VOLUNTEERING OPPORTUNITIES
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For multilingual speakers of Spanish and/or French
Language access is an essential element of our legal work and also a severely under-funded mandate. The prohibitive cost of legal interpretation and translation support is the single most limiting factor on our ability to provide services to everyone who needs it. For example, one I-589 asylum application filing clinic serving 10 primary applicants over 4-5 hours costs VAAP upwards of $4,000 in telephonic interpreter fees. VAAP's staff of four advocates lack access to any administrative or operations support and we are struggling to balance fundraising for language access with direct legal service delivery. If you have multilingual language skills and are willing to get trained to provide virtual interpreter services at one or more asylum legal help clinic, WE NEED YOU! Contact us today to express your no-obligation interest and learn more.
For lawyers and legal workers
For legal advocates who are interested in volunteering, the need has never been more urgent! Following suit with national best practice, we will continue assisting clients to assert their asylum claims and pursue work authorization as much as is practicable before immigration law and policy begins to shift next year.
We need attorney and paralegal volunteers to help with the expeditious preparation and filing of preliminary or "skeletal" asylum applications on USCIS Form I-589. Any legal professionals, not just lawyers, are welcome to assist.
We will ask you to review and sign our mentorship and confidentiality agreements, complete about 1.5 hours of virtual training, and then sign up for at least one half-day application assistance clinic. These discreet virtual clinics are a great opportunity to learn or fine-tune asylum law and practice skills and to help us advance VAAP’s mission.
We’ll coordinate all logistics and provide you with training, resources, interpreters, supervision, and practice insurance. No experience or multilingual language skills necessary - just a willingness to learn and meet potential clients where they are at!
Contact us to express your no-obligation interest. Whether you're completing your first-year attorney mentorship licensing requirements, planning your retirement projects, interested in skilling up, or interested in giving back, VAAP is here for you!
Speaking of which, VAAP extends a heartfelt congratulations to attorney Monica Allard of Downs Rachlin Martin for joining Vermont Business Magazine's Rising Star Class of 2024! VAAP was thrilled to help celebrate Monica's recognition for her tremendous work, not only with VAAP but also with Vermont Queer Legal Professionals, Pride Center VT, and beyond. Monica, thank you for supporting VAAP clients to seek asylum and for encouraging your colleagues to join in.
"I volunteer with VAAP because, through their critical advocacy and direct services work, they are providing desperately needed legal access to members of our community during a time when their futures are more uncertain than ever. Through VAAP, a few hours of my day can change a neighbor's legal ability to live, work, access support, and connect with family. VAAP brings the necessary expertise and guidance to the table, but they can't do it alone. I encourage everyone to seize this opportunity to make a profound and immediate impact in our community."
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https://www.americanimmigrationcouncil.org/state-local-initiatives/ona-state-network
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Why VAAP Supports a VT "Office of New Americans"
As a direct legal services provider working statewide on high stakes immigration matters, VAAP feels the impact of our state's impressive but uncoordinated model of community based service delivery and its lack of a centralized clearinghouse for information sharing, referral making, and issues resolution. We observe direct service providers like us scrambling to redress individual injustices using individual solutions, but also systemic injustices with individual solutions.
Potential immigration legal clients and their supporters are self-referring to every office all at once, triggering confusing and duplicative intake responses. Offices are cross-referring to one another, furthering duplicated intake. Despite the intake duplications, a person might make it through everyone's screening systems only to learn no organization has the resources or expertise to assist. Systemic lack of intake capacity is distracting from actual service provision. Lay advocates are filling in service gaps with good intentions but at the risk of harmful unauthorized or unsupervised practice of complex, high stakes law.
The good news is that over 20 states have already begun addressing these problems, and not just for the legal services sector, by creating a state-supported Office of New Americans (ONA) equivalent. It's like the State Refugee Office, but with the much broader mandate of championing the needs and rights of ALL immigrants in the state regardless of status or circumstances of arrival.
