and law students to info@vaapvt.org, and prioritizes applicants who bring outside funding/academic credit and parallel supervision and onboarding. Our bandwidth to host interns is limited right now while we operationalize new staff and mobilize our pro bono network (see www.vaapvt.org/openings), but undergrads are encouraged to apply directly through SFI and list VAAP as their intended placement site. Apply for SFI here.
🥅 Hiring and staffing updates: We’ve closed our legal assistant paralegal search after promoting Maja Klostermann from her part-time role. Thank you again to everyone who applied! We’re currently interviewing for Community Lawyering Initiative and Practice Development Fellow positions, with onboarding and intake updates expected in January as new capacity comes online. We continue to welcome interns seeking academic credit or bringing fellowship funding. Check out our Semester For Impact feature above! We also always encourage applicants to pursue a postgraduate fellowship position with VAAP through the Immigrant Justice Corps, a key funding partner who has already committed a new law fellow to start with VAAP this September—announcement forthcoming. Looking ahead, this spring we plan to launch a search for a full-time Intake Coordinator to start by May. Multilingual legal workers will be strongly encouraged to apply! Monitor our openings here.
COMMUNITY RESOURCES
The Attorney General's Office (AGO) is hosting a free criminal record-clearing clinic on Jan. 15 in Brattleboro to help eligible Windham County residents seal or expunge qualifying convictions and dismissed charges by appointment at Brooks Memorial Library. Contact the AGO.
📣 Please share widely!
Winter resources are available statewide, including free holiday meals, warm winter clothing, and other essential supplies drives.
Check out the Burlington-area free holiday meals continuing this week, as well as the ongoing clothes/supplies drive by Burlington City's Racial Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging Office.
Hunger Free Vermont, Vermont Language Justice Project, and the Vermont State Refugee Office continue to monitor ongoing SNAP changes and share mulitlingual updates with the public. Meanwhile, National Immigration Law Center reports increased ICE arrests at airports including for people with TPS and DACA. We’ve heard one traveler was denied boarding at BTV in error despite carrying a valid Refugee Travel Document. Access multilingual guidancehere.
FROM OUR TEAM
From each and every one of our team members to each and every one of you, thank you for joining VAAP in the work of rightsizing Vermont's immigration legal infrastructure just in time. As reported by Seven Days:
"'We’ve been bringing habeas petitions when we feel there’s capacity and the law is on our side,' said Martin Diaz, the group’s executive director. 'And it’s been working. It’s amazing.'
"As Trump’s crackdown escalated in Vermont, the group also has helped to channel outrage over his policies into a wildly successful fundraising effort, netting more than half a million dollars for a legal defense fund for immigrants in Vermont, $200,000 of which so far has been awarded to its own office
"The project now has 10 staff members, plus a team of volunteer attorneys. The past few months have been a whirlwind, as the team has sought to expand and train its staff while putting out daily fires.
"Outside of the work in detention facilities, the lawyers continue to help people apply for asylum, obtain work permits and make progress toward permanent residency. Several work specifically with unaccompanied minors and youths who were abandoned or abused by their parents.
"'We’re taking this moment to set up the legal infrastructure we’ve wanted for a decade,' Martin Diaz said. 'Now it’s a priority, but we were underprepared to meet this moment.'"
