VAAP’s virtual Clinic serves 35+ asylum seekers

Thanks to 27 incredible legal and language access volunteers and VAAP's dedicated staff, today we stretched supervising attorney Jill Martin Diaz’s supervisory capacity to provide quality counsel to 11 primary asylum applicants for the benefit of 35 total asylum seekers and counting! This means that in one day volunteers helped VAAP to provide asylum seekers with a level of service that would have taken us months to achieve in balance with our other duties and existing caseloads.

Today's clients originated from Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, and Mexico and live statewide including in Addison, Chittenden, Franklin, Rutland, and Windham counties. Thanks to our volunteers’ support, VAAP will be able to assist these folks to take the most informed actions on their immigration cases, including by filing carefully prepared and vetted initial applications for asylum relief. Access to immigration justice happens like this, one case at a time, and thanks to our community, today we made sure finances were not a barrier for 35+ applicants' access to game-changing counsel. 

Over the coming weeks, VAAP will be excitedly preparing the applications volunteers prepared for final printing and signature and, with client consent, pro se filing. We will work on filing cases in order of legal urgency, based on clients' statutes of limitations. We will be sharing final "as filed" copies of applications with clients along with resources about how they can monitor their cases, what steps they can take next, how to participate in their removal proceedings in court, and how to keep in touch with us to learn about additional services we may be able to offer as our resources grow.

Once we catch up with papering and filing the cases that volunteers and clients have prepared together in virtual clinics this month, we will be reaching out to announce upcoming legal service opportunities. Rest assured we capitalize on the opportunity to improve our workflow after every clinic and today will be no exception. That said, YOU are the experts on improving user experience! Your thoughts, suggestions, or connections to potential service and/or resource partners are always strongly encouraged and very appreciated.

Special thanks to law firms Downs Rachlin Martin, Tarrant Gillies, and Fenwick for supporting your staff to volunteer their time so generously! And thanks to ALL of our tremendous volunteers, staff, and supporters for this clinic and for all you do to help make VAAP's mission a reality.