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 beingresurrected 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
