Not necessarily. The most common issue clients seek our services for is extending existing documents to maintain or renew an existing recognized legal status. Some immigrants who do not have a visa are eligible for legal status but do not know how to apply. Immigration Legal Services provides free consultations to advise them on eligibility. If an eligible immigrant passes the screening and is accepted as a client, Immigration Legal Services assists them along a legal pathway to permanent residency and, for some, even citizenship.
Many unaccompanied minors in the Archdiocese of Dubuque qualify for a visa, even though they may not have had a visa to enter the United States. Our laws allow them to obtain legal status provided they have a legal guardian in the United States and meet other eligibility requirements. Immigration legal services provide legal services for some eligible minors. For some clients, Immigration legal Services provides services for relief from removal/deportation while visa and legal status applications are pending.
Consultations with an attorney are provided at no charge. Catholic Charities offers a sliding fee scale for legal services. If a client is eligible for an immigration benefit, they pay a fee commensurate to their income. Catholic Charities fees are approximately 15% of what an independent immigration attorney would charge. Clients who do not meet federal poverty guidelines pay the standard rate for services to help subsidize those who pay limited amounts. Clients are also responsible for paying government filing fees to process their paperwork. These fees can be quite costly, up to several thousand dollars per person.
Catholic Charities is currently the only non-profit in the Archdiocese of Dubuque providing affordable legal services offered by Immigration Attorneys or Department of Justice (DOJ) accredited legal representatives. Immigration attorneys living and practicing law in Northeast Iowa are extremely rare and Catholic Charities is pleased to currently have five attorneys on the team.
Only attorneys or Department of Justice (DOJ) accredited legal representatives can interview clients, decide which application forms should be completed, file an application with the government, and make judgments about whether a client is eligible for a benefit and what information is required to qualify for the benefit. Other groups and individuals may claim to “help immigrants with legal matters,” but they are in fact engaging in the unauthorized practice of law, which has been a chronic problem for decades and can result in serious consequences including devastating financial loss and severe immigration ramifications such as deportation.
Regardless of changes in immigration law, our immigrant community will always be with us and require legal assistance. There will always be a need for humanitarian-based assistance, such as asylum or assistance to unaccompanied immigrant minors who can lawfully present themselves at a legal port of entry at any time. Our Immigration Legal Services team is dedicated to pursuing every available avenue of legal relief for our immigrant clients. As the doors to our community shut and impediments to safe legal immigration rise, our legal strategies must change in response.