Immigration Frequently Asked Questions

Immigration Legal Services Q & A 
January 2020
 

1. What is the goal of providing immigration legal services?

Our goal is to reunite and keep families together. Families are a central social institution that must be protected and strengthened. Children do best when they are with their parents and the family is intact. Legal services help immigrants and their families on many levels – financially, socially, emotionally and most importantly, ensuring families stay together.  Our services help immigrants successfully integrate into our communities by achieving legal status and contributing back to our communities.
 

2. Why is Immigration Legal Services such a need?

Catholic Charities has provided a variety of ministries to immigrants throughout the years and the number one identified unmet need has consistently been access to quality and affordable legal services. Catholic Charities provides legal services to immigrants who desperately desire to follow the law of the United States.  Immigrants want to take steps to become legal permanent residents, however they likely do not have the financial resources to do so.
 

3. What types of legal services are provided to immigrants?

Catholic Charities provides family-based and humanitarian immigration legal services. The most common services provided include legal assistance with the following applications: green cards, citizenship, work-permits, spouse or family reunification. The most common humanitarian-based services include legal assistance to unaccompanied minors and asylum.
 

4. What are “humanitarian- based services?”

Most clients in need of humanitarian- based services to remain in the United States do so because they have been abused, belong to a persecuted class of people in their home country, or are young people who have been abandoned by their parents. Some clients are already citizens or legal permanent residents, but have been separated from their families because their family members may not have lawful status. These parents need help reunifying with their children, but cannot afford to hire an attorney to help them.
 

5. Do these legal services include criminal defense?

No. Immigration Legal Services does not provide criminal defense services under any circumstances, for immigrants, refugees, or anyone else.
 

6. By being in the United States without proper documentation aren’t immigrants breaking the law?

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 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 provides 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.

        7. Do immigrants pay for these services?
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 thousands of dollars per person.

     8. What makes this ministry unique? 
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 four attorneys on the team.
 

     9. Why is an attorney needed to help fill out immigration forms?
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 judgements 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 results in serious consequences including devastating financial loss and severe immigration ramifications such as deportation.

   10. Why is the Archdiocese of Dubuque helping immigrants/undocumented people? The Catholic Catechism instructs the faithful that good government has two duties, both of which must be carried out and neither of which can be ignored.

• A duty to welcome the foreigner out of charity and respect for the human person. Persons have the right to immigrate and thus, government must accommodate this right to the greatest extent possible, especially financially blessed nations.
• A duty to secure one’s border and enforce the law for the sake of the common good. Immigrants are obliged to respect with gratitude the material and spiritual heritage of the country that receives them, to obey its laws and to assist in carrying civic burdens. – Catholic Catechism, 2241.

By making legal services accessible and affordable, we are helping immigrants achieve legal status through the judicial system.

    11. Why are immigrants coming to the United States?
In large part, immigrants feel compelled to enter with the promise of employment in the United States. Most are fleeing nations with extreme poverty and violence, where it is often impossible for people to feel safe or to earn enough to meet basic needs. Survival has become the primary impetus for immigrants seeking entry into the United States.

    12. Where are immigrants and refugees living in the Archdiocese from?
Immigrants and refugees in the Archdiocese of Dubuque come from many different countries in Africa, Asia, Central and South America, Europe and elsewhere. The archdiocese has the largest number of immigrants living within its 30 counties when compared to the other Catholic dioceses of Iowa.

     13. What will happen if immigration law changes and immigrants are no longer able to access immigration legal benefits?

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.