VAI’s Immigration Services Program is free or low-cost representation and assistance and open to all regardless of immigration status, language ability, or other obstacles to securing legal aid. We can support in a wide range of issues from family-based petitions, immigration court proceedings, asylum, and deportation. Since its founding in July 2017 with generous funding from the Julian Grace Foundation and formal opening in August, VAI’s immigration services has seen over 400 visitors, a majority of them new immigrant and refugee arrivals including Syrian, Iraqi, Vietnamese, Rohingya, Iranian, Ethiopian, Nigerian and other communities on the Northside. Services are offered in Arabic, Vietnamese, English, and Spanish.
In partnership with the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights, VAI provides intensive case management services through the Immigrant Family Resource Program (IFRP). Vietnamese refugees began resettling in Chicago in the late seventies and, though the low of refugee is nearly at an end, many forms refugees have successfully sponsored relatives who continue to arrive as immigrants in significant numbers today. Though imprecise, the statewide population is now estimated to have exceeded 30,000, with approximately two-thirds of that population residing in Chicago metropolitan area concentrated in the neighborhoods of Uptown, Albany Park, Edgewater, Rogers Park, and surrounding suburbs.
For more information regarding services offered through these programs, please email Jessica Arellano at j.arellano@hnvi.org.