Just Neighbors Ministry, Inc.

Immigrants in Northern Virginia will be welcomed into the community so that they can take their places as self-sufficient, contributing members of their community.
* We will provide excellent legal services to our clients
* We will provide opportunities for meaningful interaction between volunteers and clients so that citizens, residents and immigrants can understand one another better.
* We will be a fully inclusive organization that values diversity, equity and inclusiveness for all.
* We will demonstrate respect, kindness, compassion and understanding for each client, volunteer and staff member.
* We will apply the law appropriately and ethically. We assist clients who qualify for immigration benefits that are available under the law. We explain to other immigrants why they do not qualify for benefits.
* We educate the public about immigration law to enhance understanding about this important aspect of immigration.
* We will advocate on issues that impact our clients and our work

Our strategies are to grow our resources to help more immigrants navigate the increasingly difficult and expensive process of applying for immigration status.
We are working to grow revenue to hire more attorneys, continue expansion into underserved areas of Virginia that have little or no immigration legal services, increase our capacity to serve more Maryland and Washington DC clients, and to increase the knowledge of the community at-large on immigration law and issues.
We also continue to work on partnerships that provide a more holistic approach to serving our clients on a broader array of needs.

Just Neighbors has the infrastructure and the experience needed to organize a response to meet this new demand for our services. We have experienced staff attorneys, an enthusiastic volunteer pool and the support of the community. The only limitation we are facing is a human one. Simply put, we need more staff able to work full-time.

Just Neighbors helps vulnerable, low-income immigrants who have nowhere else to turn. In fact, other organizations in the area refer prospective clients to Just Neighbors because we ask the client to contribute only $100 or less. We are able to do this because the support of volunteers, generous donors, churches, foundations and governments means that Just Neighbors' budget does not depend on client fees.

As in years past, Just Neighbors' primary challenge is the inability to serve all of the prospective clients who call our offices for help. Despite the increase in attorney hours, we are still only able to service between 25-30% of the clients who seek our services. With the complexity of the filings increasing due to administration policies, and an increasing number of people trying to secure status, we have not been able to help as many more clients as we would like.

Another strength of Just Neighbors is the retention of its staff. The director of legal services has been with Just Neighbors since 2008, one staff attorney since 2009, one since 2014, and the Operations Director since January 2011. This continuity and experience enables Just Neighbors to operate efficiently and provide high quality legal services to its clients. This is has great benefit not only because of their legal knowledge and experience but also because of their demonstrated commitment to Just Neighbors as an expression of welcome and respect for newcomers to the United States, especially those who have been abused and violated. This approach is evidenced in the way every phone call is answered, every referral made when a legal matter is outside our scope of services, and everyone – staff, volunteer and client – is treated with respect when they enter our doors.

Just Neighbors currently faces two pressing challenges. One is to continue to grow funding when foundations are changing direction and to manage the daily changes that the current administration implements in the immigration system. We continue to diversify our funding resources and have significantly grown individual giving. We advocate to address many of the administrative changes. But the general increase in the time it takes to meet new filing requirements has impacted our ability to significantly increase the number of clients we could help.

Cases -- 2020
Total|1150

Cases (by petition type category)

Total|1150
Escape Violence| 40%
Work Authorization | 22%
Advice and Counsel | 20%
Family Reunification | 13%
Citizenship | 4%

Total Clients: 765

Volunteer Data 2020*
Attorney Volunteers hours 1237
Non-attorney volunteers hours 4625
Total volunteers: 158 Total volunteer hours 5862
*Pandemic year significantly reduced volunteer availability

Staff as of 12/31/2020: 8 attorneys, Executive Director; Operations Director, Volunteer Coordinator, Development Associate, Program Administrator, Justice and Advocacy Fellow

We continue to add more attorney hours and will work to expand volunteer attorney hours as well. We are also focused on expanding our services to a wider area of Virginia with emphasis on areas that have little or no access to immigration legal services. Establishing trust in those immigrant communities is dependent on the partnerships of local faith and community based organizations to educate potential clients and to commit to helping raise funds. We merged with our DC/MD counterpart and have added capacity to now receive new clients from there as well.