Waite Park organization Fe y Justicia recognized for work providing immigration resources

A Waite Park organization received a special recognition award last month from Minneapolis-based The Advocates for Human Rights for its work providing legal clinics to asylum seekers in Central Minnesota.

Fe y Justicia, a faith-based Latinx-led organization, also known as the Faith and Justice Coalition, began the clinics in September when organizers saw an increased need for asylum assistance. Latinx is a gender-neutral term for "Latino" or "Latina."

While Fe y Justicia Director Ma Elena Gutiérrez originally planned to hold the clinics quarterly, they have since been held almost monthly due to demand.

The Advocates for Human Rights were invited to assist at the November clinic in part because of a growing number of people in the St. Cloud area seeking help navigating the asylum application process, said The Advocates for Human Rights Refugee and Immigrant Program Director Sarah Brenes.

More:Central Minnesota immigration clinic connects immigrants with resources, attorneys

Around 70-80% of people visiting during one of the clinics were asylum seekers, Gutiérrez estimated. A large proportion of asylum seekers in the last year are individuals fleeing political persecution in Nicaragua, Brenes said.

The goal when meeting with people at the clinics is to get them from where they are in the asylum process when they come in to mailing out their asylum claim that day, Brenes said. Immigration court has gotten better at having pro se or self-help resources available, but they’re not always easy to find, and information for the legal process is often in English or not provided to asylum seekers, Brenes said.

“There's kind of been a collaboration to both get people the technical assistance they need to get their legal claims filed, and then helping equip Fe y Justicia to be an ongoing resource that's local in the community, that's not providing legal services, but can connect people with more information,” Brenes said.

At clinics, The Advocates for Human Rights can help community members fill out asylum applications that same day. The hope is that by doing so, they will be on the path to obtain work authorization so they can support themselves and would then be able to hire an attorney to help see their case through, Brenes said.

“We've been coordinating with Fe y Justicia to identify individuals, think through ways that their engagement can help reduce barriers to accessing the intake process, the clinics, and also equipping them to help answer some basic public information questions, particularly when people are in immigration court proceedings,” Brenes said.

Fe y Justicia has taken the initiative to be a resource for new arrivals seeking asylum in the community and advocated to get the clinics started and have them be accessible, such as by providing transportation and interpreters, Brenes said. Finding leaders in communities with whom The Advocates for Human Rights can work in partnership is critical in making services accessible to more communities in the state, Brenes said.

Gutiérrez would like to see more asylum services regularly available in the St. Cloud area in the future so residents don’t have to wait for clinics to receive assistance and can better meet deadlines for asylum applications.

Gutiérrez has known about The Advocates for Human Rights for over a decade and has brought people to their office in the Twin Cities, but the clinics were the first time the organizations worked with each other more directly, Gutiérrez said.

Other service providers at the clinics have included Tripiciano Immigration Law Immigration Attorney Laura Tripiciano, Mid-Minnesota Legal Aid St. Cloud Assistant Supervising Attorney Tracy Roy, the James H. Binger Center for New Americans and the Central Minnesota Sexual Assault Center.

For Gutiérrez, her work on the clinics has been over a decade in the making.

“I think from 2008 is when I started organizing. At the beginning, I didn't know, I didn't understand what is organizing, I didn't know. It was just, I was just seeing the need,” Gutiérrez said.

This article originally appeared on St. Cloud Times: Waite Park organization Fe y Justicia recognized for immigration work