• To learn more about our collaborative work and our response to COVID-19’s impact on immigrants in Houston, read our 2020 Annual Report

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  • DISASTER RESOURCES FOR THE GREATER HOUSTON AREA

    Information. Education. Action.

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  • IMMIGRANT RIGHTS HOTLINE

    1-833-468-4664 (HOU-IMMI)

    Call for assistance understanding current immigration laws and referrals to legal services organizations.

    Learn More

Help us assist low-income immigrant families

Support our efforts to provide free and low-cost legal services to low-income immigrant families in Houston. Make your contribution today

OUR GOALS

LEGAL SERVICES CAPACITY

Increase the quality and quantity of immigration legal service providers equipped to serve the Houston region’s growing immigrant population.

ACCESS TO SERVICES

Improve and streamline immigrants’ ability to access existing and high-quality, low-cost social and legal services.

COMMUNICATIONS

Be a source of timely and accurate immigration information for both stakeholder groups and potential clients of immigration service providers.

Immigration Legal Service Provider Members

Our legal service providers are the heart of our organization. We are committed to building capacity within these organizations and helping new organizations offer free and low-cost legal services to immigrants in Houston, Texas

<center>BakerRipley</center>

BakerRipley

BakerRipley (formerly Neighborhood Centers Inc.) provides both legal and non-legal immigration services at multiple Houston locations.

<center>Boat People SOS</center>

Boat People SOS

BPSOS-Houston serves all communities regardless of ethnicity or race and has particular expertise in the intersection of family and immigration law.

<center>Cabrini Center for Immigrant Legal Assistance</center>

Cabrini Center for Immigrant Legal Assistance

Catholic Charities’ Cabrini Center for Immigrant Legal Assistance is the largest non-profit legal service provider in the Houston region.

<center>Memorial Assistance Ministries</center>

Memorial Assistance Ministries

Memorial Assistance Ministries (MAM) is a social service organization with an immigration legal services department.

<center>Chinese Community Center</center>

Chinese Community Center

The Chinese Community Center is a social service agency that offers limited legal services for those seeking citizenship.

<center>Justice For All Immigrants</center>

Justice For All Immigrants

Justice for All Immigrants is an immigration legal services provider that provides free and low cost services to detained and non-detained immigrants.

<center>Tahirih Justice Center</center>

Tahirih Justice Center

The Tahirih Justice Center provides social and legal services to immigrant women and girls fleeing gender-based violence.

<center>South Texas College of Law Houston</center>

South Texas College of Law Houston

The Immigration Clinics at STCLH provide direct legal representation for immigrants, with priority for asylum seekers and victims of crime.

<center>University of Houston Law Center Immigration Clinic</center>

University of Houston Law Center Immigration Clinic

The UHLC Immigration Clinic provides direct legal representation to a limited number of immigrant clients at no cost.

<center>YMCA International Services</center>

YMCA International Services

YMCA International Services offers a wide array of immigration legal services, specializing in complex cases, asylum, removal defense, and detention.

<center>Kids In Need of Defense (KIND)</center>

Kids In Need of Defense (KIND)

KIND provides free legal representation to unaccompanied immigrant youth who are in removal proceedings.

<center>Bonding Against Adversity</center>

Bonding Against Adversity

Bonding Against Adversity is a non-profit organization that helps legal permanent residents become US citizens, primarily through free workshops.

<center>OCA Greater Houston</center>

OCA Greater Houston

OCA-GH provides legal assistance to primarily Asian legal permanent residents (LPRs) applying for citizenship through monthly workshops.

<center>Galveston-Houston Immigrant Representation Project</center>

Galveston-Houston Immigrant Representation Project

Galveston-Houston Immigrant Representation Project ensures that immigrants in the community have equal access to due process in our complex immigration system.

<center>Workers Defense Project</center>

Workers Defense Project

Workers Defense Project is a community organization for low-wage, immigrant workers in the Texas construction industry.

General Membership

Daya supports South Asian women and families who are trying to break the cycle of domestic and sexual violence through social services including counseling and limited immigration legal services.

The Texas Organizing Project provides educational outreach and advocacy training to immigrant families, including information workshops on changes in immigration policy.

Gulf Coast Leadership Council/TMO provides leadership and advocacy training for immigrants through neighborhood organizations and faith-based institutions.

NALEO Education Fund provides large-scale naturalization workshops for Latino/as seeking US citizenship in collaboration with local legal services providers and attorneys.

The Children’s Immigration Law Academy (CILA) is a project of the American Bar Association (ABA) and is a technical assistance provider for attorneys working with unaccompanied immigrant children in Texas.

