AFRICAN ADVOCACY NETWORK
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Mission Statement
African Advocacy Network (AAN) is a fast-growing and high impact service provider serving one of the fastest and invisible group of immigrants. Founded in 2009 as a fiscally sponsored project of Dolores Street Community Services (DSCS), AAN is now an independent organization. We have established a reputable track record as being the only African-led immigration and social services organization specifically created to serve the Bay Area community of African and Afro-Caribbean immigrants and refugees. AAN’s mission is to make the organization an outstanding immigration legal and social service provider for African and Afro-Caribbean immigrants. Through the delivery of quality services by accredited staff in a culturally and linguistically competent and supportive environment.
About This Cause
As more and more immigrants from Africa and the Caribbean move west, the African and Afro-Caribbean population in the Bay Area continues to grow, and the need to serve newcomers, immigrants, and refugees with comprehensive, culturally and linguistically competent immigration services is critical. Although the following data are 3-5 years old, they still give us a picture of the growth of this population. According to American Community Survey Brief (2014), California has the second largest African population at 155 000, only after New York. Migration Policy Institute (2013) estimates that the number is around 164,000. The Pew Charitable Trust Stateline report on African immigrants (2015) puts the number at 176,545 in 2013. This represents a change of 58% since 2000. AAN’s estimate is closer to 190,000. Because of this, there is undeniably increasing need for immigration legal services to provide to the group of newly arriving immigrants and refugees. However, the shortage of immigration legal service providers familiar with the challenges specific to African and Afro-Caribbean communities makes an organization like AAN vital. AAN is the only Africa-led organization specifically created to assist this diverse, growing population with immigration legal services. We provide low-bono to free legal support for various forms of immigration relief. Specifically, we offer the following activities and services: Client intakes, assessment, and referral services by our now DOJ Accredited Representatives; Assistance with adjustment of status applications (green card); Counseling and assistance with naturalization applications and processing; Filing and representing clients for affirmative asylum applications; Non-immigrant and immigrant visa processing and consular processing family-based petitions; Assistance with work authorization documents and renewal applications; Assistance with Temporary Protected Status (TPS) applications, requests for fee waivers, refugee travel documents, motions to change venue, change of address applications, extension of stay, VAWA, affirmative asylum cases. Five AAN staff members are accredited by the Office of Legal Access Program (OLAP) Executive Office of Immigration Review (EOIR), US Department of Justice, to provide immigration services. In May 2017, AAN hired a removal defense attorney to assist clients and the increasing number of community members in imminent danger of deportation. This was made possible with financial support from the City of San Francisco. As a result, AAN accomplished one of its dreams of having an attorney on staff. We were able to achieve this through our advocacy efforts in raising the visibility of African and Afro-Caribbean immigrants in San Francisco’s efforts in responding to the election of President Donald Trump and his administration’s constant assaults on immigrant communities and immigration benefits. AAN now represents clients with defensive asylum cases and in detention in addition to the non-defensive work we have done since 2009. In addition to now being able to represent clients with defensive cases, AAN is one of the few community-based, more specifically African or black-led organizations with in-house capacity to conduct psychological evaluation in affirmative and defensive asylum cases. In our eight years of existence, we have become a trusted service provider in our communities and the go-to place for statistics on black immigrants in the Bay Area. On top of our direct primary services, which include immigration legal services, comprehensive case management, outreach and education, interpretation and translation, job and housing referrals, and the promotion of art and culture. AAN serves as a vehicle for community empowerment and civic participation by addressing issues of access and inequality for immigration and social services. AAN also plays a key leadership role in advocating with and on behalf of our community. A few stories about AAN’s clients. Client one suffered physical abuse by her husband in Nigeria. The client sustained multiple injuries and experienced physical and psychological trauma. She contacted AAN when her previous attorney, to whom she had paid vast sums of money, failed to represent her. AAN took the case and filed the asylum applications for the client and her two children. The Asylum Office granted asylum to all three of them. They got Social Security cards, CA-IDs, work permits, and asylee social services from Alameda County. Dr. Nick Nelson of Island Hospital Human Rights Clinic provided psychological evaluation to support the clients' asylum cases. Client One is now enjoying full-time employment, and her children are in school, attending Laney College (Community College) in Oakland. Client two and her family (spouse and 5 children) came to the US under J-1 and J-2 Visas. The client is from the D.R. Congo. The client initially applied for the waiver pro se, but the case was denied. The client contacted AAN. we took over the case and filed a motion I-290B to reopen it as a first step. The motion was granted and AAN started a new application with the USCIS and US Department of State Waiver Division. The client requested a waiver because she feared persecution if she returned to her home country. The client’s application was approved, and her five family members will not be returned to her home country. AAN is now assisting the client and her family to file for adjustment of status to obtain LPR status. Client three: AAN’s removal attorney and staff worked with a detained client originally from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), a political asylum seeker. The attorney and AAN staff had been working with the client in ICE custody at Mesa Verde. The preparations were initially done in French. Both the attorney and staff member providing French interpretation felt like the client wasn’t giving detailed information to provide strong evidence for her case. During one phone interview preparation, less than a month before the client’s court date, an AAN staff member asked the attorney if she could ask the client the same question in the local language, Lingala. When a staff member asked the same question in Lingala instead of French, the client was able to provide more graphic details that supported her claim. The attorney asked, “Why didn’t you give me these details in earlier conversations?”. Client was silent for a while and finally responded, “I didn’t know how to. I feel like I finally found my voice”. The attorney asked her if she would feel more comfortable conducting her court interview in Lingala and she said yes. She said that after her initial court date, she did ask for a Lingala interpreter. AAN reassured client that we would request a Lingala interpreter for her November 23 court date. Client was granted asylum and is now protected from the torture or even death that she would have suffered had her case been denied.