Legal News & Advocacy
ILAP and Partners Launch #LetAsylumSeekersWork National Campaign
In October, ILAP and partners from across the country unveiled a new national campaign aimed at reducing the amount of time asylum seekers have to wait for work permits. The campaign seeks to build additional bipartisan support for Representative Pingree’s Asylum Seekers Work Authorization Act, which would make all asylum seekers eligible for work permits in 30 days after they’ve filed their applications and reduce barriers to help people keep their jobs.
“This campaign is a priority for our clients in their pursuit to find stability and security in their new home state of Maine and it must be a priority for all of us,” says Executive Director Sue Roche. “When asylum seekers are allowed to work, we all win.”
ACTION ALERT:
Tell your member of Congress to support H.R. 1325 The Asylum Seeker Work Authorization Act. It’s time to #LetAsylumSeekersWork.
Show your support by taking action at the button below and don’t forget to select that you heard about this campaign from ILAP!
Mills Administration Proposes Maine Office of New Americans
ILAP cheered Governor Mills’ August Executive Order announcing plans to establish a statewide immigration agency in Maine. ILAP has submitted feedback and recommendations to the team at the Governor’s Office of Policy Innovation and the Future (GOPIF), which has been tasked with fleshing out a proposal for the Office of New Americans by January 19, 2024. Following the Governor’s approval of a proposal, it is expected to be voted on next year in the second half of the 131st Maine state legislature.
If successfully established, Maine would be the 19th state in the nation to have an Office of New Americans. One of the goals of the Office would be to help achieve the Mills’ administration’s stated goal of adding 75,000 people to Maine’s workforce by 2029. A key step in achieving this goal will be increasing access to quality immigration legal services in Maine, an effort ILAP is leading through its Asylum Assistance and Legal Orientation Project (AALOP), with funding from Maine State Housing.
Women’s Refugee Commission Releases Key Policy Brief Featuring ILAP
The Women’s Refugee Commission (WRC), a leading national organization specializing in research and policy solutions for refugee populations, visited Maine to learn about work being done to welcome and support asylum seekers here. Following their research trips to Maine and New York City, WRC released a policy brief with their findings.
One of the report’s top takeaways was that pro se legal assistance is an “indispensable force multiplier” in achieving long-term stability and security. The brief stated “immigration legal assistance for new arrivals is not only the most salient service need next to shelter, but also a fundamental tool for helping people move out of shelter and into permanent housing.” WRC cited ILAP – Maine’s only statewide immigration legal services organization – as crucial in meeting this need. Other findings included the need to support workforce entry beyond federal work permits and responsive federal funding for “community-based stabilization needs such as transitional housing, case management services, and legal assistance.”
ILAP Welcomes Recent TPS Decisions
ILAP supports the broad and bold use of Temporary Protected Status (TPS) to safeguard human life and applauds Department of Homeland Security Secretary Mayorkas for key extensions and redesignations over the summer and fall. TPS is a blanket designation for an entire country when safe return is impossible, designated in 6, 12, or 18 month increments. Redesignation allows the Secretary of Homeland Security to move cut off dates to expand protection to more people. TPS only applies to people who are already in the United States at the time of those cut off dates.
In recent months, DHS Secretary Mayorkas has used his authority to extend and redesignate TPS for Cameroon, Venezuela, Afghanistan, South Sudan, Sudan, and Ukraine. In addition to protecting current TPS holders from returning to dangerous conditions in these countries, the Secretary redesignated TPS for these countries, expanding humanitarian protection to hundreds of thousands of vulnerable people in the U.S.
ILAP calls on Secretary Mayorkas to also extend and redesignate TPS for Honduras, Nicaragua, and El Salvador and to newly designate TPS for Guatemala and Democratic Republic of Congo, among other countries where protection is warranted and needed.
Path to Citizenship for DACA Recipients Remains Urgent
In September, District Judge Hanen again found the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program (DACA) unlawful, but permitted renewal applications to continue for the time being. As has been the case since 2012 when the program was first announced, Congress must act to provide permanent protections and a pathway to citizenship.
There are serious health effects of living in legal limbo and Congress’ failure to act. A 2022 study conducted by the Im/migrant Well-Being Research Center and scholars from the University of South Florida and the Cisneros Hispanic Leadership Institute at George Washington University documented that DACA recipients experience sadness, despair, anxiety, and uncertainty about the future and their mental health is eroded by the stress of the legal circumstances they find themselves in. The study found that 9 out of the 51 DACA recipients interviewed had attempted suicide, and almost half of the sample had engaged in self-harm.
Anthony, a DACA recipient in Maine said last year:
“I’m just here to do the right thing, to better myself, to feel safe. We’re young, we’re the future. This is where we grew up. This is what we know as home. If you send us back, we will be lost.”
“We have been waiting 10 years, now is the time for citizenship. It is time to take a step. You must not continue to push DACA to the side. We need change. We can’t be living our lives this way anymore. Citizenship now. That’s what we ask for.”
ILAP remains steadfast in our call on Congress to pass a pathway to citizenship for DACA recipients in Maine and across the country.
Legal Limbo Persists for Afghan Evacuees More Than Two Years After Taliban Takeover
Since the August 2021 U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan and the Taliban takeover, nearly 80,000 Afghan evacuees have been pursuing paths to long-term stability in the United States. In Maine, hundreds of Afghans flown to the U.S. as part of Operation Allies Welcome have been pursuing paths to long-term security including asylum and Special Immigrant Visas, while also navigating paths like re-parole and TPS to ensure they can remain temporarily and work while their long-term options remain caught in long bureaucratic immigration system backlogs. Most continue to struggle to reunite with family members remaining in Afghanistan who were not among those who made it on a flight out during the chaotic withdrawal.
Children are here without their parents and parents are here without their children hoping to someday be reunited. They work with their pro bono attorneys to implore the Department of State’s Office of the Coordinator for Afghan Relocation Efforts (CARE) to assist with their families’ relocation, while calling on members of Maine’s congressional delegation to help speed the process before it is too late. As the days, weeks, and years pass, many of those left behind who fought side-by-side with the U.S. to defeat the brutal Taliban regime lose hope that the United States will save them from retaliatory persecution.
Many of our clients devoted their lives over the last 20 years to building a free and democratic society in Afghanistan. The Taliban stole their dreams, they tell us. They were forced to restart their lives in the U.S. and seek long-term stability and reassurance they will not be returned to Afghanistan to face near certain death.
ILAP joins a diverse coalition of leading Afghan American organizations, 30 veteran service organizations, American commanders from the 20-year war in Afghanistan, and faith-based and human rights organizations in calling on Congress to pass the Afghan Adjustment Act (AAA). The bicameral and bi-partisan AAA, reintroduced last summer, provides a pathway to permanent legal status for Afghans resettled in the United States, expands eligibility for the Special Immigrant Visa (SIV) program, and creates an inter-agency task force to better facilitate the relocation of at-risk Afghans abroad. Urge your representatives to support and ensure passage of the AAA
For more information, visit maine-vets-for-afghans.org and evacuateourallies.org/advocacy/afghan-adjustment-act.