Home is Here NOLA is a local nonprofit with a mission to build community-based systems of support with newly arriving immigrants in the Gulf South. Newly arriving immigrants state that the three most critical needs they have in our region include community relationships, housing, and legal aid. Home is Here’s work focuses on building capacity in these areas.

Did you know that Louisiana is the U.S.’s most “invisible” interior border? As asylum-seekers from global refugee crises arrive at the southern border with Mexico to request legal protection, many are sent immediately to immigrant jails in Louisiana. More asylum-seekers are detained in Louisiana than in any other state in the nation outside of Texas - roughly 15-20% of all immigrants detained in the U.S. The 4,000 people held daily in these nine rural Louisiana jails are isolated - far from their families and communities of support in the U.S. as well as the legal representation needed to make their asylum claims. Indigent people in civil immigration proceedings have no right to free counsel and there is no free legal aid program to offer them legal orientation upon their release. Without access to counsel, they are alone in every sense.

Home is Here and its partners have developed a unique solution as part of a statewide Community Education and Legal Aid Project. After months of community mapping and consultation, they have developed a specialized curriculum for post-release legal orientation that offers basics on how to navigate immigration processes when people are just arriving or just released from detention. This innovative orientation includes information most frequently asked for by new arrivals and includes essential and practical tools that people can immediately use to guide their way if they don’t have an attorney.

This is a critically important and practical step to offering accessible legal aid to one of the most invisible communities in our state who need it most - asylum-seekers.

We hope to raise $20K this December so that we can translate the curriculum into languages most used by arriving asylum-seekers and train community partners to implement these critical legal aid orientations where they are most needed in Louisiana.

Our partners at the Colorado Immigrant Justice Fund who offered seed funding for our pilot in November have shared: "I am so grateful that we had the good fortune to fund this work; I think it's the best investment that the CIJF has ever made.”

Pledge your support now to be a part of building safety for asylum-seekers through community-based legal aid in Louisiana!

Community Education and Legal Aid Project

By Home Is Here Nola

Community Education and Legal Aid Project

More asylum-seekers are detained in LA than in any other state in the nation outside of TX. The 4,000 people held daily in the 9 rural LA jails are isolated from support as well as any type of legal representation needed to make their asylum claims.