Dear Supporters of Arkansas’ Immigrant Neighbors,

Earlier this year, our federal funding was threatened by the president. It would have been a tragic theft, a stealing of the security and the peace that our survivor clients need and deserve. Our Victims of Crime Act funding and our grant for trafficking survivors make up more than one third of our annual budget. This funding means that hundreds of immigrants, mostly women and children, get free legal services that set them up for a life free of the exploitation they have known.

We have to keep going though because no other nonprofit law firm serves our neighbors like AID. And, these areour neighbors, people who have survived child abuse and domestic violence and human trafficking and--despite borders and terrible odds--they have survived and made it to Arkansas.

In the past year, our program served over 150 children with applications for work permits, lawful permanent resident status, asylum applications and more. We conducted 8 partner trainings reaching over 250 professionals, mostly social workers and school counselors, who can help us serve immigrant children by referring them to us to get them on a path to US citizenship.

This work makes children unexploitable; this legal work empowers women to stand on their own two feet and provide for themselves and their children without the need to rely on exploitive or abusive men. And the possibility of losing a third of our budget to do this work would mean losing a third of our staff, a third of the training that keeps us up-to-date on how best to serve our survivor clients, a third of our budget to travel around the state to meet and serve clients in places as scattered and distant as Little Rock or Batesville or El Dorado.

We have relied on this federal funding for most of our 10 years. This directive came as a complete shock and it made it clear that AID needs to grow our individual giving to serve our newest neighbors in Arkansas.

The amount of funding provided to support one immigrant survivor’s legal services is about $2,000, on average. This funds paralegal and attorney time conducting rigorous consultations to determine how best to serve a survivor. Some examples are:

• If a mother has survived trafficking (forced labor or sex work), she—and all of her minor children—can get on a fast track to lawful status through a T-Nonimmigrant Status (commonly called, a “Trafficking Visa”).
• If a citizen or noncitizen child has survived child abuse, the child and her minor siblings and parents can get on a path to lawful status through U-Nonimmigrant Status (a “U Visa”).

• If a child has survived abuse, neglect, abandonment, and/or trafficking, they will often qualify for Special Immigrant Juvenile Status (SIJS). This path to lawful status requires state-level legal work and occasionally funders and donors will join us for the hearings in Little Rock or other courts around the state. Contact us if you would like to attend one of these hearings; they lead to eligibility for Medicaid, in-state tuition, food stamps, and so much more because once a state judge has determined that the child is a survivor, the child can then apply for SIJS. 

As of today, AID has 65 children on our waitlist for SIJS consultations. We have 45 people on our U Visa waitlist.  Just last week we received 17 new trafficking survivor cases. We will continue to serve these families pro bono for as long as we have funding to do so. Help us keep this work going. We need your support now more than ever.

I want you to know that we read each and every email and all the comments on our social media. Since changing our name to Aiding Survivors of Trafficking and Child Abuse, we have certainly lessened the vitriolic and bigoted messages folks would often dispense. Thankfully though the vast majority of the messages we receive are words of support. Your words are a gift and are uplifting for the team at AID during this tough time. Our staff is comprised mostly of immigrants or people with immigrant parents and so this moment hits particularly hard for us.  Keep those donations and those words of affirmation coming.

With gratitude,
Léo Tucker