Making Legal Services More Accessible for Immigrants

This summer I interned with the Immigrants’ Rights and Advocacy Project at Brooklyn Legal Services (BLS). BLS is a part of Legal Services NYC, an umbrella organization with the goal of fighting poverty and seeking racial, social, and economic justice for low-income New Yorkers through free legal services and representation. ​

Within the immigration unit at BLS, I completed trainings on the fundamentals of understanding our country’s immigration system and numerous forms of relief. I worked with a diverse client base through referrals to BLS, walk ins, client intakes, screenings, and filling out work authorizations, change of addresses, motions to reopen cases, affidavits, and other immigration forms. I tabled on behalf of BLS at community partner fairs for recently arrived immigrants and helped with “know your rights” presentations. I also helped to put together a pro se asylum clinic by contacting clients, assigning cases to attorneys, and creating a schedule for the day of.​

BLS is unique in that it provides a holistic approach to helping its clients, particularly immigrants, which is important within a global society that places value based on documentation, rather than the intrinsic value one holds as a human being. BLS centers the importance of making its wide range of services accessible to immigrants.​

I learned about the interdisciplinary nature of immigration work as immigrants face multiple forms of oppression from the most local to the most federal level. My summer experience undoubtedly taught me the importance of direct legal services and representation, however, I am now thinking about more unconventional ways to help immigrants such as making housing more accessible.

Internship funded by the Nikuradse-Matthews Public Interest Summer Fellowship Fund.