VAAP advocates for central intake
As lawmakers and government leaders work to address the critical shortage of immigration legal services in Vermont, VAAP has published an infographic to help illustrate the unmet need. View and share the infographic here. In short, creating centralized intake would transform Vermont’s return-on-investment in immigration legal services. It would streamline processes, improve efficiency, and enhance legal support for immigrants and the lay organizations who serve them.
According to 2022-24 Vermont Poverty Law Fellow Maya Tsukazaki, whose work focused on mapping Vermont’s unmet immigration legal needs, “Jurisdictions like Utah and New York City have piloted hotlines for legal services for noncitizens, which can then refer to other organizations. Vermont should consider adopting a similar model, with a state-funded intake hotline that can then refer requests for legal help to organizations with capacity and expertise.”
Like Maryland and similarly situated states, Vermont already centralizes intake for all other civil legal matters through the Legal Services Vermont/Vermont Legal Aid partnership. Culturally and linguistically accessible centralized intake for immigration services, in particular, have been implemented in various cities and states to streamline processes, improve coordination, and enhance legal outcomes.
Jurisdictions report that centralized intake is reducing the need for multiple intake workers at different agencies. This saves money by replacing duplicative intake functions with a single, more efficient approach allowing for legal service providers to focus on providing legal representation. Replicating immigration legal intake workflow across agencies is especially costly since the populations we serve face special barriers to access—including culture, language, technology limitations, and institutionalized fear. Maya in her report stated, as “Department of Labor and agencies in Vermont have acknowledged, many undocumented persons fear that calling a state agency would put them at risk of deportation.”
Reporting on the cost-savings generated by NYC’s centralized immigration legal intake system, NYC Comptroller Brad Lander stated, “Helping new arrivals win asylum will benefit our economy. A recently released study by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services found that over a 15 year period refugees and asylees were a positive net fiscal impact on our national economy, contributing $123.8 billion to federal, state, and local governments.”
