Advocating for Immigrants and Asylees

Sidley Helps Ease the Transition for Newly Arrived Venezuelan Migrants

Trapped in the midst of an ongoing political and economic crisis, thousands of Venezuelan citizens have been compelled to flee their home country in search of food, shelter, and employment in the United States. The influx of asylum seekers making this perilous journey has generated a substantial need for pro bono services in major cities across the U.S., including Chicago. To help meet this need, more than 40 lawyers and business professionals based in the firm’s Chicago office have teamed up to contribute approximately 500 hours thus far at immigration workshops coordinated by The Resurrection Project, a Chicago nonprofit that advocates for immigrants’ rights.

Sidley teams have helped individuals with the complicated process of applying for employment authorization documents (EADs) and temporary protected status (TPS),which allows migrants from specific countries to work and live in the United States for up to 18 months.

With the assistance of representatives from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, who are located on-site at the workshops, applicants are immediately given receipt notices and complete the biometrics that are needed to process the applications. While the majority of the migrant applicants are from Venezuela, others attending the workshops have arrived from Haiti, Colombia, Honduras, Ecuador, El Salvador, and Mexico.

As of March 2024, more than 5,000 newly arrived migrants had attended the workshops, and 2,800 TPS and EAD applications were completed, as well as almost 2,000 EAD-only applications. The Resurrection Project has reported that nearly 2,000 work permits have been received, with many more coming through on a daily basis, within 30 days of workshop attendance.

“Sidley’s participation in the newly arrived migrant legal assistance workshops led by The Resurrection Project was critical to the project’s success,” said Linda Rio, Chicago Bar Foundation Access to Justice Consultant and Sidley alumna, who shared that Sidley covered more legal volunteer shifts than any other law firm in 2023.

“Sidley teams, led by Kelly Huggins, were involved in every stage, from the first conversations about the program’s design, to the pilot workshops, to the full-scale in-person legal assistance clinics that helped thousands of migrants apply for and receive Temporary Protected Status and Employment Authorization. The firm also helped us test out and confirm that paralegals and project assistants could fully participate and increase the number of applicants served,” Rio said.

In addition to the firm’s work with The Resurrection Project, a Sidley team worked together with a Chicago alderman’s office and the nonprofit Instituto del Progreso Latino to pilot a program aimed at helping Venezuelan migrants with applications for TPS and employment authorization.

Victory for Venezuelan Family

Sidley secured a major pro bono victory for a Venezuelan woman and her 14-year-old daughter. The family, including our client’s late husband, was subjected to multiple forms of violence and persecution as a result of their opposition to the regimes of Hugo Chávez and Nicolás Maduro. Our client practiced as a lawyer in Venezuela before fleeing the country in 2017 after an attempted kidnapping of her daughter at her elementary school.

Sidley took on the case, which was referred by nonprofit Central American Legal Assistance, in 2019. After multiple rescheduled hearings — including an attempt by the judge to defer the case entirely and not decide the asylum claim — a merits hearing was finally held in November 2023. Our client testified for nearly two hours, including a substantial cross examination. The Sidley team handled all aspects of the hearing, including witness preparation, our client’s testimony, and translation services.

Following the hearing, the Immigration Court in New York granted our client U.S. asylum and granted derivative asylum for her 14-year-old daughter.

“It has truly been a pleasure to count on you.”
– Sidley Client

Client Update

A Sidley team based in Washington, D.C. helped our client, who is originally from El Salvador, obtain approval of her application for U.S. permanent residence in 2023. Sidley previously represented her in her successful U.S. asylum application, which was granted in 2017 following a hearing, and her subsequent Refugee/Asylee Relative Petition for derivative status for her two sons, with whom she was reunited in 2022. Watch Sidley partner Deeona Gaskin talk about her experience working with the client here.