VAAP advocates for more lawyers
Vermont Poverty Law Fellow Maya Tsukazaki’s final recommendations on improving immigration in Vermont brought an immigration lens to the Vermont Judiciary’s 2019 Economic Impacts of Immigration Legal Services Report. The Judiciary’s 2019 report showed that investing in civil legal services prevents harmful, costlier downstream expenditure on corrections and emergency services. Maya’s 2024 report shows that VAAP is growing at exactly the right time for Vermont.
As a voting member of the Vermont Judiciary’s Access to Justice Coalition, which commissioned the 2019 report, VAAP collaborates with civil justice-focused agencies to improve low-income Vermonter’s awareness of and access to the legal systems they rely on to meet their basic needs. In particular, VAAP champions awareness of and access to immigration systems, on which noncitizens rely for threshold work-authorized social security numbers needed to participate in the regulated economy.
In addition to the immigration status benefits it yields, immigration legal work most immediately unlocks access to work authorization, government-issued photo identification, and social security numbers. These are often the threshold materials a person must produce in order to open a bank account, enroll in school, apply for public or private assistance, work, rent an appointment, apply for credit, access healthcare, and more.
Meanwhile, noncitizens continue to contribute to state and national GDP and to pay taxes at all level of government. Noncitizens with access to immigration legal services can do so in a safer and more sustainable way, with opportunities for them to regularize status and stabilize their homes and communities from the threat of deportation. In short, investment in immigration legal services is an investment in the future of Vermont.
VAAP is available to offer subject matter expertise to government leaders and lawmakers interested in actualizing the Judiciary’s and the Vermont Poverty Law Fellow’s findings. Download an infographic on the economic impacts of immigration legal aid in Vermont here.
