"The IJC program is a ray of hope."
Immigrant Justice Corps (IJC) is proud to partner with legal services and community-based organizations on the frontlines of the fight to expand access to immigrant justice. This year, we were lucky to be joined by host organizations striving to meet the needs of immigrant communities in less resourced geographies. And in 2021, every organization fighting for immigrant justice needed all the capacity they could get to keep immigrant families together.
We asked our partners to share the impact IJC Fellows had on their organizations and immigrant communities. Here is what they had to say.
“Our IJC Fellow Gaby Cruz is leading a new and groundbreaking partnership in New Orleans with ALAS, a local educational access organization for immigrant and court-involved youth. In just two months, she has already joined trainings for local educators and is working on over a dozen cases for immigrant youth petitioning for status. She brings unparalleled compassion, energy, and commitment to this work, and her position is adding desperately needed legal capacity to local efforts for holistic support of immigrant youth. In the midst of an unprecedented crisis on access to justice for immigrants in Louisiana, the IJC program is a ray of hope.”
Mary Yanik, Tulane Law School Immigrant Rights Clinic
“The IRC’s AZ Legal Center for Immigrant Communities is grateful for the opportunity to host IJC Fellow Cory Jane Rodas. With extensive immigration experience and training, Cory Jane has already helped us tremendously in just a few months. In a border state with high need for legal services and very few resources, the addition of an IJC Fellow has allowed our program to increase access to quality legal representation for asylum seekers, victims of trafficking, and Afghan evacuees. We are proud to work with Cory Jane and can’t wait to see her continued positive impact in our community.”
Pamela Florian, International Rescue Committee
“We don’t know what Catholic Migration Services would do without our IJC fellows. Our past fellow, Jose Miranda, threw himself heart and soul into the representation of asylum seekers in Immigration Court, with great success. He devoted countless hours to learning how to do habeas petitions to secure the release of detained immigrants. And our new fellow, Ghada Ghannam, is shouldering a heavy caseload of removal work, with her first asylum hearing coming up soon. She is passionate about learning the law, and the craft of trial work. The energy that IJC fellows bring to this work is just essential to all our team members.”
Lynn Neugebauer, Catholic Migration Services
“In September 2021, Building One Community (B1C) launched our non-detained removal defense practice to expand our immigration legal services in Fairfield County, Connecticut. IJC Fellows, Lauren Hughes and Paola Idrovo, have been unquestionably instrumental and vital in helping to successfully launch our program. Furthermore, they have increased our capacity for representation in our affirmative practice. Lauren and Paola are immensely talented lawyers, professional, driven, and compassionate with our clients. B1C is grateful to host IJC fellows as we make the case for universal representation in Connecticut and look forward to their many contributions in our immigration legal services practice.”
Jennifer Williams, Building One Community
We still have a lot of work to do before we achieve universal representation. But we are so proud of the work we’ve done with our partners in immigrant communities. With dozens of active Fellows embedded in over 40 host organizations in 11 states, we’re adding capacity so that they can help tens of thousands of immigrant families. IJC will persist until every single immigrant who needs a lawyer has access to affordable quality counsel.
