SCALE: Meeting This Urgent Need
Opening Doors has joined forces with World Relief, International Rescue Committee (IRC), Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), and California Rural Legal Assistance Foundation (CRLAF) to form a coalition called Sacramento Coalition for Afghan Legal Empowerment (SCALE), who, as a group, will host ‘pro-se’ asylum workshops beginning in July 2022.
The coalition will, as a group, host pro-se workshops that match each client with a preparer (an attorney or highly-trained legal assistant) and an interpreter, if needed, to help clients complete the asylum application packet, organize their supporting documents, and provide additional information on the asylum process. The coalition is also planning for subsequent workshops to help asylees prepare for the interviews.
While these workshops are intended to serve the majority of Afghan evacuees with asylum claims, they won’t be able to serve every evacuee. To ensure the coalition is utilizing its limited resources as efficiently and as equitably as possible, Opening Doors’ Immigration Legal Services team will screen all potential clients who then will be either invited to an asylum workshop, offered representation by an Opening Doors attorney, or be referred out to partner agencies.
Opening Doors is proud to be a part of this innovative collaboration between local partners to provide comprehensive immigration legal services to our newest neighbors.
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