As New York, California, Illinois, Michigan, Virginia, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Maine, and Washington have found, ONA equivalents eliminate duplicative intake systems across providers, reduce service gaps as organizations cross-refer, allow for more meaningful demographic data collection, and position service sectors to access outside resources more effectively. In sum, expanding state partners' internal coordination with each other, as well as their external collaboration with the national Office of New Americans State Network, allows robust community sectors like ours to better address the complex needs of its growing immigrant communities.
This is why VAAP supports the establishment of an ONA equivalent for Vermont. This fall, we gathered with diverse community partners across disciplines and regions to explore opportunities to collaborate on establishing an ONA equivalent for Vermont. You can review a history of those gatherings here. As VAAP has learned over the course of these gatherings, the mandate of an ONA equivalent can include charging a cabinet-level director with ensuring government accountability for the rights and obligations owed to immigrant populations. It can include empowering the director to help communities solve systemic injustices with systemic solutions. It can include improved service coordination, equitable grantmaking, or improved demographic study. It can position states to more easily access available resources to address intersecting public policy issues like disaster preparedness and workforce development.
Focusing on the legal services sector that VAAP champions, coordinated intake would conserve attorney resources so we can do what we do best: assist noncitizens to invoke immigration legal claims and defenses that enable their full and safe participation in the regulated economy; protect noncitizens from harmful and wasteful enforcement and removal proceedings; and ensures an inclusive and prosperous future Vermont for all not withstanding Vermont's critical workforce and working age taxpayer shortages.
Recall that a work authorized social security number is the necessary precursor to proving your identity with public institutions, working, opening a bank account, obtaining a REAL ID needed to travel safely between states, securing financing to own a home, run a business, or access public financial aid, and more. Work authorization is not an independent immigration benefit one can apply for and is only available incident to some other claim or defense you have filed, normally with the assistance of an attorney.
An ONA equivalent for Vermont would not be a panacea, but at least a means for evidence-based progress toward more coordinated, equitable, and impactful service delivery. Feeling impassioned? Get in touch to join our growing coalition. We are stronger together! |
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Thursday, November 14: Refugee International hosts a U.S. election debrief webinar.
Monday, November 18: VAAP presents on AILA New England virtual panel.
Tuesday, November 19: VAAP hosts virtual immigration Q&A for VT immigrant non-legal service providers.
Thursday, November 21: State Refugee Office hosts next Refugee and Immigrant Service Providers Network (RISPNET) meeting.
Friday, November 22: NLG NIP hosts a U.S. election debrief webinar.
Tuesday, November 26: VAAP hosts virtual immigration case rounds for VT lawyers and legal workers.
Tuesday, December 17: VAAP hosts virtual immigration Q&A for VT immigrant non-legal service providers.
Tuesday, December 31: VAAP hosts virtual immigration case rounds for VT lawyers and legal workers.
Friday, January 17: VAAP presents at the VBA Mid-Winter Thaw Conference in Montreal.
We'll share rolling updates through our blog, calendar, newsletters, and social media. Please contact VAAP to have your events, programming, and resources reflected here, too!
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CONNECTING CULTURES' CORNER
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Updates from our partners at Connecting Cultures
As we announced this fall, we’re excited to begin sharing VAAP newsletter and blog space with our multidisciplinary partners at Connecting Cultures, with whom VAAP collaborates closely to provide culturally relevant and trauma-informed welcoming and resettlement services. This round of Connecting Cultures' Corner, we spotlight:
- A country profile on Bosnia-Herzegovina;
- A social work spotlight on Desirea Swick;
- Upcoming events; and more!
We are grateful to Connecting Cultures (formally known as New England Survivors of Torture and Trauma or NESTT) for paving the way for VAAP to exist and supporting us with funding to deliver legal services and community education. Check out our blog to learn more!
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From our humble beginnings as a volunteer-led effort to today's staff of four, the VAAP staff and board extend our heartfelt thanks for making our mission a reality!
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