Estamos Unidos
The Estamos Unidos Asylum Project offers legal guidance to migrants waiting to ask for protection
CLINIC's Estamos Unidos Asylum Project relies on volunteers from across the country to provide legal assistance for migrants who fled persecution in their home countries and wait at the U.S.-Mexico border in Juarez to apply for asylum in the United States.
Launched in August 2019, the project responds to the urgent needs of forced migrants, thousands of whom wait in Mexico while their asylum requests are processed in the United States.
In addition to legal representation and guidance, volunteers provide regular Know Your Rights presentations, case preparation and referrals, as well as various tools for migrants to obtain information and protect documentation needed for asylum proceedings. The asylum process is complex and difficult. The project focuses on helping people prepare for it and connect with legal representation. CLINIC also works with legal service providers, mental health experts and other professionals to support waiting asylum seekers.
Why Estamos Unidos is needed
Since 2017, policy changes have required migrants who travel through Mexico to the U.S. border to wait in Mexico while their asylum cases are processed. International and U.S. law require our government to admit migrants who are seeking asylum or other forms of humanitarian protection. Despite those obligations, the administration’s policies curtail access to the life-saving protection of asylum for tens of thousands of qualified applicants, who are barred from waiting safely in the United States and lack access to legal representation. CLINIC is putting its 30-plus years of expertise and the skills of the professionals in its vast legal network into accompanying and representing these men, women and children, protecting their dignity and giving them access to justice.
Because of recent changes, applicants for asylum who arrive at the U.S.-Mexico border currently have to wait – often for months – before their cases are processed. Conditions in Mexico are dangerous. Many migrants are robbed or physically assaulted. Some have been murdered. There are too few shelters to house them. Getting food, a place to sleep, even keeping clean or using bathrooms are daily struggles.
The Estamos Unidos Asylum Project helps save lives. We need your prayers and support. Come join us, by sharing this information in your communities.
