Dear John,

As a transgender woman, Bruneth faced daily persecution from both the government and the public in El Salvador. After finding legal service help, Bruneth now lives in New York, where she has found a community being part of the Queer Detainee Empowerment Project (QDEP), an active member organization of the NYIC’s network. Despite this positive outcome, her search for legal representation was met with numerous difficulties.

After crossing the Southern U.S. border on her second try and heading to New York, Bruneth’s search for legal help was fruitless. Knocking on door after door for seven months, she kept receiving the same response from every lawyer she could find: either they were too busy to take on her case, or they said she lacked the evidence for her case to move forward. 

Help us in ensuring more immigrants can get access to representation by calling on your elected representatives to invest in legal services by passing the Access To Representation Act (ARA)!

Bruneth, like every other asylum seeker, only had one year from entering the US at a port of entry to file her asylum application – her time was running out. Feeling desperate and close to losing hope, her prayers were answered by the 17th door she knocked.

Now, Bruneth has a lawyer who is currently representing her case in court and helped her to attain a work authorization. But she knows she is one of the lucky few who has found access to legal representation.

Like Bruneth, tens of thousands of immigrants are facing the challenge of representing themselves in court against a trained government attorney. But it doesn’t have to be this way. 

We’re heading to Albany this Wednesday March 13th to demand the inclusion of the Access to Representation Act and legal service funding in this year’s budget to keep New York families together! Please join us virtually by taking action now.

While we’ve won historic levels of legal services funding in last year’s budget, lawmakers must increase their investment to $150 million in legal services this year and pass the Access to Representation Act, to codify universal representation, ensuring anyone at risk of deportation and who cannot afford a lawyer will be provided one.

We need every voice to ensure that people are treated fairly in our justice system. It takes less than a minute to demand justice for immigrant New Yorkers. How will you advocate for immigrant New Yorkers in the NYS budget?

Murad Awawdeh
Executive Director