Pledging initiative – Submission form: Submission #2300

serial: '2300'
sid: '8046'
uuid: e207987f-9fa4-4286-880e-fd3b0d932d96
uri: /submit-pledges
created: '1659279830'
completed: '1659279830'
changed: '1683281089'
in_draft: '0'
current_page: ''
remote_addr: 2.22.245.54
uid: '2561'
langcode: en
webform_id: pledges_submission_form
entity_type: node
entity_id: '7516'
locked: '0'
sticky: '1'
notes: ''
metatag: meta
data:
  type_of_pledge:
    - individual
  participating_states_and_actors: {  }
  nature_of_the_pledge_please_select_:
    - process_oriented
    - material
    - structured
  gcm_objective_support:
    - gcm_objective_support_7
    - gcm_objective_support_15
    - gcm_objective_support_16
  gcm_guiding_principle:
    - '738'
    - '739'
    - '742'
    - '741'
    - '740'
    - '259'
    - '258'
    - '257'
    - '737'
    - '736'
  confirm_email: pmariani@mayorsmechanism.org
  country: '87'
  full_name: 'Pablo Mariani'
  id_of_the_matched_pledge: ''
  name_of_state_actor_submitting: 'The Mayors Mechanism submitting in the name of the City of Boston'
  name_of_the_matched_pledge: ''
  name_of_the_pledge: 'Increasing immigration legal access through immigrant-serving community based organizations'
  pledging_entity: cities_municipalities_local_authority
  position: KMO
  provide_description: |-
    Many individuals applying for immigration benefits seek legal assistance to navigate the arcane and confusing US legal system. However, the demand for accessible, affordable, and competent immigration legal assistance vastly outweighs supply. Legal aid organizations (LAOs) that help immigrants seek needed relief are vastly over capacity. The Mayor’s Office for Immigrant Advancement has committed to funding community-based organizations (CBOs) to respond to this lack of capacity. 
    Our strategy provides grant funding to immigrant-led and immigrant-serving organizations to hire culturally competent attorneys, hire paralegals/case coordinators, and pay for the Department of Justice (DOJ) accreditation training process for the paralegals/case coordinators and other staff members. This approach allows immigrants to utilize the services of known and trusted CBOs that provide culturally competent and language-accessible immigration legal services. Moreover, the DOJ accreditation allows these organizations to provide immigration legal services in-house, therefore relieving some pressure from the LAOs.  To date, funding under the pilot phase has provided support to three CBOs to provide services to their own community based on linguistic needs predominant in the City of Boston - one Haitian Creole-serving, one Brazilian Portuguese-serving, and one Spanish-serving.

    The City of Boston gave multiple grants in 2021 to CBOs and continues to evaluate the results. To date, the first organization to receive a grant, Immigrant Family Services Institute (IFSI), helped over 1,500 Haitians apply for Temporary Protected Status (TPS) in four months. The majority of staff at IFSI are Haitian or Haitian American, and provide culturally and linguistically responsive services to the immigrants they serve.
    We expect this action to directly result in an increase of the number of staff at CBOs and to further support the hiring of community members that can provide immigration legal services. The Department of Justice accreditation process also allows a accredited staff at recognized nonprofit organizations to provide immigration legal services, which is a benefit of this funding that will go beyond the grant period, as the organization’s staff members can maintain the accreditation indefinitely through continuing education and reapplication.  As one example, the grant to IFSI led to the hiring of an in-house Haitian American immigration lawyer and supported the process of applying for DOJ accreditation for an additional staff member. 
    To evaluate the efficacy of this action, we request reports of the staff members that the funding was used to hire. Additionally, we request a report at the end of the grant period, including a brief narrative of how the funds were used, overall impact, and the total number of both individuals served under this grant, including the number of clients served who received favorable results on their immigration applications.
  tentative_deadline: '2022-10-31'