Media ContactLisa Ramirez, Communications Director, lramirez@mylegalaid.org
The Minnesota Senate Human Services Committee heard heart-wrenching testimony from providers and clients with disabilities.
Mid-Minnesota Legal Aid’s Pheng Thao of our Youth Law Project urges families to assign a standby guardian if they fear separation from their children. The simple solution is a Delegation of Parental Authority (DOPA) form. Learn more in this article.
Mid-Minnesota Legal Aid lawyer Pheng Thao says parents are signing DOPAs to allow their children to stay in the U.S., where their futures are brighter, rather than hoping another adult can fly the children out of the country for reunification.
Mid-Minnesota Legal Aid Executive Director Milo Mumgaard notes that heightened immigration enforcement is creating economic ripple effects as fear keeps many residents from patronizing local businesses or seeking legal help.
Legal Aid’s Minnesota Disability Law Center Legal Director Anne Robertson says Minnesota’s fraud crackdown is leaving vulnerable people without housing and support. “We don’t condone fraud,” she said, “but the impact should not be leaving folks, the most vulnerable people in our communities, literally out in the cold.”
Attorney Chad Wilson of Mid-Minnesota Legal Aid’s Minnesota Disability Law Center sheds light on the experiences of clients suddenly cut off from the Integrated Community Services program. Administered by the state of Minnesota, the program was suspended to investigate allegations of fraud. The story explores fall out from critics and impact on individuals with disabilities left to fend for themselves without ICS program supports.
Mid-Minnesota Legal Aid spoke to The Minnesota Daily outlining rights of our clients and others who may get unannounced visits in place of their naturalization interviews.
Legal Aid Attorney Alison Griffith says clients who lawfully do everything right are still facing devastating consequences. “They’ve gotten in every line. They’ve filled out every piece of paper—and the result is that they get arrested, detained, and in many cases deported.”
Legal Aid Deputy Director Yasin Alsaidi spoke about the impact of shifting immigration policies on local communities and posed this critical question: “Are we against illegal immigration or are we against immigration?”
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