Immigrant communities in southern and central Vermont will have expanded access to legal services through a new partnership announced this week.
The new program, the Immigration Community Lawyering Initiative, is a partnership between Vermont Legal Aid and Vermont Asylum Assistance Project. Through the initiative, Vermont Legal Aid is setting up a formal immigration law practice for the first time in its nearly six-decade history and hired two lawyers, one based in Rutland and another in Springfield, said Bessie Weiss, interim executive director of Vermont Legal Aid.
The Immigration Community Lawyering Initiative is born out of a recognition that Vermont’s legal service infrastructure is “out of sync” with the state’s values, said Jill Martin Diaz, executive director of the Vermont Asylum Assistance Project.
Vermont is unprepared for the increased presence of Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials carrying out raids, detainments and targeting immigrants, Martin Diaz said. The lack of immigration legal services in Vermont predates the Trump Administration, Martin Diaz added, and advocates want to ensure the state leaves this moment with a more sustainable immigration legal support network going forward.
“We want to also be standing shoulder-to-shoulder with our communities under attack and making sure people have access to a little more upstream interventions, because the safest way to protect against detention and deportation is to have counsel,” Martin-Diaz said.
The new lawyers will initially offer free legal services like helping people gain immigrant status and applying for asylum, green cards or petition for benefits such as work permits, said Weiss, though they may take on detention cases as the program develops.
Along with helping to fundraise for the initiative, Vermont Asylum Assistance Project will help mobilize resources and supervise the program alongside Vermont Legal Aid, said Weiss.
Concurrently, Martin Diaz said the Vermont Asylum Assistance Project has launched a new practice development program and brought on board two additional fellows to build out immigration legal service capacity further, with support from a recent grant from Vermont Immigration Legal Defense Fund.
Unmet legal needs are particularly stark in southern and central regions of the state as legal resources often are concentrated in Chittenden County where the highest concentration of new Americans reside, said Martin Diaz. The Vermont Asylum Assistance Project was previously at case capacity and could not take on cases like the detainment of Upper Valley resident Mohsen Mahdawi and Manchester resident Davona Williams.
“I can’t tell you how painful it was to have to say no to requests for legal help from our central and southern community partners,” Martin Diaz said. “We couldn’t ethically take on another case without causing harm (or) risking harm to either or both clients.”
Sharon Hall-Smith, executive director of the Community Asylum Seekers Project based in Brattleboro, said that clients of the organization in southern Vermont have struggled to connect with legal services.
“People’s outcomes for applying for asylum greatly improve if they have legal representation,” Hall-Smith said. “It’s very technical. It’s difficult, and having that legal representation just allows them to present their case in their best light.”
One of the new lawyers hired through the initiative based in Springfield, Daniel Schmidt, had previously worked at Vermont Legal Aid for three years doing disaster relief work. Schmidt said he will work with community-based organizations to help people wade through the complicated mire of the U.S. immigration system.
The other community immigration attorney, Devanne O’Brien, said she has a background as an asylum seeker and refugee advocate. She will be based in Rutland and similarly work to represent individuals and stay connected to local communities to address problems on the ground as they arise, O’Brien said.
“Particularly now, as more and more people are being detained, it’s really important to make sure that as many people as possible have legal representation,” O’Brien said. “The consequences can be so devastating if they are, in fact, removed, and they don’t have adequate legal representation during their hearing to demonstrate that they have a good case to remain.”
