News & Success Stories

By Tim Padgett “Last week, more than 100 Haitian migrants arrived in the Florida Keys after a dangerous sea voyage. The Biden administration hopes to discourage those journeys with a new parole program it announced last month for migrants from Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua — and Haiti. That new policy is popular inside Haiti, where people are lining up daily to …

by Ashley Miznazi “Cassandra Suprin from Americans for Immigrant Justice speaks in Creole to group of people who migrated from Haiti about protections against violence and applying for Temporary Protective Status at Miami Worker Center on Thursday, Aug. 25, 2022. About 40 people attended an information session Aug. 25 to learn about the rights of migrants and related topics at …

by Ashley Miznazi “Cassandra Suprin of Americans for Immigrant Justice in Miami said she has seen a double standard between the priority of Black and brown refugees compared to white. ‘We do support the U.S. response to the Ukrainian refugee crisis,’ said Suprin, the organization’s Family Defense Program director. ‘We just wish that such assistance can be offered to other …

by Jacqueline Charles “Advocates say the fact that they do not know what’s happening with Haitians after they either cross the border or are taken ashore after arriving by boat is frustrating and raises concerns about whether they are getting due process to state their asylum claims. ‘Based on what we are seeing now, I don’t think there is a …

“As vaccination progresses to include more people, including immigrants in other jobs, some advocates fear the disparities will only grow. ‘This is going to be a bigger problem as it opens up to more people,’ said Adonia Simpson, an attorney who works with immigrants at the Americans for Immigrant Justice legal clinic in Miami. ‘Just the fact that they’re asking …

by Monique O. Madan, Miami Herald “’The roller coaster of changes has been challenging for our clients, and we are still waiting for the government to post official notice to their website, as required by the order,’ said Adonia Simpson, director of family defense for the nonprofit group Americans for Immigrant Justice. Simpson also works with the South Florida chapter …

A father and son who were separated at the U.S. border when seeking asylum sued the federal government Friday, slamming the Trump administration’s policies as “barbaric” and a “brutal intimidation tactic.”

By Monique O. Madan, The Miami Herald “Jennifer Anzardo Valdez, the program director for the Children’s Law Program at Americans for Immigrant Justice, a Florida non-profit immigration organization representing Miami’s most at-risk communities, is on the staff’s legal team charged with analyzing the administration’s new work-permit rules. She says the ‘rules are designed to keep asylum seekers not just from …

By Juan Carlos Chavez, Tampa Bay Times “Adonia Simpson, a lawyer for the Miami-based immigrant rights group Americans for Immigrant Justice, said dreamers are worried at how many years have passed with the deferred-action program still on shaky ground. ‘The difficulty about DACA is that it was never a permanent solution,’ said Simpson. ‘It was a response to deliver a …

BY KRYSTINA FRANÇOIS, CHERYL LITTLE AND ALISON YAGER, The Miami Herald The health and prosperity of each of us depends on the health and prosperity of all of us. That’s the reality that the COVID-19 crisis has made plain. Sen. Marco Rubio has shown leadership by sponsoring the American Citizen Coronavirus Relief Act in support of relief for some immigrant families. But …

Manuel Madrid | March 16, 2020 The outbreak of the novel coronavirus has fundamentally changed daily life in South Florida, where large gatherings have been canceled. Public health experts recommend working from home and avoiding public transportation, if possible, to stem the spread of COVID-19. All of those precautions, however, appear to go out the window when it comes to …

Lawrence Hurley BALTIMORE (Reuters) – When Maricruz Abarca learned three years ago that she had been given the legal right under a U.S. government program called Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals to work in the United States and avoid deportation, she started to cry. After years of living illegally in the shadows after moving to the United States from Mexico …