Help with Legal Cases
Advocates are extraordinarily knowledgeable about the various civil and criminal court systems many survivors must navigate. Many immigrant survivors, however, must also navigate immigration court, and it is often the case that the more tenuous their immigration status might be, the more involved they must be with the immigration system. This section of the Toolkit includes:
- Information and practice guidance regarding the more common forms of immigration relief available to immigrant survivors of sexual and domestic violence:
o VAWA self-petition
o U-visa
o Family-based petitions
o Employment-based visas
o Asylum
o Deferred Action for Childhood Arrival program
- Analysis and practice guidance regarding aggressors’ efforts to raise the survivors’ immigration status in family court, in order to influence the proceedings and deflect attention from their own violence and abuse.
- An overview of the immigration-specific concepts of work authorization and prosecutorial discretion, particularly as they apply to survivors.
