ASISTA IMMIGRANT ASSISTANCE

Our long-term goal is to help immigrant survivors of crimes, especially women, overcome legal hurdles to full participation in our society, which in turn helps free them from the patriarchal and racial discrimination that hampers their ability to become leaders for immigrants' and women's rights. We focus on what we do best (legal and policy work) but the political organizing background of our leaders informs our "mutiple-strategies" approach to social change. Collaborating with partners from many different communities ensures all our scarce resources are used to best advantage (a team approach to leadership) and contributes to a more holistic approach to helping immigrant survivors of crimes achieve independence.

1- Provide comprehensive, cutting edge technical assistance and resources to those assisting non-citizen survivors of violence in the immigration law arena;

2- Train lawyers, domestic violence and sexual assault advocates, law enforcement personnel, and civil and criminal court judges;

3- Collaborate with grassroots organizations and other national groups to continue developing strategic and coordinated approaches to improve federal and local policies and to pass and improve laws that help immigrant survivors of violence;

4- Work closely with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) officials to ensure laws are implemented correctly and to resolve policy issues before litigation is required.

ASISTA staff have significant experience in the immigration law and violence against women fields, with expertise not only in training and providing technical assistance to those working with immigrant survivors, but also in drafting laws and policies. Our leaders enjoy a national reputation for creative social change work, including (a) insisting on collaborative leadership among organizations and advocates; (b) promoting holistic approaches across discipines and (c) identifying and addressing previously unrecognized issues, such as sexual violence against immigrant women in the workplace. Perhaps most importantly, we are well-respected for actually getting things done, such as changing the way the government implements a law we helped write, and successfully helping to challenge Congressional attacks on immigrant women and immigrants generally.

Helped get VAWA 2000, 2005 and 2013 passed; helped get good provisions for immigrant survivors in the Senate version of Comprehensive Immigration Reform (CIR), that died in the House; fought off attacks related to violence against women in CIR and against immigrants in VAWA 2013. Central and crucial to all this was our success in working with others to educate nontraditional allies and equip them with effective arguments and organizing strategies.

Helped change and improve numerous government policies concerning immigrant crime survivor routes to status. We are currently experiencing no movement on a major policy issue and are therefore developing a national litigation strategy to complement our advocacy work.