United We Dream Houston is an affiliate of the largest immigrant youth-led organization in the nation that offers legal services for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals and is a source of community organizing.

The Young Center is the Child Advocate (guardian ad litem) for unaccompanied immigrant children in removal proceedings, advocating for best interests regarding family reunification and legal relief.

Mi Familia Vota unites Latino immigrants and allied communities by promoting citizenship, voter registration, voter participation, and organizing Know Your Rights sessions.

Alliance is one of Houston’s five refugee resettlement agencies and provides other culturally and linguistically affirmative services including a driving school, Language Access Network, Wellness Clinic.

Living Hope Wheelchair Association is membership-based organization formed and lead by immigrants with disabilities that supports self-sufficiency through access to medical supplies, equipment, and transportation.

Faith and Justice Workers Center protects and organizes immigrants at their workplaces –– where they constantly face abuse and where their strongest power to create change lies.

The Trauma and Grief (TAG) Center provides mental health care to children, adolescents, and their families who experience trauma and bereavement, with a special focus on migrants.

La Unidad11 organizes and builds leadership in diverse immigrant families to create a protection network in the event of an arrest, incarceration, or deportation.

BLMP builds power of Black LGBTQIA+ migrants through community-building, political education, creating access to direct services, and organizing across borders.

Houston Volunteer Lawyers provides free civil legal services to low-income people in Harris County and promotes volunteerism among lawyers.

Stakeholders

<center>Antena Houston</center>

Antena Houston

Your source for Reliable, Timely, and Accurate Legal Immigration Information.

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

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The vision of the Collaborative is that no Houston immigrant goes without legal assistance while seeking legal status and navigating the complexities of the U.S. immigration system. The mission of the Collaborative is to create a coordinated network of effective and efficient services to assist low-income immigrants access the information and legal representation that allows them to make choices in their own best interest.

Download the HILSC 2016-2018 Community Plan, a roadmap to amplifying the efforts of local immigration legal service providers.

The Collaborative supports legal and social services organizations that provide high-quality services to immigrants in the Houston region. Committed to systems-level changes within our community, the Collaborative works to create tools, resources, trainings and funding opportunities for non-profit legal services providers.

The Collaborative welcomes new legal service providers, immigration service providers and stakeholders. We meet as a Collaborative quarterly and communicate through a listserv. We have active committees working on our three main goals: increasing legal services capacity, improving access to services, and communications. We also maintain a broad list of volunteer opportunities.

To learn about volunteering, click here. To join our newsletter, click here.

Collaborative members are committed to establishing best-practices for their organizations and to learning from their peers in the service-provider community. They are willing to share their expertise with other Collaborative members and to support new organizations looking to start legal services programs. All Collaborative service providers are non-profit organizations committed to serving low-income immigrants by charging no more than nominal fees for their services. Collaborative members offering legal services fall into two categories: organizations with immigration attorneys on staff and organizations that are DOJ-recognized with DOJ-accredited representatives working closely with immigration attorneys. Some members are working towards DOJ-recognition and are committed to providing the highest-quality services possible. Check out our members.

Unfortunately, immigration fraud is a common problem and many immigrants fall victim to dishonest immigration consultants often called “notarios.” These consultants often charge high fees for services that are completely free, such as obtaining application forms (application forms are always free from USCIS) or being put on a waitlist (there are no waitlists). Getting “helped” by one of these consultants can have disastrous results for immigrants and their families, even leading to deportation. Get more information about immigration scams.

You will see that many of our members are DOJ recognized organizations. This status is granted to qualified non-profit religious, charitable, social service, or similar organizations by the Office of Legal Access Programs (OLAP), a division of the Department of Justice. Recognition makes an organization legally authorized to provide immigration legal services with or without an immigration attorney on staff. DOJ accredited representatives are individuals at those organizations who can assist immigrants with legal cases. We require all of our members that do not have attorneys on staff to seek DOJ recognition before launching a legal services program.

Click here for a complete list of DOJ recognized organizations in Texas. Read more about the Recognition & Accreditation Program.

The Migration Policy Institute and the Center for Migration Studies are excellent sources of high-quality data about immigrant demographics and trends as well as research about changing immigration policy. The Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC) at the University of Syracuse is the go-to source of current data about immigration enforcement, staffing, and spending. New American Economy provides accurate data about the economic impact of immigrants at the state, county, and congressional district level.

A good starting place for learning about the immigrant population in Houston is MPI’s “A Profile of Immigrants in Houston, the Nation’s Most Diverse Metropolitan Area,” which was commissioned by the Collaborative.

We maintain resources on changes to immigration law and policy on our blog and under the Resources tab of this website.

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