On February 2, 2023, VIA attorneys Brett Stokes and Jill Martin Diaz co-filed a mass action in the District of Vermont alongside lead litigators from Legal Aid of North Carolina’s Battered Immigrant Project, the Advocacy Center’s Immigrant Justice Program, the North Carolina Justice Center, and Brad Banias Law. The action seeks equitable relief from USCIS for its failure to adjudicate NC-based noncitizen survivors’ immigration petitions pursuant to the law and to USCIS’s own policies.
It so happens that the USCIS Vermont Service Center has broad jurisdiction over many legal remedies for immigrant survivors, including pathways to work authorization, permanent residence, and family [re]unification. Congress created these remedies to make it safer for noncitizen survivors to seek the help they need to heal from harms experienced since coming to the United States. One such remedy is U nonimmigrant status, commonly known as a “U visa,” which creates a pathway to permanency for cooperative noncitizen victims of qualifying U.S. crimes. Qualifying crimes include, for example, domestic violence and other completed or attempted acts of violence. Congress capped U visa availability to only 10,000 annually, causing the program’s dramatic oversubscription and years-long waitlist. Egregious processing delays at USCIS is compounding harm for those waiting in line for a U visa, keeping thousands of noncitizen survivors at unnecessary risk of deportation, exploitation, and further victimization.
VIA supports student clinicians to advance the immigration and related rights of noncitizens in Vermont, including U visa petitioners who survived qualifying crimes in Vermont and beyond. As processing backlogs have ballooned, VIA advocates have observed with frustration the strain being placed on its survivor clients and their families here and abroad.
“When the NC coalition reached out to us about bringing this first-of-its-kind mass action to hold the Vermont Service Center to its legal and administrative burden, we jumped,” said Professor Jill Martin Diaz, VIA lead attorney. “This is exactly the kind of access to justice work that flexible law school clinics like ours can and should step up to support.”
Visiting Professor Brett Stokes joined the VIA attorney team at the perfect time to champion this new partnership with the NC coalition. Professor Stokes shared, “We hope this will be the first of many opportunities to bring our students and clinic program into the fold of impact litigation benefitting noncitizen communities seeking humanitarian immigration relief – both in Vermont and nationally.”
The action follows a similar one the coalition recently brought in Nebraska, and stands to unlock access to justice for all noncitizen survivors under the Vermont Service Center’s jurisdiction. While the litigation is pending, VIA student clinicians will have the opportunity to observe and learn from VIA’s seasoned litigation partners—as will VIA faculty.